Conard County Revenge

by Rachel Lee

  “Meaning?”

  “Too much was used. It never burned. It soaked the ground so that it evaporated more slowly.”

  “So an inexperienced bomber.”

  “Maybe.” She pushed her bowl to the side and lowered her voice. “Maybe an experimental bomb. Maybe a test run.”

  His face hardened into expressionless stone. “Let’s get out of here. We can talk privately at my house.”

  She thought that was a pretty good idea.

  The sun had long since disappeared behind the western mountains, making the light flat though it was far from dark yet. Nothing cast much of a shadow if it cast one at all.

  She drove behind Alex to his house, a small two-story near the high school with a well-tended yard. When she stepped inside, she knew what he did with his spare time, and to work out the demons. The place gleamed with loving care, the woodwork was amazing and classic. The oak floor beneath her feet in the entry didn’t creak even a little bit.

  “Did you do all this?” she asked as he closed the door behind her.

  “I bought it for a song and gutted it. It was bad, but the basic bones were sound.”

  “Beautiful work,” she remarked, touching the handrail on the staircase, then turning to admire the fine-looking wainscoting in white oak.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen. I didn’t get my usual coffee from Maude and I can make you a latte if you want.”

  The kitchen was as up-to-date as any she’d seen. “Let me guess, you made the cabinets, too.”

  He nodded while he tossed his jacket over a chair and turned to the coffee maker. “Old houses didn’t have a lot of cabinetry. I built more than I need, but I enjoy the work so I just kept going.”

  “Well, it’s gorgeous,” she told him frankly. Then she spied the kitchen table and pointed to it. “You made that, too?”

  “Yeah,” he said offhandedly.

  “You sure keep busy, and you do wonderful work.”

  He smiled as he switched the coffee maker on and faced her. “It’s nice to be able to do what I love. Grab a seat. Did you want that latte?”

  “Regular will be fine. Thanks for the offer.”

  He leaned back against the counter, folding his arms and studied her. “You’ve got an uneasy feeling with little to pin it on.”

  “Very good, Dr. Freud.”

  A snort escaped him. “I don’t think that way. No Oedipus complexes for me. No, it was pretty obvious from what you said. No kudos for me. So tell me.”

  “That’s the thing,” she admitted. “I want to pick your brain about the psychology of the bomber, because that’s not my area. How the bomb was built, yes. That’s what I do. But since I don’t have a whole team out here, what with everyone so busy on other cases...” She paused. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention since you left the bureau, but violence is on the rise. The kind of violence ATF deals with. Guns. Bombs. I don’t know whether it’s just a growing population or a genuine change going on.”

  “Change,” he said succinctly. “People are getting bolder about expressing themselves in deadly ways. Just as hate crimes are on the rise. I’d like to be able to point to one thing as the causative agent, but I think it’s a whole bunch of things, so I’m not going to trot out the list. It is what it is, and it’s getting worse. That’s all we need to know right now.”

  “Bad enough that’s it’s happening,” she agreed. “There are probably a whole lot of different motives anyway. Not one size fits all.”

  “No.” He turned and pulled out two mugs from a cupboard. “Black, milk, sugar?”

  “Black’s fine, thanks.”

  He put the mugs on the table and joined her. Facing each other once again as they had at the diner. “So the excess gasoline is bothering you?”

  “Yes, it is,” she acknowledged. “Of course, the spill could have been a deliberate attempt to spread any fire in the hopes that evidence would be destroyed.”

  “Maybe.” He frowned, leaning back and cradling his mug in both hands.

  “The thing is, the concussive force of a bomb often snuffs any fire in its immediate vicinity, like blowing out a candle. You need debris that’s hot enough to start a fire when the concussion passes or it lands somewhere. Now it happens all the time, but not every time, that we get extensive fire away from the blast. Anyway, the smell of that gasoline was obviously too close. It didn’t burn.”

  “Or too far away, which doesn’t seem likely given the hole in the side of the building. So you’re thinking this was a mistake of some kind?”

  “Possibly.” She sipped coffee, running bits and pieces through her mind, trying to fit them together. She’d know more tomorrow or the next day as she examined the debris and received evaluations from the field office. “Our bomber could always stop with this one. Maybe it said all he wanted to say. On the other hand, what if this was a trial run? He’d be learning nearly as much as I am.”

  Then she leaned forward, her full attention on him. “Ponder something for me, Alex. What would make that corner of the school a better target than any other? Assuming it wasn’t just someone with a—what did you call it?—a hatred of band saws.”

  He set his mug on the table and his gaze grew distant as he thought. She let him be. He was coming at this from a totally different perspective than she could: the psychology.

  “Not easy to see back there at night from the street. Pretty secluded, actually.”

  “No security lights?”

  “We’ve never needed them. Some in the front of the school near the entrance, but back there it’s not a good place to break in regardless.”

  “No garage doors?”

  “You saw the only two. They’re on the shop wing, facing the street. The auto shop is up there on that end of the building. The back...that’s all wood and metalworking. If we need to bring in something large, it’s delivered out front to the garage doors. Access between the work areas is good, but...” He shook his head. “If I wanted to break in to steal something, that would be the place, except that the risk of being spied by a patrol is high. But bombing? The back, definitely.”

  She nodded. She’d already seen what he meant. It was a wonder the damage hadn’t spread farther. “Okay. Why not someplace else?”

  “Almost anyplace else would get you a classroom. The interior doors are all fire doors and locked. So if you want to get into the building, a classroom wouldn’t be the best route. If all you want to do is destroy something, you’d get thirty desks and a whiteboard.” He paused.

  “The administrative offices are in the center. Hard to get to except from inside. The gym...well, you saw for yourself. It would have made a good target on the back side, but there are fire doors back there. I don’t know if they’d cause a problem. Reasons this guy would pick my corner? No really good ones other than what I’ve said.”

  Now he rubbed his chin. “There had to be a reason other than not being spotted if all you want to do is bomb something. Why not blow out a classroom? Or try the gym...” He paused. “Unless my corner of the school resembled another target...”

  Their eyes locked. Darcy’s heart began to race like a horse in a steeplechase. “I was afraid that you might say something like that,” she murmured.

  “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I was trying to avoid that idea.”

  For a long time, neither of them said a word, lost in their own lines of thought. Alex rose once to freshen their coffee, and part of Darcy’s mind once again noted how much he looked like a Viking, except that he wasn’t shaggy at all. He ought to grow his hair out.

  Her mind snapped back. She had to cut this out. Mooning over the shop teacher was well outside the parameters of anything she was here to do.

  She was looking at what might be the first act of a serial bomber. No rhyme or reason, evidently, but a person who’d successfully created an AN
FO bomb could not be ignored, even if he’d messed up and spilled fuel oil at the site.

  “You need a break,” he said, surprising her. “I learned the hard way that thinking about something else for a while not only refreshed me, but allowed my subconscious to churn things. Have you thought about anything but this bomb since you got here?”

  You. But she wasn’t going to admit that. “Yeah, a bit. I pay attention to other things but it keeps pulling me back. Your young friend Jack has been hanging around, too.”

  His face darkened. “Darcy...”

  “You know the profile, Alex. Do you really need me to remind you? Excessive interest in the scene along with a desire to join the bureau. Those two things together... Well, you tell me how else Jackson Castor could get to watch ATF in action. He also said he didn’t think he’d get to college, so any federal agency is going to remain a pipe dream for him. He’s walking around wearing warning flags.”

  Alex’s expression remained grim, but he didn’t argue with her. Like it or not, he knew as well as she that Jack’s behavior was putting him in the crosshairs. He wouldn’t be convicted based on it, but he had to be watched and even investigated.

  But what could you investigate with a kid that age? His whereabouts early on a Sunday morning? Whether he had the tools at home to put something like this together? An extraordinary interest in chemistry, maybe?

  Darcy pushed her coffee away. “Sorry I’m upsetting you.”

  “No, you’re being honest.” Some of the stoniness left his face. “I don’t like it, but I’m not dismissing it, okay?”

  “Fair enough. You being his teacher and all, you can probably clear him easier than I could.”

  Finally, the stone chipped away and he smiled again. “Yes, I could. And you don’t have to look so unhappy for mentioning it. It’s a legitimate point, and much as I like that young man, I’ve been aware of the same flags you mentioned. I’m not going to overlook them.”

  She returned his smile then, inexplicably relieved. She hardly knew the man, so why care what he thought of her? “And we still have the issue of whether this was a trial run.”

  He nodded. “That we do. Unfortunately we can’t know unless there’s another one.”

  “I hope there’s not,” she said honestly. “It might make it easier to find the perp, but I’d rather not see it happen. Not at all.”

  Just then Darcy’s cell phone began to vibrate in the breast pocket of her overalls. She pulled it out and answered the call.

  “Agent Eccles, this is the sheriff’s office. We’ve picked up an intruder in the school gymnasium. Do you want us to keep him here or take him in for questioning?”

  Her gaze leaped to Alex’s face. “Intruder,” she said. “Any ID?” she asked the deputy.

  “Jackson Castor.”

  * * *

  Alex rode along with her in her black truck. He kept drumming his fingers on the window ledge, and his tension was almost palpable. He didn’t say anything, but Darcy had a good idea what he was thinking. Jackson. The kid he’d defended. What the hell was he doing poking around the evidence they had sequestered in the gym?

  She was wondering exactly the same thing herself. Could they have really caught the bomber this easily? Experience had taught her that it wasn’t always difficult, and dealing with a kid Jackson’s age might make it a whole lot easier.

  But strangely enough she didn’t want it to be Jack, even though she’d refused to let herself or Alex give the young man a pass. Warning flags. He was wearing them all.

  She drove into the parking lot near the gymnasium end of the school. Several police cars were there now, lights swirling. “Jackson got himself into a mess,” she remarked as she parked and turned off the ignition.

  “Sadly” was all Alex said. She glanced at him. Night had begun to deepen but the glow from the dashboard illuminated his face. His game face, she thought. Hard as granite. She wouldn’t have wanted to sit across an interrogation table from him right then.

  They climbed out. Automatically Darcy carried her small evidence kit, which contained a digital recorder, among other smaller tools of investigation. She discovered she was hoping Jackson Castor had a really good explanation for this trespass.

  She displayed her credentials to a deputy she didn’t know and was waved on through. Inside, two deputies sat on the bleachers to either side of a very chastened-looking Jack.

  “Hey, Beau,” Alex said. “Hi, Cadell.”

  The middle-aged deputy whose name tag said he was Sergeant Beauregard stood. “Lots of excuses, no real answers,” he said. “Jackson Castor. Age seventeen. But I guess you know him, Alex.”

  “That I do. Is it all right if Agent Eccles and I question him ourselves?”

  Beau nodded. “That’s why I called before I took him in. Hate to mess up a young idiot’s life unnecessarily.” He nodded to Darcy. “Agent. You need anything, let me know.”

  “I certainly will, Sergeant Beauregard.”

  “Just Beau. Nobody calls me anything else except my wife.”

  “What does she call you?”

  He flashed a grin. “Mostly nice things.” He and the other deputy, Cadell Marcus, moved around the edge of the gym.

  Which left Darcy and Alex with a shamefaced Jack.

  “Well?” Alex asked.

  Darcy let him take the lead willingly at this point. Since he knew Jack, he might get further. Right now her insides felt as tight as an overwound spring.

  Jack looked down. “I was curious. I saw all the stuff being moved, and I wanted to see how it was all laid out. How it works. I should have known there’d be a guard.”

  Well, thought Darcy, that sounded naive enough to be believable. “How’d you get in?”

  “I work as a trainer for the basketball team. I have keys.”

  That caught her attention instantly. Forgetting that she wanted to look intimidating, she sat down beside Jack. “Keys, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why are you the trainer?”

  “’Cause I’m not good enough to be on the team, but being the trainer gets me to all the away games for free.” He shrugged. “I was stupid, huh?”

  “You could say that,” Alex replied, still standing, still looking intimidating.

  “I just wanted to know.” Jack looked up. “I’ll never get to do this for real. Nobody will talk to me because I’m just a civilian. This’ll probably be my only chance to get up close to the ATF.” He flushed. “Darn, I sound like a girl with a crush.”

  A remarkably astute observation, Darcy thought. She sighed. “How much do you know about what I do, Jack?”

  “What I can read online.”

  “Okay. Have you ever read what we look for around the scene in terms of people?”

  “Profiles, you mean?” He glanced up at Alex as if seeking confirmation. “Oh, man. It’s me, isn’t it?”

  “You how?” Darcy asked.

  “Hanging around, showing too much interest, wanting to be in ATF and then this.” The young man jumped up. “But I didn’t do it!”

  “I’m afraid,” said Alex heavily, “that Agent Eccles is now going to have to check you out. Thoroughly. Sorry, Jack, but even I can’t explain this away.”

  Jack paced a few steps, then clenched his fists and closed his eyes. “Damn, I didn’t even think about that. I was just curious.”

  “Maybe so,” said Darcy. “Did you notice anyone else who was interested?”

  Jack’s eyes popped open. “I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else. Oh, man...”

  Darcy wished he’d had a different answer. “Do I need to get a warrant to check out where you live?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not for me. Come look. I’ll just tell my parents, I don’t think they’ll object because they won’t want me to be under suspicion. You can look at anything you want. Whe
n?”

  “Now,” said Darcy, standing. “Sergeant Beauregard?”

  “Yes, ma’am?” He came striding over.

  “We’re going to need a few deputies to help us out. We need to investigate the Castor homestead.”

  “How many?”

  Darcy looked at Alex. “Are you familiar with the Castor place?”

  “Been there several times.”

  “Big?”

  “I’d bring at least six deputies.”

  She nodded and looked at Beauregard. “Six, maybe a couple more.”

  “You got it. It might take an hour to pull it together.”

  “That’s fine.” She returned her attention to Jack. “You sit right here, young man. Turn your phone over to Deputy Marcus. No calls until I say so.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “One more thing.” A small flicker of anger was trying to get started. “Did you touch anything in here?”

  Jack shook his head. “I wouldn’t have anyway, but the deputies were already in here.”

  She looked at Marcus. “He’s yours. I need to step outside.”

  Marcus nodded and pressed Jack back down onto the bench.

  * * *

  Alex decided to accompany Darcy outside. She’d been very controlled with Jack, which he appreciated professionally, but he wondered what she was thinking. He knew what he was thinking: Jack was up to his neck in trouble now, although he still didn’t honestly believe his student had a role in the bombing. But it sure didn’t look good, and it couldn’t be ignored.

  Outside, Darcy thrust her hands into the side pockets of her overalls. “Keys?” She repeated. “He had keys? He could have got into anything. Why didn’t everyone have to turn them in as soon as the bombing happened? I never thought just anyone had access to that building.” She kicked the earth. “Damn, I should have verified that.”

  “It didn’t occur to me, either,” he said reassuringly. “I just assumed that would have been one of the first things the police did when sealing the scene.”