---
Lunch is at noon in the kitchen.
I do not go to the kitchen.
I go out to the lot. I sit on the bumper of the truck in the sun. The air is cold and clean and the sky over the foothills is the colour of the inside of a shell. I eat the half sandwich I made earlier. I drink water. I look at my phone.
There is no message from her.
Of course not. She doesn’t have a phone.
She is fine.
She is fine until she is not fine.
I close my eyes against the sun.
I see her in the upper window.
I see her in the upper window of the burning house with the satin nightgown and the bare feet, and I see her sayingI love you, and I see myself at the kitchen table at the cabin tonightwith her across from me, and I see her at the cabin a year from now with her hair longer and her hand on the post. That is all I let myself see.
I open my eyes.
The sky is the colour of the inside of a shell.
The radio on my belt clicks once. Doyle's voice.Hale. Second floor Office. Fifteen.
I sit on the bumper of the truck for a count of four.
I sit on the bumper for another count of four.
I get up.
---
The office is at the top of the stairs at the far end of the bay. The blinds are open. Val is at her desk. The arson file is open in front of her. There is a yellow legal pad on the desk beside the file, and there are four pages of her handwriting on it, and there are tabs in the file at six different places.
She does not look up when I come in.
"Shut the door."
I shut the door.
"Sit."
I sit.
She writes a line on the legal pad. She does not look up. The light from the window is on the side of her face. Val has been my chief for seventeen years and my friend for fourteen.
She finishes the line.
She caps the pen.
She slides a stack of forms across the desk to me.
"Incident report. Long form."
"Chief."
