“I went to downtown Basalt,” Bob said. “It’s pretty quiet. Looks like the downtown is dying.”
“The bigger stores and chains are in the next town over,” Nelson said. “In Willits.”
“Right,” Bob said. “That’s what they said.”
“Did you find anything?” Leslie asked.
“Sort of,” Bob said. “I went into a hardware store. It took a bit, but the owner came from the back. He’s about my age. Said he grew up there.”
“Sounds promising,” Ava said.
“I introduced myself and, asked about the senator,” Bob said. “He said that he went to ‘roast marshmallows on the fire of that bastard’ and ‘the devil took his own back.’”
“Gives you an idea of how people still feel about the senator,” Nelson said. “We’ve gotten it everywhere.”
Ava, Leslie, and Fran nodded.
“And!” Bob said, turning the attention back to him. “The owner of the hardware store said that the guy who lived on the property. . .”
“Where I was looking,” Nelson added.
“Had moved there a week before the senator ‘ran into that explosive,’” Bob said. “His words. The guy was enlisted during Desert Storm and now has the Syndrome. He’s supposed to be in the same hospital as Seth.”
“I’ll check it out,” Ava said. “Do we have a name?”
“Billie Joshua Trujillo,” Bob said. “Here’s the interesting thing — this guy’s mother died of cancer just a week or so after the senator’s murder. She and her son were evicted from their house and forced to move into this home outside of Basalt. Basically, the mother was forced to get up from her death bed and relocate to this home in the middle of nowhere.”
“That seems extreme,” Ava said.
Bob shrugged.
“The hardware store owner thought that the move killed her. In fact, he said. . .” Bob looked down to read from his notes. “‘For a week, people were coming in here to tell me how heartless they thought it was that she was forced to move while she was so ill. We all thought it killed her.’”
“Seems like a horrible thing to do when they could have just waited,” Leslie said.
“Exactly,” Nelson said. “But there’s more.”
“Oh?” Ava asked. “Did you find out who owns the property?”
“According to the hardware store owner, the property once belonged to the sheriff,” Bob said.
“Our sheriff?” Ava asked. She dug through the stack of papers on her desk. “Sheriff Trujillo?”
“I never looked at his name,” Leslie said.
“I didn’t, either,” Ava said.”
Fran nodded.
“The sheriff who led this investigation owns the property adjacent to where the Senator was killed?” Ava asked.
“Exactly,” Nelson said.
“Huh,” Ava said.
“Exactly,” Bob said.
“Do you have the mother’s name so we can check to see if she was in Vietnam?” Ava asked.
“You’re thinking she’s an Agent Orange victim?” Nelson asked while nodding.
“She was a nurse,” Bob said. “Da Nang.”
No one said anything for a long moment.
“What’s her name?” Ava asked. “Just want to be sure.”
“The hardware store owner said her name was ‘Annie,’” Bob said. “But that could be ‘A-n-n’ or ‘A-n-n-e.’”
“I’ll check,” Ava said. “‘Trujillo’ is a really common name in Colorado. I assume she’s a native?”
Bob shrugged.
“Any word on a husband? Father to Joshua?” Ava asked.
“That’s where things got weird,” Bob said. “When I asked, the hardware store owner clammed up. Said that he’s heard rumors but never anything concrete.”
“Did he think the sheriff was the father?” Ava asked.
“Could be,” Nelson said while Bob shook his head.
“I don’t think so,” Bob said. “I want to be clear that this man did not say this to me, but I got the feeling that Michaud was the father of the boy.”
“What?” Ava asked.
Fran and Leslie leaned forward.
“Just a feeling,” Bob said.
“We’ll check it out,” Ava said. “Anything else?”
“I took a scraping from that burned patch in the road,” Nelson said. “Just in case it’s still there from when the senator died. And. . . well. . . you know how they put sand on the roads?”
“Okay,” Ava said.
“There’s a lot of glass,” Nelson said. “On the side of the road, you know.”
“Broken bottles?” Fran asked.
“Melted sand,” Nelson said. “I noticed it because we went out to the Trinity site recently.”
“You think this was a nuclear bomb?” Ava asked.
“No,” Nelson shook his head vehemently. “I’m saying. . . well, I’m not sure what I’m saying. I guess that it’s there where the car burned and not anywhere else. I picked up a bunch of it so we can look at it at the lab.”
“Sounds like a clue,” Ava said.
Nelson nodded.
“What’s going on there?” Bob asked.
Ava quickly updated them on the interviews Dr. Quincy had done with the families of the U.S. Capitol Police.
“How did you do in the lab?” Ava asked.
Fourteen
“We have lots of results,” Fran said. “I don’t think that any of it is helpful.”
“I can help you go through it today,” Ava said.
“Great,” Fran said. “Your help is always welcome.”
“DNA?” Bob asked.
“Degraded,” Fran said with a shake of her head. “The fire must have burned so hot that it truly did destroy forensics. I’m holding out some hope for the samples we took from the shoes of the men. Their shoes were pressed against the flesh of their feet — protecting the feet, for a while, at least, from the heat of the fire. We took a sample off inside of their shoes. That should get us some DNA. Maybe. Just maybe.”
“The Capitol Police were also closest to the RPG,” Leslie said.
“Which brings up a point,” Fran said. “If I were to give my professional opinion, I’d say that this fire was too hot for a simple RPG.”
“Full gas tank for a long drive?” Nelson asked.
“Even with a full gas tank,” Fran said. She raised her hands in submission. “I’m not saying that I have forensic evidence of this, but it seems like everything burned too hot. I’ve worked a fair number of car bombings and vehicle explosions. Oklahoma City Bombing. IEDs in Iraq. I’ve never seen anything that burned this hot coming from an RPG or even a car bomb. Usually, there’s a boom and some fire. This was a blazing hot fire.”
“Are you saying that the bomb was on board?” Ava said. “No RPG?”
“I’m saying the fire was too hot,” Fran said with a nod. “I can’t speculate on the other.”
“Did you try the carpet?” Ava asked. “If there was an accelerant, it might be on what’s left of the carpet.”
Fran pointed to Ava and nodded.
“I’ll get a sample from the vehicle,” Leslie said.
“Thanks,” Fran said.
“I wonder. . .” Ava said. No one said anything for a moment. “I just. . .”
Ava shook her head.
“Where did the story come from that this vehicle was exploded by an RPG?” Ava asked. “No one has come forward as a witness to this event. At least not one we have evidence from. All we know is that there was some kind of explosion in this vehicle and some kind of fire in the nearby forest.”
“What if it’s not an RPG?” Bob asked.
“What if the senator and the others were killed in Aspen?” Leslie asked. “Blown up to make it look like. . .”
“We need to exhume the bodies,” Ava said.
Everyone nodded.
“I’ll call Dr. Quincy,” Ava said. Looking at Fran, she asked, “Anything else?”
&nb
sp; Fran shook her head.
“Leslie?” Ava asked.
“I’m dying to hear what happened with Mrs. Michaud!” Leslie said.
Ava nodded.
“I’d like to hear about the car first,” Ava said. “You thought that there was something weird about the explosive?”
“I hadn’t considered that it wasn’t an RPG,” Leslie said. “If it’s not an RPG, then the explosive residue is consistent with some kind of hot fire, like. . .”
“Napalm,” they all said in near unison.
“I’ll get what’s left of the carpet,” Leslie said.
“Did you find anything else?” Ava asked.
“In light of what we just talked about?” Leslie shrugged. “Not really. I agree with Fran. The fire was too hot for just an RPG. I thought maybe that there was something in the trunk or explosives packed in with the passengers. . .”
“Meaning that the occupants were dead before the explosion,” Bob said.
Leslie nodded.
“Someone drove the vehicle,” Ava said. “They found four skeletons.”
“Someone could have bailed out,” Nelson said. “James Bond style.”
“Anything’s possible,” Ava said, shaking her head. Looking at Leslie, she raised an eyebrow. “You list the number of spent shells?”
“We figure that the fire set them off,” Leslie said.
“Sure,” Ava said. “There’s just a weird number of them. If we assume that every Capitol Police had at least one weapon, we’re short.”
She gave her team a few minutes to flip through the log of evidence.
“Huh,” Leslie said.
“What are you thinking?” Bob asked.
“I’m not thinking anything,” Ava said. “It’s possible that their clips weren’t full. It’s police protocol to carry full clips. If they were expecting trouble, I’d assume their clips would be full, with one in the chamber.”
“Maybe extra clips,” Bob said.
“They were dead,” Nelson said. “Someone stole a weapon.”
“Or someone wasn’t wearing one,” Leslie said.
“Also,” Ava said, gesturing to Leslie. “You list a few metal fragments that are not consistent with the vehicle. Could they be from the RPG?”
“I wondered that myself,” Leslie said. “I need to check it.”
“No matter how hot the fire was, there should be some kind of evidence of the grenade,” Ava said. “There’s no mention of it in the initial investigation or the evidence list.”
“You’re right,” Leslie said. “There’s a huge box of metal fragments. At least one.”
“I’m happy to go through the metal fragments if you bring them to me,” Ava said. “It’s the kind of thing I am good at.”
“I may take you up on it,” Leslie said with a nod. “Let’s see what the day brings.”
Ava nodded.
“One more thing,” Ava said. “I know it’s far-fetched but. . . what if Michaud is still alive? Set this up as a decoy and slithered away?”
“To where?” Bob asked shaking his head. “He was planning to be president.”
“Just something that struck me,” Ava nodded.
“What did his wife say?” Leslie asked. “Did she really throw away her sable coat?”
“She did,” Ava said with a nod. She looked off into the near distance. “What did she say? She said that he was a brute, but that she loved him. She had the money, but he spent it. Outside of filling in the picture of this man, she wasn’t able to answer any of our questions.”
“Why was he in Aspen?” Nelson asked.
“She didn’t know,” Ava said. “She said that he worked all kinds of crazy hours during the Senate term — both in the office and after hours at fundraising parties. For as long as they were married, he took a week after the session ended to spend it ‘recovering’ in Aspen. She had no idea what he did.”
“You heard about the name-change thing?” Ava asked, looking around the table. Everyone nodded. “Did you find anything, Nelson?”
“Not yet,” Bob said. “We’re going to records today.”
“Let us know,” Ava said.
“What was he like?” Leslie asked.
“According to the wife?” Ava asked. She thought for a moment. “I know what you’re asking, but I’m not sure I know any more than what I said. According to her, he loved her. They were happy together. She met him when she was a teenager, and they were together until his death. One thing she said was that her father thought that she was too stupid to inherit his money. When she married Michaud, her father changed his will and left the entire estate to her. Her father didn’t even leave money for her mother. She had to provide for her mother after her father died.”
“Did you like her?” Nelson asked.
“I felt like I understood her,” Ava said. “My mother and her mother. . . It’s not a new story for women and powerful men. The men are awful, but women love them.”
Ava shrugged.
“She’s stuck,” Ava said, taking a breath that was more like a gasp. “She cannot move on until she knows what happened to him.”
She looked off in the distance for a moment.
“One thing,” Ava said. “She said that he hated to give anything to anyone. He hated veterans. She wasn’t sure why. It was just a fact. She also said that she could tell when he was lying. And, he was lying when he talked about getting out of the draft.”
Ava shrugged.
“Anything else?” Ava asked.
No one said anything for a long moment.
“Okay,” Ava said. “I’ll call Dr. Quincy and figure out what to do about the bodies. I think we need to go through them. They may give us something that we don’t already have.”
Everyone nodded.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Ava said. “I feel like we’re close.”
“We have the pieces. We just need to put them all together,” Bob said.
Ava pointed to Bob.
“Let’s meet before end of day,” Fran said. “I want to know what Bob and Nelson find at records. We should know about the carpet.”
“And the metal,” Leslie said. “That seems promising. Put to bed any question about whether it was an RPG.”
“Dr. Quincy might have made progress,” Ava said with a nod. “Okay, so I’ll see you here at five.”
She waved to Bob and Nelson. They clicked off the call.
“Can you help make some gels?” Fran asked Ava.
“Absolutely,” Ava said. “Let me call Dr. Quincy and I’ll be there.”
“I’ll be back with the metal and carpet,” Leslie said.
“I love putting together bits of metal,” Ava said.
“You’re really good at it,” Leslie said.
Ava shrugged.
Smiling, Leslie got up to head back to the vehicle. Fran left for the lab. Ava placed her calls and went to the lab. She grabbed her white lab coat and went to wash her hands.
Fifteen
“What’s the word?” Fran asked.
“Dr. Quincy had the families sign exhumation releases when she met with them,” Ava said.
“Pre-planning,” Fran said with a grin. “I like it.”
Ava nodded.
“I called Mrs. Michaud, and she said she would fax her permission,” Ava said. “Dr. Quincy said she would oversee the exhumations and do the autopsies here.”
“So, tomorrow?” Fran asked.
“Quite possibly,” Ava said. “With Dr. Quincy, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had it done tonight.”
Fran smiled. She put a box of gel in Ava’s hands. Smiling, Ava got to work making the gels they used for everything from DNA analysis to cleaning samples for testing. When she looked up, Leslie had arrived in her office. Ava finished what she was doing and went to help Leslie. They spent a very boring afternoon sorting through the metal debris picked up from the crash site.
“Whata-ya got there?” a man’s voice came from the doorway to
Ava’s office.
Ava and Leslie looked up to see an elderly man standing in the doorway. He was holding a thick manila folder in his hands.
“Special Agent Cal Dabrowski, FBI, retired,” the man said. “I heard you were working the Michaud case. You Amelie Alvin?”
The Special Agent said the last words with a sneer and a sniff.
“What if I am?” Ava said.
“You as much of a bastard as your old man?” Special Agent Dabrowski asked.
“If you mean my father, no,” Ava said. “If you mean my husband, that’s likely.”
Special Agent Dabrowski tipped his head back and laughed. Ava looked at Leslie and shrugged. Leslie shook her head.
“What can I do for you, Special Agent Dabrowski?” Ava asked.
“I brought my personal file from the case,” Special Agent Dabrowski said. He nodded to the object in Ava’s hand. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure,” Ava said. “We were going through all of the bits of metal evidence.”
She held up something that looked like a grapefruit or possibly an oblong ball. It was hollow on the inside. She’d glued together the ones that fit. There was still a pile of metal pieces in front of her.
“We received all of the physical evidence from all of the agencies,” Leslie said. “This box is all of the metal pieces. We’re looking for some missing shells and seeing if. . .”
Leslie looked at Ava, and she gave a slight nod.
“Ava’s really good at this,” Leslie said.
“Ava?” Special Agent Dabrowski asked.
“Her name is Ava O’Malley,” Leslie said.
Special Agent Dabrowski scowled but said nothing else.
“Do you know what this is?” Ava asked, holding up the object. “It’s almost complete. I think these other ones go in it.”
She held it out to Special Agent Dabrowski.
“Russian lettering?” Special Agent Dabrowski asked.
Ava held it up to her eyes and nodded.
“That’s the shell of a grenade that fits in an RPG-2,” Special Agent Dabrowski said. “Was it cold the night Michaud was killed?”
Shrugging, Ava shook her head. She went to her computer and looked up the weather in Basalt on that date.
Billie's Bounce Page 8
