Читать книгу Drago #6: And the City Burned - Art Spinella - Страница 9

Within minutes, Forte strung yellow crime scene tape he kept stashed in his cruiser’s trunk; ordered Billy – his second in command – to the Continuum Center to hold down the fort and cajoled the State Police into sending at least a couple of troopers to Bandon, arguing his own officers were busy trying to find at least three dozen bombs.

Turning to me, “Are you sure he said ‘scab’?”

“Hey, the guy was gurgling blood and his eyes were rolling to the back of his head. It sounded like scab.”

Forte shook his head. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Any identification?” Sal asked.

Forte shook his head. “Neither had a wallet or ID. We took their weapons. Hope to track ‘em down through the serial numbers. I’ll have Beth run ‘em.”

The Chief’s eyes were blood shot, his skin seemingly aging as I watched him.

“You think these two guys have something to do with the bombs?”

Forte shrugged. “Who the hell knows? My guess? Sure. They’re not locals for certain. I’d recognize ‘em, probably.”

Sal pulled away, ducked under the yellow tape and walked to the center of First Street where he pulled out his iPhone and began talking quietly to someone. I watched him nod, mutter, nod again and click the phone off.

When he returned, “What’s up big man?”

“Not sure. Will let you know when I know.”

“Calling in ground support from the CIA?”

“Never was, nor…”

“…would you ever be CIA.” I finished. To Forte, “Does the school or PD have a way of broadcasting text messages to locals? Time to evacuate the town, don’t you think?”

“I’ve been putting that off, hoping we could get a handle on this thing. The mayor and I had this conversation earlier. We figure it’ll only take a few hours to get people out. I’ve already got my guys ready to circle the wagons and go door to door if necessary. If the bombs are set to go off at 4:30, then 2 o’clock will work.”

Leaning against the fender of his cruiser, “I hate taking the troops off of bomb search, but by then it’ll be time to shift gears and assume there will be a fire and necessary to get people out of here quickly and calmly.”

Sal sighed, “It’s a small town, guys. Tell a few people and the word will spread virally. House to house. We’re not a big city. If everyone converged on 101 at the same time, it would be a 20 minute traffic jam.”

Forte tried a small smile. It didn’t work. “Like after the fireworks on the fourth of July.”

I nodded. True. The problem would be getting tourists to leave. They’ll want to go back to their motels and gather their stuff. But leaving everyone a couple hours would still be inside the window of safety.

“I’m going to take Sal back to his house so he can get that spiffy little Volt. We can split up that way and cover more ground.”

Sal concurred.

Forte gave a Bandon head scratch. “Meantime, I’ll leave this mess to Bill and the troopers. I’m going back to the office and coordinate what I can.”

“You okay here, Chief? Need Sal to stay and help out?”

“No, need both of you out looking for propane tanks. I’ll call if I get any word on the guns those two galoots were carrying.”

“Galoots? Now you’re quoting Mickey Spillane?”

“Stuff it, Drago.”

Forte climbed into his cruiser, blipped the siren to get the gawkers out of his way and headed back to the PD. Sal and I returned to the Crown Vic, settled in and I turned up First Street toward home.

“Seriously, what was the phone call all about?”

“Just as seriously, I’d rather not say until I know I can pull it off. Trust me on this?”

“Sure ‘nuf.”

We hit 101 just south of the Coquille Bridge.

“You have any other thoughts on why someone would want to burn Bandon to the ground?”

Sal shook his shaggy head. “None. If this were a diversion so someone could rob a bank, there are far better towns to do it in. We don’t have the kind of money that would attract this kind of attention.”

Scratching his beard, “And revenge for some perceived slight by Bandon to an individual or company or group doesn’t make sense. There’s a whole lot of planning that went into this. Just a crazy guy with some message from aliens? Could be, but this took more than one person.”

“So there’d have to be two guys in tin-foil hats.”

“And the two dead guys back at the Center didn’t look particularly goofy. Or friendly.”

“Notice the weapons they were carrying?”

“Yeah. The dark haired short guy was packing a semi-auto. Small, concealable.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shell casing. “And loaded with Stinger hypervelocity rounds.”

He handed it to me.

“Anyone who thinks a .22 isn’t deadly just needs to be on the receiving end of this little cutie.” I passed the casing back. Sal stuffed it into his pocket.

“Regular Thunderbolt .22 muzzle velocity is, what, 1250 or so feet per second. Stingers are 1600?”

“1650, actually. Enough to cause more than minimal damage at close range. Reason the mob guys like .22s.”

We were halfway across the Coquille River Bridge when Sal spun in his seat.

“Whoa! Go back, Nick!”

“Uh, I’m on the bridge, Sallie.”

“Go back. Go back!”

I thumped down the north side of the bridge, spun into the North Bank Road turn off and fish tailed onto the highway heading south.

“Over there!” Sal pointed to the abandoned mill off of the highway a few hundred yards and nestled against the riverbank. The building was a ramshackle affair with tin walls stained from years of neglect. The roof as wavy as the sea in a bad storm, holes and gaps opening much of the interior to the elements. The huge doors askew, either off their tracks or missing altogether.

Then I saw what Sal saw. Shooting across 101, cutting off a 30-foot fifth wheel being towed by an F350 Diesel Ford, and racing to the building, I slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop next to a brown Ranger pickup with one blue fender.

Sal and I slid out of the Crown Vic and ran to the Ranger. Empty. We approached the open doorway to the building and simultaneously pulled handguns. Better safe than sorry. Besides, we were carrying official, okey dokey Bandon PD badges.

The interior of the building was vast, dirty and smelled of creosote. The three-story high ceiling stained from years of water leaks and bat nests. Across the expanse, a portion was subdivided with a man-door entry. A lone window in the door, greasy from years of weather and work and what a Jewish friend called “smutz.”

Old equipment, long unused, was scattered in various corners and against walls. If flat tires were gold, the place would be worth a fortune. Forklifts with the name “Case” barely visible under the grime and rust, an old three-axle gasoline tanker truck, the hulk of a mid-70s Chevy Chevette.

Sal and I split up and followed the wall to the partitioned area, each taking up position on either side of the door. I looked at Sal and nodded.

Grasping the knob, slowly twisting it, I lifted the Taurus and slammed through the opening.

Another dirt-floor room, obviously not used in years. And on the floor, hog-tied, two teenagers back to back, bound together with rope, feet wrapped with plastic straps, arms cinched behind them, duct tape across their mouths.

Eyes wide and brimming with fear, they saw the guns and two very big guys enter the room. The girl began to whimper. The lanky boy growled what probably were obscenities, unintelligible through the tape.

I scanned the space. No one else around. Holstering the Magnum, I raised my hands.

“It’s okay. We’re with the Bandon Police.”

You could see the fear evaporate from both kids. She began to sob, wracking gasps shaking her body. The boy closed his eyes in relief and let out a long breath through his nose.

Sal began untying them, removing the duct tape.

“God are we glad you came.” The boy’s words came in a rush. “We’ve been here for hours. We thought they were gonna kill us.”

As Sal undid their restraints, I crouched beside the two.

“Are you Tim Dornan and Dorothy Flak?”

They nodded.

“Are you okay? Anything broken or badly bruised?”

Both shook their head.

“Good. Now settle down. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover here. First, is there anyone besides you two here?”

“No,” Dornan said. “They left some time ago.”

“They. Who are they?”

“Two guys. One really mean. The other one okay.”

Unwrapped, the two teenagers stood. Dornan grabbed my hand and began pumping it. I noticed that Dorothy had wrapped her arms around Sal and was squeezing as hard as she could.

I get a grimy handshake from a pimply adolescent boy who smells like a gym locker. Sal gets a high-pressure boob press from a cute 18-year-old girl.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ordering the couple to stay put, Sal and I cleared the rest of the building to double check the absence of any potential threats.

In a large side room, however, we found a workbench and a series of circles in the dirt floor next to the door. The ground was mottled in footprints.

“Looks like this is the place they made the bombs,” I said.

Neither of us went much past the door threshold, hoping the patterns in the dirt would give us a clue about the bomb makers.

The circles were bunched together with a second set in a far corner. Between the table and the locations of the circles, a series of footprints that looked like at least three people.

Sal went first. “It would appear they stored the propane tanks over there,” pointing to the distant corner, “carried them to the workbench where they attached the dynamite and timers and put the end result over here near the door.”

On the bench, bits of insulation, the tidbits of casing that gets left behind when wire is stripped.

“Agreed.”

Walking around the walls so I wouldn’t disturb the footprints, I looked at the circles in the corner and began counting.

“Looks like 52, Sallie. That’s a dozen more than reported stolen.”

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, speed dialed Forte. He answered on the second ring.

“Chief, we got a problem.”

“What now?”

“We found the kids and the place where they built the bombs. But there are indications of 52, not 40 propane tanks.”

“Well, dammit, Nick. You just have to tickle my grumpy bone, don’t you. We’ve only been able to find another three bombs. And the State Police say the one they took has no prints. Wiped clean. They’re looking at the timers, but say those are clean, too.”

“What about the two guys at the Continuum Center?”

“No IDs. Prints have been sent to wherever we could think of from Interpol to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Someone must have something on these guys.”

“And the guns?”

“The .22 had its serial number ground off, but the Troopers say they can probably get something off of it anyway. Magic wand stuff. The other guy’s .38 had a clear and unaltered number. We’re running it now.” I could hear him gulp what I assumed was coffee. “How are the kids?”

“Okay. Scared. Thought they were going to be killed. I’ll get a description of the guys who grabbed them and let you know.”

Forte disconnected.

Tim Dornan sat on a corner of the workbench with Dorothy standing close. Color had returned to their faces. Tim draped an arm around Dorothy’s shoulder.

Both had settled down.

“How’d you wind up here?”

Tim blinked rapidly. “I was supposed to stop here and get another hundred bucks for telling the cops about the propane tank in the woods. A kinda second installment.”

“And instead they hog tied you guys and then what?”

“They rummaged around in that room back there for a few minutes and left.”

“How many?”

“Two when we got here. Then one guy left and the other guy did something back there for a half hour or so then he left.”

“What was he doing?”

Tim shrugged. “No idea.”

Dorothy pushed her Clairol-tinted blond hair back from her face, leveling her green eyes at me. “It sounded like he was tinkering with tools of some sort. You know that metal on metal sound when someone’s working on a hinge or a bolt or something.”

“When he left, what was he driving? Did you see any kind of a vehicle when you got here?”

Both shook their heads in unison.

Tim answered, “Nothing. I pulled up to the front and there weren’t any other cars. My first thought was they were going to stiff me the hundred. Not show up, you know?”

Dorothy added, “They probably were parked out back. When the first guy left, he went through the rear doorway.”

“And the second guy?”

“Same,” Tim answered.

Sal had been watching their faces, looking for any clue they were either holding back information or lying. Finding nothing, “Did you hear or see any kind of a vehicle or vehicles they could have driven away in?”

Again, simultaneous head shakes.

The big man cut a look at me and gave an almost imperceptible nod. In his opinion, they were being honest. To the teenagers, “Describe the guys?”

Tim shuddered, “The one was about my height. 5-foot-9 or so. About 160 pounds. Red hair, brown eyes and big hands.”

“Long or short?” I asked.

“His hair? Short. Not a military cut. He had it combed.”

Dorothy added, “Natural red, too. His eyebrows were the same color and his beard was coming in. Like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. It was red, too.”

“And the other one?”

“Six-foot, 200 pounds, black hair and blue eyes. Moustache but clean shaven otherwise.”

“Age?”

“Maybe 35 or so,” Dorothy said. “Both of them.”

Sal interrupted, “The six-footer. Muscular or going to fat?”

Dorothy smiled, “Very muscular.”

Tim gave her a sideways glare.

She continued, “Big arms and legs. Big chest and maybe a 34 inch waist. He looked like a guy who works out regularly, but not muscle bound. Know what I mean?”

Sal nodded, “Not a runner, not a weight lifter, just someone who isn’t afraid of physical work.”

Dorothy nodded and gave a slight grin at Sal. “He reminded me of a field hand. Outdoorsy. Know what I mean?”

“One last question,” I said. “Any accent? Southern, Texas, Mid-western?”

A spark flared in both teens’ eyes.

Tim answered first. “English! The red head sounded like he was from England or something.”

“And the other guy?”

Dorothy shook her head. “No. Nothing that stood out, anyway.”

Tim nodded, “American.”

Glancing at my watch, “Look, we’re in deep stuff here timewise. I want you two to get back to town, go the police station and give Chief Forte written statements. Do it quickly. And then get the heck out of town. Got me?”

Both nodded. Tim climbed from the table, grabbed Dorothy’s hand and pulled her with him to the front door. Not before she gave Sal a big grin and softly said, “Thank you, Mister Rand.”

Sal’s beard twitched. A smile, though no one would see it behind all those whiskers.

After phoning in our conversation with the two teens to the Chief, Sal and I began a quick survey of the back room with the circles in the dirt.

“Footprints look like three people, not two,” I said.

Sal agreed. “Something odd, though.” He pointed to one set of prints, “Like this one was shuffling. Not a lot, but a little.”

I pulled out my cell phone, scrolled through the contact list and settled on Doctor John DiMaggio. Hit the “call” button and got him on the second ring.

“Doc, it’s Nick Drago. You got some time right now?”

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

DiMaggio, a dapper guy with bright eyes and an undercurrent of having been a hellion in his younger days, is a recognized and published forensic podiatrist who does case evaluations, expert testimony and crime-scene evaluations of footprints. Bandon’s got all kinds.

Filling him in on the help I needed, he clicked off.

While waiting for DiMaggio, Sal and I began a quick survey of the abandoned mill. It smelled of mold, mildew, damp earth and a hint of the river just outside its door. The largest area now void of any of the milling equipment that once was so important to Bandon and Coos County economies. Secondary rooms, some small and clearly habitat for rodents of all variety judging from the number of droppings on anything flat. Rust as common as marshmallows at a Girl Scout campout.

Sal stood in the middle of one of the rooms, eyes scanning the dirt-crusted windows, long central workbench.

“Good place to stage and prep these bombs.”

I nodded. When I worked in the woods, this place was one of the most active mills on the river. Log trucks drove in, delivered old growth and not-so-old growth trees and other trucks or barges left with cut-to-dimension lumber to feed a booming housing industry.

“You know, Sal, the world has changed in 20 years. Not just a little, but fundamentally. There’s a shortage of young men to work in the woods.”

I toed a huge industrial bolt, rusty and half buried in the dirt. “Can’t find enough to do the logging even though the trees are there, the contracts are there, the demand is there. A whole generation of kids who once would kill to get a job with a lumber company has been lost. The knowledge of what to do and how to do it, cutting down trees, was stymied when logging became a politically incorrect industry.”

The bolt broke loose of the dirt and flipped on its side. “Now that there’s growing demand and government is pulling back from some of the more onerous restrictions, there aren’t enough people who know how to do the work. Stuff their dads and uncles once taught ‘em isn’t being taught any more.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Nicky.”

DiMaggio’s black Chevy Impala SS rumbled into the gravel parking lot in front of the building and parked next to the Crown Vic. The duo looked like a pair of weight lifters on Pismo Beach. Flames on the Vic. Lipstick red bow-tie in the grill, a matching red Impala SS emblem on its flank and a red spoiler on the rear deck.

The doc, dressed in casual slacks, button-down shirt and wearing soft loafers, climbed from his car, reached into the rear seat and pulled out a small briefcase.

“Nick. Sal. What do you have for me?”

We led DiMaggio into the old mill. He sniffed as he entered, the mustiness clearly not to his liking.

At the central work area, Sal and I stood back so DiMaggio could look into the room.

Pointing a chin at the imprints, “What are the circles?”

“The rings at the bottom of propane tanks.”

“Lots of circles,” he said.

“About 50.”

“This to do with the bombs going off around the county?”

Sal and I nodded in unison.

Putting his briefcase down, he started to lean against the door jam, thought better of getting the decades-old grit on his shirt, and inspected at a distance the 30 or 40 footprints in the dirt floor. Some were overlapping others as the walkers traipsed from workbench to propane tanks. His sharp and experienced eye imagining what caused the markings.

Looking over his shoulder, I said, “The way I read it, three guys moved the propane tanks to the workbench, attached the timing mechanism then moved the bombs to here,” pointing to a spot just inside the doorway.

“Two.”

Sal raised an eyebrow. “Looks like three different sets of footprints to me.”

DiMaggio leaned over, opened his briefcase and pulled out a clear plastic sheet with some sort of grid printed on it. Careful to avoid stepping in the prints, he gently placed the sheet over one of the impressions.

“Two, Sal.” Looking at the grid, “This one is a size 10 if it’s a man’s shoe, size 11 and a half if it’s a woman’s print.” He moved the grid to another print, “Ditto this one.” Laying the clear plastic over the third print, “And this one’s a size 11 if a man, 12 and a half if a woman.”

I took the sheet from DiMaggio, put it on the first print then on the second. “The one print is far wider than the first, though.”

“Bunion, probably,” DiMaggio answered. “Look here.” He walked to the workbench, circling around the prints. “See these indentations next to each other?”

Crouching down, he pulled a pen from his pocket and pointed. “See this series of prints where one of the bomb makers stood?” He waved the pen around the impression in the dirt. “One set, the larger prints, pretty much are isolated as if the man didn’t move from one spot as he attached the dynamite. He stood still with his feet 24 inches or so apart.”

Moving the pen to a second set, “The other man, though, kept only one foot still as he worked. This print shows his left foot was planted in one place. But the other! Ah, he moved it quite a bit. That’s why the right print appears to be smudged and scuffed.”

Standing, “Bunions are pretty painful. Here, look.” He reached into the briefcase and pulled out a small brochure from a stack of pamphlets, opened it to a page and turned it so I could see the pictures.

“The length of the foot doesn’t change, but people with bunions or who have had bunion surgery wear wider shoes.” Aiming the pen to the second print in the dirt, “That’s what we’re looking at here. The guy was in pain and to relieve the pain he wore a wide shoe and moved his foot quite a bit in order to relieve the pressure.”

“Can you tell how big these guys were?”

“You mean, by measuring the stride patterns?”

“Yeah.”

“Not very precisely. That’s good in the movies and for Sherlock Holmes, but stride only gives you a very loose approximation.” He turned and tipped his head to the prints Sal, he and I made in the dirt from the doorway.

“See the stride patterns for the three of us? All about the same yet you’re 6-foot-five or so, Sal is about six-feet and I’m 5-foot-10. We all walked to this spot together so we moved almost like a unit. That meant I took a bit longer stride than I normally would to keep up. Sal a bit longer or you a bit shorter than normal. Very imprecise, to say the least. That said, I’d suggest that the guy with the bunion would take a shorter stride just to favor his bad foot.”

Again leaning over his briefcase and pulling out a tape measure, he pulled the metal tape and put it from heel to heel of one set of prints. “About 27 inches. Adjusting for the bunion, shoe size and all, maybe 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-10. The other guy,” again laying the tape measure on the prints, “Anywhere from 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-one.”

He spun on his heels and walked to the prints in the far corner where the propane tanks were stored before being moved to the workbench.

“Here, though, we can tell something else.” He measured the stride pattern for the shorter man. “That’s about 23 inches compared to 27 inches before he attached the timer and dynamite. Again, either he’s not a strong man and the bomb’s extra weight made him take shorter strides in order to maintain balance or the bunion was hurting or he was afraid of the bomb he was carrying and being extraordinarily careful when carrying it.”

“And the other guy?” Sal asked.

A few measurements, and, “The extra weight didn’t change a thing for the bigger guy. Either he’s strong – a full propane tanks weights what, 20-something pounds? – or turning it into a bomb didn’t scare him in the least.”

Lots of info, but of what use I wasn’t sure.

“Can you tell anything from the shoe-tread pattern?”

DiMaggio took his iPhone from his pocket, clicked a few close-up photos of all the prints.

“I’ll send these to a friend of mine who used to be with the Las Vegas’ CSI lab. He’ll jump on it right away so we won’t have to wait forever, like we would if we sent them to the FBI. Grissom will tell me if the pattern is in the data base.”

“Thanks, doc. You’ve been a huge help.”

The dapper doc hoisted the briefcase and returned to his Impala.

I looked over the room and at the footprints.

“Forensic podiatry. Who would’ve thunk it.”

1936

The large two-story 13-room house in southeast Bandon exploded. In less than 10 minutes, it melted into the earth. The heat so intense, apples in the large orchard cooked in the trees. Irish gorse, a dreaded import, oily and thick as a weed infested cornfield, took the flames and transformed them into a million blowtorches.

The home’s owner, Mr. Hunt, elderly and expecting the roaring blaze to engulf his home, wanted to return to the building that was his life, slide into his own bed and die within the inferno. Only the efforts of his tenants, the Panter family, saved his life by carrying the trembling, anguished man to their truck.

Walls of flames on both sides of the gravel roadways – tunnels of death. Choking smoke, acrid and thick; eye-burning and bitter to the tongue. Livestock severely burned and dying where they stood. The crippled and elderly’s only hope, the good will of neighbors to extract them from wood houses in the path of the blaze.

Fear. Palpable, all-consuming fear.