Demolition Angel

by Robert Crais

  What Mr. Red hadn’t told him was that the contents would turn bright purple.

  Tennant was excited, and concerned. Earlier that day, when he had finished downloading the pornography, he had web-searched a couple of explosives sites and read about ammonium picrate. He had learned that it was a strong, stable explosive, easy to store and use, and safe (as far as such things go) because of its stability. But both articles had also described ammonium picrate as a white, crystalline powder; not a purple paste.

  The bag grew warmer.

  Tennant stopped kneading. He looked at the paste in the bag. It was swelling the way yeasty bread dough swells, as if it was filling with tiny bubbles of gas.

  Tennant opened the bag and sniffed. The smell was terrible.

  Two thoughts flashed in Dallas Tennant’s mind. One, that Mr. Red couldn’t have been wrong; if he said this was ammonium picrate, then it must be ammonium picrate. Two, that some explosives don’t require a detonator. Dallas had read about that once, about substances that explode just by being mixed together. There was a word for reactions like that, but Dallas couldn’t remember it.

  He was still trying to recall that word when the purple substance detonated, separating his arms and rocking Atascadero so deeply that all the alarms and water sprinklers went off.

  The word was “hypergolic.”

  13

  • • •

  Starkey tried to ignore the way Marzik was staring at her. Marzik had finished interviewing the laundry people without finding anyone else who had seen the 911 caller and was supposed to be writing a report to that effect, but there she was, kicked back, arms crossed, squinting at Starkey. She had been watching Starkey for most of the morning, probably hoping that Starkey would ask why, but Starkey ignored her.

  Finally, Marzik couldn’t stand it anymore and wheeled her chair closer.

  “I guess you’re wondering why I’m looking at you.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Liar. I’ve been admiring that Mona Lisa smile you’re sporting today.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That smile right there beneath your nose, the one that says you bit the bullet and got yourself a fed-kabob.”

  “You always take something sweet and make it gross.”

  Marzik broke into a nasty grin.

  “I WAS RIGHT!”

  Every detective in the squad room looked. Starkey was mortified.

  “You’re not right. Nothing like that happened.”

  “Something must’ve happened. I haven’t seen you this mellow since I’ve known you.”

  Starkey frowned.

  “The change has come early. You should try it.”

  Marzik laughed, and pushed her chair back to her desk.

  “I’d be willing to try whatever put that grin on your face. I’d try it twice.”

  Starkey’s phone rang while Marzik was still smirking. It was Janice Brockwell, calling from the ATF lab in Rockville, Maryland.

  “Hi, Detective. I’m phoning about the matter we discussed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “In the seven bombing events that we attribute to Mr. Red, we have six usable end caps, out of an estimated twenty-eight end caps used in the devices. I broke the six and determined that the joint tape was wrapped in a clockwise direction each time.”

  “They were all wrapped in the same direction?”

  “Clockwise. That’s right. You should know that the six end caps are from five different devices used in three cities. I consider this significant, Detective. We’re going to include this as part of Mr. Red’s signature in the National Repository and forward it along as an alert to our field offices. I’ll copy my report to you via snail mail for your files.”

  Starkey’s palms were cold, and her heart pounded. If Mr. Red wrapped the joint tape in the same direction every time, why had the Silver Lake bomb been wrapped in the opposite direction?

  Starkey wanted to shout at Hooker and Marzik.

  Brockwell said, “You did good, Detective Starkey. Thanks for the assist.”

  Starkey put down the phone, trying to decide what to do. She was excited, but she wanted to be careful and not overreact. A small thing like the direction in which that tape was wrapped might have meant nothing, but now meant everything. It did not fit within the pattern. It was a difference, and therefore it meant that the Silver Lake bomb was different.

  Starkey paced to the coffee machine to burn off energy, then returned to her desk. Mr. Red was smart. He knew that his devices were recovered, that the analyses were shared. He knew that federal, state, and local bomb investigators would study these things and build profiles of him. Part of the thrill for him was believing that he was smarter than the men and women who were trying to catch him. That was why he etched the names, why he hunted bomb technicians, why he had left the false device in Miami. He would enjoy playing with their minds, and what better way to play than change a single small component of his signature just to create doubt, to make investigators like Carol Starkey doubt.

  If the bomb was different, you had to ask why? And the most obvious answer to that was also the most terrible. Because a different person had built it.

  Starkey wanted to think it through. She wanted to be absolutely certain before she brought it back to Kelso.

  “Hey, Beth?”

  Marzik glanced over.

  “I’ve got to get out of here for a few minutes. I’m on pager, okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  Starkey walked the few short blocks to Philippe’s, smoking. She knew bombs, she knew bombers. She decided that Mr. Red would not change his profile, even to taunt the police. He was too much about being known; he didn’t want them to doubt who they were dealing with; he wanted them to know it. The very fact of his signature screamed that he wanted the police to be absolutely certain with whom they were dealing. Mr. Red wanted his victory to be clear.

  At Philippe’s, Starkey bought a cup of coffee, sat alone at one of the long tables, and lit a fresh cigarette. It was illegal to smoke in the restaurant, but the customer load was light and no one said anything.

  I did not kill Charles Riggio.

  The feds had multiple suspect descriptions from the Miami library as well as earlier sightings, all of which described Red as a man in his late twenties. Yet Lester Ybarra had described a man in his forties, as had the old man in Tennant’s duplex. If Mr. Red had not built this bomb, then someone else had built it, someone who had gone to great lengths to make the bomb appear to be Mr. Red’s work. Starkey finally said the word to herself: Copycat.

  Copycats were most common in serial killer and serial rapist crimes. Hearing frequent news coverage of such crimes could trigger the predisposed into thinking they could get away with a one-shot homicide, using the copycat crime to cover a motive that was far removed from an insane desire to kill or an overpowering rage against women. The perpetrator almost always believed that the cover of the other crimes would mask his true intent, which was typically revenge, money, or the elimination of a rival. In almost all cases, the copycat did not know the full details of the crimes because those details had not been released. All the copycat knew was what he or she had read in the papers, which was invariably wrong.

  Yet this copycat knew all the details of how Mr. Red constructed his bombs except for the one thing that had never appeared in the bomb analysis reports: the direction that Mr. Red had wrapped the plumber’s tape.

  Starkey watched the smoke drift off her cigarette in a lazy thread, uncomfortable with the direction of her thoughts. The pool of suspects who knew the exact components of Mr. Red’s bombs, and how he put those components together, was small.

  Cops.

  Bomb cops.

  Starkey sighed.

  It was hard to think about. The person who murdered Charlie Riggio had been within one hundred yards. He had seen Riggio arrive at the scene, watched him strap into the armor, waited as Riggio approached the device. He knew wh
o he was killing. In the two and a half years that she had served as a bomb investigator, she had made exactly twenty-eight cases, none of those against people with access to the details of Mr. Red’s bombs or with the acumen to pull it off.

  Starkey dropped her cigarette into the coffee, its life extinguished in a sharp hiss.

  Starkey took out her cell phone. She caught Jack Pell at his motel.

  “Pell? I need to see you.”

  “I was getting ready to call. I spoke with Bergen this morning.”

  They agreed to meet at Barrigan’s. Starkey wanted to see him with an urgency that surprised her. It had occurred to her, late last night and again early this morning, that she might be falling in love with him, but she wasn’t sure and wanted to be careful. The past three years had left an emptiness within her that longed to be filled. She told herself that it was important not to confuse that longing with love, and not to let that need distort friendship and kindness into something it wasn’t.

  The morning crowd at Barrigan’s was the usual assortment of Wilshire detectives, sprinkled with drifters from the Rampart table and a clique of Secret Service agents who kept to themselves at the end of the bar. Even at ten in the morning, the place was loaded with cops. Starkey shoved through the door and, when she saw Pell sitting at the same table where they had sat before, felt a flush of warmth.

  “Thanks. I really need to see you about this.”

  He flashed a smile, clearly pleased to see her. He looked happy. She hoped it was because he was seeing her.

  “Jack, it’s time for you to take the case.”

  He smiled the way somebody smiles when they think you’re joking, but aren’t sure.

  “What are you talking about?”

  It wasn’t easy to say.

  “I’m talking about you—the ATF—taking over the investigation into Charlie Riggio’s murder. I cannot carry it forward, Jack. Not effectively. I now believe that what happened in Silver Lake to Charlie involves the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  He glanced toward the bar, probably to see if anyone was listening.

  “You think one of your people is Mr. Red?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Red is behind this. I could go over Kelso’s head to Parker, or go to IAG, but I am not prepared to do that until I have more evidence.”

  Pell leaned forward and took her hand. She felt encouraged. It was funny how you could draw strength from someone you cared about.

  “Waitaminute. Hold on. I spoke with some people about Bergen this morning. Bergen was with other clients last night at exactly the time you called me. You had Mr. Red last night, Carol. We’ve got the bastard. We can use this to bring him in.”

  Pell was so excited she thought he was going to fall out of his chair.

  “That can’t be. He knew my name. He knew that Hotload is Carol Starkey. How could he know that?”

  Pell answered slowly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He told me that he didn’t kill Riggio. He said that he knew who did.”

  Pell stared at her.

  “Is that what this is about? He tells you he didn’t kill Riggio, and you believe him?”

  “He didn’t build the Silver Lake bomb.”

  “Did he tell you that, too?”

  “The ATF lab in Rockville, Maryland, told me that.”

  She told him about the call from Janice Brockwell, and how the Silver Lake bomb differed from every other bomb that had been attributed to Mr. Red.

  Pell grew irritated, staring at the Secret Service agents until she finished.

  “It’s just tape.”

  Pell’s voice had taken on a note of impatience. Her own voice came out harder.

  “Wrong, Jack, it is forensic evidence, and it shows that this bomb is different. It’s different in the one way that no one knew about because it had never been in any of the bomb analysis reports. Every other component could have been copied from a police report. He cut Riggio’s name in the bomb to make us think it was Mr. Red.”

  Pell stared at the bar again. With that one turn of his head, she felt a chill of loneliness that left her confused and frightened.

  “It’s Mr. Red. Trust me on this, Starkey, it’s Mr. Red. Everything we’re doing here is working. We’re flushing out the sonofabitch. Don’t get sidetracked. Keep your eye on the ball.”

  “The people in the Miami library described a man in his twenties. The other descriptions you had were also of men in their twenties. But here in L.A., we’ve got two descriptions of men in their forties.”

  “Mr. Red changes his appearance.”

  “Damnit, Pell, I need your help with this.”

  “Every investigation turns up contradictory evidence. I’ve never seen an investigation that didn’t. You’ve grabbed onto a few small bits and now you’re trying to turn the whole investigation. It’s Mr. Red, Carol. That’s who you need to have in your head. That’s who we’re going to catch. Mr. Red.”

  “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

  “I want to help you, but this is the wrong direction. It’s Mr. Red. That’s who did this. Please just trust me.”

  “You’re so fixated on Mr. Red that you won’t even look at the facts.”

  “It’s Mr. Red. That’s why I’m here, Starkey. That’s what I’m about. Mr. Red.”

  The warm feelings that she had felt were gone. It should have helped, she later thought, that he seemed to be in as much pain as she, but it didn’t.

  She was alone with it. She told herself that was okay; she had been alone for three years.

  “Pell, you’re wrong.”

  Starkey walked out, and drove back to Spring Street.

  “Hook, you have the casebook?”

  Hooker looked up at her, eyes vague from his paperwork.

  “I thought you were gone.”

  “I’m back. I need to see the casebook.”

  “Marzik had it. I think it’s on her desk.”

  Starkey found the book on Marzik’s desk and brought it to her own. One of the pages contained a list of all police officers at the Silver Lake parking lot on the day Riggio died. She felt surreal looking at the list. These people were friends and coworkers.

  “You find it?”

  Hooker was staring at her. She startled at his voice, closing the book, then tried to cover her embarrassment.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Marzik had it, right?”

  “It was on her desk. Thanks.”

  The book contained the names of those Bomb Squad officers present at the time of the call-out and also listed those officers who checked in on the scene after the event. Buck, Charlie, Dick Leyton, and five other members of the day-shift Bomb Squad. Eight out of the fourteen-person squad. Herself, Hooker, Marzik, and Kelso. The uniformed officers and detectives from Rampart. What the list could not say, and what she could not know for sure, was when those people had arrived or who else might have been at the scene, hidden by cover or disguise.

  Starkey removed the page from the binder, made a copy of it, then returned the book to Marzik’s desk.

  The drive north to Glendale happened in slow motion. Starkey constantly questioned her actions and conclusions, both about Riggio and about Pell. She wasn’t a homicide investigator, but she knew the first rule of any homicide investigation: Look for a link between the victim and the killer. She would have to look to Charlie Riggio and hope that something in his life would lead to who killed him. She felt sick about Pell. She wanted to call him; she wanted him to call her. She was certain that he felt something for her, but no longer trusted her certainty.

  Starkey pulled into the police parking lot, but did not leave her car. She stared at the modern brick Bomb Squad building, the day bright and hot. The parking lot, the great dark Suburbans, the laughing techs in their black fatigues; everything was different. She was suddenly within the perception puzzle that Dana had described, one view giving her a picture of police officers, another the faces of suspects and murderer
s. Starkey stared at the building and wondered if she were out of her mind for thinking these things, but either she was right about what the plumber’s tape meant or she was wrong. She hoped that she was wrong. She sat smoking in the car, staring at the building where she had felt most alive and at home, most a part of something, and knew that if she was wrong she had to prove it to herself.

  “How’re you holding up, kiddo?”

  Starkey nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “You scared me.”

  “I saw you sitting out here and thought you saw me. If you’re coming in, you can walk with me.”

  Dick Leyton was smiling his kindly smile, the tall benevolent older brother. She got out and walked with him because she didn’t know what else to do.

  “Has Charlie’s desk been cleared yet?”

  “Buck came by and boxed it for the family. Charlie had two sisters. Did you know that?”

  She didn’t want to talk about Riggio’s sisters or walk with Dick Leyton, who had come to see her every night when she was in the hospital.

  “Ah, no, no, I didn’t. Listen, Dick, are Charlie’s things still here?”

  Leyton didn’t know, asking why she was interested. She was so embarrassed at the lie that she thought he must surely see it, but he didn’t.

  “I didn’t know about the sisters. You work on something like this, you see the case, but you never see the man. I guess I was hoping to look at his things to get to know him a little better.”

  Leyton didn’t answer. They walked together into the squad room where Russ Daigle pointed out the box of Riggio’s things beneath his desk. Riggio’s locker had been cleared also, his sweats and a change of clothes and toiletry items bagged and secured with the box. Waiting for his sisters.

  Starkey carried the box into the suit room where she could be alone. Buck had been complete and careful in packing Riggio’s things: Pens and pencils were bound together with a rubber band, then secured in the LAPD Bomb Squad coffee cup that had probably held them; two powerboat magazines and a James Patterson paperback were protecting a short stack of snapshots. Starkey examined the snapshots, one showing Riggio on a motorcycle, another of Riggio as a whitewalled Marine, three showing Riggio posing with a trophy deer. Starkey recalled that Riggio was a hunter, who often bragged of being a better shot than the two SWAT buddies with whom he hunted every year. She doubted that any of them concealed a motive for Charlie Riggio’s death. The street clothes that Riggio had probably worn to work on the day he died were neatly folded and placed to cover everything else. A Motorola cell phone was wrapped in a black T-shirt to keep it safe. Starkey looked through the clothes for a wallet, didn’t find it, and figured that Riggio had probably had the wallet in his fatigues when he died. The coroner’s office either still had it or would release it directly to the next of kin. Starkey finished with the box in less than ten minutes. She was hoping for a desk calendar or day book that might give her an insight into his life over the past few months, but there wasn’t anything like that. She was surprised at how little of a personal nature Riggio had brought to the job.