The Trigger

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “Yes, sir.” She refocused her thoughts on the stakes. Three people were dead, one lay in a coma, and there’d been two additional bombings, with possibly more to come. Her petty feud with Sam Prophet paled by comparison.

  The chief handed her another file. “Here’s the latest from forensics. I’ve directed that all further material be forwarded to your office.”

  “Thank you.”

  After he left, Nora sat clutching the file and staring at the wall. She couldn’t believe Max had ordered her and Sam to form a team, not after their public argument yesterday.

  Yet, grudgingly, she conceded that the pairing made sense from a management standpoint. The two of them had complementary characteristics, with her bursts of insight and his exhaustive attention to detail.

  Moreover, they’d both accumulated a certain expertise in the Trigger’s operating methods, and their training prepared them to track him better than anyone else in either department. In a situation likely to attract a high profile, the city needed to employ its best talents.

  A groan echoed from the walls of her small office, startling her. Nora glanced around before she realized that the groan had come from her own throat.

  The Trigger presented the greatest challenge of her career. And she was going to have to battle every step of the way with a man who, she had to admit, attracted her more than he should, and irritated her at the same time.

  Well, when the going got tough, the tough went to the ladies’ room. Nora reached for her purse to do just that.

  A large frame blocked her doorway. Although Sam Prophet stood no taller than Max Zirinsky, his presence had enough impact to dwarf the space around him. That might have been because of the thunderous expression he wore.

  “This wasn’t my idea,” he said, “in case you were wondering.”

  “I never for one moment suspected that,” Nora assured him. “And believe me, I didn’t suggest it.”

  “We could make an official request for them to choose one or the other.” Sam’s glower dared her to agree.

  “So you can keep the Trigger for yourself?” she demanded.

  They regarded each other assessingly. When it came right down to it, she reflected, they had no choice. They were professionals with a single goal: to get to the bottom of a series of crimes, hopefully before anyone else got hurt.

  “Is that what you really think?” Sam asked quietly. “That I’m in this for my own ego?”

  In truth, she didn’t. “I think we’ll get more done together than separately,” Nora said. “Certainly more than either of us would alone. We’re going to have to grit our teeth and bear this.”

  “Agreed.” Without further ado, he stepped forward and shifted aside some of her paperwork to make room on the desk for his own stack of files. “Here’s the paperwork from my cases.”

  “I’ve got mine and the other homicides Max mentioned. They don’t appear to be related to the Trigger, but you never know.” Nora surveyed the cluttered surface, her gaze coming to rest on the folder Max had handed her containing the latest findings on the Sleepyhead bombing. “I suggest we get cracking on yesterday’s case before the trail grows cold. We can review the other material later.”

  “I disagree,” Sam said. “Let’s not go off half-cocked.”

  Terrific. They’d been partners all of five minutes. “Well, that didn’t take long.” She tried to make a joke by adding, “Our first fight…of the day.”

  He gave no hint of a smile. “We can’t solve these cases until we find the connections between them. There’s a mountain of material to get through. The key to the solution may be right in front of us, but we’ll never find out if we don’t take the time to search.”

  The man was going to mire them in minutiae. Exactly what she’d been afraid of! Even with the two women who’d fled yesterday’s scene still to be identified and interviewed, he wanted to spend hours poking through past reports.

  Calling him a knucklehead wasn’t going to help. She’d promised Max to work with this guy, so she’d do her best.

  They were still standing, Nora noted. She eased into her chair. “Have a seat, Investigator.”

  Sam lowered himself stiffly. “As I said, I don’t believe in going off half-cocked. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  “This isn’t a static case, Sam.” Nora rested her elbows on two uneven piles of documents. “It’s developing and we’ve got to keep pace with it. We can’t let the trail grow cold while we look for links. A man may be dying and there are witnesses who could vanish.”

  “I believe Grant already interviewed the witnesses.” Sam’s impatience bristled despite his attempt at a level tone. “Our job is to see the big picture.”

  “Yes, but there are vital pieces missing.” Nora had read Grant’s preliminary report first thing this morning, which, she reminded herself, Sam probably hadn’t. “He talked to people at the scene but he didn’t finish. Apparently the victim’s wife was so distraught at the hospital last night that she became nearly incoherent.”

  “That’s understandable, considering her husband’s in a coma and he got hurt while having an affair,” Sam said.

  “Frankly, I’m not convinced he did the right thing letting her go home and sleep it off. She appears to have been one of the people who fled the scene.” Although Nora sympathized with a betrayed wife, the woman remained the prime suspect, at least for setting the exterior fire.

  Still, Mrs. Garcola had been cooperative, even waiving her right to an attorney. Besides, the detectives must have been exhausted last night. In such a complex case, not all avenues could be pursued at once.

  “Anyway, we need to talk to her,” she concluded. “Pronto.”

  Sam weighed the matter. “Maybe we should split up.”

  “I like to have another officer with me during an interview,” Nora countered. While one interviewer focused on the witness, the other often picked up subtle clues from the environment or from body language.

  “I meant that I could conduct the interview and you could plow through the background,” he clarified.

  “Great idea!” Nora snapped. “Since you think I’m so hasty, it should be the other way around. Besides, Max and Dan obviously consider two heads better than one.”

  Sam folded his arms. “This is crazy. We argue about everything.”

  On that issue, she agreed. Still, they needed to come to terms. “There are worse things than arguing. At least this way we consider all the angles.”

  An unwilling grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You have a point.”

  His response virtually amounted to waving a white flag. Maybe they could reach a truce after all, Nora thought with her first ray of hope.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Hospitality might further break the ice. And caffeine ought to take the edge off his grumpiness.

  He held out for a few seconds before conceding, “I’d love some.”

  She was on the right track. “Black?”

  “You bet.”

  Nora poured them each a cup from the pot stationed on top of her file cabinet. “Well, what do you say?”

  Sam sipped his brew. “Not bad.”

  “Fresh-ground,” she said. “But I didn’t mean the coffee.”

  He cast a resigned glance at the piles of paperwork. “It does make sense to talk to the wife this morning. I had the impression Grant had already taken care of it. By the way, I looked into Sam Garcola’s condition—it’s unchanged.”

  “I know. The officer on the scene gives me regular updates.” Ironically, Nora added, “Gee, maybe we ought to stop by his room. The sound of us arguing might wake him up.”

  “The way we were hollering last night at the restaurant, I suspect we could wake the dead.” This time the grin reached beyond a mere quirk of the lips, all the way to his eyes.

  Good heavens, the man had a sense of humor. If she’d known that a cup of coffee had such a salutary effect, Nora reflected, she’d have personally delivered it to him
at the door.

  She placed a call to Mrs. Garcola, who reluctantly agreed to talk to them before leaving for the hospital. After hanging up, Nora said, “She sounds nervous. I wonder if she’s just concerned for her husband or if there’s something more.”

  “Let’s not second-guess her.” Sam got to his feet.

  “Are we just interviewing her or interrogating?” Nora considered the woman a suspect but, she supposed, she had to respect her partner or they’d never make it as a team.

  “At this point, I consider her a friendly witness,” he answered.

  “Okay.” That was as much of a concession as Nora intended to make, she mused as she headed for the door.

  Moving past Sam, she wondered why she’d never noticed how sexy a suit and open-collared shirt could look on a man. She liked the way he wore his hair, too, a bit long on top with a hint of sideburns.

  If only he didn’t dispute every word that came out of her mouth, they might actually get along, she thought, and scooted out the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE GARCOLAS LIVED in a canyon inland from the coast. Sam was glad Nora hadn’t argued about taking his larger vehicle, so he didn’t have to feel her hip rubbing against his the whole way over.

  He wasn’t immune to pleasurable responses. Heck, half the members of the fire department would have loved to trade places with him yesterday, but Sam didn’t go for easy thrills. Well, okay, so maybe he didn’t mind easy thrills, but he prided himself on his professional detachment.

  As he drove, they discussed possible motives. One thing they agreed on: So far, the Trigger’s targets appeared too narrowly chosen to indicate terrorism or thrill seeking.

  “There’s always the possibility of financial gain,” Sam suggested as they wound between hills bright with greenery from the spring rains. In a month or so, if the weather followed its usual dry summer course, shades of brown would predominate. “I don’t see any one person or company receiving all the insurance payoffs, but someone could be trying to damage a competitor’s business.”

  “Except that there’s three different companies involved,” she pointed out.

  He wasn’t ready to dismiss this line of thought. “They’re all in technological fields.”

  “Electronics, engines and race cars. That’s a pretty big range.” Her scoffing tone put his back up, until Sam reminded himself that he believed in skepticism.

  “Even so, they might have been putting some kind of bid together, a project they could work on jointly,” he said. “A competitor could be aiming to discourage them.”

  “By attacking low-level employees and blowing up outdated chips?” Nora said. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Any other suggestions?”

  “We can’t overlook jealousy, at least when it comes to the Garcolas.” Nora stretched her shoulders. Didn’t the woman realize that when she moved that way, it tightened the fabric over her breasts?

  Sam trained his eyes on the road and his mind on business. “I suppose it’s possible this attack was an anomaly. Unrelated to the others.”

  “Mrs. Garcola might have set the fire. Still, that leaves the cell phone. It’s hard to believe a jealous wife would acquire that much expertise or run that much risk just to get back at her cheating husband.” Nora appeared to be dismissing her own suggestion.

  “If we set aside jealousy, that still leaves spite or revenge.” Those seemed the most likely motives to Sam. “Either of them could apply to all the Trigger attacks.”

  For once, Nora went along with him. “It’s a strong possibility. But spite or revenge over what?”

  “If we knew the answer to that question, we’d be halfway to catching our perp,” Sam said.

  “I was asking rhetorically.”

  “I was answering rhetorically,” he muttered.

  “An ex-employee?” Nora speculated. “But surely the same person wouldn’t have worked for all three companies. I guess we’ll have to see what we find out.”

  “When all else fails, look for the evidence.”

  “I just love sarcasm,” she retorted. “It’s so productive.”

  He decided against arguing. “Sorry. You’re right.”

  She didn’t answer, but gave an appreciative nod.

  They pulled into a driveway that wound downhill before curving in front of a 1960s ranch-style house. Sam observed a weathered swing set in back. According to Grant’s account, the Garcolas had one daughter, currently attending UC Santa Barbara just up the coast.

  He saw nothing out of the ordinary—no indications of excessive, unexplained wealth that might indicate criminal activity, for example. In fact, the place could use work, although the neglect wasn’t severe. Leaves filled the gutters and the paint had chipped around the door and windows. He guessed that Carl Garcola put in a lot of overtime on the job—or, perhaps, making hanky-panky with his girlfriend.

  The woman who answered their ring stood a few inches shorter than Nora, with short blond hair as in the witness’s description. Despite her makeup and freshly brushed hair, there was a tightness to the eyes that indicated she’d been crying.

  “Come in.” Fran Garcola ushered them into a living room filled with handicrafts, from the crocheted comforter tossed across the back of the couch to an Indian-style rug on the wooden floors.

  “Did you make these yourself?” Nora asked. When Fran nodded, Nora said, “You’re very talented!”

  “I belong to several local crafts organizations.” The woman sat on the sofa and twisted her hands. “I helped organize a sidewalk art sale last November.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Fran smiled a little at the compliment. She stopped twisting her hands.

  Sam wished he had the same gift for small talk. He preferred to cut to the chase. That worked fine with men but didn’t inspire women to share confidences, he’d discovered.

  After setting up her tape recorder, Nora helped the woman review the events of the previous day. She’d been shopping at the supermarket when the fire and explosion occurred, Fran said in a strained voice, although she admitted she’d lost her grocery receipt. When Nora suggested one of the checkers might remember her, she blinked a few times before nodding.

  “Did you know your husband was having an affair?” Sam interposed bluntly.

  Their subject hugged herself protectively. “I had my suspicions but I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, he flew his own plane. Sometimes he’d go away on company business and I had no way of knowing what he got up to.”

  “They say a spouse always knows these things,” he commented.

  She stiffened. “Well, I didn’t!”

  Nora redirected the witness smoothly. “You said he flies his own plane. What does he do on these trips?”

  “Esmee Engines builds and tests race car engines,” Fran explained. “Carl attends trade shows to see what the competitors are doing. He’s also a toy car hobbyist, so he goes to those conventions, too. He claims I’d just be in the way, so I don’t go along.”

  “Does he own his plane?” Sam asked. When she nodded, he said, “May we have your permission to search it?”

  Since they couldn’t yet link this bombing definitively to the others, they needed to rule out the possibility of the victim’s involvement in industrial espionage or smuggling, which might provide a motive for someone to try to kill him. And if Carl had been using his personal plane for illicit purposes, he could have stored incriminating evidence on board.

  “Carl would have a fit!” protested his wife.

  “I’d rather not have to obtain a search warrant,” Nora said.

  Sam knew they didn’t have enough evidence for one, but he admired the way Nora phrased the warning.

  “It would be helpful if you gave us permission,” she added.

  “You won’t damage it?”

  “I can’t promise no mess, but we’ll be careful,” Nora assured the woman. To Sam’s relief, Fran nodded.

  He and Nora exchanged glances. They’d
made progress, but the question of what had really happened yesterday remained unanswered.

  Much as he wanted to take over the questioning, Sam had to admit that Fran obviously responded better to a woman. So he gave his partner a subtle nod and held his peace.

  “Mrs. Garcola, let’s return to what happened yesterday,” Nora said. “A woman matching your description was seen running toward the street. Another witness saw a second woman with long dark hair fleeing through a field at the back. Can you identify either of these women?”

  “No.” The word snapped out vehemently. “I can’t.”

  “We could put you in a lineup for the witnesses,” Sam warned.

  “I’m not a criminal! My husband is lying in the hospital, possibly dying. I should be there right now! And you want to put me in some stupid lineup?” Fran got to her feet. “This interview is over.”

  Sam stood, also, uneasily aware that his threat had precipitated this blowup. He’d been trying to shake her up, not make her angry.

  Nora remained seated. “I’m going to level with you, Mrs. Garcola.”

  What was she doing? Only the presence of a third party prevented Sam from demanding that Nora explain herself.

  “We’ve got two possibly unrelated crimes,” Nora went on. “There was a fire in front of the cabin that burned itself out, leaving only a black mark on the pavement. We also have a bomb that subsequently detonated inside the cabin, causing your husband’s injuries.”

  “The—the fire didn’t cause the explosion?”

  “Not as far as we can tell.” Nora ignored Sam’s attempts to catch her eye. She must know he didn’t like revealing this much to a witness. “In all honesty, Mrs. Garcola, the fire may have saved the second woman from harm by causing her to flee.”

  “Really?” She appeared to be wavering.

  “The fire isn’t the real problem,” Nora continued. “You see, this bomb may be related to other cases we’re investigating. If it is, your cooperation might save lives.”

  Sam wasn’t thrilled that she’d just provided Fran with a cover story she could use to mount a defense if, in fact, she really had tried to kill her husband. He’d known Nora was impulsive, but if she’d just blown the case, this nonsense about working as a team ended right now.