AHMM, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The formal dining room was empty as well. The built-in china cabinet's doors were open. Someone had used some kind of wood polish on it because the thing shone as if it were new.

  Her hope was the rest of the place would be this clean. Sometimes the front rooms were spotless and the bedrooms, bathrooms, and utility rooms were a mess. It was as if the former owners couldn't quite get enough energy to finish the cleaning job, knowing they were doing it under duress.

  Still, she wouldn't be surprised if these former owners cleaned the entire place. That couple she had seen on the lawn were very well put together, even though their life had to have been falling apart. Appearances were clearly important to them. Even the appearance of the house they had abandoned mattered.

  Gracie stepped into the kitchen. It had state-of-the-art appliances, granite countertops, and expensive cherry cabinets.

  Her intercom buzzed. She clicked the phone. “What do you have?” she asked, hoping he wasn't going to tell her that the upstairs was a disaster.

  "Something weird,” he said. “It's spotless up here except for the hall closet. It looks like a giant spider made a nest in here."

  "Well, don't touch it,” she said. “I've got spray in the truck. If we have to, we'll call in a pest service."

  "I don't think it's really a spider web,” he said. “It's too black. Webs aren't ever black, are they?"

  "Not unless they're abandoned and covered with dirt.” She had seen that more than once in her short time working foreclosures.

  "I think it's attached to the wall in the back. Let me check . . ."

  She could hear him strain through the intercom. He grunted, a door creaked, and then he said, “It looks more like wires coming from some kind of box. I think we'll need an electrician on this one. I can't even tell what it's for. Let me—"

  The world went white, then banged, and shuddered. Ceiling—or wall—or tile—rained on Gracie. She put up her arms, protecting her head. Dust filled her lungs. She climbed under the counter.

  Then the world went white a second time.

  Something sucked the remaining air from the room. Gracie gasped, unable to breathe.

  More things fell. Burning things.

  The air couldn't be gone, she thought. If the air were gone, there would be no fire. It was hot, and she couldn't hear. Her lungs ached—no, seared. She reached to the edge of the countertop—

  And then . . . nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  * * * *

  Detective Andrea Donovan stood outside the smoking ruin of what had once been a neighborhood showplace. At least, that was what the remaining neighbors told her, in voices flat with shock.

  She had no idea how they could tell which house was the showplace. This subdivision was just a bigger version of the subdivision she had grown up in. Only her childhood subdivision had been made up of ranch houses with alternating floor plans and color schemes. This subdivision was a series of four different McMansions that varied not only floor plan, but driveway and lawn size.

  The neighborhood might once have been middle-class chic, but it wasn't now. In addition to the shattered ruin before her, the entire area looked destroyed. Glass and rock and building shards covered the lawns, street, and driveways. One of the neighbors had found a ripped and bloody leg on top of a roof two blocks away.

  The houses on all sides of the explosion had suffered damage, and the entire area smelled of chemical smoke.

  Donovan hated cases like this one. She had to coordinate with a variety of other teams, and most of the relevant evidence was outside of her expertise.

  She hadn't even been called in for two days. First the arson team went through and made certain that this wasn't some gas line explosion or some freak ignition of septic fumes.

  When the arson team figured out that there was nothing wrong with the natural gas line that heated the house, they started searching for some other cause. First they searched for something that would ignite the place—some kind of fuel or trigger mechanism.

  But this explosion had been big and hot, and they hadn't found anything except some suspicious wires, bits of cell phones, and something that might—or might not—have been a trigger mechanism.

  Initially, the team argued about calling the explosives experts, since they had also found a man's hand, clutching the bottom half of a cell phone. Since he was holding it, he was probably using it, not making a bomb out of it.

  But they finally did call in the explosives expert, who found chemical traces of C4 near the ignition site, as well as other things that might—or might not—have been components.

  It was the might and the might not have beens that bothered Donovan the most.

  That and the fact that no one would let her into her crime scene, at least not yet.

  So she paced the exterior and talked to the neighbors—what few remained. Ninety percent of this subdivision had fallen into foreclosure. Some owners were long gone, the properties bank owned. Some were still struggling to hang on, and only a few were current on their payments.

  Current and angry.

  "It was bad enough to have the bank take half the properties around here,” Bill Nelson, who lived three doors down, told her. “Now we're going to be the bombing neighborhood. We're upside down in our mortgage as it is. This thing will make property values plummet even further. I couldn't sell if I wanted to."

  Others had voiced similar sentiments. Donovan had taken all of their names and all of their addresses and made note of their great distress.

  Not that she blamed them. This subdivision was already toxic, the subject of articles in the papers and items on the local news. The developer had used shoddy materials in most of the houses, and even if the market hadn't tanked, these poor homeowners—all of whom had bought new—had probably been upside down in their mortgages from day one.

  Normally, she would have looked at that as motive—if the cratered house belonged to the developer. But it had belonged to some not-so-popular neighbors who had already been forced out by their bank.

  There was no benefit in blowing up the place, at least not for the handful of families struggling to remain.

  There wasn't even benefit to the former homeowners, unless one considered revenge.

  Which she did.

  Still, the people killed weren't bank employees or mortgage brokers. They belonged to a company that cleaned empty houses. No one could have known that they'd be the ones who would suffer for this.

  She looked for her partner. Detective Steve Neygan was as upset about dealing with a bombing as she was.

  It took her a few minutes to spot him. He was the solidly built man at the end of the street, stringing police tape and pushing back the reporters who were crowding the area.

  "Hey, Andrea."

  Donovan turned. The head of the bomb squad, Keyla Pierce, walked toward her wearing a protective suit, a science-fictiony helmet under one arm.

  Keyla was a tiny woman with a mass of red curls that currently clung wetly to her skull. Sweat dotted her face. The suits had no ventilation at all, and even fifteen minutes in one could feel like an hour.

  "What've you got?” Donovan asked.

  "A secondary device,” Keyla said. “There were two explosions, not one."

  "Everyone reported one.” Donovan had talked to enough witnesses to know they had only heard one blast.

  "They might've been seconds apart,” Keyla said. “Or the first wasn't quite as loud. The second was the big one."

  "You sure there aren't any more unexploded bombs in there?” Donovan asked.

  Keyla smiled tiredly. “We're still checking, but I doubt it. We did an initial sweep; the arson team's been all over the place. Unless the device is very small or unrecognizable as a bomb, we haven't found anything."

  Donovan wasn't sure if this news reassured her or made her even more nervous. She was beginning to realize that bombs creeped her out more than some maniac with a gun.

  "So tell me about the second
ary device,” she said.

  "This was a smart house,” Keyla said, “and the device was tied into that system."

  Donovan barely had a grasp of what a smart house was. “You mean the entire place was computerized?"

  "The lights, the heating system, even the entertainment centers were all tied into one central panel. If the house were intact, I could tell you if the refrigerator and stove were part of the system too. I suspect so. This kind of system is expensive and state of the art, and unfortunately, very easy to hack into."

  Donovan frowned. “But wouldn't a smart system need electricity to keep running? I thought this place was a foreclosure."

  "That was my first thought,” Keyla said, “but the arson team already figured out that the power had been on. We checked why and discovered that the bank puts the power onto its bill while it preps the house for resale. The bank is apparently looking for problems in the system and it's trying to make things easier on the team that cleans out the place."

  Donovan looked at the house. “It wasn't easier on them,” she said.

  "It was the second blast that caused the most damage,” Keyla continued. “It's going to take us a while to figure out all the component parts of these bombs, but knowing that the bomber tapped into the house's system does make it easier."

  "It does?” Donovan asked.

  "For two reasons,” Keyla said. “This bomber is sophisticated and up to date. He had to be off-premise and aware that someone was in the house. I suspect the second bomb had an off-site trigger."

  "He blew the place from far away after the first device went off?"

  "Probably,” Keyla said.

  "Watching from one of these empty houses?” Donovan asked.

  "Maybe,” Keyla said. “But if I had to put money on it all, I'd say he wasn't even in the neighborhood. I'd guess he was watching from a computer somewhere, and he waited until someone got close to the second bomb before triggering it."

  "So the cleaning team wasn't together?” Donovan asked.

  "We think one was upstairs and the other in the kitchen. Everything is such a mess that it's hard to know for sure."

  Donovan shuddered. “And someone managed this off-site?"

  "Maybe not even in the city,” Keyla said. “He could've been anywhere."

  "Wonderful.” Donovan shook her head slightly. Now she didn't just have to deal with arson teams and bomb squads. She had to deal with computer experts.

  This case was more of a nightmare than she wanted it to be, and it was only just beginning.

  * * * *

  Donovan was an old-fashioned detective who preferred legwork to DNA analysis. Fortunately, her partner knew that. Neygan volunteered to talk to the Computer Crimes Division and report back to her—in exchange for the right to stay away from the victims’ families.

  Donovan understood that one. Talking to the families was a bigger minefield than going into a bombed-out house. But she had talked to families more times than she cared to think about, and she had a routine that minimized her emotional involvement.

  Or so she thought.

  Minimizing the emotional stake was easy with Micah Collingsworth. His family had arrived from the East Coast the night before and were holed up in an exclusive hotel downtown.

  She met the family in one of the upstairs suites. Everyone had flown in—both parents, four siblings, and the two remaining grandparents, along with the siblings’ spouses and children. The funeral, apparently, would be here “in the place Micah loved,” his mother had said, her voice hitching only a little.

  The family had already gotten the news, so Donovan didn't have to worry about dealing with the immediate grief and shock. They were well off—able to board planes in less than twenty-four hours and show up in a strange city—not to mention afford rooms in one of the city's most expensive hotels for more than a week.

  The family didn't know much more. Collingsworth had broken up with a long-term girlfriend before he lost his corporate position. They hadn't even known he was cleaning buildings.

  Minimizing her emotional involvement, however, became harder when she visited the Ansara family. Gracie Ansara had been a single mom with three kids. The kids—two girls and a boy—were sixteen, fourteen and twelve.

  They lived in an upscale subdivision not that different from the one that got bombed. Donovan had been surprised at that. She had figured someone who cleaned houses for a living lived in one of Portland's less expensive neighborhoods.

  When she knocked on the door, an elderly woman answered. She introduced herself as Rafe Ansara's mother, and it took Donovan a moment to realize that Rafe Ansara must have been the late husband.

  The grandmother had driven down from Seattle. She was taking care of the arrangements and trying to figure out what to do with the children. By her own admission, she knew little about Gracie Ansara's life.

  So the grandmother took Donovan to meet someone who did know Gracie's life, her oldest daughter, Hannah.

  Hannah sat at the kitchen table. A pile of bills sat to one side, a yellow legal pad on the other. A pencil stuck out of her haphazard nest of blonde hair, and she was chewing on a pen. An iPhone leaned against a pile of schoolbooks, and a calculator sat to her right.

  She was thin, with a teenage athlete's build. She wore an oversized Portland Trailblazers sweatshirt and faded blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up.

  "If you're some social worker here to tell me I don't have the right to stay in my house, you can get out,” Hannah snapped.

  She was certainly not what Donovan had expected.

  Donovan reached into her pocket and removed her badge. “Detective Andrea Donovan,” she said. “I'm investigating the bombing."

  "You mean my mother's murder,” Hannah said.

  "Yes,” Donovan said. “That's exactly what I mean."

  Hannah drew her knees up and put her stocking feet on her chair. Then she tucked the chewed-up pen beside the pencil in her hair.

  "I thought you people travel in pairs,” she said.

  Donovan wasn't used to this kind of interrogation from family members, let alone teenagers.

  "Normally, we do,” she said. “But my partner is working with the bomb squad at the moment."

  "You have any suspects yet?” Hannah asked.

  "Nothing official.” Donovan put her hand on the back of one of the chairs. “Do you mind if I sit down?"

  Hannah shrugged one bony shoulder. “I suppose I should ask Grammy if you're allowed to sit down."

  Donovan was beginning to get a sense of the extent of the conflict between grandmother and granddaughter.

  "Hannah,” her grandmother said.

  "It's okay, Mrs. Ansara,” Donovan said to the older woman. “You can stay if you'd like, but I'm just going to ask your granddaughter routine questions. Maybe you could get the other children for me . . . ?"

  The older woman sighed, then disappeared into the hallway.

  "I take it she wants you to go back to Seattle with her,” Donovan said.

  Hannah set her jaw. Donovan's guess had been right. That was the core of the argument.

  "Mom paid off this house,” Hannah said. “All three of us have college funds, and Mom took out a lot of life insurance after Dad died. I can take care of everyone."

  "You're sixteen."

  "And I'm going to be smarter in fifteen months when I turn eighteen? C'mon.” Hannah managed contempt the way that only a teenager could. “I've been helping Mom with everything since Dad died. I can handle it now."

  She put her hand on the bills.

  "Grammy didn't even know where to start. I had to take her to the right funeral home. I had to pick out the package. I've been the one making sure that Raffaella and Graden are getting some sleep and have someone to talk to. Grammy's just getting in the way."

  "And the county's already been here,” Donovan said, careful not to frame this as a question, “to help you find someone to take care of you."

  "Yep.” Hannah sounded disgus
ted. “Just today. When that old biddy left, I started looking through all of Mom's stuff for the lawyer who handled Dad's estate."

  Donovan raised her eyebrows. “Because?"

  "Because I'm going to be declared legally fit to take care of my family,” Hannah said. “What's that called? Emancipated?"

  "I don't know,” Donovan said. She thought emancipation was when a kid wanted to divorce her parents, but she knew better than to say that. She wasn't sure if any of this domestic drama was relevant to her case, but she was going to hear the girl out. “Taking care of two kids sounds like a big job."

  "Mom and I were a team. I'm the one who told her to start the business,” Hannah's eyes filled with tears. The transition from prideful anger to sadness was so sudden it took Donovan's breath away.

  It took her a moment to understand why. “You don't think it's your fault your mom died, do you?"

  "I should've known better,” Hannah said, her voice shaking. “She came home from the early jobs, talking about how people trashed their houses, and how sometimes a sheriff had to show up to evict them and they'd sneak back. She said the early visits could be dangerous."

  "And this was an early visit?” Donovan asked.

  "This was the first time she'd gone to the house. That's why Micah was along. Because she knew better than to go alone."

  That made sense to Donovan. “No one could have expected this."

  "I don't know,” Hannah said. “Those people were weird."

  "Which people?” Donovan asked.

  "The Martins,” Hannah said. “I went to school with Richard."

  "You're not going to school now?"

  "Not this week,” she snapped. Then her cheeks turned faintly pink. “Oh, you mean why did I use the past tense about Richard?"

  Donovan was startled at just how bright the girl was. Donovan didn't even have to ask her next question: Hannah had known what the question was. Most of the adults Donovan interrogated didn't catch on that fast.

  "Richard's the one who left,” Hannah said. “When his parents moved, he stopped coming to school."

  "Is he going to a different school?” Donovan asked.