Читать книгу Conard County Revenge - Rachel Lee - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAs promised, Darcy had no difficulty finding the high school. It kind of hit her in the face at the north end of the street. It also looked sadly deserted except for some people working inside a police-taped area toward the rear corner, under a large canopy. Yellow evidence markers covered the ground, looking like a field of out-of-control dandelions.
She sat studying the destruction from the parking lot, taking it in, estimating the explosive force involved. Pure guesswork at this point, but the damage to that corner of the school was extensive. A fertilizer bomb. She’d encountered them before during her years with ATF, but quite a few of them had been duds. Seriously, it wasn’t easy. Timothy McVeigh had had a lot of time to experiment beforehand. Yeah, he’d thrown the final bomb together at the last minute in the back of a rental truck, but he’d had plenty of experience and experimentation to back up that effort. Plus, a great detonation system.
Detonators weren’t exactly easy to come by, either. They had to be signed for. Permits were required. Plenty of people had legitimate reasons to get them, but they left a paper trail. Possible, of course, to make a detonator if you knew what you were doing. She was looking forward to finding out if they’d recovered any remains of the ignition device. Given the hour of the night when the bomb had exploded, a timer had to be involved. A timer or a cell phone. Curiosity began whetting her appetite for this job.
Athletic fields spread out from the school building, large and spacious because this county had the room. Some trees lined the north and west ends of the fields, most likely as a windbreak. In the winter it was probably very stark, but now, in the late spring, it was simply relaxing and beautiful.
Until she trained her gaze again on the scarred building. Annoyed as she had been to be pulled off the other case, that was forgotten as she looked at the new challenge. Build a case. Find a perp. Ascertain every part of the bomb that had been used here and try to trace it to someone. Excitement began to rise in her. A whole new case, entirely her own, unless she needed to send for assistance. A lot of trust from her superiors. For the first time it struck her that she’d had a kind of promotion by being sent out here to do the job herself. She’d never headed up a task force, but she was doing that now, even without the accompanying manpower here.
Resources would be at her disposal back at the field office. Other agents would be assisting her. A new level of responsibility. She was determined not to fail.
Both Wayne and Alex had parked nearby, and she realized they were waiting for her to exit her vehicle. Time to start earning her spurs.
She climbed out, carrying her notebook computer and a legal pad on which to scrawl notes to herself. The computer would make taking photos easy, but she’d never mastered the art of holding the tablet in one hand and typing with the other. A few key identifiers, yes, but actual notes? She preferred to write them on paper and organize them later on the tablet.
She also retrieved some evidence bags and some rubber gloves, stuffing her pockets with them. Best to be prepared, although right now it appeared that the local authorities had matters well in hand.
She switched the computer on as she approached the two men, and was glad to see she was getting a wireless signal. She’d discovered quite a few dead zones on her way to Conard City. Apparently that wasn’t a problem in town.
Summoning a smile, she reached the two men.
“That’s my wife, Charity,” Wayne said, pointing.
Darcy picked out a blonde woman who was probably stunning when she wasn’t wearing suspendered fireman’s pants and boots and heavy gloves. Good clothing choice for the job. Darcy’s fresh-from-the-office outfit was going to hinder her until she could change. At least she’d worn sensible black flats.
Charity waved at them and strode toward them. “Hi,” she said, accepting a quick kiss from Wayne. “You must be Darcy Eccles.” She waved her glove, stained with soot. “I’ll shake your hand later.”
Darcy liked her immediately. “That can wait. How’s your investigation going?”
“Like most investigations. The cause is obvious. Finding all the pieces is a bit more difficult. We did find some slivers of PVC pipe, but at this point we can’t be sure it didn’t come from the building and not the bomb. As you can see, it was a decent blast, but not huge.”
“Any sign of the ignition source?”
Charity shook her head. “Agent, I’m going to let you go through all the pieces. I’ve never dealt with a bomb and I couldn’t recognize a lot of items that might be significant. We’re mapping our finds on a grid, taking photos, bagging stuff we don’t want to leave out in the elements. Mainly, we’re trying not to disturb anything. Is that good?”
Darcy was surprised that she was being asked, then wondered why. Bombs were her area of expertise, not the arson investigator’s.
“That’s great. I’m going to need someplace where I can lay things out and look at them. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a few pictures right now if I won’t get in your way.”
Charity lifted the yellow tape. “Have at it. I’ve been waiting impatiently to turn this over to you. I wouldn’t have touched anything at all except the wind moves things and covers them with dust and dirt, and what if it rained?”
Darcy smiled at her. “It sounds like you’ve done an excellent job of protecting the evidence.”
“I hope,” said Charity. “Anything you need from me, let me know.”
As Darcy approached the blast area, she saw that the damaged side of the building gaped open like a devouring mouth. “Any chance we can get tarps over the side of the building? After I have a chance to get up top and make sure they wouldn’t conceal anything. But not tacked to the side of the building until we’ve examined it.”
Charity turned toward the two men. “Think so?”
“I’m sure,” said Alex. “We have a storage room at the school still full of roofing tarps from a tornado that went through a few years ago.”
“FEMA roofs,” Darcy said.
Alex laughed. “I’ve heard them called that.”
“Thanks for the tarps,” Darcy said. “We need to make sure any evidence inside is protected as well as you’ve done outside.”
Standing near the edge of what appeared to be the blast circle, Darcy took in the damage to the cinder block wall, and the spread of debris, many of the larger pieces lying on the ground still, but carefully tucked into clear evidence bags for protection.
“I’m glad you didn’t start gathering it up yet,” she said to Charity. “I’ll get a very clear picture this way. I’m going to walk around the perimeter and take some photos.”
Charity nodded. “Do what you need to. Jeff and Randy and I will get back to scouring the area. We started at one edge and have been working our way slowly and carefully across so as to disturb as little as possible.”
Darcy nodded, both impressed and pleased. Of course, as an investigator, Charity had plenty of knowledge of how to protect evidence.
She started walking around the edge of the yellow tape, aware that Alex stayed nearby, but not concerned about it. With every step she took, she studied the ground in case something had blown farther out than the gridded area that the fire people had laid out. While they appeared to have properly designated the blast area, she’d long ago learned that some things flew a much greater distance than you’d expect. Some things that might appear innocuous when removed from all the surrounding evidence. Like a shiny building nail she’d found forty feet from the blast radius two cases ago.
She stopped and took another photo toward the center of the blast. “Do you suppose,” she asked Alex absently, “we could organize a search of the area farther out?”
“I would think so. I could probably get a bunch of my students...”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
She faced him then, her heart skipping a surprised beat as she was struck again by his attractive features. “I shouldn’t have to explain to you.”
“You don’t. But I don’t have to like it. My students are all good people, but I understand you have to figure that out for yourself. The problem is, Darcy, how are you going to form a search party if you don’t know who to trust?”
“Uniforms,” she said shortly, then stopped. A young man stood at the edge of the no-man’s land, his hands in his pockets, his gaze intent on the work around the bombed area.
“Who’s that?” she asked sharply.
Alex swiveled his head. “Jackson Castor. Jack. He’s in my cabinetry class. Great guy.”
“Hmm.” Darcy said no more but continued to slowly follow her circumnavigation while studying the ground far beyond the area where the firemen worked. When the opportunity arrived, she included Jackson Castor in a couple of shots.
Perps often showed a great deal of interest in the crime scene. She knew of numerous cases where a bomber had returned to watch the investigation while admiring his handiwork. Before she said anything about it, however, she was going to find out more about this Castor person.
She suspected Alex knew what had crossed her mind but she’d already sensed how protective he was of his students. A broody mother hen, she thought with amusement, but still one who had been an FBI agent and therefore probably knew how often the perpetrators showed up at the crime scene. Nope, better not to say a word. Maybe let him think the young man’s presence had just slid right by her because of her focus on the ground.
The grasses were beginning to green with the spring, which didn’t make her search any easier. What was the likelihood there’d been any metal in that bomb? Nobody had mentioned a pipe bomb or nails, so they surely hadn’t discovered any nails and not enough debris to know the type of bomb.
Then she spied something odd. A green blade of grass had a hole in it. Squatting, she looked more closely. The edge of the hole was blackened. Something awfully hot had passed through it.
She set her tablet beside her, and pulled on a pair of gloves so she could comb through the grass. Something had to be here unless it was nothing but a cinder. She couldn’t take that chance.
She sensed Alex squat beside her, but he didn’t say anything. Gently she moved blades of grass, drawing a line in her mind. The blast had come from over there. Anything flying from it would have come from the same general direction. That told her where to concentrate her efforts.
Then she spied it: a three-inch piece of slender wire. A little melted at one end, but otherwise surprisingly unaffected. It might be nothing, or it might be a part of the triggering device. Certainly not to be left behind. She took a photo of it and the blade of grass.
Then she tugged out an evidence bag, used a pen from her pocket to write on it, then carefully sealed the wire in the bag. Looking up, she tried to decide if it would be safe to leave it here or if she should mark the spot and take it.
Take it, she decided. This area hadn’t been cordoned off. “I need some evidence markers from the back of my truck, or from the fire department.”
Alex straightened. “I’ll get you some from them. Might as well keep the numbering the same.”
“Thanks.” She quickly scrawled the GPS coordinates on her pad and waited for Alex to return with the plastic tent-style markers. When he did, she placed the numbered yellow piece and took another photo before adding the number to her description on the pad.
Painstaking work. Every bit of it.
“Any thoughts on what it could be?” Alex asked. He didn’t sound as if he expected an answer.
“Too soon,” she said anyway. All she knew for certain was that it had been blown out here by the explosion.
She straightened up and looked around. “I need to change into some decent work clothes. And ask Charity to widen her cordon considerably. How’s the motel?”
“It’s clean but it’s old,” he said. “Wish we had something better to offer.”
“Clean is good enough. How do I find it?”
* * *
Alex watched her talk to Charity, who agreed to bring the cordon out another thirty or forty feet. He wondered if she ever softened or if she was always so businesslike.
Then he saw her walking toward Jack Castor. Immediately he jogged over. He knew Jack well and was absolutely certain he wasn’t capable of doing something like this. Yeah, he understood why Darcy was probably looking askance at the youth, but...
He caught himself. He’d learned a long time ago not to make those assumptions about anyone. Your own mother could be the murderer. Living with that kind of knowledge, borne out in his work, had driven him to a more peaceful life. Reality could be ugly. Oddly, he found himself recalling a quip he heard from reporters: if your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Darcy was doing her job. Ugliness had penetrated his new life, and he needed to squash urges that could hinder this investigation. Whoever had done this might move to larger bombs, bombs that could take a life. No time to be overprotective.
He reached Darcy and Jack in time to hear her say pleasantly, “Alex says you’re in his cabinetry class. So this bombing interests you?”
Jack grinned. “A whole lot. I never told anybody because I’m just a ranch kid and might not be able to go to college, but I always wanted to work for ATF.”
“Yeah?” Darcy smiled. “It’s fascinating work. What draws you to it?”
Jack’s smile faded. “I have a friend... Well, his grandfather was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. He wasn’t even born yet, but his mom talked about it a lot for years and I heard about it, and every time she did I just wanted to do something useful about it. I know that’s over and done with, but it wasn’t the last bomb.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She turned and indicated the school. “You have any ideas about this?”
“Who’d do this, you mean?”
Darcy simply waited.
“No.” Jack looked almost crestfallen. “I wish I did. I mean, I can listen around and see if I hear anything, but I haven’t yet.” He looked down, then back at Darcy. “That’s the weird part.”
“What is?”
“You’d think someone would brag about it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well...” Jack shifted from one foot to the other. “If it was some kid at the school...he’d tell someone. Most of us can’t keep a secret that exciting.”
Alex was surprised when Darcy laughed. “You make a good point, Jack.”
Jack’s smile returned. “Anyway, whoever did it would probably want to tell at least one person, someone he trusted, right? But that person would probably spill the beans to someone else...” He shrugged. “Or not. I guess some people must be really good at keeping secrets.”
“Some are,” Darcy agreed. “But your thinking is good. Keep it up. You’re going to have to move back soon. We’re extending the perimeter.”
“Can I help with anything?” Jack asked eagerly.
Darcy shook her head. “Officials only.”
“Okay, I’ll stay out of the way.”
“You do that.”
Then she continued toward her truck. Alex followed, still concerned. “What are you thinking?” he asked as she opened her truck door.
“You mean about Jack?”
“Of course about Jack.”
“Nothing yet,” she said with a shrug. “Keep your pants on, Alex. It’s early days.”
He watched her drive away and half wished he could shake her out of her detachment. Then he remembered what had happened when he’d lost his. Divorce. Nightmares. End of career.
Aw, screw it, he thought and headed for the undamaged part of the school to check on those tarps. Let the agent do her job. He’d stay as far away as he could because he didn’t want the nightmares to come back. And he sure as hell didn’t need any new ones.
* * *
At the motel, which was clean albeit seriously outdated, Darcy showered away the travel grime, then changed into her gray working overalls and black boots. On her way back out to the site, she stopped long enough to grab another latte to stave off the fatigue from the long drive and added more tall cups of black coffee for the firefighters working out there.
She was surprised when she pulled into the parking lot to see that a small crowd of onlookers had appeared. Either word had got out that the ATF was here, or the firemen had found something exciting.
If they were curious because of her, they were in for a serious disappointment, she thought wryly. One agent in overalls was hardly the show they’d be hoping for. And they’d be right. Most explosions drew a bigger response, but at the moment too many cases had investigators pretty tied up. If she needed some backup, she would get it, but right now hands were tied.
She pulled in between two dusty pickup trucks, then retrieved her laptop and evidence case from the back of her truck.
Almost at once Jackson Castor appeared. “Let me at least carry the coffee,” he said eagerly.
So he was still here, still interested in the goings-on. Might be a flag, might not be. So far nothing was setting off her internal warnings except his presence.
“Thanks. Make sure everyone working gets a cup,” she said. Relieved of the extra coffees, she could handle the other items better. “Is Alex still around?”
“Yeah. He’s been inside the school a lot. I guess you wanted some tarps?”
And just how did he know that? Was Alex talking to him? And what if all these people were here because something important had been found? The ATF preferred to keep evidence to themselves until they had the most complete picture possible. Dribbling news out to the public could only create problems and possibly false expectations or, worse, appear to accuse innocent people.
Not that her organization was completely without stains and mistakes. Like any organization, it was made up of people and people weren’t perfect.
The cordon had been extended as she had asked, creating a much-wider area for investigation. She asked Jack to remain at the edge of the yellow tape and told him she’d tell everyone he was holding coffee for them. He seemed pleased by his job, however humble.
Well, she thought, it was possible he was just a kid who was interested in a career. It didn’t have to mean anything that he was hanging around so eagerly. She discovered she was honestly hoping he was as innocent as Alex believed him to be.
The crowd, such as it was, showed a lot of interest in her, but she could feel their repressed disappointment that she was just one small woman and she didn’t have a brawny team marching with her.
Not a very impressive display for the ATF, she thought with grim humor.
As she approached the most obviously blackened area, she caught up with Charity Camden. “Jack Castor. You know him?”
“The high school kid? Sort of. I seem to remember him from a talk I gave at the school about arson last fall. Eager and full of questions. Good questions.”
How interesting, Darcy thought but kept the thought to herself. “I left him at the cordon holding coffee for you and your guys, and anyone else working on this. Maybe you’re used to it, but it feels chilly to me out here.”
Charity smiled. “Coffee’s always welcome. Thanks.”
“What brought the crowd? Did you find something?”
Charity laughed. “Not what, but who. They heard ATF was here. Enjoy your celebrity, if you can. I experienced a bit of it after I married Wayne. Good people, but curious as hell.”
She called to her two helpers, telling them Jack had coffee for them. That cleared the zone briefly for Darcy, who set her equipment down, pulled on her gloves, made sure her loupe was in her pocket along with some evidence bags and started to walk through the grid laid out by the firefighters.
She squatted often, examining the contents of a bag more closely and checking the ground beneath it. Once, she lifted her head and sniffed the air. It still contained the faintest tang of fuel oil after nearly two days. It must have soaked the ground.
She added that tidbit to her increasing list of tidbits. She needed to find out what kind of fuel it was, because she needed to know its burn characteristics but also because she needed to know why she could still smell it. Fuel oil evaporated quickly if it didn’t burn. It was the benzenes and xylenes that made up the gasoline that created most of the familiar smell. Those evaporated relatively quickly, so a lot must have leaked out of that bomb without burning at any point.
That brought her head up. Still squatting, she thought about it. That much fuel oil? In a closed container, why add the fertilizer? You could just make a great Molotov cocktail.
She looked toward the building. But it wouldn’t have caused that kind of damage. She closed her eyes again, sniffing and thinking about it. Apparently the bomber hadn’t perfected his method. He’d left far too much gasoline residue behind. Way too much.
Had this been a practice bomb? The notion chilled her deeply. One accident might well become a string of bombs if this had been a trial run.
Good God!
“Can I join you?”
Darcy turned her head a little in response to Charity’s voice. “Yeah. Don’t disturb anything.” She almost winced as she heard herself. Charity certainly didn’t need that warning.
Soon Charity was squatting beside her, saying, “I figured once we move everything we can see out of here we’ll need to look again.”
“Yeah, with a rake. It’s hard to be sure we haven’t stomped something into the dirt.” Then she pointed toward where she’d found the wire. “We have all that to cover, too.”
“You’re sure the wire came from the explosion?”
“Unless someone was soldering out there, yeah.”
Charity sighed. “I’ve seen some bad fires, Darcy, but nothing like this. You’ll have to tell me what to do.”
“I don’t seem to have a problem with that, huh?” Darcy’s voice was dry.
Charity chuckled quietly. “That’s okay. There can never be too many reminders. By the way, Alex said you needed a place to spread all this out. He’s talking the principal into turning the gymnasium over to you. I don’t get why that would be a problem. We haven’t even been able to determine if the rest of the building is structurally sound yet. We have an engineer coming from Gillette on Thursday. Meantime, no school. And thanks again for the coffee.” She raised her foam cup as if in toast, then sipped.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve been squatting here an awfully long time. Is something bothering you or do you need help getting up now?”
It was such a relief to just laugh. Darcy let it out, along with a lot of tension. “I was thinking. You’re the arson person. Do you still smell fuel oil?”
“Yeah, I do. Some didn’t burn off. The ground must be soaked. It’s driving my guys crazy because I won’t let them smoke anywhere around here.”
Darcy turned her head. “Your guys smoke?”
Charity shrugged with a half smile. “The chief, my husband, hates it, but it’s as if these guys just can’t get enough smoke. They’re not allowed to do it in public, but it’s no secret, really.”
“Criminy,” Darcy remarked.
“Yeah. You’d think they never saw the results of careless smoking. Anyway, fuel oil. I gather it’s bothering you, too.”
“If the bomb was precisely made, the residue of the fuel oil, the volatile chemicals in it, should be pretty much gone by now. The fact that I can smell it here in the open air after all this time...” She shook her head a little.
“You’re thinking this guy didn’t know what he was doing?”
“I’m thinking he knows what he’s doing but hasn’t quite got it right.”
Charity drew a sharp breath. “I don’t like what that might mean.”
“Me neither. Say, you know Alex, right?”
“Fairly well, I guess. He’s a friend of Wayne’s.”
“Well, he worked for BSU, but from what he said I gather he left some demons behind. Do you think I’d disturb him if I asked him for an evaluation?”
At that moment, Darcy’s knees decided to raise an objection. She straightened and Charity was right beside her. The two of them stood sipping their coffees while Darcy shook her legs a bit and waited for Charity’s answer.
“I honestly don’t know what his instinctive reaction would be,” Charity answered finally, drawing the words out as if she were still pondering. “I know this school matters a lot to him, and his students even more. He’s the kind of teacher we’d all have liked, you know? He takes a personal interest and, from what I hear, is amazingly even-tempered even when provoked by some teen. You know how teens are. Or you can remember.”
“Smart mouths.”
“Yeah. And they push each other into stupidity sometimes. But he’s never criticized one of them in a way that anybody complains about. Gifted with dealing with testosterone, I guess. But for the rest?” She looked at Darcy. “I’ve never talked with him much about his FBI days. Wayne’s given me the sense that Alex would prefer to forget them. But given that his school has been struck by a bomb...and more specifically his shop facilities...” She trailed off. “I dunno, Darcy. He’s a grown man. He knows how to say no. My guess is that he’d like to do something constructive about this mess, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“I’m not asking for a guarantee. I just want to avoid hitting a raw nerve, but I’m not trying to put you on the spot or deprive him of the right to speak for himself.”
She was good at figuring out the mechanics of the bomb. Good at tracking evidence back to its source. Not so good at trying to evaluate the psychology of a bomber. Other than that they were usually cowards, she didn’t know a whole lot. Once she’d amassed enough evidence, the FBI would probably assist in this investigation. They often did, having their own skill sets and people. But she didn’t want to wait that long. She wanted to know if her nose was misleading her. Literally.
“Have you been inside the building?” she asked Charity.
“Sure. Fortunately, the blast didn’t escape the shop rooms in there. Stopped dead at the corridor wall.”
“More cinder block?”
“I believe so. I’m sure we have all that info back at the department. The paint is blackened but I was mostly looking at the containment. You can probably tell a lot more. Let’s walk around to the door, though. I don’t want to disturb the ground out here any more than necessary.”
“Agreed,” Darcy answered, surprised at how glad she was to have Charity as a teammate in this. Someone to show her around, someone who could answer questions because she knew the area and the people. Alex could do as much and in some instances more, if he was willing. She wished she knew what had happened to him in the BSU. She had no difficulty imagining the ugly minutiae he must have dealt with in that job, but something had pushed him to a breaking point. One that had cost him a whole lot.
She walked with Charity, ignoring the twenty-five or thirty people who’d gathered, nodding briefly at Jackson Castor, who still held the bag of cooling coffees that hadn’t been claimed by the workmen.
“Have a coffee, Jack,” she said. “No point letting it all cool down.”
He grinned and nodded.
And if she were him, she’d probably have wandered away in boredom by now. He was what, seventeen or eighteen? Most people that age wouldn’t want to stand around being bored, because sure as heck nothing exciting was happening right now.
Which caused a quiet ping on her internal radar.
Just as they rounded a corner of the building to face large steel doors with small windows, one of the doors opened and the Viking appeared. Well, it was Alex, but he still reminded her of a beardless Viking, one that reminded her she was still very much a woman. She wondered if that reaction would wear off. She hoped so because she’d spent a lot of effort developing a cool, professional persona in a career field dominated by men. Now that she was leading an investigation, it would be a bad time to mess that up by giving in to a sexual attraction.
Alex greeted her with a nod and a pleasant smile, and eyes that slipped over her body like a caress. “All set. You can use the gymnasium as long as we spread some of those tarps on the floor. I can get some help doing that for you. Gotta protect that finish, you know.”
Darcy smiled. “I get it. That gloss on a basketball floor is expensive and essential.”
“Oh, yeah.” His smile widened a shade. “Going to look around inside?”
“Charity’s showing me.”
“I’ll come along. I promise not to touch.”
He said it humorously. She was quite sure he knew all about preserving evidence. Still, he was offering friendliness. He was also sending signals that he didn’t want to be left out of this. Good. She didn’t need him to take over, but she was sure his brain might be worth picking. A complete 180 from her initial reaction. She just hoped it wasn’t hormone-driven.
The shop rooms were at the back of the school, in what appeared to be a separate wing. As they turned into the corridor leading to them, she stopped. From this vantage point, it appeared that farther down, near some doors on the right, the wall had bulged outward.
“What?” Alex asked.
She pointed. “Look down the right wall. What do you see?”
Alex drew a breath. Charity muttered something. “It’s bulging,” Alex said. “Good God. What kind of force would be needed to do that?”
“I need to do some calculations,” Darcy answered. Her gaze swept down along the wall, then to the ceiling overhead. A drop ceiling, it should have showed some sign if it had been affected, but it appeared to be perfectly all right. She’d need some measurements to be sure, but her eyes were telling her it was still square.
Then she looked at the bulge again. “The bomb was fairly low. Right now I’d guess it was outside of the building when it detonated. Look what it did to the exterior wall. If it had been inside I think we’d see more than some bowing on that wall.”
Alex nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“I still need to see inside the rooms. I’m just guessing.” But a picture was beginning to build, and it didn’t include access to the school when it was locked up overnight. Another piece to the puzzle perhaps.
They continued down the corridor and Alex pulled out a key ring. “This seems ridiculous now,” he said as he slipped a key into the lock on the nearest door. It turned easily. “Well, I didn’t expect that,” he remarked. “I thought it would be busted.”
It turned out, however, that the door was out of line and didn’t want to open easily. “I imagine,” he said, “that you don’t want to take an ax to this.”
“I’d rather see the original damage. Then I want to measure that bulge and how far it is from the bomb opening.” She glanced at Charity. “Can I get a surveyor out here?”
“I’m sure you can get anything you want.”
Alex spoke. “I know just the guy. He’ll be able to tell how deformed the wall is.” He leaned into the door while holding the latch open and pushed. It moved just a little. “Okay...” He gave another shove, harder, a grunt escaping him this time, but the door opened four inches.
“We’re on our way,” Charity remarked. “Should I get a pry bar from the truck?”
“Let me give it one more try. It feels like something is behind it.”
He leaned backward into the door, this time using his entire body for leverage, and slowly, scraping every inch of the way, it opened wide enough that Darcy could slip inside.
There the story was very different. Not only were shop machines and tables twisted and tossed everywhere, but the ceiling had also burned and collapsed, leaving exposed wires dangling. “Circuit breakers off?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Alex said, easing his way in beside her.
“Surprise,” Darcy muttered. “It looks like a bomb went off.”
“No kidding,” he answered. “Do you know what I’m seeing?”
She turned her head toward him, curious. “What?”
“A lot of opportunity smashed. A lot of really good projects my students were working on, destroyed. We might be able to get this shop up and running by next fall, but there are a lot of seniors who had some really fine stuff underway here, and it’s gone. Son of a...” He stopped himself, but while his face remained emotionless, she could feel anger seething in him. Then he looked at her. “They don’t get their dreams back. Their excitement over all they were achieving.”
“No.” Her answer might have been flat, but she felt her heart squeeze. He’d hit on the part she tried to avoid thinking about. “Collateral damage.” There was always collateral damage.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Collateral. Such a cold word.”
No point standing here and grieving. Tucking her hands into one of the many pockets on her overalls, she passed him some disposable booties, then donned a pair over her work boots. “Less contamination,” she remarked out of habit. God, was she becoming one of those people who persisted in telling others what they probably already knew? But Alex didn’t take it amiss.
“I’ll stay out here,” Charity said. “God knows what’s on my boots and you don’t have any of those that’ll go over these things.”
It was true. Darcy tossed her a smile, pulled a couple of high-intensity penlights out of another of her pockets and began to scan what she could see without moving from top to bottom. Alex took the other flashlight and followed suit. “Anything unusual?” he asked.
“Anything. Just point it out to me if it catches your eye.”
“Got it.”
“Charity? I don’t smell the fuel oil in here. It’s all outside. It wouldn’t dissipate in here, not as fast, so...”
“I read you. Excessive fuel oil was used, so there ought to be some scent in here. Definitely seems like the explosion was just outside.”
Darcy nodded. “I suspect that what we’ll find in here will mainly be blast debris, not much from the device itself. But we still have to look.”
And what a job it was going to be, she thought as she looked around. She’d seen plenty of scenes like this; she had no illusion about the painstaking work facing her. No illusion, either, about the fact that she’d get on-site help only if some were freed up elsewhere. Conard City, Wyoming, was kind of off the map and radar with so many other important things happening. Unless she found some kind of indicator signifying militants or terrorists in the area, she was pretty much on her own. A vanguard without follow-up.
“Damn,” Alex said emphatically.
“What?” Darcy immediately followed the beam of his flashlight. He wiggled it over some blackened heap that seemed to have at least one thick leg attached.
“Chuck Ingram was working on that. A butcher-block island for his mother. She’d wanted one for years, but they were out of reach, so he saved up money for the last two years from his part-time job to buy the best, hardest wood. Glued the wood together, braced it, tooled the legs... He was going to give it to his mom for Mother’s Day. He was almost done.”
Darcy stared at what was now a charred lump and felt a growing flame of anger deep inside. This was about a lot more than a bomb, how it was built and who built it. This was about lives, hopes, dreams. “Hell.” She usually avoided swearing, but that word seemed mild right now.
“There are other projects like that in here,” Alex said grimly. “We gotta get this guy. That’s the only way I can help these kids now.”
With that, he passed back the flashlight and eased out of the room. Darcy saw Charity watching him as he left the building.
Then Charity leaned her head through the door. “It’s probably too late to clean up this mess,” she said. “I mean, we could get more wood for Chuck, but we can’t give him back the hours he spent on that. Even if we could arrange for him to work in the shop at the college.”
“No.” Darcy scanned the room some more. “Okay, I’m going to need to take a lot of photos before I even start looking around. Then the tarps.”
“My guys can help you on the roof, when you’re ready to check it.”
“Thanks. I’m definitely going to need some help with this.”
She eased back out of the room and pulled off her booties, folding them inside out in case they’d picked up something that might prove useful.
“I’m surprised you’re alone,” Charity said.
“I wouldn’t ordinarily be. Bad time. The bureau is overtaxed right now. Hopefully that’ll change soon. Either that, or I find a lead to the bomber. Meantime, preserve the evidence.” The endless mantra. Preserve the evidence.
And try not to think too hard about all the students who’d just had their work blown up by some jackass.
