“Only one pair sir.” He gestures toward me. “The other one is his.”
Dipple looks at me, his forehead creased. “Had to go in for a look?”
“I am a fire investigator.”
“My job,” says Dipple, his voice even, “is the collection and preservation of evidence at a crime scene. If someone wants my services, I expect only one thing and that is the scene not be contaminated. Contamination wastes my time and can destroy any chance of going to court.”
“I realize that but —”
“To do my job properly, I have to account for every activity and alteration in the crime scene. Tromping around in here with your wafflestompers doesn’t help.”
Kochansky looks at his wafflestompers. I’m determined to remain polite. “Is there something you need me to do?”
“Your job will be to aid in the management of the crime scene, to keep people out of the area. I consider the crime scene to be the origin and the area from the origin to the road. If anyone has to come in, they follow the trail already established, maintain a single line of contamination.”
I feel a bit like a kid who’s trained for the big game but only gets to warm the bench. I’d hoped to assist Dipple, pick up a few pointers. Dipple asks Kochansky a few questions, is impressed when Kochansky hands him three pages of notes.
“Good work,” he tells Kochansky.
Kochansky gives me a wry smile. “Thank you, sir.”
Dipple strings yellow police crime scene ribbon around the origin area; it’s getting pretty colourful out here. As we walk back along the trail through the fire I hear the crunch of tires on gravel. Berton and Malostic have arrived in a green Forest Service suburban. Introductions ensue, after which Corporal Dipple gives them the speech about contamination and staying out of the crime scene while he works. Malostic takes notes. When Dipple goes to his minivan to make a call, Malostic pulls me aside.
“What was his name again?” he asks, his pencil ready.
“Nipple,” I say. “Constable Nipple.”
“Oh.” Malostic chuckles. “Strange name.”
“Yeah. I think he’s kind of sensitive about it.”
“No wonder.”
I smile. It might be fun working with Malostic after all.
“Okay,” says Dipple. “The rest of the team will be here in about 40 minutes. I need everyone attending the fire to muster here on the road so I can record footwear.”
“I’ll arrange that,” says Malostic.
Malostic doesn’t have a radio and I’m tempted to let him wander through the ash looking for firefighters but call Kochansky instead, pass on the request, tell him to make sure the men walk to the road along the fireguard cut by the Cat. A few minutes later, sooty firefighters begin to trickle in. They cluster on the road, talking and joking. They’re all university students by the looks of it, working hard and having a good time.
“What do you want them to do?” Malostic asks Dipple.
Dipple is readying his camera next to the van. “I’ll need their boots, full pairs, one person at a time. They’ll get them back as soon as I finish photographing the soles.”
“Roger,” says Malostic. He goes to the group of firefighters. “Can I have your attention for a moment. I’m Darvon Malostic. Constable Nipple over there needs your boots for a few minutes, so he can photograph your soles.”
Over by the van, Dipple’s head jerks up and he frowns at Malostic.
“Not my soul, man,” says one firefighter; a Jamaican exchange student.
General laughter from the firefighters. Malostic laughs too, but I don’t think he gets it. The firefighters kneel, unlace their boots. Malostic brings them to Dipple, one pair at a time, like a faithful hound dog.
“Thank you,” Dipple says frostily.
“You’re right,” Malostic whispers as he passes me. “He’s a bit sensitive about it.”
It takes Dipple 20 minutes to photograph all the boots, then the firefighters are told to return to work but to stay well back from the origin. The Cat skinner is next, a middle-aged guy with a torn shirt who sits on the tread of his bulldozer as he waits for his boots. Dipple asks him a few questions about when he arrived, what he saw. Nothing unusual. Kochansky and I get our boots immortalized, then Kochansky returns to guard duty and Dipple and I walk along the shoulders of the road, search the ditches.
“So you’re a fire investigator,” says Dipple.
“Seasonally.” I tell him about my years as a ranger, my switch to part-time work.
“Sounds like a good job. Why’d you switch?”
“It’s a long story.”
Dipple doesn’t press. After a quarter mile without finding anything we turn back. “I didn’t mean to come across as such a prick,” he says. “Most of the scenes I process are more controlled.”
“I should have been more careful.”
“Live and learn. You want to give me a hand with the casting?”
“Sure.”
We’re walking down the road, checking the opposite ditch, when the rest of the task force arrive in a police suburban. Kirby rolls down the window, nods toward Dipple. “Where can I park?”
“Anywhere,” says Dipple. “The road has been cleared.”
Kirby takes charge and we cluster around the front of the suburban for a group hug. For Dipple’s benefit, Kirby gives a casual but concise rendition of the other fires. Kochansky is called in from guard duty, presents his report on what transpired before my arrival. I give a short encore. The Mounties slip on blue coveralls and heavy boots, snap on white rubber gloves like a group of surgeons in prep. But it’s more autopsy than surgery.
The first order of business is a grid search, from road to origin, looking for what Dipple calls transfer evidence. Before we go in, he downloads his digital camera into a laptop, hooks up a printer, cranks off black-and-whites of our boot soles. He’s got more hardware and software in his van than most ranger stations. He goes in first with video and still cameras, records the scene for posterity. We follow, begin to work our way through the ash.
The idea is to examine every bootprint, compare them to the photos, disregard those of the workers on site. It’s a tedious exercise, made more so by the way the fire has scorched the duff; there’s little structure to the prints; the photos don’t help much.
An hour passes. It’s like staring at those 3-d puzzles in the Saturday paper, getting nothing but a headache. Then Berton calls to Dipple.
“I got a fresh track here.”
Heads turn like there’s a pretty girl in the bar.
“You guys keep working your sections,” says Kirby. “There may be more.”
I complete a pass on my section of grid, which brings me close to Dipple and Berton but not close enough to really see the print. I want a good look but am hesitant to wafflestomp closer. Dipple notices. “Work your way over here,” he says. “But be careful.”
There’s nothing to record in transit but I’m careful anyway.
The print is in a small muddy pocket surrounded by shrivelled aquatic plants. In a normal year, this would be underwater but now it’s a patch of fine textured black mud with just enough moisture to hold a print.
“Beautiful,” murmurs Dipple.
I get a tingle of anticipation; the print is different enough in its basic pattern that it clearly was made by someone not currently here — our first glimpse of Red Flag. Dipple sends Berton to the minivan to bring back his casting kit, then measures the print, places the ruler next to it and sets up his camera. He fusses with the supports, makes sure the plane of the camera is parallel to the ground, uses a flashlight to shine across the print as he clicks away.
“Why the flashlight?”
“The trick to this,” he says, looking through the camera, “is to use an oblique light source to bring out the three-dimensional aspects of the print.”
“Interesting.” Malostic has come over with Kirby.
Dipple looks up, finds he’s at the centre of a crowd, faces peering down like he’s a wounded quarterback in midfield. “Okay,” he says. “Everyone is just going to have to back away. I’m the only one that needs to be here.”
Malostic clears his throat. “I took a course on footwear ident.”
“Wonderful,” says Dipple. “Now clear out.”
We back away.
“Cassel, you can stay if you want to learn how to cast a bootprint.”
Malostic scowls in my general direction. Dipple notices, waits until we’re alone, asks about Malostic’s background. I’m not sure, I tell him. Criminology major probably, with a minor in chemistry, maybe forensics. No experience but educated into a state of helplessness. Dipple nods, opens his casting kit. “We use dental stone,” he says. “You should carry some.”
He presses a strip of cardboard into the mud to form a low wall around the print, mixes white powder into a slurry, pours it into the mould. The cast will be ready in 20 minutes. He picks up his camera, sends me back to my assigned grid area. No further suspect bootprints are found, nor are any other clues until we reach the cordoned origin. Dipple stresses that he is the only one going in. Malostic and Kirby go for a walk to talk to the firefighters. The two constables — Purseman and Trimble — amble back toward the road, talking amiably. Berton and I linger by the crime scene tape and watch Dipple operate.
Dipple follows the trail in, videotapes the site, takes still photos and maps the area. Constables Purseman and Trimble arrive laden with metal cases, shiny new empty paint cans, a shovel and rake, metal detector and soil sampler. Their foreheads glisten as they set everything by the sacred ribbon. Dipple strings a grid, searches with the metal detector, works his way in toward the pan. The pan is seized the way it is, slipped carefully into a plastic bag, the contents undisturbed. Soil samples are taken, placed in the new paint cans. An exhaustive search is done with the rake and Berton and I get bored, wander back to the road.
“That bootprint is in a strange location,” says Berton. “Off to the side.”
I’d noticed that too — the print is not in line with the road and origin. “Maybe the fire was started at night,” I say. “The guy got disoriented and couldn’t find the road so he wandered around in the spruce.”
Berton steps around a blackened tree. “Why do you think he started it at night?”
“I don’t know why, but I think he did. He’s pretty careful. I don’t think he would have left a print like that in daylight. He would have seen the mud hole and stepped around it.”
“Maybe he’s just getting cocky.”
“Possibly, but there’s something different about this fire.”
Berton is sweating. His glasses keep sliding down his nose. “Such as?”
“Look at the fire behaviour.”
“Subdued,” he says, looking around. “An early morning burn.”
“Right.” This has been nagging me ever since we arrived. “It’s not the usual high intensity event. It’s like this was an afterthought, an impulse fire. He was driving past and had the urge.”
“Maybe it’s not the same firebug.”
“Maybe not, but the device looks the same.”
At the road, Malostic and Kirby are leaned up against the hood of the police suburban, deep in conversation about profiling, motives and trigger events. Berton and I drift over. Malostic seems to be holding his own. We listen for a few minutes, learn more about fire as a manifestation of frustrated sexual desires. If that was our profile, most of the male population would be suspects. Kirby turns to us, asks if this fire is different than the others. I tell him my impressions.
“Interesting,” he says thoughtfully. “It could be a copycat but there’s been no media coverage regarding the nature of the device.”
“It could be a break in the pattern specifically to confuse us,” says Malostic.
“Well if that’s what he’s trying to do,” I say, “it’s working.”
The next morning I’m back on the road, headed north. I’d spent the night in Drayton, in a motel room that smelled of pressboard and urine. Breakfast was fried eggs and coffee — not a good idea because now my stomach is churning. But it might not be the caffeine or grease that has my insides turning over — Fort Termination is closer today.
I take a drink from a bottle of water, warm even though it came from a service station cooler 20 minutes ago. Already, the asphalt ahead wavers like something out of an acid trip. I toss the bottle on the passenger seat, amid an assortment of service station junk food designed to appeal to the weary impulse buyer; it looked good when I bought it — I’ll end up throwing most of it away. At least it covers my satellite phone, which I feel vaguely guilty for turning off.
The phone rang shortly after hitting the road this morning: Carl irritated that I wasn’t returning to Curtain River. The fire should have set some sense into me; dry as a popcorn fart around here; high temperatures and low humidities; afternoon winds with a high probability of dry lightning. Hell of a time to take a few days off.
I work for him less than a week and already he’s a slave-driver.
He isn’t the only one the dry weather is making jumpy. That little arson fire feels like a prelude — a reminder. Red Flag wants us to know he’s still out there. I keep glancing at the satellite phone, half buried under Doritos and Big Chief Beef Jerky, tempted to turn it back on. Another diversion would save me from the conflict that lies ahead.
Then again, that’s why I turned it off.
I open the bag of Doritos, nibble on the salty wafers, try not to think too much about what lies ahead. I remember Arthur Pirelli at Nina’s funeral. We didn’t talk. Some force kept us apart. He stayed on his side of the casket. I stayed on mine.
That fire by Vermilion was our first conversation since the funeral.
“You’ve got about two fucking minutes to get off my fire —”
The road ahead is straight, the terrain flat open farmland. I hate this part of the drive the most: brown stubble fields and grey earth, a dead landscape. Dust devils waltz across barren ground. Closer, motor oil soaked into the truck’s floor mat slowly vapourizes, filling the cab with a refinery smell. The open windows help very little — just more hot air. Sweat beads on my forehead and the steering wheel is slick, my hands leaving a damp print on everything I touch. The sky is light blue, faded like old denim, the sun relentless. For weather like this, you need welding goggles, not sunglasses.
I have lunch at Claire’s Diner, little more than a trailer with a stove. Claire is heavily overweight — too much of her own cooking — and has every fan in the place going, blowing grease odours and crazed houseflies in little eddies over the counter. Johnny Cash is on the radio but can’t compete with the rattle of the fans. I try a grilled ham and cheese; it doesn’t go down. I buy ice cream instead, eat it fast.
Fields become interspersed with patches of bush. Finally there are no more fields, only mile after mile of trees and a sort of stupor sets in — a good way of making miles without thinking about where they lead. A familiar slough passes on my right, then a sign for the secondary road leading to Fort Termination. The stupor recedes, replaced by an eerie sensation that makes my scalp tingle. I haven’t been back here since Nina died.
I pull over at a rest stop, walk into the ditch and sit on a log in the shade of the trees. I’ve been past here a hundred times but never stopped, always in a rush to leave or make it home. Today, there’s no rush — ghosts are patient. I linger, watch semi-trailers swoosh past. I want to turn back; the truth may be out here but I’m not sure I want to find it. I just want relief, want to be free of this nightmare. I return to my truck, hope Old Faithful won’t live up to her name.
She starts. No more excuses.