The Trigger

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “You mean the bomber was trying to bring down the warehouse?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. The charge was too small. It only damaged the immediate area.”

  He broke off as the waitress brought their platters. Sam’s turkey sandwich bristled with sprouts, tomato slices and other healthy trimmings. Nora’s hot pastrami oozed spicy mustard and dripped wonderful-smelling juices. Resolutely, Sam averted his gaze to keep his envy from showing.

  Nora polished off a few bites before continuing. “Okay, let me get this straight,” she said. “That case involved an explosive device, right?”

  “Resulting in a fire,” Sam returned stubbornly. “It was arson.” He refused to yield the point. He’d put too much work into this case to hand it over.

  She didn’t press the point, at least not immediately. “You said this wasn’t connected to the Freon operation, so what was the target?”

  Sam had a ready answer. “Several companies sustained damage, but Finder Electronics incurred the biggest loss.”

  “To what kind of product?”

  “Computer chips.”

  More of that fabulous sandwich disappeared into her delicate mouth. Sam tried to focus on his turkey. Oh, the heck with it, he decided, and pretended he was eating pastrami, too. Surprisingly, the turkey tasted better that way.

  “Why would a company store computer chips in a common warehouse where someone could steal them?” Nora said.

  “They’d gone out of date. The company wasn’t ready to dispose of them yet—somebody mentioned research value. But the fire pretty much wiped them out.”

  “What about the second case? When did that happen?”

  He had to think for a moment. “December.”

  She frowned. “I had one in October.”

  “Let’s discuss that one next, then.” Taken in chronological order, the bombings might make more sense.

  “No, I want you to finish,” she said. “You seem so certain your cases aren’t related to mine.”

  “I never said that.” At least, Sam didn’t think he had.

  “Tell me about it anyway,” Nora urged him. “The next incident.”

  How had she managed to get her way about skipping over her case? Prepared to argue, he dismissed it as a waste of time.

  “There was an explosion in a truck loaded with crates,” Sam said. “Burned most of the contents. After I traced the cause to another planted cell phone, I started calling my arsonist The Trigger.”

  Nora slammed one fist onto the table. Dishes rattled and iced tea sloshed in her glass. “You named the guy? You actually got that far along and you never informed me?”

  “I couldn’t put it in my reports,” Sam pointed out. Nicknames like that weren’t part of official business.

  She glared at him. Did she have to take this so personally? he wondered, uncomfortably aware that nearby diners were regarding them curiously.

  “Okay, so you didn’t make it a point to notify the police department about this Trigger,” she growled. “As if we could read every report the fire department issues! Let’s move on. You said there were crates in the truck. What did you find in them?”

  Struggling to keep an even tone, he said, “Auto parts. The truck was making a delivery to an automotive shop at the Fortune Mall. The auto parts were property of a company called Esmee Engines, which claimed it had no idea who might want to damage its equipment.”

  “Could the attacks be random?” Nora asked.

  Not in Sam’s opinion. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to hit specific targets.”

  “You see? It’s a bomber, not a firebug.” Nora finger-combed a hank of hair back from her face. “If the attacks had been random, I might have agreed with you, at least in a couple of the cases. But this Trigger isn’t just out for thrills and there’s no apparent insurance motive.”

  “Nevertheless, the result was a series of fires, and that’s arson.” Sam intended to stick to his principles. Capitulation to Nora Keyes had become unthinkable.

  “Oh, come on! This guy’s too clever to be an arsonist,” she contended.

  “I’ve never considered that either one had a lock on intelligence.” Sam couldn’t imagine where she dug this stuff up. Besides, he resented the implication that arsonists lacked brains, since that implied they must be easier to catch.

  “Arsonists go for the money or the excitement, and they’re usually pretty crude,” Nora insisted. “Bombers are smarter and they show it. In fact, sometimes they overcomplicate things just to prove they can do it.”

  That didn’t sound very bright to him. “What makes you think the Trigger’s such a genius?”

  “Look at the way he bought himself distance from his blasts—activating cell phones by calling them, which means he could be miles away,” Nora pointed out. “And he covered up his trail so well that he struck repeatedly—maybe six times—before we got wise.”

  “Mainly because we’re disorganized,” Sam forced himself to admit.

  Her mouth worked as if she wanted to dispute the point. But she couldn’t. “You have a point.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I gather your third case was the fatality,” Nora said. “That must have been nasty.”

  “Isn’t it always?” Although they came with the job, deaths still disturbed Sam. For weeks or months after working a fatality, he suffered sleep disturbances and anxiety, a common reaction among rescue personnel. On TV shows, the characters bounced from one tragedy to another with barely a reaction to the mayhem they witnessed, but stress posed a serious hazard for real cops, firefighters and paramedics.

  “What happened?”

  “It occurred in March,” he said. “Subsequent to the aftershock.” February’s quake had been followed by numerous tremors, including one sizable enough to cause damage.

  “You don’t have to remind me,” Nora said. “It knocked me against a chair. I got a bruise on my thigh.”

  The mention of her thigh tempted Sam to glance in that direction, unlikely as it was that he could see her lap across the table. Besides, he didn’t want to think about her body parts. It was hard enough just sitting across the table from her, inhaling her light fragrance, feeling the hum of her restless body transmitted through the furniture.

  Until this moment, he hadn’t acknowledged to himself that she affected him. Honesty forced him to admit—silently—that he’d been powerfully aware of Nora as a woman since she whirled into the motel this afternoon in her speedster.

  He attributed his lapse to a lack of female companionship. Sam’s mother kept urging him to find a girlfriend. So did his sister, although she hadn’t entirely forgiven him for breaking up with a friend of hers six months earlier.

  He didn’t want a new girlfriend. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong with the last one, except that the closer they got, the more uncomfortable he’d felt.

  Sam forced himself to concentrate on the subject. “As you may recall, the jolt collapsed a convenience store and set off a fire in a basement.”

  “How could I forget? Two women died in separate incidents,” Nora recalled.

  The deaths had stirred a scandal about the fact that the fire department was spread so thin during the quake’s aftermath that the rescue crews couldn’t respond quickly enough. Finally the city council had approved the necessary increase in funding, although any celebration had been tempered by the knowledge that nothing could bring back the dead women. Two men related to the victims had taken hostages at City Hall in protest over the women’s deaths, and before the crisis was resolved, two more people had died.

  Sam finished his sandwich before continuing. “Here’s the catch. The quake only killed one of the women, the one in the convenience store.”

  “I think I’m starting to get the picture,” Nora said. “But why would your serial bomber plant an explosive in a woman’s basement?”

  “To kill her. Besides, he didn’t plant it in the basement. She carried it there in her pocket.”

/>   Nora nibbled at a dill pickle before asking, “Why? Who was she?”

  “A forty-seven-year-old divorcée named Patty Reese. No kids and no known enemies.”

  “Ex-husband?” Nora hazarded.

  “He’d long ago remarried and moved away. They parted by mutual agreement and nothing indicates he bore any grudges,” Sam said.

  “What was she doing in the basement?”

  “She grew orchids. All she had down there were personal effects and gardening equipment. And flowers.” The brutality of the murder had shaken Sam as much as anything he could recall.

  Nora didn’t speak for a moment. Finally she asked, “Did you find any connection to the other cases, besides the device?”

  “Not so far,” he said.

  “Any connection to Finder Electronics or Esmee Engines?”

  The woman was more thorough than he’d given her credit for, Sam realized. Although he’d covered all these points himself, it helped to have someone else sift through them afresh. Maybe it could be useful to have another viewpoint.

  For the span of one meal, anyway.

  “She worked as a products manager at Speedman Company,” he said. “Three companies, three blasts, same apparent perpetrator.”

  Nora tapped her fingers on the table. When the waitress came by to ask about dessert, they both shook their heads. Apparently even the ravenous Ms. Keyes had her limits.

  Sam found himself eager to learn how her cases meshed with his. “You mentioned two fatalities.”

  “Both my victims were men who answered calls while in their cars,” she said. “One died in October, the other in February.”

  Sam regarded the dates he’d jotted in his notebook. “That spaces the attacks pretty evenly over the past year.”

  “There’s more,” Nora said. “One of my guys—Julius Straus—worked for Finder Electronics. The other one was a lab technician at Esmee Engines.”

  They stared across the table at each other. Sam couldn’t deny the obvious even if he’d wanted to. “That would be one heck of a coincidence if the cases aren’t related.”

  “Yes, but how are they related?” Nora appeared to be speaking more to herself than to him. “If we’d put this together earlier, we’d be a lot further along.”

  “Let’s not waste time on might-have-beens.” Reaching across the table, Sam plucked a fallen strip of pastrami from her plate and popped it into his mouth. Delicious.

  “I wonder where Carl Garcola works. I’ll check with Grant.” Nora took out her phone and then paused. For a moment, Sam didn’t understand why she wasn’t dialing, and then it hit him.

  “Spooked?” he asked.

  Her wary expression answered the question for her. “It’s silly,” she said. “Nobody’s handled this phone but me.”

  “That’s probably what those other people thought.”

  She examined the back of the cell, presumably for any sign of residue or tampering. “Well, if someone were clever enough to have planted a bomb, he’d have dialed my number while we were both in the car. He could have wiped out two investigators before we got a chance to put our heads together.”

  “A charming way of looking at it.” Despite his determination to eat healthy, Sam couldn’t resist downing one of the French fries piled on his plate, and then another one. Oh, heck, if he was staring death in the face, he might as well eat the whole batch. So he did.

  Nora dialed. They both tensed, and then smiled at their attack of nerves.

  “Grant?” she said into the phone. “It’s Nora. Do you happen to know who Carl Garcola works for? Thanks. Yes, it does. Sam and I think our cases are related. I’ll fill you in later.” She clicked off.

  “Well?”

  “Esmee Engines,” she said.

  Sam let out a long breath. “Well, well, well.”

  Nora dropped the phone in her purse. “You see my point? We’re talking about a killer, not an arsonist.”

  Did she have to be so stubborn? “You’re like a dog with a bone,” Sam snapped. “I’ve been following this guy a lot longer than you have. I’m the one who gave him his name.”

  “Big deal. ‘The Trigger.’ It sounds like somebody’s horse,” she scoffed.

  “You got a better suggestion?”

  “I leave naming things to the public information office,” she told him. “It’s kind of a sideshow, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Spare me the gratuitous insults.” Sam had been rather proud of the moniker until now. “You’re acting rude and childish.”

  “And you’re not?”

  He had to admit, he hated the way he behaved around her. That made him even angrier. “Why don’t you get off my back?”

  Nora’s eyes flashed. “Look, Sam, it’s obvious we rub each other the wrong way. You’re a pain in the butt, and so am I.”

  “Nice of you to acknowledge it.”

  “Nevertheless, this is obviously a bomber, not an arsonist. It’s my case.” She folded her arms and regarded him through narrowed eyes. “We’re not going to be able to share it. Why don’t you bow out gracefully?”

  Most of the time, Sam considered himself a reasonable man. Logical, even methodical. He got the job done and he didn’t worry about who took the credit.

  And he liked women, both as friends and as colleagues. Although he couldn’t seem to make a relationship work, he attributed that to his long and often irregular hours.

  But no way would he meekly hand over his cases to the bullheaded Nora Keyes. Despite the tension between them, they were going to have to hammer out some way of conferring that didn’t involve too much personal contact.

  “Today’s incident involves a fire—a separate fire,” he added for emphasis.

  “Fine. You can probe that little flare-up to your heart’s content,” Nora said. “What did it do, scorch a whole square foot of dirt? Probably someone threw away a cigarette.”

  “It was a gasoline-soaked rag, for your information, but that’s typical of your approach—slapdash.” He knew he shouldn’t say this, but he couldn’t help it. Correction: He didn’t want to help it. “You’re dismissing the situation without knowing all the facts.”

  “Sam Prophet, you know why I should take over these cases?” Nora demanded. “It isn’t just because these bombings go far beyond arson, although that ought to be clear to anyone. But the real problem is, you’d slow me down. I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re a good investigator, but you’re a plodder and people are dying. For all we know, this guy’s got a whole list of victims, and if we don’t catch him fast, they’re all going to end up in body bags.”

  Sam felt steam pouring out of his ears. “What you call plodding, some people call paying attention to detail,” he snapped. “You’re well-trained and you have ability, but you jump to conclusions.” Although Nora started to interrupt, he plowed ahead. “Sometimes, I grant you, that can be useful. Other times it can lead you astray. I’ve seen investigators miss crucial details because they already had their minds made up. That isn’t going to happen on my watch.”

  “It may startle you to learn that a person can be intuitive and systematic at the same time,” she informed him tartly. “Sticking to the clues without trying to see where they lead is like wandering around in a forest staring at the ground. You miss the big picture.”

  “I’m not stupid, Sergeant.”

  “And I’m not sloppy, Investigator.”

  They’d both risen from their seats and braced themselves against the table to confront each other. Sam didn’t realize how odd this must look until he heard the rasp of someone clearing his throat and turned to see who it was.

  Chief of Police Max Zirinsky regarded them warily from a few feet away. Recalled to himself, Sam eased into his seat. Nora straightened and flexed her shoulders, as if she’d stood up to stretch.

  “Looks like you two need someone to put out the fire,” the chief said.

  “Just a little jurisdictional dispute.” Sam intended to save further details for his own
boss, Fire Chief Dan Egan.

  To her credit, Nora didn’t try to make a case for herself. Instead, she said briskly, “Investigator Prophet and I discovered we’ve been working on related cases. It’s possible that one serial bomber, whom he’s dubbed the Trigger, is responsible for a total of six attacks, including the one today out at the Sleepyhead. So far, there’ve been three fatalities and one serious injury.”

  Zirinsky’s startled gaze swept over them both. “How long has this been going on?”

  “The first case occurred in August,” Sam admitted.

  “You mean the two of you have been working similar cases and nobody figured out the perp might be the same guy?”

  “That’s right, sir,” Nora said.

  Sam wondered if the police chief was about to register an explosion of his own, although that went counter to his impression of Zirinsky as a levelheaded guy who respected his officers. Sure enough, he responded, “It looks like Chief Egan and I need to work harder at communicating. I’m going to discuss this with him and we’ll decide how to proceed.”

  “Very good, sir,” Nora said.

  Sam merely nodded. He wondered what criteria the chiefs would use in deciding which of them should take the lead. He hoped they picked him, but supposed he’d have to accept whatever they ruled.

  The chief had more on his mind, as it turned out. “Do you think there might be a connection to any of our other murders?” he asked.

  “Which ones?” Sam asked. Sad to say, even a medium-size city like Courage Bay had its share of homicides, but most were attributable to domestic disputes, personal feuds and robberies.

  “We’ve had a couple of fatal shootings, a strangling and several other suspicious deaths that remain unsolved,” Max said. “Since the victims had all previously been accused of serious crimes but got off for one reason or other, we have to consider that it might be the work of a vigilante. I call them the Avenger cases.”

  “Off the top of my head, I don’t see any connection to the Trigger, but it’s worth checking out,” Nora said.

  “Agreed.” The chief regarded them with strained humor. “In the meantime, try to keep a lid on your personal animosity, okay?”