Backdraft Page #5

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Mr. Bartel's fitness report,

his I.D. 44, endorsement from his section warden.

Dr. Norris?

As supervising psychiatrist, I would describe...

Mr. Bartel's progress as remarkable.

Taking into account his disability and the six years...

he's already served, I recommend a parole.

Mr. Bartel,

do you regret your crimes?

Yes, and--

and I'm aware of the pain that I have caused.

If released, will you commit these crimes again?

No. No, I won't.

Do you consider yourself ready for society?

Yes, I do.

Yeah, right, Ronald. You're ready, all right.

- Excuse me.

- Excuse me.

- Shadow.

- Remember this?

Remember this, Ronald?

- Remember who it belonged to?

- Mm-hmm.

What did you do to that little girl?

It's not fair, Shadow.

What did you do to that little girl?

I burned her.

You burned her.

What do you do to old ladies, Ronald?

Burn them.

And what about the world, Ronald?

What would you like to do with the whole world?

Burn it all. [Laughing]

See ya next year, Ronald.

[Screams]

[Lieutenant] We figured the body's the owner, some guy named Cosgrove.

Weird blast, though, like that other guy...

who went through the windshield of his own car.

Explosion blew out the flame before the engine got here.

Good for us; not too good for him.

Bring the toolbox.

Tim, get the hot spots.

You in the cheap seats, watch it.

There's Brian.

Well, let's go.

[Rimgale] Hey, McCaffrey, need a special invitation? Come on.

Charge the line, Axe.

- What do you want me to do with this?

- Shhh.

We got heavy smoke stains observed in entry room.

[Rimgale] Smoke demarcation line is very low.

Fire never got hot enough here to cook the soot off.

Come on, you sneaky little son-of-a-b*tch.

Come on. Tell me where you came from.

Point me where you started.

Come on.

Burn indicators distended toward northern wall.

Less soot here, more heat.

Lack of discoloration in shattered glass...

indicates slow burn before explosion.

There's some little dead rat critters here.

Fire originated in this room. Took its time.

Hung out.

The air ran out. It couldn't breathe. It was snuffed.

But it wasn't dead.

Must have been all that trapped heat lying low,

waiting for some sucker to give it one big gulp of air.

Another backdraft.

This is our point of origin. Let me have a crowbar.

No sign of accelerants.

Well, if it's arson, somebody figured a new way to hide it.

[Ricco] Okay, we got Alan Seagrave...

and Donald Cosgrove.

Both deaths due to close encounters...

with stationary objects.

We have an office door for Cosgrove...

and, oh, an '87 Porsche for Seagrave.

No nonrelevant traumas.

No significant blood toxicology.

Attitude of both trajectories are consistent with explosion.

They ran the residue you scraped from both front doors.

It's a combination of plumber's putty and rayophene gum.

It burns almost completely away when you light it.

- So it was on both doors?

- Yeah.

Something else I want to show you. You're gonna have to help me.

McCaffrey, why don't you come over and help us?

No, I don't think so. Not in my contract.

I just rewrote your contract.

Come on over and help us.

Anyway, here, we're gonna have to lift him.

Great.

Christ, he's not gonna sell you insurance. Just lift him up.

Hold on.

You see that patch of shirt right there?

We wondered about the discoloration.

So I scraped a piece off and ran a spectro on it.

On a lucky shot, we picked up traces of something.

What was it?

Ah, trychtichlorate.

[Ricco] Nobody around here ever heard of it.

[Rimgale] Yeah, trychtichlorate. It eats magnesium.

It's an absorption catalyst used in toxic waste accidents.

It's rare. They stopped making it a couple of years ago.

We figured it got in his clothes in a gas state from the fire.

What was it doing in the fire?

That's your job. Okay!

[Gurgling]

[Helen] Stephen, what-- What are you doing here?

Just fixin' my roof.

You've gotta stop just showing up on the roof like this.

Look, I just-- I wanted to, I don't know, not exactly...

apologize for the other night, especially since...

- I don't remember much.

- You remember.

Yeah, I know. I just wanted to say, I don't know, something.

The great communicator.

So what's going on, Stephen?

You only bang on the roof when you got something on your mind.

How's Brian doing?

- He's out. He quit.

- He just up and quit for no reason?

I don't care what you heard, Helen, I treated him better...

than any other probie I ever had. All right?

He probably hates my guts...

but at least he finally took a look in the mirror.

So once again, Stephen's right and somebody else is wrong.

You always gotta be right.

- That's such bullshit.

- Yeah? Why?

Because I'm the first to admit it when I'm wrong.

Yeah? How often does that happen?

In a fire? Never!

He would have bought it, Helen.

I'm telling ya, maybe not today, maybe not next year;

but it would have happened. All right? He's my brother.

I couldn't just--

You just couldn't live with that.

McCaffrey.

Yeah?

Take the top off.

Holy sh*t!

That's it. That's it.

Son-of-a-b*tch! This guy is different. He don't love fire.

- Who?

- The killer.

He used magnesium to make it look like an accident.

I got it after we went to see Ronald.

Torchers want to fry the whole goddamn world.

But the fires that killed those guys never burned up that much.

The trychtichlorate hid the magnesium in the plug, but it burned slow.

And he made his burns backdrafts.

- But he killed these guys.

- Could have killed everybody.

Backdraft blew out the flame. That's it. That's the reason.

- What reason?

- Why backdrafts.

Whoever fried Seagrave and Cosgrove...

went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure they died by fire.

They also made sure that the fire blew itself out.

So that's why they used the putty in the doors.

What do we got? A torch with a conscience?

No. We got a stone killer trying to make a point.

You can make the call now. It's arson, right?

I'm not calling anyone yet.

You can't rush this. I've seen it too many times before.

I wanna make sure this torch doesn't walk.

We're gonna wait.

[Boat Horn]

Well, well, Mr. McCaffrey.

- Welcome aboard.

- Nice boat you got here.

What? You mean mine?

Well, not yet. Glad to have you as part of the team, Brian.

Let's get a picture with Mr. McCaffrey and myself.

You look good. Yeah, there you go.

Thanks. Hi.

Yeah, have fun now. Great night, isn't it?

[Swayzak] Who is that?

- Larry Dewaay.

- Come on. Larry, how are ya?

[Siren]

Hey.

- Yeah.

- How's the job going?

Okay.

Yeah? ls Rimgale getting any better?

Rimgale's Rimgale. He's just doing his job.

Doing his job? He hasn't done anything.

At this rate, he won't declare it's arson before he retires.

[Laughing And Screaming]

Will you get me out of here?

Otherwise I'm gonna have to go and pick her up.

This is it, one of the oldest fire stations in the city.

What do you think?

- It's homey.

- Shhh!

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