“Did she answer?” Mike asked.

“No. Not then. I didn’t hear anything. I figured maybe she wasn’t home. I ran up to my apartment, filled a pitcher with water, and came back down to douse whatever was still smoking. Figured the other firemen must have gone off to a bigger job and that the last one-the guy who almost plowed me down-was trying to catch up with them.”

The sergeant passed the bag to Mercer, who put on a pair of latex gloves from his pocket before opening it.

“It’s when I went downstairs the second time that I heard Tina.”

“What did you hear, exactly?” I asked.

Billy cocked his head and answered. “I knocked again, just because I was worried that the firemen might have left her there even though there was still something smoldering in the hallway. She was weeping loudly, then pausing, like to inhale.”

“Words,” Mike said. “Did she speak any words?”

“No, but I did. I told Tina it was me, asked her if she was all right. I was coughing myself from the smoke. I told her she could come up to my apartment.”

“Did she answer you?”

“No. She just cried.”

“How do you know it’s Tina Barr you were talking to?” Mike asked.

Billy hesitated. “Well, at that point-I, uh-I just assumed it, Detective. She lives there alone.”

“What next?”

“I went home to get a bucket and broom. Swept some of the trash into the bucket to throw out on the street-”

Mike glanced at the sergeant. “Yeah, we got it, Chapman. Looks like amateur smoke bombs.”

“The sobbing was so bad by then, I called 911, from my cell. Maybe she was sick, overcome by the smoke. I waited out here on the stoop till the officers came. Three minutes. Not much longer. That’s when Tina went berserk. That’s when I knew it was her, for sure. I recognized her voice, when she was yelling at the cops.”