“Anything is possible,” Ali said.

“What’s the median price tag on homes here?” another voice asked. “I heard some of the firefighters talking about ELF. Don’t they usually target more upscale places?”

Ali wished she knew which of the firefighters were blabbing to reporters. As for the reporters? She also wished she could see the faces of her questioners. She needed to have some idea of who they were and where they came from. Once she had a personal connection with some of them, this would be easier, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

It’s like dealing with recalcitrant two-year-olds, Ali told herself. You have to say the same thing over and over. Was I this dim when I was a reporter? Was I this rude?

“As I said before,” she told them firmly, “it’s too early in the investigation to declare this incident to be arson. It will be some time before we can determine the cause of the fire.”

“What about the victim? Was it a man or woman?”

“A woman.”

“How old is she?”

“No word on that at this time.”

“Do you know where the victim was taken?”

“She was taken by ambulance to a private airstrip east of Camp Verde. Once there, she was transferred to a medevac helicopter and flown to a Phoenix-area hospital.”

“To the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s?”

Since the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s Hospital on Camelback treated burn victims from all over the region, that was a reasonable guess, but it wasn’t something Ali could confirm.

“That I don’t know,” she told them.

“Wasn’t the last ELF fire in the area up near Prescott a couple of years ago?”

Ali recognized the voice. It was the same male reporter who had posed the earlier ELF question, but this one stumped her.

“I personally have no knowledge about any other incident, so you’ve got me there,” she answered. “As I said earlier, there has not yet been a determination as to the cause of this fire. Attributing it to any one individual or group of individuals at this time would be premature.”

Behind her, the engine of one of the fire trucks rumbled down the road. As it went past, she saw that it was one of the crews from Sedona. If the crew was returning to base, that probably meant that the fire situation here was considered fairly well under control.

Once again Ali addressed the reporters. “As you can see, some of the crews here are being released. When we have word on the progress of the investigation, I’m sure Sheriff Maxwell will let you know, or you can contact me. My contact information is on the Web site for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department, listed under Media Relations. When any additional media briefings are scheduled, I’ll send out announcements to the contact list I have. I’ll also post that information on the Web site. If I don’t have your contact information and you want to be on the list, please let me know before you leave. Now, is there anything else?”

“Hey, Ali,” someone called. “This is a new gig for you. How does it feel to be on the wrong side of the cameras?”

She knew the assembled reporters were taking her measure, just as fellow employees in the department were doing. To do her media relations job effectively, Ali had to walk a fine line between serious and not so serious. She couldn’t afford to be seen as a lightweight, but if she tried too hard, everyone would know it, and so would she.

“First off,” Ali said, “cameras don’t have wrong sides. People on both sides of them-the ones pointing them and the ones being photographed-have work to do. When people turn on their radios and television sets or pick up a newspaper in the morning, they’re going to want to know what went on here tonight. It’s our job to tell them.

“Yes, this is a new gig, as you call it. I can tell you right now that in a news studio, the lighting is a lot better. Makeup and wardrobe are better, too. I always got to choose which side of the news desk to sit on, and guess what? I always chose to have my good side face the camera. Out here you’re going to have to take me lumps and all. Anything else?”

“Are you glad to be back home in Arizona?”

“Yes,” Ali said. “I am glad to be back in Arizona, but this isn’t about me. Sheriff Maxwell has asked me to help out in media relations on a temporary basis, and that’s what I’m doing. So if there are no other questions about tonight’s incident-”

“How long is temporary?”

“I would imagine that depends on how well I do.”

“To say nothing about how long it takes for Internal Affairs to finish looking through the situation with Deputy Devon Ryan. Isn’t he still on paid administrative leave?”

“Look,” Ali said firmly. “I’m here tonight to discuss this specific incident. How about if we stick to that? Now, are there more questions about the fire?”

Eventually the lights went off and the cameras disappeared. Several people stopped long enough to give Ali their contact information before disappearing into their separate vehicles, where they’d be able to write and file their stories using wireless uploads.

As Ali turned back to the scene of the fire, Sheriff Maxwell appeared out of the darkness. She had no idea when he had arrived or how long he had been standing there listening.

“Good job,” he said.

“You were watching?” Ali asked. “Why didn’t you come talk to them?”

“Because I wanted to see how you’d handle yourself,” he replied. “You did fine.”

“About that ELF stuff,” she continued. “I didn’t know anything about that previous fire. The one up near Prescott.”

Maxwell nodded. “Right,” he said. “That happened several years ago. They burned down a Street of Dreams project. Four nearly completed houses, each of them worth more than a million bucks. They were supposedly being built with all kinds of green technology inside. Why ELF went after them is more than I can understand. I mean, green is green, right?”

“What about these houses?” Ali asked.

“With the current housing crisis, they’re not worth nearly that much. Probably three fifty to four hundred thou. Maybe ELF has decided to go downscale rather than up.”

“What about the wall?” Ali asked. “The one with the ELF tagline.”

“That’s still standing,” he said. “Once the sun comes up tomorrow morning, anybody with a pair of binoculars will know this was arson. We know it, too, thanks to Camp Verde ’s accelerant-sniffing dog.”

“I saw Sparks,” Ali told him, but the sheriff’s comment left Ali second-guessing her actions. “Should I have announced it was arson tonight?”

“Hell, no. You did exactly what I wanted you to do. I’ll make the arson announcement myself first thing tomorrow. Let’s say nine a.m. on the courthouse steps in Prescott. If you could send out a notice about that between now and then, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m still not sure why we didn’t make the announcement tonight.”

“That’s easy,” Sheriff Maxwell said with a sardonic smile. “You can’t hand over every little detail all at once. Got to dribble it out a little at a time and give those yahoos reason to come back. That also gives them a reason to write two stories instead of just one. That’s good for them and good for us. How else am I going to keep my name out there in public?”

He started to walk away, then paused. “By the way,” he added, “the guy who asked about the ELF thing is named Kelly Green.”

“What kind of a name is Kelly Green?” Ali asked. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“His real name was the joke. His given name was Oswald. He changed it to Kelly a few years ago.”

“I guess I would have changed it, too,” Ali said.

“Mr. Green likes to think of himself as the Arizona Reporter’s star investigative reporter. He’s also a royal pain in the butt, but he was one of Devon ’s favorites, so watch your back around him.”

“Favorites?” Ali asked.

“As in feeding him scoops before information went to any of the other media outlets.”