Point of Origin

'And what ATF is up against,' I said, sitting across my hopelessly piled desk from her.

'Look, I don't care who he is,' she replied. 'I do every job like I fully intend to make an arrest. I'm not the one who has to deal with the politics around here.'

But my mind wasn't on the media or Sparkes right now. I was thinking that this case disturbed me at a deeper level and in ways I could not fathom.

'How much longer will your guys be at the scene?' I asked her.

'Another day. Two at the most,' she said. 'Sparkes has supplied us and the insurance company with what was inside his house, and just the antique furniture and old wood flooring and paneling alone were a massive fuel load.'

'What about the master bath?' I asked. 'Saying this was the point of origin.'

She hesitated. 'Obviously, that's the problem.'

'Right. If an accelerant wasn't used, or at least not a petroleum distillate, then how?'

'The guys are beating their brains out,' she said, and she was frustrated. 'And so am I. If I try to predict how much energy would be needed in that room for a flashover condition, the fuel load isn't there. According to Sparkes, there was nothing but a throw rug and towels. Cabinets and fixtures were customized brushed steel. The shower had a glass door, the window had sheer curtains.'

She paused as the coffeemaker gurgled.

'So what are we talking about?' she went on. 'Five, six hundred kilowatts total for a ten-by-fifteen foot room? Clearly, there are other variables. Such as how much air was flowing through the doorway…'

'What about the rest of the house? You just said there was a big fuel load there, right?'

'We're only concerned with one room, Kay. And that's the room of origin. Without an origin, the rest of the fuel load doesn't matter.'

'I see.'

'I know a flame was impinged on the ceiling in that bathroom, and I know how high that flame had to be and how many kilowatts of energy were needed for flashover. And a throw rug and maybe some towels and curtains couldn't even come close to causing something like that.'

I knew her engineering equations were pristinely mathematical, and I did not doubt anything she was saying. But it did not matter. I was still left with the same problem. I had reason to believe that we were dealing with a homicide and that when the fire started, the victim's body was inside the master bath, with its noncombustible marble floors, large mirrors, and steel. Indeed, she may have been in the tub.

'What about the open skylight?' I asked McGovern. 'Does that fit with your theory?'

'It could. Because once again, the flames had to be high enough to break the glass, and then heat would have vented through the opening like a chimney. Every fire has its own personality, but certain behaviors are always the same because they conform to the laws of physics.'

'I understand.'

'There are four stages,' she went on, as if I knew nothing. 'First is the fire plume, or column of hot gases, flames, and smoke rising from the fire. That would have been the case, let's say, if the throw rug in the bathroom had ignited. The higher above the flame the gases rise, the cooler and denser they become. They mix with combustion by-products, and the hot gases now begin to fall, and the cycle repeats itself creating turbulent smoke that spreads horizontally. What should have happened next was this hot smoky layer would have continued to descend until it found an opening for ventilation - in this case, we'll assume the bathroom doorway. Next, the smoky layer flows out of the opening while fresh air flows in. If there's enough oxygen, the temperature at the ceiling's going to go up to more than six hundred degrees Celsius, and boom, we have flashover, or a fully developed fire.'

'A fully developed fire in the master bath,' I said.

'And then on into other oxygen-enriched rooms where the fuel loads were enough to burn the place to the ground,' she replied. 'So it's not the spread of the fire that bothers me. It's how it got started. Like I said, a throw rug, curtains, weren't enough, unless something else was there.'

'Maybe something was,' I said, getting up to pour coffee. 'How do you take yours?' I asked.

'Cream and sugar.'

Her eyes followed me.

'None of that artificial stuff, please.'

I drank mine black, and set mugs on the desk as McGovern's gaze wandered around my new office. Certainly, it was brighter and more modern than what I had occupied in the old building on Fourteenth and Franklin, but I really had no more room to evolve. Worst of all, I had been honored with a CEO corner space with windows, and anybody who understood physicians knew that what we needed were walls for bookcases, and not bulletproof glass overlooking a parking lot and the Petersburg Turnpike. My hundreds of medical, legal, and forensic science reviews, journals and formidable volumes were crammed together and, in some cases, double-shelved. It was not uncommon for Rose, my secretary, to hear me swearing when I could not find a reference book I needed right that minute.

'Teun,' I said, sipping my coffee, 'I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking care of Lucy.'

'Lucy takes care of herself,' she said.

'That has not always been true.'

I smiled in an effort to be more gracious, to hide the hurt and jealousy that were a splinter in my heart.

'But you're right,' I said. 'I think she does a pretty admirable job of it now. I'm sure Philadelphia will be good for her.'

McGovern was reading every signal I was sending, and I could tell she was aware of more than I wanted her to be.

'Kay, hers will not be an easy road,' she then stated. 'No matter what I do.'

She swirled the coffee in her mug, as if about to taste the first sip of fine wine.

'I'm her supervisor, not her mother,' McGovern said.

This irked me considerably, and it showed when I abruptly picked up the phone and instructed Rose to hold all calls. I got up and shut my door.

'I would hope she's not transferring to your field office because she needs a mother,' I replied coolly as I returned to my desk, which served as a barrier between us. 'Above all else, Lucy is a consummate professional.'

McGovern held up her hand to stop me.

'Whoa,' she protested. 'Of course she is. I'm just not promising anything. She's a big girl, but she's also got a lot of big obstacles. Her FBI background will be held against her by some, who will assume right off the bat that she has an attitude and has never really worked cases.'

'That stereotype shouldn't last long,' I said, and I was finding it very difficult to objectively discuss my niece with her.

'Oh, about as long as it takes for them to see her land a helicopter or program a robot to remove a bomb from a scene,' she quipped. 'Or zip through Q-dot calculations in her head while the rest of us can't even figure them out on a calculator.'

Q-dot was slang for the mathematical equations, or scientific evaluations, used to estimate the physics and chemistry of a fire as it related to what the investigator observed at the scene or was told by witnesses. I wasn't sure Lucy would make many friends by being able to work such esoteric formulas in her head.

'Teun,' I said, softening my tone. 'Lucy's different, and that isn't always good. In fact, in many ways it is just as much a handicap to be a genius as it is to be retarded.'

'Absolutely. I am more aware of this than you might imagine.'

'As long as you understand,' I said as if I were reluctantly handing her the baton in the relay race of Lucy's difficult development.

'And as long as you understand that she has and will continue to be treated like everybody else. Which includes the other agents' reactions to her baggage, which includes rumors about why she left the FBI and about her alleged personal life,' she stated frankly.

I looked at her long and hard, wondering just how much she really knew about Lucy. Unless McGovern had been briefed by someone at the Bureau, there was no reason I could think of why she should know about my niece's affair with Carrie Grethen and the implications of what that might mean when the case went to court, assuming Carrie was caught. Just the reminder cast a shadow over what had already been a dark day, and my uncomfortable silence invited McGovern to fill it.