A murmur ran through the crowd. The presence of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives meant that arson was definitely on the table. Once the talk subsided, the reporters, with cameras and recorders running, settled in to listen while Sheriff Maxwell read from a prepared statement. Listening in the background, Ali found that the sheriff’s prepared text added little to what she had already said to a much smaller group of reporters the night before.

Sheriff Maxwell’s down-home delivery was peppered with bits of humor, including a bit about the accelerant-sniffing dog, Sparks, who was credited with making the first definitive arson confirmation. The gathered reporters responded to that bit of news with titters of laughter, and the sheriff waited in his genial delivery long enough for the laughter to filter through his audience before continuing. Ali could see that Maxwell was a commanding presence and totally at ease in front of the cameras. She also suspected that his easygoing affability and good-old-boy style of delivery would play well for television viewers watching the evening news.

Why does he need me? Ali wondered.

“As of this morning, some hot spots remain,” he continued. “What we’re hoping for now is assistance from the public. Whoever started these fires had to get to the site, and they had to leave it. Believe me, they weren’t dropped off by a helicopter, and Scotty didn’t beam them up, either.”

That line was good for another bit of general laughter.

“Our hope is that while they were driving to or from the incident, someone may have seen them. If you noticed any unusual activity or unusual vehicles in or around the Camp Verde area yesterday evening, please let us know. Call the information in to our Crime Stoppers hotline.” He read off the Crime Stoppers number twice before continuing. “We need to catch whoever did this. We need to put them out of business. With your help, we’ll do exactly that.

“Now please allow me introduce my counterpart from the ATF, Phoenix Agent in Charge Richard Donnelley. Dick.”

Donnelley took Sheriff Maxwell’s place at the lectern. The differences between them were immediate and striking. Sheriff Maxwell, in his starched khaki uniform as well as his signature boots, stood in stark contrast to Agent Donnelley’s full-court-press business attire-suit, tie, white shirt.

Not just any suit and tie, Ali told herself, and they didn’t come off the rack at Men’s Wearhouse, either.

Ali immediately identified Donnelley’s impeccably tailored gray suit as an Ermenegildo Zegna that probably came from Saks for two thousand bucks plus some change, rather than a Zegna Bespoke that would have gone for twice that. Donnelley’s silk repp tie was red-and-blue striped. It was harder to tell about the highly polished shoes, but Ali suspected they were most likely Johnston & Murphy.

In other words, Ali thought, Donnelley’s not just dressed for success. He’s really out to impress the unwashed masses as well as those who know their high-end designer clothing.

Sheriff Maxwell had maintained a low-key approach with a few touches of homespun humor that had made him seem like one of the folks. Donnelley had apparently ridden into town on a high horse. His remarks were all business all the time, dry as a bone, and totally devoid of humor.

“Thank you, Max,” Donnelley said, moving forward and taking the sheriff’s place at the microphones.

That in itself was a faux pas. Sheriff Gordon Maxwell was Gordy to his friends but most definitely Sheriff Maxwell when it came to doing his job. As far as Ali knew, no one at all referred to him as Max. Ever. In other words, Donnelley’s one attempt at making nice had turned into a belly flop. His version of events added little to what Ali and most of the listening reporters already knew, but with two agencies jockeying for position it was only natural that both head guys needed to have their say.

Once Donnelley ended his official presentation, the two men fielded questions together. During the Q &A, Ali took mental notes of the reporters who were gathered there, cataloging their names and faces and trying to keep track of which outlets they represented. This briefing was better attended than hers had been. She understood that these were people she would be working with on a regular basis. To be effective, she needed to know who they were.

There were plenty of local print, radio, and TV reporters from Phoenix, Flagstaff, Sedona, and Prescott, as well as a couple of out-of-towners. Ali recognized Raymond Martin, a West Coast stringer for Fox News. Another, Alicia Hughes, hailed from truTV. The presence of the last two in particular implied that the possibility of ELF involvement had put the incident at Camp Verde on the national media map.

Of all the people there, Kelly Green was the one who kept pressing the ELF button over and over. The tone of his questions implied that he was under the impression that he knew far more on the topic than anyone else in the audience-Sheriff Maxwell and Agent Donnelley included. Green wanted everyone else to defer to his supposed brilliance.

In Ali’s previous life, guys like that had been a dime a dozen, and she hadn’t much liked them, especially when they regarded themselves as God’s gift to the opposite sex, as Mr. Green seemed to do.

After the briefing ended, Ali made a point of introducing herself to the two correspondents with national connections. After collecting contact information for both Raymond Martin and Alicia Hughes, Ali took her laptop-loaded briefcase and hiked the two blocks back to the sheriff’s office on Gurley. Once there, she made her way to the broom closet-sized office Sheriff Maxwell had designated as her Prescott headquarters.

Logging on to her computer, she found a mountain of e-mail. The subject line of most of them showed they were requesting information on the Camp Verde fires. One of them, with the subject line “Hassayampa,” came from the editor of the Wickenburg Weekly. He wanted more details about the cactus-rustling situation. The rest of the world might be focused on ecoterrorism with a capital E, but small-town newspapers still thrived on small-town events and people, with an emphasis on names.

Ali replied by suggesting the editor contact the rancher in question, Richard Mitchell. Smiling to herself, Ali also typed in the contact information for the Congress substation. Deputies Camacho and Fairwood wouldn’t be able to give out any more information about an ongoing investigation than she could. She wondered if they’d actually report the request to her.

Ali had just punched Send and was starting to deal with the other messages when Sheriff Maxwell popped his head inside her office. “Busy?” he asked.

“I am,” Ali said, “but what do you need?”

“I just had a call from Jake Whitman, the administrator of Saint Gregory’s Hospital down in Phoenix. They’re dealing with the same kind of media frenzy we are. They’ve got a clot of reporters parked in their lobby wanting information on our unidentified victim, who might or might not turn out to be an unidentified suspect. Mr. Whitman wanted to know what I’m going to do about it. I told him I’d ask you if you’d be willing to go down to the hospital and hold the fort for a while. Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” she responded. “If that’s what you need me to do, of course I will. How long do you think you’ll need me to be there?”

“Today for sure,” Sheriff Maxwell said. “Maybe tomorrow, too. If you need to stay overnight, book yourself a hotel room and expense it.”

“What if it turns out to be longer than overnight?” Ali asked.

Looking uncomfortable, Sheriff Maxwell hesitated momentarily before he answered. “According to the EMTs, the woman has second- and third-degree burns on her legs, hands, and arms-close to fifty percent of her body. With burns like that as well as smoke-inhalation injuries, chances are she won’t last much longer than that.”