Tag: Burnings

(My retelling of The Burnings resumes. All episodes of the retelling appear under the “Burnings” tag.)

PROSECUTOR: Please state your name and position.

HARSHMAN: I am Detective Leo Harshman of the county police. My jurisdiction includes both Westview and Centerville.

PROSECUTOR: And you were the lead detective for the Village Booksmith fire, correct?

HARSHMAN: Yes, I was.

PROSECUTOR: In your own words, can you describe the events of the night of September 16?

HARSHMAN: I got a routine call to investigate a code 11-71C.

PROSECUTOR: 11-71C? Can you explain to the court what that means?

HARSHMAN: 11-71 is a standard police code for fire. We add the letter C to mean the fire is known or suspected to be caused by Ed Crankshaft.

SPECTATOR: Hey! I re-assemble that remark!

THE JUDGE: (bangs gavel) The spectators will remain quiet at all times. Please continue, Detective Harshman.

HARSHMAN: The dispatcher gave an address, which means it didn’t happen at Crankshaft’s house, which  is a little unusual. But I knew the address was right next door.

PROSECUTOR: You were familiar with the address?

HARSHMAN: Yes, local first responders know Mr. Crankshaft personally.

PROSECUTOR: What happened when you responded to the call?

HARSHMAN: Well, 11-71C has a reputation for being, well, a waste of the officer’s time. We usually give them to rookies. 

THE JUDGE: Detective Harshman, we’ve had a talk about you maintaining a professional tone when you’re giving testimony. It is common for people involved in the case to be spectators in the courtroom, which is clearly happening right now.

HARSHMAN: I’m sorry, Your Honor. Anyway, when I got the scene, it was obvious this was something different. There was creosote oil poured  all over the place, and the victim Lillian McKenzie was unusually distressed. I called the state arson investigator to come out, and secured the crime scene.

PROSECUTOR: What did securing the crime scene entail?

HARSHMAN: I marked off the area with tape, told Lillian not to use or let anyone use the burned stairs, and that she had to close the bookstore until further notice.

PROSECUTOR: What was her response to that?

HARSHMAN: She – said she would not comply with this lawful order. Her exact words were, “My neighborhood isn’t zoned business, the town can’t tell me what to do.”

PROSECUTOR: What happened after that?

HARSHMAN: I added her comment to my report in case somebody got hurt and tried to sue the town, and made a mental note to report her to the state Attorney General. Again. 

PROSECUTOR: Let me rephrase that. What happened later in the evening?

HARSHMAN: There was a call for a 10-100, Civil Disturbance, at the same address, about 2:30 in the morning.

PROSECUTOR: What did you think was happening?

HARSHMAN: I had no idea. The whole thing made no sense. It was an obvious arson, and the last thing an arsonist would do is go back to the scene later that night. Whoever committed this arson obviously didn’t know what they were doing. 

PROSECUTOR: You responded to the second call? 

HARSHMAN: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: Please describe what happened.

HARSHMAN: When I pulled up to the house the second time, people started running off in all directions. It looked like a high school party was breaking up because the cops arrived. That’s honestly what I thought it was, but about half the people stayed.

PROSECUTOR: Who were those people?

HARSHMAN: Mostly neighbors, and friends of Lillian and the bookstore. I recognized Harry Dinkle, The World’s Greatest Band Director.

THE JUDGE: Mr. Harshman, please do not give your opinion unless you are asked for it.

HARSHMAN: No, Your Honor, I wasn’t. That’s actually his legal name. He changed it to that.

THE JUDGE: I apologize, Officer.

HARSHMAN: Shall I continue?

THE JUDGE: Please do.

HARSHMAN: The people at the scene were counter-protestors, and told us they were supporting Lillian McKenzie against some protestors. Something about some book, “Fahrenheit” something. I called in a 10-101 for assistance with the public disturbance, and asked officers to pull over anyone who appeared to be running from the scene, or was out driving in the middle of the night. There was a good chance one of these people was our arsonist. I also made one arrest at the scene.

PROSECUTOR: Who did you arrest at the scene and why?

HARSHMAN: Pete Roberts-Reynolds, the owner of Montoni’s Pizza. He was charged with a 5th degree felony under section 2921.31, for interfering with a police investigation.

PROSECUTOR: What did he do?

HARSHMAN: I said earlier that I secured the crime scene with tape. Roberts-Reynolds had removed some of the tape, and was wearing it as some kind of costume.

PROSECUTOR: What did you do next?

HARSHMAN: I brought Roberts-Reynolds back to the station for questioning, formally charged him, and released him on his own recognizance about 5 AM. He seemed very tired, he had these bags under his eyes. But we determined he was not a suspect in the arson, just a mo– misguided person.

PROSECUTOR: Were there any other arrests?

HARSHMAN: No arrests, but several people were caught by other officers, and many of them were charged with misdemeanors.

PROSECUTOR: What were they charged with?

HARSHMAN: Most of them were under 18, so mostly curfew violations.

PROSECUTOR: Lillian McKenzie testified that the protestors dispersed when she pointed out her surveillance camera. Did you review the video?

HARSHMAN: There was no video to review.

PROSECUTOR: Why not?

HARSHMAN: Because that’s not a camera, that’s a floodlight. That doesn’t even look like a camera. If that was a camera, it was pointed the same place as where the fire started, and I would have had to do a lot less police work to do.

(My retelling of The Burnings continues. All episodes of the retelling appear under the “Burnings” tag.)

(Blaise Ashcomb, having sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, testifies as follows:)

PROSECUTION: Let us now move to the Village Booksmith fire. Can you briefly describe your investigation of that fire?

ASHCOMB: The fire was put out before I got there, and no one was injured. So my first task was to identify and interview witnesses. But when I got there, everybody was already in a huge conversation about book burning. I thought this was very strange. 

PROSECUTION: Why was this strange?

ASHCOMB: When I was walking up to the scene, it looked like a minor cigarette butt fire or something like that. It was way too early to establish if the fire was even intentional, much less a specific motive for it. But they were right in the middle of it. I thought maybe they saw something, or knew more than the newspaper did about this supposed protest. But they didn’t.

PROSECUTION: Who was there? 

ASHCOMB: The neighbors, their adult daughter, the grandfather Ed Crankshaft, and a darker-skinned couple.

PROSECUTION: What did they tell you?

ASHCOMB: Well, the dark-skinned couple didn’t say anything relevant, and didn’t stay long. But the rest of them all bought that newspaper story about the Booksmellers fire. This fire was lit on the 16th, and the Booksmellers fire was on the 5th. And I just said we had ruled the Booksmellers fire accidental by then.

PROSECUTION: Did the witnesses say anything else?

ASHCOMB: Ed Crankshaft started telling me this absurd story about how being unable to read cost him a shot at the major leagues. I remember thinking “yeah, buddy, I’d be quarterback of the Browns if I didn’t tweak my knee in high school.”

PROSECUTION: To be fair, you’d probably be better than DeShaun Watson.

ASHCOMB: Heh. That’s probably true.

PROSECUTION: Anything else?

ASHCOMB: Ed Crankshaft vehemently denied having anything to do with the fire.

PROSECUTION: Did you believe him?

ASHCOMB: Yes, because it quickly became apparent that he had no involvement.

PROSECUTION: Why did you believe Mr. Crankshaft had no involvement in this fire when his, uh, propensity for starting fires is well-known?

ASHCOMB: This fire was clearly the work of an amateur, and Ed Crankshaft is no amateur. He’s actually kind of a genius. Do you know how much energy it takes to launch a 35-pound backyard grill into orbit? Escape velocity is 25,000 miles an hour. And that’s at the equator. Imagine being almost halfway up the globe, and getting a non-aerodynamic object moving that fast, using only store brand lighter fluid. And he’s done this many, many, many times. The laws of thermodynamics don’t seem to exist around Ed Crankshaft. NASA should hire him to build rocket engines. It’s crazy.

PROSECUTION: Why did you think this fire was the work of an amateur?

ASHCOMB: The huge puddles of unignited accelerant at the scene, for starters. That’s a smoking gun for arson. Also, the failure to ignite all the accelerants kept the fire small, almost as if the firestarter didn’t want to do too much damage. They also used a particular accelerant, one that was very easy to track down.

PROSECUTION: And what was that?

ASHCOMB: Creosote oil. It’s a yellowish-brown liquid. There were also traces of gasoline, maybe because they stored it in a container that previously held gasoline. Or maybe they thought it would fool someone. Like I said, amateur. By the way, creosote oil can cause cancer.

PROSECUTION: So this was definitely an arson attack?

ASHCOMB: 100 percent.

PROSECUTION: Did you rule out any other possibilities?

ASHCOMB: It was also quickly apparent that Lillian McKenzie did not start the fire.

PROSECUTION: Why is that?

ASHCOMB: She was inside her house when the fire started, and when I interviewed her, she was pretty shaken up by the attack. But mainly, she had no motive.

PROSECUTION: Why not?

ASHCOMB: Insurance fraud is a major motive for arson, so it’s something I always have to consider. But Lillian’s business was completely uninsurable. She basically hung a plank outside her house and declared her attic “The Village Booksmith.” It doesn’t have any kind of business licensing, much less business insurance. And the fire was so small she wouldn’t have met her deductible anyway. It made no sense from an insurance fraud perspective. And she wouldn’t start an insurance fire at the most fire-resistant point of the house.

PROSECUTION: Can you explain what you mean by that?

ASHCOMB: Much of the McKenzie house, including the stairs, was made out of fire-resistant wood. Clearly Lillian took some extra precautions after a few Crankshaft grill incidents. She wouldn’t have started the fire on the bottom steps, unless she wanted it to fail right away. Which makes no sense in an insurance fraud scenario, or other rational motives like concealment of something. But it does make sense in terms of what we later learned about the firestarter.