On cue, Cullen’s phone beeped. He fumbled it from his jeans pocket, touched the screen, and said to it, “I’m here. Hold on a sec.” He looked at Lily. “Go see if Fagin’s computer got crisped and if he has DVDs or whatever for backup. If you can’t find them, or if they’re cooked—”
“Cullen, shut up.” Lily knelt beside him, bent, and smacked a quick kiss on his forehead. “I am deeply, completely glad you’re going to be okay, but you’re not okay now. You need to rest. You need to let me do my job.” She looked at Rule. His eyes were almost normal. Almost.
She stood and went to him and touched his arm. “Time for me to work the scene.” A bombing wasn’t a Unit case, not unless they found magic involved, but she was here and no other investigator would be, not anytime soon.
“Of course. I need to stay with Cullen.”
“I know. It’s harder to be the support system, to worry about others, than it is to be the one out there risking yourself.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Darkness flickered once around his pupils, then they returned to normal. Or almost normal. “That has always been true. Would Scott be any help to you?”
Rule wasn’t going to talk to her about it right now. Whatever “it” was. She looked at the bespectacled wolf in geek’s clothing. “Sure. I might be able to use his nose.”
First, though, Lily sent Scott to scrounge for some items she needed. She had her purse but not her evidence kit, so she’d be improvising. While he was on his scavenger hunt, she made a phone call.
Maybe she’d find some DVDs or a flash drive in Fagin’s library. Maybe the data on the hard drive would be recoverable. But there was another possibility that might be even faster. Fagin might have backed up online. He was probably used to doing that at Harvard, which might still have his files. Or he could’ve used one of the commercial online backup services. She called one of the agents Croft had sent to guard Fagin at the hospital.
Turned out Cates was on his way here with the vial of blood and Fagin was in treatment, but Richards would ask him about backup once the doctors let him.
Time to get to work. While she waited to hear from whatever expert Ida found, she took her phone to the porch and set it to camera mode.
The porch was compromised from being occupied by many sets of feet, but she took a couple photos of it anyway, then a few more of the bay window. She moved closer so she could shoot inside the library.
The rear of the room looked untouched. The center was blackened. The desk Cullen and Fagin had sheltered behind was a charred hulk. Lily assumed the plastic blob on top of it had been a computer a couple hours ago.
The fire had melted the computer before Cullen could put it out. She didn’t know exactly how long it took Cullen to do that, but she was guessing no more than a fistful of seconds. How did a fire get that hot that fast? Some kind of accelerant, obviously, but she didn’t know much about the makeup of firebombs.
Lily got pictures of the window frame, then of the floor. The burn pattern was clear even to her ignorant eyes—roughly circular, originating five to nine feet this side of the desk that had shielded Cullen and Fagin. She got some pics of that from the window, then headed for the door. She’d enter the library from its undamaged rear. Even if Scott hadn’t found any Baggies yet, she could start making sketches and notes, but—
Her phone chimed. After a quick glance at the number, she answered it. “Special Agent Yu here.”
“This is former CSO Rod Uddley,” a hearty male voice announced. “Retired now, but I’ve worked more bombings than anyone in the country, living or dead. The Bureau likes me so much they let me teach the babies now and then, and now and then they pay me big bucks to consult. I understand you want a consult.”
“I do. Did Ida brief you on my situation?”
Captain Uddley said she had indeed and congratulated Lily on having the good sense to ask for help.
“I need help establishing priorities. I may only have an hour to work the scene. I may have all afternoon and part of the evening. It depends on how long it takes to get the elemental to agree to let us out. I need to know what to do in that first hour.”
He asked a few questions. Lily paused just inside the front door to answer, sent him the pictures she’d already taken, and then told him what Cullen had reported about the smell of the explosion. “I’ve got another lupus standing by in case his nose might be of use.”
“Ah! Yes, that might help. That might indeed help. They’re supposed to have a very keen sense of smell.”
“It’s strongest when they’re in wolf form, so I’ll ask Scott to Change.”
“Excellent. First I need to look over those pictures you sent me. Hold on a moment.”
Scott came out of the back of the house, carrying a plastic grocery sack. “Baggies, trash bags, Sharpie, masking tape, paper towels.” He held it out. “I couldn’t find paper bags or a ruler.”
“Thanks.” She took the sack and reported to the hearty Uddley on what kind of crime scene equipment she had. “I’ve got my spiral, so I can take notes, make some sketches. I don’t have anything to measure with, but I can estimate shorter distances pretty well. My spread hand is eight inches from thumb to little finger, so . . . just a sec.” Scott still stood there, waiting. “Yes?”
“Is it okay if I scrounge for sandwich fixings or something? For all of us, I mean, but especially Cullen. Healing burns a lot of calories.”
And lupi shouldn’t get too hungry. “Sure, go ahead. I won’t need you right away, but eat quick, just in case.”
He headed for the back of the house. Lily did, too, stopping at the doorway into the library. “We’re going to do this bass-ackwards,” Uddley boomed cheerfully in her ear. “Could all blow up in our faces, but we’ll go for it anyway.”
“I’m not following you.”
“When you work a scene, you never start with a theory and look for evidence to support it—but that’s what we’re going to do. It gives us a clear set of priorities, you see, in case you run out of time. Now, we know we’ve got an incendiary device, not a true bomb—not much blast, plenty of burn. According to your witness, there were two projectiles.”
“According to one of them, yes. The other—Dr. Fagin—I haven’t interviewed him yet. His injuries needed attention.”
“Two projectiles fits my theory. They wanted to break the window first so they could get their incendiary device well into the room before it broke and started burning everything. The witness you interviewed is a lupus, yes?”
She agreed that he was.
“Excellent. It’s his description of the smells that all but clinches it. Good man. Observant. I’m betting someone tossed an SIP.”
“Okaaay.”
A quick, booming laugh. “Jargon’s a bitch. Sorry. SIP stands for self-igniting phosphorus. The original SIPs were made during World War II by the British, but were never used in combat. Too dangerous to the user. They’re a take on the good old Molotov cocktail, though more sophisticated chemically. Easy to make. You put white or yellow phosphorus—that’s the garlic smell—mixed with benzene, water, and a bit of rubber into a glass bottle. Benzene smells sweet, see? Like your lupus reported. You throw your bottle at a hard surface. It breaks, the ingredients ignite, and you get a quick, hot fire, caustic smoke, and fumes from phosphorous pentoxide and sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide—that and phosphorus make a burned match smell, and it’s also a key ingredient in smog. It all fits. So here’s what we’ll do.”
Uddley went on to give her a quick précis of what she would do in the first hour and what would come later, if she had more time. He assured her he could stay on the phone with her all day, if necessary—“No need to rush on my account! It’s all billable hours!” They’d keep the line open, but she’d need both hands to work the scene, so she put her phone on speaker and clipped it to her waistband.