Demolition Angel (29 page)

The window hung there.

WILL YOU ACCEPT A MESSAGE FROM MR. RED?

Starkey opened the window.

Starkey knew it had to be a joke.

Starkey went for her briefcase. She looked up Pell’s hotel number and called him there. Getting no answer, she phoned his pager.

She stared at the words, then checked the time and knew that it couldn’t be Pell; he didn’t have a computer. It must be
Bergen. Bergen was probably a pervert, and he was the only other person besides Pell who knew about HOTLOAD.

Starkey stared at the messager, irritated.

Starkey’s phone rang, Pell calling back.

She said, “I think we’ve got a problem with Bergen. I’m on Claudius. This window just pops up, and whoever it is knows that I’m Hotload. He says that he’s Mr. Red.”

“Blow him off, Carol. It must be Bergen. I’ll see about him tomorrow.”

When Starkey put down the phone, the message was hanging there, waiting. She stared at it, but made no move to respond.

John Michael Fowles signed off Claudius. He broke the cell phone connection through which he had signed on to the net and settled back, pushing the iBook aside. The moonlit shade felt good after the heat of the day, sitting there on the quiet street.

His car was parked just up the block from Starkey’s house, in the dense shadows of an elm tree heavy with summer leaves. He could see her house from here. He could see the lights in her windows. He watched.

Dallas Tennant carried the ammonia in a paper cup, pretending it was coffee. He blew on it and pretended to sip, the sharp fumes cutting into his nose, making his eyes water.

“Night, Mr. Riley.”

“Good night, Dallas. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mr. Riley was still at his desk, finishing the day’s paperwork. Dallas raised the cup to him.

“Is it all right if I take the coffee back to my cell?”

“Oh, sure. That’s fine. Is there any more in the pot?”

Dallas looked pained, and held out the cup.

“This was the last, Mr. Riley. I’m sorry. I’ve washed the pot. Would you like me to make another before I go? Would you like this one?”

Riley waved him off and turned back to his work.

“That’s all right. I’ll be leaving soon enough. You enjoy it, Dallas.”

Dallas bid Riley good night again, then let himself out. He hid the ammonia in a supply closet long enough to stop at the infirmary for his meds, then continued on to his room, walking more quickly because he was anxious to make the explosive. True, he had promised Mr. Red that he would wait a few days,
but Dallas would have mixed the Explosive D yesterday as soon as Mr. Red had gone, if he had had the ammonia and a detonation system. He didn’t, so, earlier this morning when Mr. Riley was gone for lunch, Dallas had signed on to the Internet and printed out pornographic pictures from web sites in Amsterdam and Thailand. He had traded photographs of whores having sex with horses for the ammonia, and Asian women fisting each other for the match heads and cigarettes that he would use as a detonator. Once those things were in his possession, he had spent the rest of the day growing so anxious to mix his new toy that he was damn near running by the time he reached his cell.

Dallas waited long minutes by the door, making sure that no one was coming along the hall, then huddled at the foot of his bed with the two plastic bags and the cup of ammonia. Mr. Red’s instructions were simple: Pour the ammonia in the bag with the powder, mix it well until the powder was dissolved, then pour that mixture into the bag with the paste. Mr. Red had warned him that this second bag would get warm as the two substances mixed, but that the mixture would stiffen to a tacky paste, sort of like plastique, and the explosive would then be active.

Dallas poured the ammonia into the first bag, zipped the top, and kneaded it to dissolve the powder. He planned to make the explosive, then spend the rest of the night fantasizing about setting it off in one of the metal garbage cans behind the commissary. Just thinking about the can coming apart, the crack of thunder that was going to snap across the yard, made him aroused.

When the powder was dissolved, Dallas was preparing to pour the solution into the second bag when he heard the guard approaching.

“Tennant? You get your meds okay?”

Dallas pushed the bags under his legs, bending like he was untying his shoes. The guard was staring in at him through the bars.

“Sure did, Mr. Winslow. You can check with’m, if you want. I went by there.”

“No problem, Tennant. I’ll see them later this evening. I just wanted to make sure you remembered.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

The guard started away, then paused and frowned. Dallas’s heart hammered; sweat sprouted over his back.

“You okay in there, Tennant?”

“Yes, sir. Why?”

“You’re bent over all hunched.”

“I have to poo.”

The guard considered that, then nodded.

“Well, don’t shit your pants, Dallas. You’ve got about an hour till lights out.”

Dallas listened as the footsteps faded, then went to the door to peek up and down the hall before resuming his work. He opened the second bag, balanced it between his legs, then added the powder solution. He sealed the top and kneaded the second bag. Just as Mr. Red had told him, the bag grew warm.

What Mr. Red hadn’t told him was that the contents would turn bright purple.

Tennant was excited, and concerned. Earlier that day, when he had finished downloading the pornography, he had web-searched a couple of explosives sites and read about ammonium picrate. He had learned that it was a strong, stable explosive, easy to store and use, and safe (as far as such things go) because of its stability. But both articles had also described ammonium picrate as a white, crystalline powder; not a purple paste.

The bag grew warmer.

Tennant stopped kneading. He looked at the paste in the bag. It was swelling the way yeasty bread dough swells, as if it was filling with tiny bubbles of gas.

Tennant opened the bag and sniffed. The smell was terrible.

Two thoughts flashed in Dallas Tennant’s mind. One, that Mr. Red couldn’t have been wrong; if he said this was ammonium
picrate, then it must be ammonium picrate. Two, that some explosives don’t require a detonator. Dallas had read about that once, about substances that explode just by being mixed together. There was a word for reactions like that, but Dallas couldn’t remember it.

He was still trying to recall that word when the purple substance detonated, separating his arms and rocking Atascadero so deeply that all the alarms and water sprinklers went off.

The word was “hypergolic.”

Starkey tried to ignore the way Marzik was staring at her. Marzik had finished interviewing the laundry people without finding anyone else who had seen the 911 caller and was supposed to be writing a report to that effect, but there she was, kicked back, arms crossed, squinting at Starkey. She had been watching Starkey for most of the morning, probably hoping that Starkey would ask why, but Starkey ignored her.

Finally, Marzik couldn’t stand it anymore and wheeled her chair closer.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’m looking at you.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Liar. I’ve been admiring that Mona Lisa smile you’re sporting today.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That smile right there beneath your nose, the one that says you bit the bullet and got yourself a fed-kabob.”

“You always take something sweet and make it gross.”

Marzik broke into a nasty grin.

“I WAS RIGHT!”

Every detective in the squad room looked. Starkey was mortified.

“You’re not right. Nothing like that happened.”

“Something
must’ve happened. I haven’t seen you this mellow since I’ve known you.”

Starkey frowned.

“The change has come early. You should try it.”

Marzik laughed, and pushed her chair back to her desk.

“I’d be willing to try whatever put that grin on your face. I’d try it
twice.”

Starkey’s phone rang while Marzik was still smirking. It was Janice Brockwell, calling from the ATF lab in Rockville, Maryland.

“Hi, Detective. I’m phoning about the matter we discussed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“In the seven bombing events that we attribute to Mr. Red, we have six usable end caps, out of an estimated twenty-eight end caps used in the devices. I broke the six and determined that the joint tape was wrapped in a clockwise direction each time.”

“They were all wrapped in the same direction?”

“Clockwise. That’s right. You should know that the six end caps are from five different devices used in three cities. I consider this significant, Detective. We’re going to include this as part of Mr. Red’s signature in the National Repository and forward it along as an alert to our field offices. I’ll copy my report to you via snail mail for your files.”

Starkey’s palms were cold, and her heart pounded. If Mr. Red wrapped the joint tape in the same direction every time, why had the Silver Lake bomb been wrapped in the
opposite
direction?

Starkey wanted to shout at Hooker and Marzik.

Brockwell said, “You did good, Detective Starkey. Thanks for the assist.”

Starkey put down the phone, trying to decide what to do. She was excited, but she wanted to be careful and not overreact. A small thing like the direction in which that tape was wrapped might have meant nothing, but now meant everything. It did not fit within the pattern. It was a difference, and therefore it meant that the Silver Lake bomb was different.

Starkey paced to the coffee machine to burn off energy,
then returned to her desk. Mr. Red was smart. He knew that his devices were recovered, that the analyses were shared. He knew that federal, state, and local bomb investigators would study these things and build profiles of him. Part of the thrill for him was believing that he was smarter than the men and women who were trying to catch him. That was why he etched the names, why he hunted bomb technicians, why he had left the false device in Miami. He would enjoy playing with their minds, and what better way to play than change a single small component of his signature just to create doubt, to make investigators like Carol Starkey
doubt
.

If the bomb was different, you had to ask
why?
And the most obvious answer to that was also the most terrible.
Because a different person had built it
.

Starkey wanted to think it through. She wanted to be absolutely certain before she brought it back to Kelso.

“Hey, Beth?”

Marzik glanced over.

“I’ve got to get out of here for a few minutes. I’m on pager, okay?”

“Whatever.”

Starkey walked the few short blocks to Philippe’s, smoking. She knew bombs, she knew bombers. She decided that Mr. Red would not change his profile, even to taunt the police. He was too much about being known; he didn’t want them to doubt who they were dealing with; he wanted them to
know
it. The very fact of his signature screamed that he wanted the police to be absolutely certain with whom they were dealing. Mr. Red wanted his victory to be clear.

At Philippe’s, Starkey bought a cup of coffee, sat alone at one of the long tables, and lit a fresh cigarette. It was illegal to smoke in the restaurant, but the customer load was light and no one said anything.

I did not kill Charles Riggio
.

The feds had multiple suspect descriptions from the Miami
library as well as earlier sightings, all of which described Red as a man in his late twenties. Yet Lester Ybarra had described a man in his forties, as had the old man in Tennant’s duplex. If Mr. Red had not built this bomb, then someone else had built it, someone who had gone to great lengths to make the bomb appear to be Mr. Red’s work. Starkey finally said the word to herself:
Copycat
.

Copycats were most common in serial killer and serial rapist crimes. Hearing frequent news coverage of such crimes could trigger the predisposed into thinking they could get away with a one-shot homicide, using the copycat crime to cover a motive that was far removed from an insane desire to kill or an overpowering rage against women. The perpetrator almost always believed that the cover of the other crimes would mask his true intent, which was typically revenge, money, or the elimination of a rival. In almost all cases, the copycat did not know the full details of the crimes because those details had not been released. All the copycat knew was what he or she had read in the papers, which was invariably wrong.

Yet this copycat knew all the details of how Mr. Red constructed his bombs except for the one thing that had never appeared in the bomb analysis reports: the direction that Mr. Red had wrapped the plumber’s tape.

Starkey watched the smoke drift off her cigarette in a lazy thread, uncomfortable with the direction of her thoughts. The pool of suspects who knew the exact components of Mr. Red’s bombs, and how he put those components together, was small.