Naomi did not accuse her of hiding anything. She simply read the entries and invited the association to provide any additional records. Grant went pale, and Elliot, who had come down the lane behind us, looked at the old newsletter sticking out of the folder in my hand. Celeste said again that she did not recall, a sentence that no longer answered the question people were asking.
I felt no triumph as Naomi turned the tablet back toward herself. I had known for months that the county considered our northern section vulnerable. What I had not known was whether the association president had deliberately kept that information from the board or merely treated it as an unimportant matter and let it disappear. The distinction would require more evidence, but either possibility was enough to change the way my neighbors looked at the money we had spent on appearances.
"If you have records showing the board discussed this," Naomi told Grant, "you should preserve them. The county can provide copies of its correspondence through the ordinary process."
Grant nodded and asked whether she would put the supply observations from the fire into a report. She said she would, including the booster dependency, the flow limitations, the usefulness of the supplemental reserve, and the fact that the recommendations were advisory. Then she looked directly at Celeste and said the district's priority was preventing a repeat of the conditions that had placed firefighters and residents at risk.
Celeste opened her mouth, closed it, and looked toward the north curve. Behind us, the burned fence line was still visible through the gate, and soot had settled in the joints of my driveway. There was no way to make the setting look like a debate over landscaping. The facts were standing all around us.
The next three days passed in a strange mixture of ordinary work and questions nobody wanted to answer too quickly. Insurance adjusters came to photograph the Ostranders' shed, utility crews checked the damaged lines, and county workers began assessing the brush that had carried the spot fires toward our fences. The neighbors who had evacuated returned to beds that still smelled faintly of smoke. At night, porch lights stayed on longer than usual.
I emptied the remaining water from a small cooler, cleaned ash from the garage floor, and inspected the tank for damage. The fire crew had left its connection in good condition, but I wanted a contractor to verify the installation before refilling and returning it to normal service. Rachel arrived with a technician the following morning and worked through a full post-use check. We found no structural problem, though one gasket needed replacement and the outlet assembly required cleaning.