Suicide Bomb

by Bobby Nash

  What he did not notice were the gas fumes threatening to overpower him.

  Maybe he simply no longer cared. It was hard to say.

  He exhaled and let the tendrils of smoke dance along the contours of his face, the blood from his nose already turning black in the dim moonlight. The man stared at the cigarette lighter for a long moment as if unsure what it was or as if it were some magic talisman from the far-flung future. He flicked the lighter again, watching the flame shoot up a good three inches above the nozzle. He tried hard to make out the words on the lighter, but the part of his brain that might have recognized them no longer functioned as it should. It was as if the civilized person who lived in his body was gone, suppressed and replaced by the vicious animal who had just murdered an innocent man.

  No! He wasn’t innocent! a voice, not his own, screamed against his brain.

  As if it were no longer of interest to him, the man locked the lighter into the on position and tossed it over his shoulder into the back seat. The gas ignited and flames rose up behind him immediately, casting flickering shadows across his features. He didn't so much as flinch, almost as though he hadn’t even noticed the danger that surrounded him.

  After finishing the cigarette, he tossed it out the window, then dropped the car into drive, turned the wheel sharply--

  And floored it.

  The car was engulfed in flames as it careened off the side of the road at fifty plus mile per hour. It would be several hours before the fire would be extinguished. By that time the driver would be long dead. Burned to death without uttering a sound. Not even a scream.

  An innocent man was dead for reasons he did not comprehend.

  Just like Calvin Hutchinson.

  twelve

  Washington DC

  Sunday

  Catherine Jackson once again woke to the sound of a ringing phone.

  Not for the first time, she wondered why she even bothered to own an alarm clock because she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually woke to it. Fumbling for the cell phone in the dark, Jacks was surprised to find nothing was where it was supposed to be.

  Exhaustion filled every fiber of her being. Almost three days without a good night sleep was starting to take its toll. Especially the stabbing pain of a migraine that lay just behind her eyes and threatened to make her vomit.

  The room was dark and for a moment she couldn’t quite figure out where she was. As usually happened when one wakes abruptly in unfamiliar surroundings, a small measure of panic kicked in, adrenaline pumping, mind racing as her brain ran through all of the worst case scenarios.

  Then that damned phone rang a second time.

  Throwing off the blanket she snuggled beneath, Jacks rolled her legs off into the floor.

  And hit the coffee table.

  A jolt of pain ran up her left leg, a combination of adrenaline and intense pain restoring her to full wakefulness and clarity followed by a string of whispered obscenities. She was in the living room of her apartment. She must have fallen asleep on the couch. Oh, right, she remembered. I was waiting up for Charri when I...

  The phone screamed again, loud in the dark and quiet apartment.

  Now fully aware of her surroundings, Jacks moved across the floor and scooped up the cell where it glowed in the dark on her desk by the far window before it could sound a forth time.

  “What?” she said curtly, making no effort to hide the irritation at the second early morning interruption in a row. Something told her that this was not going to be a good day.

  “Took you long enough,” he partner’s equally agitated voice came back to her. “I was beginning to get worried.” Obviously, she was not the only roused from sleep way too early on a Sunday morning.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is, Mel?”

  “Do I? That’s funny, Jacks. You do realize that since I’m calling you, someone else called me first, right? I think the guys down at the station are afraid of you or something.”

  “Yeah, well, then they aren’t as stupid as I thought.”

  Mel was clearly growing impatient with his cranky partner. “Look, we’ve got another one if you’re interested in coming down and taking a look. Or you can stay home and be surly.”

  “Another what?”

  “Another dead analyst.”

  “Coincidence, you think?” she asked as she leaned against the window seal. “Or connected with the family on Maitland?”

  “You know I don’t believe in coincidence, Jacks. You ready?”

  “Let me grab a pen, hang on a sec.”

  She fumbled around the desk for something to write with and on. Without looking, she pulled a red Sharpie from its cradle, a DCPD mug filled with a rainbow of colored pens and markers.

  “Okay. Go.”

  She took down the address as her partner read it off to her.

  “Talk about middle of nowhere,” she said after reading back the directions.

  “Tell me about it,” Mel said around a stifled yawn. “I’m heading out now so I’ll meet you there.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  “Don’t take too long. This place is bound to be swarming with Spooks, Jacks, and you know how much I like those guys.”

  Before she shut off the phone, she assured Melvin she would be there as soon as she could to run interference for him with the Feds. Her partner did not deal with government types well. She remembered the last time one of their cases intersected an FBI case. If she hadn’t intervened, her partner was seconds away from throwing punches at the Deputy Director of the FBI.

  Flipping a switch on the wall brought the small tabletop lamp above her desktop computer to life. The apartment looked much as she had expected. With Charri spending the last couple of days there, the place was a disaster area. Not that her sister was deliberately making a mess, she just lacked the gene that allowed her to see the mess and take measures to clean it up. It was an affliction that infected most teenagers, Jacks assumed. Although, she could not remember being this disorganized when she was Charri’s age. She bet her mother recollected differently, though.

  “Speaking of little sister,” Jacks whispered as she walked back to the couch. Picking up the blanket she had tossed aside when getting off the couch, her thoughts drifted back a few hours.

  Daniel had dropped her off around eleven thirty or so. Jacks recalled inviting him up to her place, but the Councilor politely declined the invitation, reminding her that she already had houseguests for the evening and that it was just shy of midnight already. She had almost forgotten that Charisma and Jessie were going to spend the night.

  Wouldn’t that make things awkward?

  She had almost suggested that Daniel drive them both back to his place, but pushed that idea away pretty quickly. She really had to have a long conversation with her little sister. There needed to be some peace between mother and daughter. As usual, Catherine was caught in the middle, a position she was growing tired of finding herself in. It was high time to put an end to this once and for all. She was getting fed up with having playing referee between the two of them.

  Even though it was almost midnight, Jacks came home to an empty apartment. As tired as she was, Jacks decided to stay up and wait for Charri to make her way in. While she waited, she checked her backlog of email. There were several case-related emails from some of the many different sources she used as part of her job, including some off the books contacts she had cultivated during her time on the force. She forwarded most of them to her terminal at the precinct house. There were several unwanted ads from various places that she immediately deleted without even looking at them. Why anyone would think she would be interested in buying a supply of Viagra, generic or otherwise, was beyond her.

  At least it’s not that ad with the couple sitting in separate bathtubs holding hands, she thought. That’s just creepy.

  Surprisingly, there was also an email from her older sister, Elanya.

  Elanya and Catherine got along pretty well. They wer
e nowhere near as close as Catherine and Charisma, but that was hardly the point. Elanya, the oldest of the Jackson brood, had about six years on Catherine. Just enough difference for them to not understand where the other was coming from.

  Elanya’s email was just to say hello and to once again invite Catherine to come out to the West Coast for a visit. She made the same invitation about four times a year, but Catherine always found one reason or another not to go. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her sister again. The opposite was true, but with her job, getting away was tough.

  It was a convenient excuse and she knew it, but that was the story she was sticking with when asked.

  ‘Lanya will understand, her sister hoped.

  Catherine had spent a good hour or so returning emails, checked an odd assortment of sites she had book marked as favorites, and played about thirty games of computer solitaire, but still her sister had not returned.

  When the clock passed two a.m., she started to worry.

  At that point, she started to pace until the inevitable pull of fatigue forced her back onto the couch to stare at the television while she opened the stack of mail that had been piling up both at home and at work. She didn’t make it through the entire stack before her eyelids began to droop. Not for the first time she wondered why there was never anything good on TV late at night. That was the last conscious thought she remembered before her tired eyes closed. Lights out.

  Jacks realized the television set was turned off when she woke. As tired as she was, Jacks had obviously slept through the girls’ arrival.

  That means they’re probably...

  Jacks pushed open her bedroom door carefully, trying not to wake the two teens sleeping in her bed. Obviously, she had fallen asleep on the couch while “waiting up” on the rebellious one. Charri had probably draped the blanket over her, not wanting to wake her. More likely than not, she would want to avoid the lecture that Detective Jackson was probably going to launch into about taking responsibility for oneself. She had the speech pretty much memorized.

  Charisma had changed into one of Catherine’s long Tee’s before turning in. Jessie was asleep at her side, wearing the clothes they had worn to whatever club they had been partying at. They reeked of smoke, sweat, and alcohol. That was no guarantee that they had partaken of any of those things. It was rather hard not to attract such odors in the cramped quarters of a packed to capacity club. As she was no stranger to the club scene herself once upon a time, Jacks understood far better than their mother would.

  Maybe that’s why Charri spends so much time here.

  Asleep, the two little hellions looked more like little angels, cuddled in the thick blanket on Catherine’s king size bed.

  Jacks knew they had to have a conversation today about things. This situation needed to be resolved. Soon.

  As quiet as possible, she washed up in the master bathroom, then tied back her out-of-whack slept on hair into a ponytail and tucked it through the back of a baseball cap emblazoned with the DCPD logo. Seeing no need to change clothes, Jacks eased out of the room, careful not to wake the sleeping beauties in her bed.

  On the counter, she scrawled a note to her sister explaining the need for a long heart to heart conversation about her and Mom fighting and that she had to go to work for a little while, but would return as soon as possible. She ended the note with a not so subtle warning of be here when I get back. She underlined that last part just to make sure she got her point across.

  Scooping up her keys, badge, gun, ammo, and wallet, Catherine Jackson returned her apartment to the darkness she had found it in and left, locking the deadbolt behind her.

  Mere seconds after leaving, the clock on her stove flashed 4:00 a.m.

  It was going to be another long day.

  thirteen

  Washington DC

  Sunday

  Jacks stifled a yawn.

  She took another pull on the large hot cup of coffee she picked up at a fast food drive through window as she navigated the fairly deserted streets of the city.

  Clearly, even Washington D.C. sleeps occasionally. Which is certainly more than I’ve been able to do lately, she groused.

  At this early hour on a Sunday morning, still a few hours before sunrise, most normal people were at home in bed. Where I should be, she reminded herself. It was hard to stay focused on less than two hours of sleep, but she had not taken this job because of the great hours or the pay.

  Certainly not for the pay.

  The address Melvin gave her was way out in Langley. There was really only one thing of any interest in Langley, Virginia and that was the George Bush Center for Intelligence, better known to the world at large as the Central Intelligence Agency. Jacks knew that a crime scene involving Langley meant the CIA, FBI, and God only knew how many other three or four letter agencies would be there, crawling all over her crime scene while practicing the art of CTA, Covering Their Asses.

  She was not looking forward to this.

  Like her partner, Jacks had locked horns with these federal agency types before when their investigations crossed paths. Damn Feds think they can come right in here and push us around, she had told Melvin after her last clash with FBI Assistant Director James McHenry. If it had not been for her partner’s calming influence, Jacks probably would have punched that pompous jackass right in the mouth.

  Melvin had been on medical leave the last time Jacks got on the bad side of a federal agent. Despite the problems he was facing at the time, he was happy to listen to her rant and rave until she felt better. Or, rather, until she calmed down. She still carried a mad-on for the FBI agent and hoped to never see him again.

  It wasn’t like her partner to be so level-headed with the feds, but he had been heavily medicated at the time so he probably zoned out several times during her tirade. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that he wanted to listen and help. He was always there for her as she was for him. That’s what partners did for one another and she had a great partner in Melvin Walker.

  Walker had been through a rough ordeal the past six months. A sniper’s bullet had nearly killed him. Another few inches to the left and he would have been paralyzed or dead. As it was, he was only laid up for six months while he endured three surgeries, physical therapy, rehab, PTSD therapy sessions, and his friends making a fuss over him. That last part he kind of enjoyed, not that he would admit it.

  He bounced back from his injury and was recovering nicely. A few weeks earlier, his doctor allowed him to return to work on the condition that he take it easy. Fat chance of that happening, but Walker was once again on the job where he belonged. He still walked with a limp in his right leg, a reminder of being shot, but at least he was walking.

  There were many who would not have placed even money on that actually happening, much less his return to active duty.

  Jacks was certainly glad to have him back, but she feared he might be pushing himself too hard. Of course, she was the last person to give advice to someone about working too hard so she didn’t fuss over him. “Pot, thy name is kettle,” she had said once upon a time to herself when she felt the urge to interfere in someone else’s life.

  That thought only made her think of the upcoming battle of wills between her mother and sister. Now was not the time to dwell on that nightmare, however. There would be time enough to deal with that particular headache later. Her mind needed to focus on a less stressful topic, like running a homicide investigation.

  She pulled up to the location her partner had given her over the phone and badged her way through the barricades that effectively shut down the road. The officer working the barricade directed her to a place she could safely park. It was off to the side, right next to a rather large, unhappy crowd.

  “Ah, shit!” Jacks groused. “I knew it,” she whispered as she killed the engine. “I knew it. It’s another fucking circus.”

  She easily counted fifteen cars, all with flashing lights of one color or another. No doubt these folks
had all badged their way inside the same way she had. Quite often that shiny little gold badge opened a lot of doors. She had used it that way herself more than once.

  A body bag was being loaded into the ambulance. DOA. Dead on Arrival. There was no reason to use the sirens. The ambulance would go straight to the Coroner’s Office. Jacks took some small guilty pleasure in knowing Gigi Martin’s weekend was being trampled on as much as her own was. Misery loving company and all that.

  Pulling the chain with her badge around her neck, Detective Jackson entered the crime scene quickly, swerving around the myriad of officials too quickly to be stopped with questions she did not want to answer this early in the investigation. There were many faces here she didn’t recognize, but a few she did. Jacks counted twenty gawkers watching with rapt attention, each talking over one another and almost all of them on their cell phones with their respective offices. Every one of them had questions they wanted answered. Each of them felt their reason for being there, whatever it may have been, was more important than the reasons of the person standing next to them.

  And then there was Jacks, who could give two shits what any of them wanted. Jurisdiction was clear. The death had happened outside of Langley’s campus and crossed into her territory. This was one of the greatest examples of the governmental interdepartmental squabbling played out in one small area. There was no team work on display. Thay all wanted their piece of the pie.

  She stopped the first Unie she saw.

  “Where’s Detective Walker?” she asked the uniformed patrol officer as she held up her badge for him to see it clearly.

  “Is he D.C.P.D., ma’am?”

  “Yes. DC Metro. This is our crime scene after all.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. A lot of badges here tonight.”

  “Not a problem, officer. Excuse my rudeness. I’m usually much more cheerful after the sun comes up.”