SERIES: CRIME FILE INVESTIGATIONS

. Intro & Preamble Note: ‘Body of Evidence’ – includes cast and personnel list/glossary of terms

Burton walked into the restaurant’s kitchen; its stainless steel and tile surfaces were covered in soggy soot and burnt debris. The sprinklers had been shut off over an hour ago, but the overhead fixtures still dripped steadily. He brought head chef Nathan Olivo in with him, careful to keep the distraught man away from any evidence.

“I hope you like your steak well done,” said Mike Trellis, Burton’s CSI technician. He specialised in arson investigation and bad jokes. Burton laughed, the chef did not.

Trellis was using a fuel sniffer, which looked like a small cane attached to a lunch box, to check areas of the kitchen for traces of accelerant. Petrol and paraffin were the most common, but he had seen arsonists use everything from Silly String to hair spray to start a fire.

“What happened here?” Burton asked.

“It was about half an hour after we closed. We were all in the bar toasting the end of the night when the kitchen just blew up. I started the toast tradition a few weeks ago when we got a mediocre review in the local restaurant guide. The toast is supposed to build morale and create team atmosphere – everyone was pretty down after that review. But the bad food wasn’t our fault, it was the stove.”

“The stove?” Burton said. “Was there a problem with it?”

“Problem? It was a piece of garbage,” Olivo said. “Always burning entrées, scalding sauces and stinking of gas; the pilot light for one of the burners kept going out. I asked the manufacturers to replace it several times, but they refused, saying it was fine.”

Trellis walked over to the blackened stove, the sniffer leading the way.

“Thank you, Mr Olivo,” Burton said, leading him towards the door. “Please step outside with the other employees and we’ll finish up in here.”

Burton shined his flashlight around the kitchen. “The room looks like there was a sudden explosion rather than a slow burn,” he said. “And soot is covering just about every surface in here – walls, counters and especially the ceiling and ceiling fans – so whatever happened, it sent residue everywhere. But what burned in order to make the soot? Soot results from imperfect burning, and gas burns cleanly, with no residue. I can’t believe the kitchen had enough dust to cause this mess.” Burton looked again at the ceiling and the black film covering it. “Wait a minute. Were the ceiling fans on when the kitchen blew?”

Trellis checked his notes. “The fan switch was in the on position, but the explosion knocked out the electricity, so they weren’t spinning for long. The big exhaust ducts up there were off for the night.”

“Let’s try to get a fingerprint off that fan switch,” Burton said. He climbed onto the stainless-steel island in the middle of the kitchen and took a closer look at one of the ceiling fans. It was caked with black soot, as was the ceiling above it. He reached above the fan and ran his finger along the top side of one of the blades. It came back with a white substance on it. Burton smelled it once, then touched it to his tongue.

“Mmm. Tastes like arson,” he said.

How did he know?

– Author’s note: No solution to this case will be made public.