Boom-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  The Hamlin Park Irregulars:

  boom-BOOM!

  By

  Wally Duff

  www.HamlinParkIrregulars.com

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise — without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  For permission requests, write to the publisher at:

  Attention: Wallace Duff

  c/o K, M & N Publishers, Inc.

  Hamlin Park Irregulars, A Nebraska LLC

  Suite 100, 12829 West Dodge Road

  Omaha, NE 68154

  © 2017 -- Wallace Duff. All rights reserved.

  Visit the author’s website: www.HamlinParkIrregulars.com

  First Edition

  ISBN-13: 9781548686109

  ISBN-10: 1548686107

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To Gracie, you were there at the beginning.

  Rocky, you were there in the middle.

  And little Bentley, you’re here at the end.

  Many of today's at-home mothers, having worked for a while, are used to having colleagues around for gossip or lunch — and they miss that at home. Without bosses to provide the atta-girls they learned to crave, they look to other women. The question is, how to find them?

  Christina Duff: Wall Street Journal

  Part 1

  Arlington, Virginia

  8 a.m.

  Tuesday, July 3

  1

  My heart pounded so fast I found it hard to breathe. I called FBI Special Agent Scott J. Wiles. “He’s here!”

  “Who is this?” Wiles’ voice was annoyingly calm. “And who’s where?”

  “It’s Tina Edwards, and the bomber I warned you about yesterday just walked into the surgery entrance of the Arlington Women’s Clinic.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “He’s disguised as a deliveryman.”

  “Ms. Edwards, are you sure you’re not overreacting?” He paused. “Again.”

  Jerk.

  I grabbed my backpack and jumped out of my car. “He’s pushing a laundry cart and the bomb is in it!”

  “Are you certain he took the device into the building?”

  I sucked in a deep breath before I answered. “Not exactly. No.”

  Wiles didn’t say anything.

  “He is not the regular laundry deliveryman, and he’s here on the wrong day!”

  “I will send an agent to investigate,” he said.

  “With D.C. traffic, your agent will be lucky to be here by noon.”

  Forget this damn story.

  I shouldered my backpack. “Wiles, I’m going in there to stop him.”

  “Ms. Edwards, do not go into that building!”

  I hung up on him and slammed my car door.

  My next call was 911. I told them about the bomber and gave them the clinic’s address.

  Jamming the phone into my backpack, I turned my jog into an all-out sprint. There were several abortion protesters on the other side of the street from the clinic’s front door. They saw me coming and began chanting anti-abortion protests as I roared past them.

  “Bomb!” I shouted, pointing at the clinic. “Run!”

  I didn’t stop to see what they were going to do. I ran through the clinic’s front door and skidded to a stop in the middle of the waiting room. There were about half a dozen young women sitting with their heads down, looking at their cell phone screens. A couple wore ear buds. Two female staff personnel sat at a glass-enclosed desk. They worked on their computers.

  “There’s a bomb in this building! Get out of here!”

  One young woman looked up at me. The rest continued to stare at their cell phone screens, oblivious to what I’d said.

  “Stop looking at your damn cell phones!” I yelled again, this time stomping my foot. “I’m a reporter, and you’re all going to be blown up!”

  No one moved.

  They might die because of their stupid cell phones.

  One staff member picked up a phone. If she called their security, help might be on the way. But I didn’t have time to wait. I had to find the bomber and stop him before he blew up the building and all of us inside.

  2

  The door to the surgery area was to my left.

  He might be in there.

  As I stepped into the hallway, the odors of cleaning solvents and medications washed over me. The frigid air being spewed out by the building’s overly enthusiastic cooling system instantly gave me goose bumps.

  Twenty feet in front of me, the men’s bathroom door flew open. The laundry deliveryman walked out. He turned to his right and moved toward the exit door into the parking lot.

  Where is his laundry basket?

  Did he plant the bomb in the bathroom?

  Adrenaline surged through my blood stream. I reached into my backpack and grabbed a Glock 19. It was a departing gift from the Marines I’d been embedded with while doing stories in Afghanistan.

  Throwing down my backpack, I jacked a bullet into the chamber. The click-clack noise echoed off the white walls and the green tile floor of the hallway.

  The laundryman’s head snapped up.

  Now you know I have a gun.

  He stopped and turned toward me. I held the Glock in front of me with both hands, my right index finger on the trigger guard. He reached into his white jacket pocket with his right hand and pulled out a flip-phone.

  You can use it to detonate the bomb.

  I motioned with the gun. “Put the phone down and step away.”

  He ignored my command and shuffled backward toward the exit.

  You don’t think I’ll pull the trigger.

  Turning on my gun’s internal laser sight, I pointed the narrow red beam at the center of his chest. I wanted to prove to him that I would shoot.

  But will I?

  He continued to back up. I walked toward him. With each stride, the laser beam moved back and forth across his chest. My ASICS squeaked on the tile floor.

  The surgery entrance door opened behind him. A slender young woman entered the hallway. The dazzling morning sunlight from the open door backlit her stringy blond hair. She stopped when she reached the man.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for pre-op registration.”

  The bomber grabbed her around the neck and twisted her toward me, using her body as a shield.

  I don’t have a clear shot!

  She twisted and turned, struggling to break free. “Let go of me, you creep!”

  Her screams became muffled as he tightened the pressure on her throat.

  I stopped walking. Assuming a shooter’s stance, I slid my index finger onto the trigger. The girl’s eyes widened when she saw me aiming the gun in her direction. She broke loose from the bomber’s grasp and dived to the floor.

  He pushed a number on his flip-phone.

  “Baby killers!” he screamed.

  I heard a phone ring in the men’s bathroom.

  Shoot him!

  The bathroom phone rang a second time.

  I fired two shots at his center mass.

  A blinding flash of light...

  A thunderous BOOM!

  Acrid smoke and dust... Chemical odors... My body thrust upwards... Pressure in my ears... My chest slamming into a wall... Searing pain in my ribs... My head bouncing off the floor... A shower of lights behind my eyelids... An explosion inside my head...


  And darkness...

  Part 2

  Chicago, Illinois

  9 a.m.

  Saturday, June 24th

  Almost five years later

  3

  Arlie Wickstrom fingered the sparse, white hairs on her upper lip. “Tell me again, why are you here?”

  Because I was canned from my last reporting job and this is the only one I can find.

  Saturday morning, I sat with Mrs. Wickstrom in the living room of her 1920s red brick home in Lakeview, an upscale neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. The elderly lady sat with her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap, and her slightly bowed spine about six inches from the back of her padded Queen Anne chair. Her overpowering, lilac-scented perfume hung in the air.

  “As I mentioned to you on the phone, I write a monthly column for the Lakeview Times,” I said.

  She stared at me, and her eyes seemed to defocus.

  “It’s a free weekly newspaper sponsored by our local merchants,” I continued. “My pieces are published once a month. I would like to feature a story about your collection of Sunbeam Mixmasters in the July twenty-eighth issue.”

  I waited for her to say something.

  She didn’t.

  Blink so I’ll know you’re still alive.

  “All righty then, let’s move along,” I said, opening my pocket-size spiral notebook and hoping she would realize that an interview meant she should answer my questions. “There must be an interesting story about why you began buying them.”

  “Not that I remember, dear.”

  My head began to throb.

  “I understand your collection runs from 1935 to 1960 and includes one hundred thirty-four models.”

  “One hundred thirty-five. I recently purchased an exquisite, red, 1942 wartime mixer.”

  Finally! A response.

  “And?”

  “And what, dear?”

  I did three weeks of background research prepping for this? Woodward and Bernstein couldn’t make this story interesting. Am I trying to create fabulous stories out of banal neighborhood events?

  Okay, I am, and it obviously isn’t working.

  I need to find a story to resurrect my career from the literary trash dump of discredited reporters.

  And I have to do it soon.

  4

  An hour later, I stood in the mid-morning sun in front of Mrs. Wickstrom’s home. I held my cell phone in one hand and my battered, brown leather briefcase in the other. I called my husband.

  “Carter, I’m finally finished with Mrs. Wickstrom’s interview,” I said.

  I began walking toward our home and tried to ignore the explosions from illegal fireworks that the neighborhood kids were shooting off as they warmed up for the Fourth of July.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “It sucked. My well-planned, probing questions and her fading memory weren’t a good fit.”

  Another blast rocked the neighborhood.

  I hate this time of year.

  On July third five years ago, I’d been blown up in a bombing at the Arlington Women’s Clinic. The PTSD attacks began two weeks after I came home from the hospital. I had the symptoms under control except for this time of year.

  Fireworks are overrated.

  “Let me see your notes when you get here,” he said. “Maybe I can give you a few suggestions about how to punch it up.”

  In D.C., we’d been investigative journalists at the Washington Post. Now, Carter is an assistant managing editor for local news at the Chicago Tribune and editing his reporters’ stories is one of his main duties.

  “Thanks for the offer, but Joseph Pulitzer couldn’t help this story. What have you and Kerry been doing?”

  Kerry is our two-year-old daughter.

  “We made a finger painting picture for you, and now I’m taking her up for a much-needed bath.”

  I pictured a multicolored paint mess on the family room wood floor. My husband always forgets to use a drop cloth. And he mentioned bathing Kerry but nothing about any other cleanup.

  Another job for mommy.

  5

  Our home is on the corner of West Melrose and North Paulina in Lakeview, ten blocks from Mrs. Wickstrom’s residence. Like many houses in the neighborhood, it is three stories high, with all floors above the ground. It has atrocious gray siding, which makes the outside look grimy even in radiant sunlight.

  I trudged up the nine steep steps to the main level and entered through the front door.

  “Hey, Kerry,” Carter called out from the family room. “Mommy’s here.”

  Kerry roared down the polished hardwood floor of the hallway to greet me. “Momma, Momma, Momma!”

  She skidded and slammed into my knees.

  Socks? Guess Daddy forgot your shoes.

  Stooping down, I scooped her into my arms and sniffed the scent of baby shampoo in her freshly washed hair.

  “Kerry, you smell so good. Daddy said you made a finger painting for me. May I see it?”

  She wiggled free from my grasp and rushed back into the family room, once again slipping and sliding but at least not falling.

  I stood on my tiptoes and kissed my hubby. “I’m thinking shoes might help out.”

  “Our daughter declared she didn’t want to wear them.”

  “The inmate is running the asylum.”

  “But I don’t want her to remember me as a ‘strict daddy’ when she grows up.”

  “It could be worse. Kerry will think of me as a mother who writes boring stories.”

  “At least none of them are dangerous.”

  There it is: the “D” word.

  He never lets me forget that I was severely injured after entering the clinic building when I shouldn’t have. Or that was the FBI’s conclusion, which ultimately got me fired from the Post.

  But it had been almost five years ago. I wanted to scream that my brains were turning to mashed potatoes from lack of stimulation, and his consistent harping about looking for “safe stories” was making me crazy.

  Honey, enough’s enough.

  Maybe spending the rest of the weekend with them was the perfect way to forget the mind-numbing interview with Mrs. Wickstrom. But I would go cuckoo if I didn’t discover a story that was a lot more challenging to research and write about than Sunbeam Mixmasters.

  6

  On Monday morning, Carter stood at the kitchen counter making breakfast for Kerry. She sat on her booster seat in the kitchen nook with her two constant companions, a twelve-inch, baby-glop-stained, red Elmo and a pink-colored flannel blanket she’d named Ralph. Daddy would feed himself while Kerry ate. Elmo and Ralph would watch.

  Kerry has inherited Carter’s sandy hair, blue eyes, and strong angular face. He is a tick over six feet two, and she’s at the top of the growth chart, proving she inherited her daddy’s height DNA.

  “I’m going out for my run,” I said from the front hallway. “I love you.”

  “We love you,” Carter called from behind me.

  Unless there’s a Tribune staff meeting or a breaking story, he doesn’t have to be at work until ten. He spends most of the early morning with Kerry, which allows them time together and gives me the opportunity to do solo activities like running along the tree-lined streets of Lakeview.

  My plan was to begin my six-mile run by going north on Paulina. The branches of the locust and maple trees on each side of our neighborhood streets touch and often intertwine, creating a feeling on a dark and windy day like I’m Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow. The canopy of leaves provides much-needed shade on sunny days, and during fall, the colors are spectacular.

  As I ran, I listened to the BoDeans in my ear buds. Running has helped to drive away the PTSD demons since the bomber blew me up in Arlington. The music helped blot out the repeated explosions from the fireworks being set off in the neighborhood.

  Don’t forget to journal while Kerry is napping.

  Daily journaling is the other way I found to deal wit
h the PTSD symptoms. I document my feelings and the events that happen in my life, hoping to eventually share them with my family.

  Once I get into my running rhythm, I observe any activity going on around me, and if I discover a potential storyline, I try to find time to go back and check it out.

  I need to find a great story.

  Last night, I was in our kitchen nook comforting my stuffy-nosed toddler with a bottle of milk. All the books say this is wrong at her age, but the sage authors who have written this dandy advice were home sleeping soundly, and I had a miserable infant in my arms. Any sane mom would do the same thing. We both needed to get some sleep.

  Kerry drank most of her bottle and then drifted off to sleep. Continuing to rock her, I glanced out the front windows and noticed a “Sold” sign had replaced the “For Sale” sign previously stuck into the front yard of a house on West Melrose, diagonally across the street from ours. That was not unusual, since homes in our neighborhood frequently go on and off the housing market. It was too dark to snap an iPhone picture, so I copied down the real estate information from the sign.

  It was a good thing I did. During the beginning of my Monday morning run, I glanced at the house, and the sign had already been taken down.

  Why so fast?

  I had to check it out, so at the end of my run, I sprinted down that side of the street toward the house. A van from Cort Furniture Rental was double-parked on the street in front of it. Two men in blue work clothes manhandled a couch out of the van. I slowed down and jogged in place about one hundred yards away from the truck.

  Rental?

  The property had to have sold in the high six figures, maybe even the low sevens. If my new neighbors could afford that price tag, why would they need anything from a rental company?

  The workers carried the couch inside. Once they disappeared through the open front door, I put my cell phone on camera and jogged toward the back of the truck.