The road flare was another clue that the guy was a rank amateur. Professional torches usually want their handiwork to look accidental; they almost never use that sort of pyrotechnic device to start a fire. Road flares can burn at more than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, leaving a distinctive scorching pattern and unique chemical signature, both of which will make an arson investigator sit up and take notice.Once I’d collected the flare as evidence, I began searching to see if our bumbling burn artist had dropped anything else, but came up dry. After that, I turned my attention to the shoulder of the road and was disappointed to see that the ground was too gravelly to have retained any tire impressions. However, I did find the two different spots where the arsonist had crossed over a small and grassy embankment to enter and leave the field. Carefully ascending the bank, I shined my flashlight down at the moist farm soil and admired the most perfect shoe impressions I’d ever seen in my law enforcement career.
