1960: My uncle is the FBI Director

Chapter 193 Fire Scene
Three fire trucks were parked near apartment 209.

Firefighters in black uniforms are busy shuttling between the apartment and the fire station.

The bald firefighter greeted them and came to the scene to take command.

He was also a middle-aged man, and he was bald.

However, unlike the bald firefighters who have shiny heads, he has fine stubble on his head.

The middle-aged man's face and body were covered in black ash, and his sweat had etched deep lines into his skin, making him look as if he had just crawled out of a coal pile.

He had clearly heard the details from the bald firefighter, and his gaze toward Theodore and his group was filled with curiosity and scrutiny.

The bald firefighter bumped into the middle-aged man and whispered something to him.

The middle-aged man looked away, called over a young firefighter, and brought four flashlights from the vehicle.

The bald firefighter distributed the flashlights and gave instructions:

"Remember to return it when you leave."

Theodore flipped the flashlight switch, and a bright, almost blinding white light illuminated a large area in front of him.

The bald firefighter waved to the middle-aged man, then pulled out a flashlight from somewhere, turned it on, and led Theodore and the other three up the steps.

Black sewage flowed down the steps, making a squelching sound when stepped on.

The thick smoke in the apartment had not yet dissipated, and everything was shrouded in a gray haze under the flashlight, making it difficult to see clearly.

Stepping over a blackened threshold, a pungent smell of burnt wood, damp wood, chemicals, and a certain indescribable sweetness immediately hits you.

Billy Hawke, who is sensitive to smells, immediately sneezed.

The bald firefighter turned around and asked him:
Do you need a breathing mask?

Billy Hawke opened his mouth and sneezed again.

He rubbed his nose and shook his head in refusal.

Bernie asked the bald firefighter if they needed to check each floor to find the source of the fire.

Theodore looked at the stairs.

The stair railing had turned into blackened charcoal, and the metal bars below had twisted and deformed into strange shapes.

The situation here is even worse than in Alan Brennan's apartment.

He doubted whether the stairs could support the weight of so many people.

The bald firefighter shook his head:

"Need not."

"The fire started burning from below."

He shone his flashlight on the four walls:

"During our firefighting efforts, we discovered that thick smoke and flames were mainly rising from the stairwell on the first floor and from the cracks in the basement doors."

"That's also where the fire is the hardest to contain."

Theodore, Bernie, and Billy Hawke were also looking around.

Having reviewed so many reports in the office, they already had a basic understanding of fire scene investigations.

A powerful flashlight swept across the messy first-floor stairwell, where the walls and ceiling were blackened by thick smoke.

Upon closer inspection, one can vaguely see many V-shaped burning tips pointing towards the basement from the black marks on the walls and ceiling.

The bald firefighter was already standing in front of the basement door:
"The basement door burned through,"

He pointed to the badly damaged door and explained it to Theodore and the others:
"When we broke through it and went in, the fire was burning the most fiercely in the basement, and the fire was spreading to the first floor."

The door was charred and deformed, with obvious burn marks above the door frame.

The bald firefighter pushed open the door, revealing a staircase leading downwards.

A stronger wave of heat and the smell of burning, mixed with humidity, hit us.

He shone his flashlight down:
"Look down here, the smoke marks are so heavy, and they're all pointing upwards, which means the thick smoke came up from the basement."

"The source of the fire is most likely below."

Theodore felt that the bald firefighter was like a tour guide, explaining the scenery to the four tourists.

He followed the bald firefighter down the road, his flashlight beam swaying around.

The walls here were burned so badly that they were carbonized and peeling off, resembling a kitchen ventilation duct that hadn't been cleaned for decades.

The steps were covered with a thick layer of carbonized ash, which was completely soaked and made a crunching sound when stepped on.

The further down you go, the stronger the burnt smell becomes, mixed with moisture and a pungent odor similar to burning plastic, and the more polluted the air becomes.

The bald firefighter walked into the dark basement, looked around, and saw a large pile of messy clutter.

There were twisted, burnt metal frames, furniture completely turned into charcoal, and clumps of black carbonized material of unknown origin.

He didn't waste time on those things and went straight to the side wall.

Theodore and his men followed closely behind and surrounded them.

The beams of five powerful flashlights illuminated every detail of the place.

On the charred wall was a burnt electrical conduit opening, with several twisted, charred wires dangling down.

The bald firefighter tugged at the electrical wires and kicked at the charred pile of debris at his feet, quickly concluding about the fire:

"A short circuit ignited this pile of junk."

Bernie asked him:

"Same as Apartment 121?"

Apartment 121 is the old apartment where Alan Brennan lived.

The apartment also caught fire due to a short circuit in the wiring, which ignited the insulation and wooden distribution box.

The bald firefighter observed carefully again:
"Looks like it is."

Detective O'Malley asked him in a deep voice:
"Was this an accident? Not intentional?"

The bald firefighter nodded.

Detective O'Malley, still not giving up, asked further:
"It wasn't done by arsonists?"

The bald firefighter looked at Theodore, hesitated for a moment, and then said:
"It appears to be an accident."

"Accidents like this happen frequently in this area."

He pointed to the scattered molten beads:

“The distribution of these molten beads is a bit tight, but I’ve seen similar situations before.”

"If the temperature suddenly rises, the distribution of the molten beads will be like it is now, and they won't spread out too much."

Before Detective O'Malley could speak, the bald firefighter continued:
"Of course, it could also be man-made."

He selected two wires, rubbed off the carbonized residue, picked up a nail from the ground, and wrapped the two wires around both ends of the nail.

"Just throw it on this pile of junk like this, and it will catch fire on its own."

Bernie raised questions:

"Doesn't this require the power to be turned off before you can operate it?"

He looked at Detective O'Malley:

Have any apartment residents mentioned a power outage tonight?

Detective O'Malley shook his head, indicating no.

The bald firefighter put down the nails and groped around on the pitch-black wall, quickly finding a black protrusion.

He pried around near the protrusion, revealing a terminal inside that held a wire in place:

"Or there's an even simpler way: just loosen it, stuff some paper or cloth soaked in accelerant inside, and it will start a fire."

He looked at Bernie and Detective O'Malley and emphasized:

"This doesn't require turning off the power. Just loosen it a little bit with pliers with insulated handles."

"Anyone can operate it."

He then listed several other ways to start a fire, and finally concluded:
"In short, it appears to be an accident for now." "But if someone wanted to fake it as an accident and deliberately set it on fire, it would be very easy."

The basement fell silent.

The group all looked at Theodore.

Theodore took out gloves and put them on, then collected the nails, terminals, and other props that the other bald firefighters had used to demonstrate their methods.

Bernie took the evidence bag out of his pocket and put them in one by one.

Billy Hawke took the evidence bag and took out a pen to mark it.

Having done this, Theodore took off his gloves and pointed to the pile of charred debris at their feet:
"Combustible material".

He then pointed to the electrical wires on the wall:
"The old wires short-circuited, generating a huge amount of heat, which ignited the pile of debris."

He finally pointed to the molten beads:
"Densely distributed molten beads".

Theodore looked at the bald firefighter:
"On April 28, 1958, a fire broke out in a three-story wooden row house at 1705 Thomas Street in the Northeast District. The scene of the fire was almost identical to this one."

The bald firefighter remembers that fire; it was the first report of a misjudgment they found.

The two do have many similarities, but also many differences.

He pointed to the scattered molten beads, reminding Theodore:

"Although the molten beads here are scattered and distributed somewhat closely, they are not completely concentrated together."

"Such a distribution of molten beads is not uncommon in natural short circuits."

"In the fire at 1705 Thomas Street in the Northeast District that you mentioned, the molten beads were completely concentrated together, which requires reaching an extremely high temperature in a very short time."

"It is difficult for a natural short circuit to reach high temperatures immediately."

"Moreover, the flame marks at the scene of that fire were typical of a short circuit caused by human intervention."

The group instinctively looked at the wall.

The wall was a dark, messy mess, making it impossible to discern any traces of fire.

The bald firefighter looked at the group:

"If I were the one causing this accident, I would have made the molten beads spread out even more."

Detective O'Malley asked him, "Can you do it?"

The bald firefighter nodded:

"Yes, that's easy."

"All we need to do is slow down the rate at which the temperature rises after the wire is short-circuited."

He explained:

"If a short circuit occurs instantaneously and generates a huge amount of heat, the molten beads will not have enough time to splash fully and will often stick together and fuse into a small molten area near the short circuit point."

"In cases of short circuits caused by natural aging or slight overload, the heat rises relatively slowly, giving the molten beads more time to splash out and spread around the short circuit point."

Bernie pointed to the molten beads at the scene and asked the bald firefighter:

"What about those that neither fall apart into a large patch nor stick together completely?"

The bald firefighter pointed to the wall:
"For example, if this terminal becomes loose and causes a short circuit, the resulting molten bead will look like this."

Everyone instinctively looked at the evidence bag marked with a terminal in Billy Hawke's arms.

The bald firefighter continued:
"If it were a normal short circuit, there would be a blockage in front that prevents the molten beads from spreading out, resulting in a relatively concentrated distribution like this."

"It is impossible to determine whether the molten beads were caused by human error or an accident simply by relying on the distribution of molten beads."

He looked at Theodore and reminded him:

"Fires caused by short circuits are usually laid out like this: the wires are old, and flammable materials such as cloth, oil, or paper are piled up next to them. When a short circuit occurs, sparks ignite these materials, and then the fire gets out of control..."

"Otherwise, the fire wouldn't have been able to start."

Theodore agreed, simply reversing the bald firefighter's version of events:
"In other words, if the scene is arranged like this, it will be difficult for people to identify that it was a man-made fire rather than an accident."

The bald firefighter opened his mouth and realized that what he said actually made a lot of sense.

But he always felt that something was wrong.

He hesitated for a moment and then nodded:

"All fire scenes, whether caused by human error or accident, have basically the same layout and process."

"When a fire source is close to a combustible material, the combustible material is ignited, the flames spread, and ignite other combustible materials."

"The fire continued to spread, growing larger and larger until it became uncontrollable."

"This is determined by the nature of the fire."

"Fire cannot be created or burned out of thin air."

Theodore agreed.

He fully respected the expertise of the consultant he had invited.

Detective O'Malley confirmed with the bald firefighter:
"In other words, there is no way to confirm whether this was caused by human intervention or simply an accident."

"There's no way to confirm whether the fire is related to arson."

The bald firefighter paused for a moment, then nodded in confirmation.

Theodore asked Detective O'Malley:
Who is the electrician for this apartment building? Is he upstairs?

Detective O'Malley shook his head, indicating that he didn't know either.

He took out his walkie-talkie and contacted the police officers above him.

The police officers located the apartment manager and quickly obtained information about the apartment's electrician.

The electrician's name was Terence Cowan, and he lived nearby.

Detective O'Malley put down his walkie-talkie and asked Theodore:
"Should we invite Terence Kwan over?"

Theodore nodded:

"He's an electrician, so he knows the situation here best."

Detective O'Malley picked up the walkie-talkie again and asked an officer to go find Terence Cowan.

The group left the basement and returned the way they came.

As they left the apartment, the bald firefighter took away their flashlights.

The firefighters had already packed up their equipment and seemed to be waiting for them to come up and return the flashlights.

After receiving the flashlight, the middle-aged man still tried each switch one by one without being sure, which made the bald firefighter punch him hard on the shoulder.

The middle-aged man didn't take it seriously and insisted on checking each person one by one.

The bald firefighter muttered a couple of words, ran to the side, took off his fire suit, and tossed it to the middle-aged man, asking him to help take it back to the fire station.

After checking the flashlight, the middle-aged man glanced at Theodore and whispered to the bald firefighter about the case.

Everyone at Fire Station 13 knows that the bald firefighter was hired by the FBI as an expert consultant to participate in the investigation of that night's case.

They were very curious about the progress of the case.

The bald firefighter just silently shook his head.

The firefighters left.

The crowd that had been watching outside had long since dispersed.

Only the detectives from the Fourth Precinct remained at the scene.

Detective O'Malley went to report the situation to the deputy commissioner.

Billy Hawke, accompanied by several police officers and a bald firefighter, re-entered the basement to take photos with his camera.

These photos will not only be used by Theodore, but will also be used in the fire station's fire accident investigation report later.

They took photos very quickly, coming out in just over ten minutes.

It was already 2:30 a.m.

Electrician Terence Cowan is still nowhere to be found.

(End of this chapter)