Irish Car Bomb

by Steven Henry

  “Okay,” Skip said, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s have a look. Erin, you and Lieutenant Webb please stand back. I want you against that wall over there.” He indicated the wall shared by the maintenance door, about twenty yards away. “Just a precaution.”

  Erin obeyed, knowing they would just be in the way if they hung around. The detectives watched the bomb guys do their thing.

  One of the other techs brought Skip a flexible fiber-optic line. He got down flat on his stomach and fed it slowly under the door, where there was a gap of about half an inch. The other tech had set up a laptop and was seated against the wall. He controlled the cable remotely, scanning the inside of the room.

  “No ambient light,” he said. “Switching to IR. I’ve got a space about eight by ten, some shelves on the right, boxes on them, a tool rack on the left. The door looks clean. No wires, no devices attached. Nothing free-standing in the room. Concrete floor, clean and dry. Got one light bulb in the middle of the ceiling, pull-rope switch.”

  Skip pulled the fiber-optic back out and handed it to the first tech. “I think we’re good. I’ll pop the door. Brent, take a few steps back.”

  “You want to put the suit on?” Brent asked.

  “Hell no,” Skip said. “You hear me say how small that place is? I won’t be able to move with that damn thing on. If whatever’s in there goes up, I don’t give a damn about open-casket.”

  “A lot of EOD guys say the only thing a bomb suit is good for is keeping your corpse pretty if a bomb goes off in your face,” Webb explained to Erin.

  She swallowed. That wasn’t a very reassuring thought.

  Skip didn’t seem concerned. He gently twisted the doorknob. “Locked, of course,” he said.

  “I’ll get the super,” Webb said. The building superintendent had let them in but had remained outside the garage, only too happy to stay away. One bomb had already gone off in his garage, and he had no interest in being near another. The Lieutenant returned in a few minutes, absent the super, but holding the man’s keys. He gave them to Skip with a wry smile.

  Skip got the right key on the second try. Everyone had gone completely silent. The click of the lock was very loud. He slowly pushed the door open, being careful to keep hold of the knob and not letting it swing freely. With his other hand he drew out a big D-cell flashlight. Erin figured he wouldn’t risk using the light switch.

  “Whew,” he said. “I can smell the nitro. Someone’s been getting funky with the chemicals in here. No wonder your dog freaked. I’m gonna go slow and easy. Brent, I’ll hand you stuff as I clear it. Don’t drop anything.”

  “Nitroglycerin goes off if you drop it, doesn’t it?” Erin asked quietly.

  Webb nodded. His face was tight and tense. “Don’t worry, it’s not likely they’ll find much. Any explosion will be pretty small and local.”

  “That’s not gonna do Skip much good,” she muttered.

  Several nervous minutes passed as the bomb-techs worked the scene, carefully clearing stuff out of the closet. Their movements were almost slow-motion. They announced every action to one another as they did it.

  Skip thrust his head out of the room. “Okay, Erin, Lieutenant, you can come over now. We’re good.”

  Not entirely trusting him, they approached. “Rolf, bleib,” Erin ordered. Rolf stayed with his ball, happy enough to keep chewing away.

  It was a tight fit with the two detectives and the bomb technician crammed into the room with the shelves, though most of the stuff on them had been moved out into the garage. Skip played his flashlight over a cardboard box on the second shelf from the bottom.

  “That’s it,” Skip said. “Nitro.”

  Erin crouched down, peering into the box without touching it. “Is it safe?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” he said. “It degrades over time, becoming unstable, but this stuff’s basically brand-new. But it’s an undiluted contact explosive, so if we drop this box on the floor, it’ll probably go off and blow all three of us apart.”

  She stood up again and took a respectful step back.

  “How much is there?” Webb asked.

  “Not a lot,” Skip said. “I’ll have to weigh it. But I’ve got four canisters here. Two of them are acid, nitric and sulfuric, chemist supply labels on them. Then there’s glycerol here. The fourth can’s got the finished product, but I think it’s just leftovers from the main bomb. We found a tub and a couple gallons of bottled water, a measuring cup, and some paint-stirring sticks.”

  “How’s this work?” Webb asked.

  “You mix the acid and glycerol, one part each,” Skip explained. “That makes the nitro. It’s pretty simple stuff. The problem is, it’s temperature-sensitive, and the mixing process produces heat. So you have to use the water as coolant. If the mix gets above thirty degrees C, you can get a runaway reaction. That sends out nitrogen dioxide gas, which is poisonous, of course, and there’s a high chance of spontaneous detonation.”

  “Jesus,” Webb said, and from the look on his face, Erin could tell he was thinking about the possibilities of a mad bomber working with such unstable stuff in the basement of a building full of people.

  “Yeah,” Skip agreed. “I hope the guy who did this didn’t have a clue what he was doing.”

  “You hope that?” Erin demanded. “Why?”

  “Because if he knew what he was doing, he’s out of his goddamn mind,” Skip said. “Working with it at all is dangerous, but in a confined space with no ventilation? It’s almost as bad as cooking meth. He’s lucky he didn’t kill himself with this shit.”

  Webb and Erin glanced at each other. “We think maybe he did,” Erin said.

  “Oh,” Skip said, getting it. “That figures.”

  “Taylor, given what’s here, and what you observed from the blast site, can you tell us if there’s any nitroglycerin missing?” Webb asked.

  “I think this is all of it,” Skip said. “And there’s other supplies here. There’s a metal saw, some steel powder that’ll probably match the bomb casing. I think the whole thing was manufactured right here. This is a bomb lab, ladies and gentlemen, but it only made the one bomb as far as I can tell.”

  “Thank God for that,” Webb said.

  “Amen,” Skip and Erin said in unison.

  “Okay, we’re going to need this stuff packed up as evidence,” Webb said.

  “Yeah, sir, that’s not gonna happen,” Skip said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not taking homemade nitro into the precinct,” Skip said. “I’ll take a very small sample to test at the lab, make sure it’s the same stuff from the explosion. Then we’re taking the rest of this out of town and detonating it. Unless you’d rather fill out the incident report when the lab blows up. Because I’ll be in no condition to do paperwork.”

  “Right, of course,” Webb said, a little abashed. “Okay, let’s get some pictures, and collect your samples. I assume the rest of the stuff is fine to keep as evidence?”

  “Sure,” Skip said. “The acid’s only dangerous if you get it on your skin, or huff the fumes.”

  “Can we dust for prints?” Erin asked.

  “Yeah, if you’re careful,” Skip said. “If you’re going to pick up that can, give me a thirty-second head start.”

  “Is this one of those things where if we see the bomb guy running, we’re supposed to try to catch up?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Okay, Detective,” Webb said to her. “We’ll dust for prints, then get the nitroglycerin out of here and collect the rest of the evidence. But I think we know what we’re going to find. We get O’Connell’s prints off the bomb supplies, we’ve got our case closed. Attempted murder resulting in death from an accidental detonation of a destructive device. Plus insurance fraud, just to pad out the file.”

  “Yes, sir,” Erin said.

  She went through the usual crime-scene procedures. She felt a strange letdown. She’d cracked the case, but there wasn’t the usu
al rush of triumph from bringing in the perp. She’d gotten more satisfaction from busting Frankie Fingers and his two goons. Maybe it was the fact that the guy they were locking down for the bombing was on a slab in the precinct morgue. She couldn’t very well slap the cuffs on him.

  Erin shook her head and buckled down to work. Being a detective wasn’t working out quite like she’d imagined.

  One thing was always the same, Erin thought. Patrol cops, detectives, all of them were slaves to paperwork. Forms and reports ate up the entire rest of the day. Getting an early start at the O’Connell apartment just meant she was able to go home on time instead of having to stay late. By the time the squad powered down their computers and turned off the lights, they were bored and tired.

  As Erin clipped on Rolf’s leash and got ready to go, Webb walked over. He extended his hand.

  “Congratulations, Detective,” he said. “You’ve got your first major case closure.”

  She took the offered hand. “Thanks,” she said. “But…”

  “But what?” Webb said.

  “Did we do any good, sir?”

  He looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “There wasn’t going to be another bombing,” she said. “And it’s not like the guy got away with it. So what was the point?”

  “Detective, this job’s got all the meaning you put into it, and that’s it,” Webb said, and in his eyes Erin saw only the faintest flicker of the young, idealistic cop he’d been twenty years ago. “You start looking for anything more, you’re going to burn out faster than a cigarette.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Lieutenant.”

  “Good work, O’Reilly. I mean it,” he said. “Your dog, too. Give him a steak, or whatever. And I’ll see you tomorrow. There’s eight million more crimes waiting to happen.”

  *

  Erin and Rolf trotted down the stairs, ready to be done with the day. They passed the duty officer’s desk without looking at the man behind it.

  “Erin?” he called, sounding surprised. She skidded to a stop and turned to face him.

  “Malcolm?” she exclaimed, almost as surprised as he was.

  He grinned. “I thought it was you!” he said. “Didn’t know you were up in the big city. How’s your dad these days?”

  Brendan Malcolm was one of Sean O’Reilly’s former colleagues, another Irish cop from the old neighborhood. Erin had seen him often while she was growing up, her dad and the other cop working the same areas in Queens. He was a burly man with a thick mustache. The mustache was grayer, and his waistline had gained a couple inches since she’d last seen him, but he was the same guy she remembered.

  “He’s good,” she said. “Just talked to him.”

  “Enjoying his retirement?”

  She laughed. “He always said he wanted to live on a lake, with fish in the water and deer in the woods, and now he’s got it. He’s pretty happy. What about you? I thought you’d have hit full pension by now.”

  “I got my twenty a while ago,” he said. “But I haven’t found anything I like doing better. So what’re you doing up from Queens, and out of uniform?”

  “I’m not working Patrol anymore,” she said. “I made detective, just transferred up here.”

  Malcolm whistled. “And here I was thinking you were just out of the Academy. Where the hell does the time go?”

  “Into the pension fund,” she said.

  Malcolm laughed. “Damn right. So you’re part of Holliday’s new unit?”

  “Yeah, under Webb.”

  “What’re you working?”

  “Bomb case,” she said. “Just closed it. Guy tried to take out his wife, blew himself up instead.”

  “Nice,” Malcolm said. “We don’t get many bombs. It’s not like back in the old country, thank God.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Erin said.

  “How come?” He scratched his cheek. “Wait a second. You don’t mean it’s an Irish guy did it?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You know why they call it a paddy wagon, don’t you?”

  “I always thought it was because of Irish cops.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. No one’s sure whether it’s a nickname for the guys riding up front, or the guys riding in back.”

  She had to smile. “What was it like, back when you were my age?” she asked.

  “Oh, back then?” He grinned. “Well, for starters, we didn’t have all these fancy toys. We didn’t have cell phones, Internet, color TV…”

  “Electricity, indoor plumbing…” Erin broke in.

  “Okay, it wasn’t that long ago,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Were there a lot of Irish perps you had to bring in?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “You remember our neighborhood, Erin. Half the names were O’Something, and the other half were McWhatever.”

  “I mean, did you ever feel funny, having to take in a guy with the same background? Did you ever think, there but for the grace of God?”

  Malcolm rubbed his mustache, becoming more serious. “You talking about the Irish mob? You know, that’s an old nickname for the NYPD, too.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” she said.

  “I guess it’s like being a black cop in Harlem,” he said. “But then, there’s Chinese cops in Shanghai, aren’t there? What do you think they do when they bust a guy? Say, ‘Hey, you’re Chinese, so am I, just run on home and we’ll call it a day?’”

  “I guess not,” Erin admitted. “Did you ever have any run-ins with the O’Malleys?”

  “You talking about Evan O’Malley’s crew?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, they were up-and-coming in the ’90s,” he said. “Started really street-level, like they always do, so we had a few brushes. Protection rackets, dealing contraband. There was one guy, I forget his name, made a bundle smuggling cigarettes over the Jersey line. ‘Course, I was just working Patrol, so I didn’t know what was going on higher up. Your dad would be the guy to ask about this. He got involved with the garbage-truck thing back then.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “He told me about that.” She leaned in over the desk, lowering her voice. “C’mon, Malcolm, you’ve gotta have a story about these guys. Spill.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I do have one Irish story. This is, oh, ninety-five, I think. My partner and I get a call to this bar, not too far from La Guardia, place called MacKenzie’s. There’s been a brawl. We roll up, go in, the fun’s all over. Nobody fighting anymore. There’s this one guy lying on the floor by the bar, head just busted to pieces, blood like you wouldn’t believe. We take one look, I know we’re calling the ME, no point in a bus. I’ve got a few years in, I’ve seen some shit, my partner’s this wet-behind-the-ears Academy pup, he takes one look and stumbles outside looking for some sidewalk to paint. I’m standing there, I ask who called it in. Nobody saw nothin’. They all just look past me, like they’re staring at someone standing in the doorway over my shoulder. I say, well, clearly there’s been a crime committed here. Someone want to tell me what happened?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “At last, the bartender says, with an Ulster accent you could cut with a knife, ‘Well, copper, the poor lad took a tumble, must have hit his head.’ I look at the floor, I look back at the barkeep, and I point to the bar stool next to the body. It’s busted to pieces too, there’s one leg of it torn off, and there’s blood all over it. It’s cracked, splinters hanging off it. This is the most obvious murder weapon I’ve ever seen, okay? And the barkeep says, ‘Oh, I think he might’ve hit that on the way down, broke it to bits.’”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “God’s honest truth,” Malcolm said. “It gets better. I’m thinking like you are. I say to the guy, ‘Bullshit.’ He says, maybe catches something in my voice, ‘What’s your name, lad?’ I say, ‘It’s Officer Malcolm.’ He looks me over and says, ‘And are you from Ireland, Officer Malcolm?’ I tell him it’s none of his
damn business, but yeah, my folks came over back in the day. He shakes his head and says, ‘Lad, this is Irish business. It’s the Troubles, and needn’t concern us here. Let it be.’”

  “Let it be?” Erin exclaimed. “It’s a murder!”

  “I know,” Malcolm said. “But what can I do? This whole bar’s full of guys thinking like him. Here I am, my partner’s losing his supper outside the front door, I can’t get a statement that’s worth the paper in my summons book, and I’m just a patrolman. I punt, call in for the Homicide dicks, and once they get there, I hand it off to them.”

  “You ever find out what happened?” she asked, fascinated.

  “Nope,” he said. “We never even found out who called us. We did get an ID on the vic, though. Guy named Art Doyle, Northern Irish national. Not a nice guy; these days, Homeland Security wouldn’t even let a guy like him in. I followed the case a little, found out he was probably with the UVF. That’s the Ulster Volunteer Force. A bunch of paramilitary thugs, kind of the Protestant version of the IRA. If anything, worse. They were a terrorist organization, as bad as Al Qaeda. Mostly killed Catholic civilians.”

  “Jesus,” Erin said. “So do you think the IRA whacked him?”

  “I doubt it,” Malcolm said. “A hitman’s not exactly going to beat a guy to death with his own bar stool, is he? But I think you’re partway right, all the same. Someone with Irish Republic sympathies might’ve recognized him, or heard him say the wrong thing, and took it badly. Then the others covered for him.”

  Erin shook her head, unable to think of anything to say.

  “So here’s the thing, Erin,” Malcolm said. He reached across the desk and laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not about being an Irish cop versus an Irish criminal. Our old country’s torn in half, and here we’re no different. Those guys in the bar, they didn’t trust a cop, not even an Irish one. And why should they? Where they came from, if someone got taken out, you either quietly applauded it, or you got even yourself, in your own good time. And those are the guys who came over here and built the Irish mob. They’re tough, and they like to solve their own problems.” He smiled. “Glad you closed the case. But I’ve been talking at you long enough. You’ve had a long day, and I’m making it longer.”