Hellbox (Nameless Detective) (26 page)

In the kitchen, Runyon slaked his thirst with a glass of cold water from the fridge. He knew he should eat, but he would have choked on anything solid he tried to swallow. He went back through the living room, out onto the front deck.

Still early-morning cool, but the clouds were gone, and already there was a whitish dazzle in the blue overhead. You could feel the heat gathering. Another sweltering day coming up, probably hotter than yesterday.

But he didn’t want to think about that. He sat at the table, his hands flat on the cold glass top, and stared out over the valley without seeing any of it. Going over the Balfour fragments yet again, trying to shape them into a pattern that had some meaning.

Psychotic driven by hate and hunger for vengeance. Rigged the explosion that killed Verriker’s wife. Tried to kill Verriker before heading for the backwoods with an arsenal of weapons.

Drove around with Kerry in that camper of his for half of another day before leaving her somewhere.
Had
to be a purpose in that. Nothing else he’d done had been aimless, unplanned.

Sticky gray substance that wasn’t clay or mud. And couldn’t have been on his hands or the steering wheel very long.

Sawdust.

Payback. Asshole valley.

Hellbox.

The pieces were like parts in a disassembled template that wouldn’t connect. He strained to get a mental grip on them, manipulate and force them together. They kept glancing off each other, as if the pieces were antimagnetized.

Payback. Asshole Valley.

Dark gray stuff that looked and felt like modeling clay.

Sawdust.

Hellbox.

Last breath, last laugh—

From somewhere down on the road below, a sudden series of popping noises disturbed the morning stillness. Runyon tensed until he identified the sounds: a string of firecrackers going off. Undisciplined kids getting an early start on the Fourth. He’d almost forgotten the holiday, the big celebration coming up in Six Pines. Parade, picnic, speeches, fireworks—

Fireworks.

Explosions.

Explosive devices.

He went rigid. And the pieces came flying together like digital images interlocking, until they formed the template of Balfour’s last planned act of vengeance. Insane, monstrous, but the pieces fit too well, explained too many things, for it not to be right.

Runyon stood so suddenly that the chair went skidding backward, toppled over. He ran inside, back to the master bedroom. Caught Bill’s shoulder and shook him, lightly at first, then harder.

“Wake up, Bill. Wake up.”

Bill’s eyes flicked open, blinking up half focused and groggy. But the grogginess lasted only a few seconds; he threw it off as if it were a heavy blanket, sat up scraping a hand over his face. “What is it? You’ve heard something?”

“No,” Runyon said, “but I think I may have figured out what Balfour was up to last night.”

“My God, Jake … you mean what he did with Kerry?”

“If I’m right, yes. He was crazier than any of us realized. It wasn’t just Verriker he hated and wanted revenge against, it was everybody in Green Valley. Asshole Valley to him. Pay back Asshole Valley for all the ridicule heaped on him … that’s what his dying words meant.”

“But how—?”

“That stuff on his hands … malleable plastic explosive, probably some crude homemade version of C-4 or Semtex. Got it from whoever supplied him with the illegal weapons. Rigged another explosive death trap last night, only this one in a place where it’d take out a whole bunch of people.”

Bill saw it, too, now. He was off the bed, scrambling into his pants. “The fairgrounds. Somewhere under the grandstand…”

“No. Too open, too much chance of it being spotted.”

“Then … Christ! That storage unit on the construction site.”

“Has to be. The repair work was finished last night, there wouldn’t’ve been time to have the unit hauled away. That’s where the sawdust came from, that’s what Balfour meant by hellbox.”

“And where he left Kerry. Holy Mother, inside a hellbox packed with explosives!”

29

I was wild to get out of there, get to Six Pines. I tried to push past Runyon, but he blocked the doorway with his big body.

“Stay calm,” he said. “Call the law before we do anything else, get a bomb squad out to the fairgrounds—”

“No. Broxmeyer won’t be at the substation and Sadler’s back in the county seat by now—we’d have to track them down, try to convince them. Closest bomb squad is probably Sacramento. All of that could take hours.”

“We can’t just go bulling in there on our own.”

“The hell we can’t. We’ve got to get her out of that death trap
now
.”

“Fairgrounds won’t be open yet. It’s barely seven-thirty.”

“Climb the goddamn fence—”

“There’ll be people around, getting ready for the parade. And we’d need a key to the unit. Broxmeyer has Balfour’s keys, or Sadler does—”

“Somebody else has keys. His helper, Perez.”

I shook off Runyon’s hand, shouldered past him, and ran into the kitchen. There was a phone book on the counter; I grabbed it up. Two years old. But if Perez was listed, the number might still be good.

There was a listing, with an address in Six Pines. I fumbled in my pockets, didn’t find my cell—couldn’t remember what the hell I’d done with it. But I didn’t need it; Runyon, grim-faced, had his out and flipped open. I read off the number, and he punched it in. While he waited for an answer, I stuck my head under the sink faucet and flipped on the cold-water tap. The chill shock cleared the last of the fuzz out of my head.

I grabbed a dishtowel to dry off, took the phone from Jake just as the line clicked open. A woman’s voice chattered at me in Spanish, grumbling shrewishly about being woken up at such an early hour.

My command of the language is pretty fair, if rusty from disuse. I dredged up phrases, said them in loud and imperative tones. “Eladio Perez,
por favor. Es muy importante. Una cuestión de vida o muerte.”

That got through to her. She shut up for a couple of seconds. Then,
“¿Quién está llamando?”

“Dígale el detective cuya esposa falta.”

“Ah, sí, sí. Momentito.”

Five, ten, fifteen seconds. Then Eladio Perez’s voice said, “Yes, señor, I remember you. What is it you want?”

I told him. Yes, he had keys to the main gate and another to a gate on the west side. Yes, he also had one to the storage unit.
Que pasa?
He hadn’t heard about Balfour yet and there was no time to enlighten him. Instead, I did some fast talking, stressing urgency without telling him too much, and finally convinced him to meet us with the keys.

“Ten minutes, Eladio.
Gracias
.” I broke the connection, tossed Runyon’s cell back to him, and headed for the door. If he hesitated in following, it was for no more than a couple of seconds.

In the car, rolling, he said, “I don’t like this, Bill.”

“You don’t have to like it. My decision.”

“I know that. But it’s a hell of a big risk. What if Balfour booby-trapped the shed door so it’ll detonate when it’s opened?”

As strung out as I was, the possibility hadn’t occurred to me before. I thought about it as we cut down toward the valley road. “I don’t see it, Jake. He wouldn’t have expected anybody to open the storage unit today, a holiday—the construction work’s finished, Perez wouldn’t have any reason to use his key. And Balfour wasn’t an explosives expert. Anybody can rig a gas-leak explosion—anybody can slap up a bunch of plastic explosive and wire detonators to a timer. That has to be what he did, all he did.”

“You can’t be sure. A timer, yeah, but set to blow this afternoon when the picnic’s in full swing and the grounds are jammed with people. There’s still time to do this the right way, the safe way.”

“Maybe, but that’s something we can’t be sure of, either. Suppose it’s set to go off this morning? Suppose he miscalculated or the timer malfunctions?”

Runyon didn’t say anything.

“And Kerry could be badly hurt. Sick, drugged … God knows. There can’t be much air in that box. And it’ll be damn hot pretty soon.”

Still keeping his own counsel. I couldn’t read the stoic set of his face, but I knew what he was thinking. Not that I blamed him; if our places were reversed, I’d be having doubts now, too. But I still had none: Kerry was alive.

“Don’t try to change my mind, Jake. Go along when we get there, or back off and let me do it alone—I won’t hold it against you.”

The three miles to Six Pines seemed like thirty. There was traffic on the valley road, people heading in early for the holiday festivities, taking their time, clogging the road. Runyon drove as fast as he could, passing whenever he could without endangering anybody. I sat on the edge of the passenger seat, leaning forward with my hands braced against the dash, an image of that metal storage unit fire-bright behind my eyes.

People and parade vehicles were already starting to assemble at the high school—band members, one of the VFD fire trucks, horses and horse-drawn buggies, some kind of float draped with American flags. Parade started here at eleven, finished at the fairgrounds at one. If it started and finished at all.

They hadn’t yet blocked off the main drag through town, but D
ETOUR
and N
O
P
ARKING
signs had been set out. Not too many people on the sidewalks yet, or down around the fairgrounds; I didn’t see any sheriff’s department cruisers. Runyon swung right on the street that paralleled the north side of the fairgrounds, then left along the western perimeter. That street was lined with trees and a handful of widely spaced houses. After dark, it’d be mostly deserted. Balfour’s route last night, I thought—less risk of being seen going in and coming back out through the west gate.

Eladio Perez was waiting for us, standing alongside the old pickup we’d seen parked at the construction site yesterday. Runyon looped into the short driveway and braked nose up to the gate. Through the mesh I could see that it opened into the long parking area adjacent to the picnic grounds; blacktops branched off at an intersection not far inside.

I jumped out, ran over to Perez. He backed up a step, and I saw his eyes widen—probably a reaction to how I looked. “The keys, Eladio.”

Wordlessly, he handed them over: three small padlock keys on a three-inch bead chain.

I said, “Quickest way to where you were working, left road or right?”

“Left.”

“Okay. We’ll get the keys back to you.”

“Señor Balfour—”

“Don’t worry about him. Go on home, thanks for your help.”

I ran to the gate. The key with “West Gate” written on a piece of adhesive opened the padlock, but tension had made me clumsy-fingered, and it took three tries to get it slotted and turned. I shoved the gate inward, let Runyon push it out of the way with the Ford’s bumper. Jerked the passenger door open, slid back in beside him saying, “Left at the intersection.”

Shade trees flanked the blacktop in that direction, separating the parking area from the picnic grounds. Be dark along here at night, but you could drive it without lights if you knew the grounds as well as Balfour had. Where the row of trees ended, the road hooked right and intersected with the main road that led in from the front gates. Runyon cut to the right along the periphery of the grandstand and track.

After fifty yards, I could see the storage box squatting back between the concession booths and the restrooms. Sunlight shone on the metal roof and sides, giving it a glowing look like something being slowly heated in a forge. The image tied more knots in my stomach. I could feel sweat running down my back and sides.

Runyon pulled up under the tree where we’d parked yesterday. I was out of the car before it rocked to a complete stop, staggering a little on my run to the shed. He came up just as I reached the padlocked door, and when he pushed in next to me, I saw that he was carrying his flashlight.

I reached for the padlock, lost my grip on it; it clanged harshly off the metal. Runyon said, “Better let me do it.”

“You don’t have to be here—”

“The hell with that. Give me the keys.”

I let him take them in exchange for the flashlight. From far off in the still morning, incongruous given what we were facing, I could hear the high school band warming up with “America the Beautiful.”

Runyon got the padlock open, slid the staple out and let it drop on the ground with the key still in the slot. My heart had begun to race. I sucked in a breath as he eased the door open a crack.

Nothing happened.

The breath hissed out between my teeth. Jake was still holding the door in the same position, with maybe half an inch between its edge and the jamb. Carefully, he took the flashlight back with his other hand, switched it on, then put one eye close to the crack and squinted inside while he ran the beam up and down along the opening.

“Nothing that looks like a tripwire,” he said.

He widened the crack another half inch, played the light again. When I moved closer to the opening, my nostrils dilated at the mingled odors from inside. Sawdust, machine oil—and that same sickening sourness that had come out of Balfour’s camper.

“She’s in there, Jake. Kerry’s in there.”

He gave me a sideways look, then a jerky nod. “Door’s clear.”

“Go!”

Again he widened the gap. But after a couple of inches, it bound up at the bottom. Grimacing, he yanked upward on the handle. That popped the bottom edge loose and the door wobbled open all the way. He swept the flash beam through the murky interior.

It was like looking into a chamber of horrors.

Half a dozen or more blocks of plastic explosive stuck to the inside of the door and to all three walls. Detonators poked into them, trailing wires that connected to a black-boxed timing device on the floor … glowing-red numerals showed it set for one-thirty, half an hour after the end of the parade when the fairgrounds would be packed with people. Other things embedded in the plastic—nails, screws. More of the same strewn over the floor, along with sharp-toothed saw blades and other stuff intended as shrapnel.