by Steven James
Only three more blocks.
At two blocks I began to catch the scent of scorched wood.
At one block I saw a hazy layer of smoke hovering above the pavement.
It couldn’t be.
I came to the corner of K Street and 15th and I froze. My skin felt clammy and cool, even as the day blazed to life around me.
Gray smoke smudged the morning, curling up from the blackened shell of a charred but still structurally intact two-story home.
The house lay directly across the street from where the homeless man had appeared last night-less than one city block from where I’d parked and tried to predict the future.
I stood staring at the smoldering ruins, trying to catch my breath, trying to process what this might mean.
If a crowd had been there earlier, it had dispersed, and instead a few tired-looking firefighters lingered by their truck. Beside them, I noticed Lien-hua and Lieutenant Aina Mendez walking toward the cooling remains of the home.
After allowing myself a brief glance at a certain section of freshly scrubbed track, I jogged over to join them.
16
Based on the amount of water soaking the home’s foundation, I guessed the building had cooled sufficiently, which meant the fire had been suppressed several hours ago. And based on the limited degree of structural damage, I figured that the firefighters must have made it here almost immediately. Maybe they received a tip.
Lieutenant Mendez waved to me. “ Buenos dias, Dr. Bowers. I didn’t think you would come. I couldn’t get in touch with you.”
I gestured to my outfit. “Went for a little jog. Left my cell at the hotel. And Lieutenant Mendez, I keep telling you my friends call me Pat.”
She gave me a polite nod. “Si, Dr. Bowers.”
I’d first met Aina three weeks earlier when I came to San Diego for a day to do an initial assessment of the case. I liked her right away. She struck me as savvy, street smart, and, most impressive of all, open-minded. Too often detectives only look for evidence that confirms their suspicions or fits their “gut instincts.” Not Aina; she trusted facts above feelings. And that makes all the difference in the world.
Though it was still early in the day, Lien-hua wore dark sun-glasses. She tipped them up and eyed my soaked T-shirt. “How many did you get in?”
“A hundred forty-eight, total.”
“Slipping in your old age, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I asked Aina for a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. After all, evidence is evidence, even if it’s covered with soot. Then she signaled for two of the firefighters resting on the curb to lend Lien-hua and me their boots. They grudgingly obliged, and we pulled them on and followed Aina into the blackened mouth of what used to be someone’s front door.
17
“Whoever started this fire,” Aina said, “did so after the officers finished processing the scene of John Doe’s suicide. We’re guessing 2:00 a.m. as the time the first fuel was ignited.”
Detective Dunn and his team must have finished up as quickly as they could to keep the trolleys on schedule. It didn’t surprise me, though. It all seemed simple enough: a drug-crazed homeless guy throws himself in front of a trolley. Period. Except that the timing and location of the fire told me that things weren’t as simple and clear cut as they seemed.
“Any chance the fire was accidental?” I asked Aina.
“Unlikely. You’ll see when we get to the point of origin.”
“Witnesses?” Lien-hua asked.
Aina led the way through the soot-stained kitchen. “No one who’s talking, but that’s no surprise. People in this neighborhood don’t generally like talking to the police. Oh, but we did find the young man who was at the tobacco store.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“He’s a foreign exchange student from Korea. We spoke with him early this morning. He didn’t witness the suicide and was at his apartment when the fire began. I can’t see any connection. The store owner didn’t see anything, either.”
I nodded. “Lien-hua,” I said. “Talk me through your profile.
Just the highlights.”
“It pains you to say that, doesn’t it? To ask me for the profile?” “More than you know.”
Aina must have given her a questioning look because Lien-hua tightened her voice and explained, “Pat thinks profiling is a complete waste of time.”
“Not a complete waste of time,” I said. “It keeps a lot of novel-ists off welfare.”
Lien-hua stepped on one of the boards underfoot hard enough to crack it, and I wondered if the board represented anything specific to her. Probably best not to ask.
“Well,” she said. “We have no eyewitnesses, no footprints, or other incriminating physical evidence of any kind, so he’s forensi-cally aware. He’s experienced, older than most arsonists. Probably midthirties. He’s precise and exacting, takes pride in his work. Possibly admires news reports about the fires to his friends: ‘See that fire? That guy really knows what he’s doing.’ Things like that. He works alone on the fires. Lives alone. Has military experience.”
“Military experience?” asked Aina.
“A significant percentage of arsonists have military experience.
Until I can show otherwise, I’m starting with the hypothesis that ours does too. He doesn’t seem to start the fires for profit or to mask another crime. And since he doesn’t stick around to watch the buildings burn, I doubt he’s doing it for the thrill. He has another motive, though I’m not sure yet what it is.”
“Let’s not forget timing,” I said. “Each of the fires, except for this fire last night, was set when the wind was less than ten miles per hour. That’s rare in San Diego.”
“So what changed his pattern?” Lien-hua asked.
“Well, Agent Jiang.” I cracked my knuckles. “That’s what I’m here to figure out.”
She shook her head. “You’ve been watching too many cop movies.”
I was trying to think of a witty reply when Aina paused at the threshold of the living room and asked, “So, how many fires have you worked?” She directed the question to both of us.
“Enough,” I said.
“Not so many,” replied Lien-hua. “My specialty is serial homicides.”
“Well,” said Aina, “a few basics. If we can identify the direction and spread of the fire, we can narrow down the most likely location of its origin.” She pointed at the wall. “Heat transfers from the flame to the surface of the walls or the ceiling. The farther the flames move from the fuel package, the less heat they’ll have, and the less damage they’ll cause.”
Lien-hua’s eyes scanned the room like careful lasers. Beautifully dark, mysteriously inviting lasers. Then she pointed. “So, here, the wallpaper is scorched and peeling…” She stepped into the room beside us, looked over the walls again. “But here, the wallpaper at that same height is gone, and the fire ate into the drywall. So, this room is probably closer to the place the fire started.”
I love watching her work.
Actually, I don’t mind watching her, whatever she’s doing.
“Si,” Aina said. “Of course, other factors can affect heat flow-the building materials, room layout, airflow, and so on, but the extent of surface damage is one of the first things we look for.”
As we picked our way through the corpse of a home, it struck me how similar Aina’s job is to mine. Both of us evaluate the evidence, study the way something moves through space and time, and then use what we know about patterns to pinpoint the point of origin.
She studies the flow and movement of smoke and flames; I study the flow and movement of people. But the principle is still the same.
The secret to solving a case boils down to timing and location.
I heard a ring tone. Aina glanced down, tugged her phone off her belt. “Excuse me, I need to take this. You two look around. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lien-hua and I stepped carefully pas
t some blackened boards. Nearly all of the structural supports and door frames were still in place, but most of them were at least partially charred by the blaze.
I directed Lien-hua’s attention to the ceiling on both sides of a door frame. “See how only one side is covered with soot?”
She walked back and forth beneath the doorjamb, examining the ceiling on each side. “Yes.”
“Buoyant gases move though the air similar to the way water flows down a river,” I said. “When water meets a rock, it passes around the rock, and then some of the water curls back toward the rock.”
“You sound like an ex-raft guide.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“It’s called an eddy, right?”
I nodded. “Sometimes the eddies are so strong the water actually flows back upstream. That’s what happens when hot gases pass through a building. As the gas passes through a doorway, some of it curls back toward the ceiling, creating an eddy of air that doesn’t consume the wood but leaves a sooty residue. By identifying these eddies, we can work backward through a structure-”
“To find the source of the fire.”
“Right.”
We passed through several more rooms, Lien-hua carefully observing the eddies above the doorjambs, working with surprising acuity to lead us to a room at the back of the house. From the evidence I’d seen so far, I agreed that this room was probably the source of the blaze. “Not bad for a profiler,” I said.
“Yeah, well, this environmental stuff isn’t that complex. Maybe I should write a novel about it.”
“Touche.”
The electricity in the house was off, but enough sunlight cut through the window for us to see around the room. I noted that the glass in the window frames was still intact. With an exacting gaze, Lien-hua traced a line up the wall toward the ceiling. “These marks, here; what do they mean?”
“The fire plume made those. Usually, when you find them, they indicate proximity to the point of origin.”
I heard Aina’s footsteps by the doorway. “Very good, Dr. Bowers,” she said. “When a fire is started against a wall, the wall does two things: it reflects heat and doesn’t allow the cooler air to escape the blaze. This creates a taller flame than a similar fire with the same heat release rate located in the middle of a room. In corners, the effect is increased, creating an even higher fire plume. And see how the floor directly beneath the plume is consumed? That’s where he put the accelerant.”
I examined the room. “But this room isn’t extensively damaged, never reached full involvement. Not like the point of origin for the other fires.”
“That’s because he used a different accelerant this time, probably gasoline.”
Lien-hua looked confused. “How can you tell?”
“Gasoline flares up, burns very rapidly,” Aina said. “It devours all the oxygen in the room before the rest of the materials in the room become hot enough to ignite. It’s a sloppy, beginner’s way to start a fire. In the movies, arsonists slosh gasoline around, toss in a cigarette, and voom! But that’s not how the professionals do it. To start an effective fire, you need a fuel package that’ll burn longer.”
“Lien-hua,” I said, “are you sure our arsonist is working alone?”
“Not certain,” she said. “But up until now, that’s where everything has pointed.”
“Do we know anything about the accelerants for the other fires yet?” I asked Aina.
She shook her head. “Not yet. Chromatograms were inconclusive. We’re tracking purchases of acetone and methylated spirits in the days prior to each fire, but so far, nothing solid.”
I scanned the room. Out the window, I had a direct sight line to the street corner that John Doe had rounded before he jumped onto the hood of my rental car. I gazed at the fire’s point of origin again. “The fire’s placement in the room isn’t right either,” I said.
“On the flight from Denver, I looked over the building diagrams that you sent me, Aina-the ones from the other fires-and our arsonist likes to use vents, stairwells, windows, the natural airflow through a building, to keep feeding his fires oxygen. But the guy last night, he started the fire along an exterior wall, with no consideration of airflow.” I pointed. “He didn’t even open the window.
Taking into account the change in accelerant and inefficient point of origin-”
“It’s not the same guy,” Lien-hua said.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too,” said Aina.
The evidence at this scene certainly seemed to point to a different offender, but I wasn’t convinced. “And yet this home’s location makes perfect sense in relationship to the other fires. That’s what’s got me. If it wasn’t him, how did the guy last night know to start the fire on this street?”
“Coincidence?” Aina said.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said.
She tapped at her phone. “I really have to go. We found the person who called in the fire. I’d like to speak to her. I’ll get back in touch with you.”
Lien-hua and I nodded, Aina left, and for a few minutes Lien-hua and I looked around the room. Finally, I said, “I’m really stumped here. We have the right kind of crime, the right location, and timing that fits the escalating progression of the series, fourteen fires by the same guy, and now, suddenly, a different arsonist shows up?”
“It doesn’t fit, does it?”
“No. Either that, or I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle.” “OK. Let’s walk through it,” she suggested. “Reconstruct what happened.”
“Good,” I said. “Based on what we know, there’re two arsonists, so for now let’s just say it’s the two of us.”
“OK,” she said. “It’s just the two of us.”
The way she said those words gave me pause. I wanted to ask her something, wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “Wait,” I said. “Before we start. There was something you wanted to tell me last night.
Outside Tessa’s door.”
“Now’s not the time, Pat,” she said.
“Is it Tessa? Is something wrong?”
“No, no, no. Nothing like that. I just need to sort some things through. I shouldn’t have said anything. Let’s just forget it, OK?”
I wanted to press her, get her to tell me more, but knew it would only make her less willing to open up. “OK,” I said. “Fair enough.”
Then it was back to business. “Now,” she said. “Let’s reconstruct this crime.”
18
Lien-hua mimed splashing gasoline across the floor, then lighting it. “So we’re inexperienced, we don’t know what we’re doing. We start the fire, then what? Maybe wait a few minutes to make sure it’s burning?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then where do we go? How do we get out?”
I studied the room. “Well, we don’t want to get caught… You can see the front door too easily from the intersection and from the tobacco store across the street. The front would be too risky.”
“So, we head for the back door.” Lien-hua led the way through the house. Really, the home was small enough so that only one route made sense. As I followed her, I carefully examined the blackened floor to see if the offender had left any shoe prints or impressions in the soot, but there were at least six different tread mark patterns visible, in addition to the ones that matched the boots I’d borrowed.
The prints must have been left by the firefighters or the MAST officers who’d processed the scene. It would take a lot of checking to figure out if one of the shoe prints didn’t really belong. I gazed at them carefully.
“What about the gas can?” I said. “Would we leave it here or take it with us?”
“We’re new to arson, so we might not have thought about that before starting the fire… Or maybe we’re careless and we tossed it outside… Of course, we might have used a plastic canister and then tossed it onto the fire… Or we might have-” “I guess we’re not ready for that question yet,” I said. “Too many mights. We need
more evidence-”
“And less conjecture,” she said, finishing my thought.
“Oh. Have I said that before?”
“Once or twice.”
With my gloved hand, I eased the back door open and noticed the yellow crime scene tape hanging limp in the breezeless morning, encircling the house’s property at about a four-meter perimeter.
Lien-hua must have seen me staring at the location of the yellow tape, because she said, “Aina told me her criminalists already processed the scene, everything inside the tape. Didn’t find anything.”
Most law enforcement agencies use the terms “crime scene investigative unit,” or “forensic science technician,” but some places, and especially overseas, the term “criminalist” is more common.
Either way, I’m usually amazed not by how much evidence the teams notice but by how much they miss.
“Did they check outside the tape?” I asked.
“Outside it?”
I pointed at the yellow police tape. “Don’t you find it a little too convenient that the crime scene just happens to be exactly the same size as the area encompassed by these telephone poles?”
“They were handy.”
“Yes, they were. But a crime scene is defined by the evidentiary nature of the crime and the physical characteristics of the site itself, not the location of the nearest telephone poles.” Oops. I’d started lecturing. I needed to watch that.
“Good point.”
I peered beyond the caution tape to see if our inexperienced arsonist might have dropped the gas can on the hill. “You’d be amazed how many times I’ve found a murder weapon only a few meters outside of the police tape. But people rarely think to look there because it’s not part of ‘the crime scene.’” She joined me beyond the tape, on the dusty hill that climbed at a slow slope away from the house. “So the tape actually hinders the investigation,” she said thoughtfully. “We don’t see the evidence because we’re looking in the wrong place. It’s a blind spot.”