In the silence of the night, the phone rings in the distance. Funny thing is that I already know what it’s about, it’s time for work. Getting out of bed is a struggle, but there isn’t much of a choice as this point. The call was short and simple, just the address and whatever background info behind the case. The car ride isn’t all that bad, just utter silence. Arson case, not surprised since these happen constantly, this should be fun.

One of the officers gives me a run-down of what happened, everything that there is needed to know about the case. The officers in this town are some of the best, don’t know what we could do without them. The house is burned to ash, so the fire must’ve been crazy. The report says that the fire spread quickly throughout the house so it can’t be a simple oven fire, those don’t spread quickly enough for the family to not notice in time. Hard to say if it was an explosion or not considering all of the evidence of an impact was burnt to the ground. It would be smart to have one of the officers check any gas lines on the property. There was no hard clues to what might have caused the fire anywhere. There has to be something within the wasteland of ashes that could be useful for the investigation.

It’s about four-thirty in the morning. There still isn’t much to work with at this point but the investigation is long from over. Some of the officers are talking to neighbors who might have witnessed the fire, A backstory from someone outside the family who’s house burned down will come in handy. Reports from the officers don’t look good, none of the neighbors actually witnessed the fire. Great, something to make the job that much easier for all of us. So far all we know is that it might have been an explosion, although not confirmed at the moment. Usually fires don’t end up getting this big, so someone must know that setting one off would leave very few traces of evidence.

It’s about five-fifteen right now. An officer comes up and presents what looks like to be a used book of matches. This is absolutely perfect, this could be the breakthrough of the investigation. This cannot be ruined, so the officer takes it back and secures it in an airlock bag. Hopefully we can get a fingerprint and name of the person who had the matches in possession. For the time being, it would be wise to put together what we have.

Hours pass before the fingerprint was analyzed. Apparently the person was someone that the family knew personally, a family friend of the man who owned the house. From what was said, they weren’t getting along that well. The man’s friend had asked him for five thousand dollars to help pay off a remaining loan that he had taken out two months prior. The man refused to help his friend because he felt like paying off the loan wasn’t his responsibility. According to the reports, it had been a month since they last communicated.

It all makes sense now. The man’s friend was upset that he was unable to pay off the loan because he wasn’t being bailed out. So in retribution, he tried to take out the family by burning the house down in the middle of the night. The story adds up and it’s time to bring him to justice.