by Joseph Flynn
Walt said, “This doesn’t look good.”
“Not at all,” Keely agreed.
Sergeant Stanley arrived and nodded politely to Ron’s dinner companions.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Chief, but this won’t wait.”
“Go ahead, Sarge.”
“A car exploded on Lake Shore Drive.”
“A crash?”
“A bomb.”
Ron thought for a second, recalling who was on surveillance at the Jade Emperor. “Alighieri and Babson are okay? They responded to the blast?”
“Yes, sir, on both counts.”
“Was the car bomb a diversion?”
“It was.”
“And what happened at the Jade Emperor?”
“It was firebombed. Every available resource from the fire department is either on the scene or on the way.”
Ron got up and said, “Your treat, right Dad?”
Walt nodded, and Keely said, “I’ll take him home.”
Ron nodded and told her, “We’ll talk some more later.”
Then he and Sergeant Stanley were out the door.
Chapter 19
The centerpiece building of the Jade Emperor Hotel was scorched but not seriously damaged. Construction there had yet to reach the point where an abundance of combustible materials was in place. Damage was done to the electrical system used in the building process but neither the concrete walls nor the structural steel frame were compromised, not that Ron could see. Safety inspectors and engineers would have to be called in, no doubt. The wiring would have to be replaced. Completion of the hotel would be delayed, but it wouldn’t be stopped.
Most of the fire department assets had already packed up and left.
No reason why they shouldn’t. Nothing was even smoldering.
According to Alighieri and Babson, there’d been a bang-boom and ball of fire at the hotel. All very theatrical. But now there was nothing to keep the crowd of gawkers engaged. They needed nothing more than a polite coaxing from the cops on hand to be sent back home.
The whole thing reminded Ron of finding the dirty bomb that didn’t detonate.
Something potentially very destructive that had fizzled.
Either he was dealing with some very inept terrorists or somebody was playing a game that was a cover for something else.
“Ron?”
The chief refocused on his opposite number, Vern Kasen, the chief of the town’s fire department. With them was Special Agent Benjamin. She said she been in her car, driving with the window down, and had heard both explosions. Domestic terrorism being part of her portfolio, she’d sped to the scene.
“Yeah, Vern?”
“We’re good that this is a clear cut case of arson?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll have the county arson investigator come out tomorrow just to make that official.”
“Right. Is there anything you can tell me about the composition of the bomb? There wasn’t anything radioactive?”
It had just occurred to him that if a lot of people had been exposed to something like, say, Cobalt-60, maybe the bomb had been more deadly than he’d first thought.
Ron saw Benjamin tense up at the mention of that idea.
But Chief Kasen shook his head. “After what you went through on the lake, I put in a request to the mayor for a half-dozen portable dose rate meters. He said get whatever I needed. They came this morning. My people found nothing higher than general background radiation.”
Benjamin’s shoulders relaxed.
“Well, that’s good news anyway,” Ron said.
“Yeah, and here’s something else that’s fortunate.”
Chief Kasen walked over to the chain-link fence bordering the sidewalk of Lake Shore Drive. He put the beam of his flashlight on the fence. Ron and Benjamin could see that the links from bottom to top had been scorched.
“The fireball reached this far?” Benjamin asked. She looked back to the hotel’s centerpiece building, the ignition point of the fire. “That’s what, a hundred feet?”
“A hundred and thirty-five,” Chief Kasen said. “To answer your question, Ron, I’m not sure what kind of incendiary device this was. But it was more than just a few gallons of gasoline. Makes me think about that substance you found on the boat. C-4, you thought it was, right?”
Ron nodded.
“Well, that’s another reason to get the county investigator out here. That stuff not only blows up it also burns. And I want to show you this.” Vern Kasen flashed his light on a no-parking sign outside the fence. The paint on the sign had been scalded from the heat of the fireball.
Chief Kasen said, “Your two people standing watch out here told me they were parked right next to that sign. Officer Babson said, being a mild night tonight, she had her window open. If they’d still been sitting there when the bomb went off …”
The fire chief held his hands out.
“They’d have been singed real good,” Ron said.
Benjamin shook her head. “Char-broiled is more like it.”
Ron walked Abra Benjamin back to her car and asked a question he’d never put to an FBI agent before, “Are you all right?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Meaning what? Don’t I look okay?”
“Right now, you do. Back when I asked Vern Kasen about radioactivity, you looked like you wanted to be somewhere else fast.”
“Radiation is scary stuff.”
Generalities were a sure sign, Ron knew, that you were being told to butt out.
“Okay,” he said.
They walked in silence until they reached Benjamin’s car.
“See you tomorrow,” Ron said.
Benjamin said, “I have some more news. My people interviewed the SUV owners. It went the way I thought it would. There’s no one they really like for our bomber.”
“Shrewd judges of character, are they?” Ron asked.
The special agent started to offer a snarky reply, but then she just nodded and said, “They’re all smart and experienced.”
“Good,” Ron said.
“You were just trying to get a rise out of me. See what I’m really feeling.”
“Can’t fool you.”
“You can stop now. It won’t work … and I’ll admit I was scared for a minute when you asked about radiation. I found out just before I came out here that I’m pregnant.”
“Oh. Well, it’s only natural then, worrying about the baby.”
“You have any children, Chief?”
“No. I wanted to, but it didn’t work out.”
“You or your lady? As long as we’re getting personal, who had the problem?”
“My ex-wife wanted to make it in show biz. A family wasn’t in her plans.”
“I can understand that. My career’s important to me, too. I didn’t intend to get pregnant, and I haven’t decided whether to keep the baby. But just a few minutes ago the thought of losing him — or her — petrified me.”
Things had gone far past the point Ron thought they would.
All he could say was, “You never know how life is going to work out.”
That thought was still uppermost in Ron’s mind when he pulled up to his house. A light was on. Keely was still making herself at home. He hoped it was her anyway. If Leilani had decided to drop by … no, he didn’t even want to think about that.
He still felt a measure of surprise that Keely had responded positively to his call for help. Then in nothing flat they’d gone to bed in both her hotel suite and his house. Moving right along, he’d blurted out a suggestion that he’d like her to become his chief of police should he become mayor.
Mayor.
An idea that had never crossed his mind until Clay Steadman suggested it.
Clay, whom he now knew was stricken with Alzheimer’s disease.
He opened his front door and stepped inside. Maybe if he got a good night’s sleep, it would all turn out to be a dream. But that notion didn’t get off to a good sta
rt when Keely’s voice, coming from his bedroom, called out, “If you’re not Ron Ketchum, you’ve got three seconds to get out before I start shooting.”
Then she added, “If you are Ron Ketchum, you’ve got three seconds to get in here or I start shooting.”
Before he could respond, the phone rang.
“Can I answer that?” Ron asked.
“Keep it brief,” she told him.
Ron snorted, went into the living room and picked up the phone.
“Ron, it’s me, Lauren.”
Deputy Chief Oliver Gosden’s wife sounded as if she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong, Lauren? Are Danny and Oliver all right?”
“They’re not injured, not physically, but we’re all hurting.”
“Oliver took the job?”
“No. He said if Danny and I wouldn’t be happy here, he couldn’t do it. He told the Sedona people he was sorry but had to decline their offer. They said they were sorry, too, but Oliver told me he’d bet they had an acceptance from their second choice before he left the building.”
“So you’re coming back here and, what, Oliver’s not happy?”
“He says he can’t go back to Goldstrike because you’ve brought in your old partner. Is that right?”
Keely chose that moment to appear in the living room doorway wearing only the jacket of Ron’s dress uniform. The one with the stars on the shoulders. He always wore the pants that matched the jacket. Spit-shined shoes, too. But Keely’s take on dressing for success had much to recommend it. At least if you looked as good as she did.
Ron took his eyes off Keely and told Lauren. “Please tell Oliver his job is secure, I can probably get him a decent raise and I won’t razz him more than once a week about watching college wrestling on TV. If he’s too stubborn for that, you and Danny come back. He won’t last a week without the two of you.”
A soft laugh pierced Lauren’s gloom.
“Remind me to bake you a pie, Ron Ketchum.”
“Just one?”
“Wouldn’t want you to get fat.”
“Me, neither. Tell Oliver he won’t like it if I have to drag him back.”
The deputy chief outweighed his boss by forty pounds, was twelve years younger and had, in fact, been an All-American college wrestler. Nothing short of a team of Clydesdales was going to drag him anywhere. Lauren laughed again, her mood audibly brightening.
“Okay, two pies,” she said.
“Great. But, Lauren, seriously now, tell Oliver he has no reason to worry.”
He said goodbye, having done his best to try for a happy ending.
Keely came over and sat on his lap.
He peeked down the opening at the top of the jacket.
“Are you naked under there?”
“I might be. Did you work out whatever that problem was?”
“I hope so. If you’re trying to show me what you might look like as the chief of police around here, I have to tell you I just made sure you’ll have a heck of a deputy chief.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”
“Five times no? But I think you’ll like Oliver. He’s a good cop.”
“He probably is, but this right here?”
Keely stood and unfastened all the jacket’s buttons.
When she had Ron’s undivided attention, she told him, “This is as close as you’ll ever get to seeing me as the chief of the Goldstrike PD.”
She took the jacket off and flipped it to him.
He followed her to the bedroom to continue the discussion.
Chapter 20
Thursday, June 6th
John Tall Wolf’s eyes were sensitive to bright light, but their acuity — 20/15 — was near that required by the USAF for its fighter pilots. As he walked along the pine-shaded slope of a mountain northwest of Goldstrike, his Ray-Bans dangled from a braided leather cord worn around his neck. He wore a forest green polo shirt, wet-sand colored khakis and Hanwag trail shoes that were predominantly brown.
A subtle take on camouflage gear, one that wouldn’t draw a second look back in town.
Of course, a strategy that might deceive the eyes of other bipeds wouldn’t fool a predator’s keen sense of smell for a second. In doing his research on Ron Ketchum and the town of Goldstrike, Tall Wolf had come across the story of the rogue mountain lion that had plagued the town a few years back. The beast had Goldstrike in a panic and had claimed a life.
For that reason, Tall Wolf had made an early stop at the PD and asked for the loan of a rifle. Sergeant Stanley had been obliging, going so far as to offer the special agent the use of a M-4 carbine. The kind of heavy armament used by SWAT teams. Tall Wolf didn’t think he’d need a weapon capable of firing seven hundred rounds a minute.
One of the cops on duty had a Winchester Model 94 Short Rifle in his locker. With a nod from Sergeant Stanley, he let Tall Wolf borrow it on nothing more than his promise to bring it back cleaned and oiled. The special agent said he’d return the weapon good as new.
Before Tall Wolf left police headquarters, Sergeant Stanley said, “You mind if I ask where you’re going?”
“Prospecting,” Tall Wolf said.
“For gold?”
“Exactly.”
The sergeant thought about that for a moment. “What will you do if you find any?”
Tall Wolf smiled. “Make a map and put a big X on it.”
“Yeah, of course. But if there was gold you could, say, pick up and hold in your hand, what would you do with that?”
Tall Wolf understood now that the sergeant had a specific reason for this line of questioning. “You mean, would I bring it back and hide it somewhere?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. I would — I will, if I find any — leave it right where it is, and then do my best to cover up any tracks I might have made leading to it.”
Sergeant Stanley nodded as if he could see the sense in that.
“But that’s not what you were thinking, is it?” Tall Wolf asked.
“No.” The sergeant hesitated for a moment before saying, “I was wondering if somebody finding something valuable might put it in a safe-deposit box.”
The special agent nodded. “Sure. If he could do that without anyone paying special attention to him, that would be good. It would also be the kind of thing someone used to city living would do.”
The sergeant liked that last bit of reasoning and wished Tall Wolf good luck.
So far the special agent considered his luck to be good as he’d gone out at dawn, feeding time for predators, and nothing had sized him up for breakfast. His parents had taken him out into wilderness settings from the time he could first walk. He’d received further survival training from the federal government shortly after he’d graduated from college.
His ethnic heritage was pure Native American. His acculturation had been largely Western. His outdoorsman skills were a match for anyone he’d ever met. He could feel when a pair of eyes, human or otherwise, were watching him. Right now, he was unburdened by anyone or anything taking an existential interest in him.
That was good as far as wildlife was concerned.
He’d been hoping, though, that members of his own species might take note of his presence and pursue him. See just what the hell he was up to. He had plans for those guys.
Reaching the top of the mountain he’d been climbing, above the tree line now, he looked around. He still didn’t see anyone. Under the bright sun and blue sky, he put his sunglasses on and made his way to a small gully formed by millennia of snow melt making its way downhill. There was neither snow nor water present now but the bed of the gully was still muddy.
Tall Wolf squatted and pushed his right hand gently into the mud. There was still enough moisture in it to make resistance minimal. He closed his fingers and pulled his hand free. He rubbed his fingers and thumb together dispersing the wet earth he’d dislodged. When he was done he looked at the handful of pebbles left on his palm.
None
of them was gold, but one was smooth, polished by eons of mountain building, and was shaped like an arrowhead.
Tall Wolf chuckled. Even nature liked its little jokes.
The white man got the gold. The red man got the gag gifts.
He put the stone in a hip pocket. Maybe he’d make an amulet of it.
He started back down the mountain, continuing to check the gully. His research had informed him that most gold placers, alluvial or eluvial deposits, were formed by the erosion of a surface with outcrops of gold ore, known as lode gold. Runoff water carried gold from the outcrops into creeks, streams and rivers.
That being the case, erosion and water always carried gold downhill or downstream.
Which was why Tall Wolf had started at the top of the mountain he’d chosen at random. He had no idea if that particular peak was the site of any deposit of precious metal. He wouldn’t have minded if he’d gotten lucky, but as with most prospectors he came up empty.
Even his plan to see if Herbert Wilkins had anyone watching him had been a bust. He’d hoped he might turn the tables on someone and follow him back to … where? The place where the gold really was? Tall Wolf remained convinced the Washoe people knew that location, had known at least since Timothy Johnson’s time. But no one had followed the special agent. So that plan had fizzled.
Except for finding the cool arrowhead stone.
As he neared his car, Tall Wolf finally felt the interest of a feral presence.
It wasn’t any fanged creature in the nearby forest; it was Coyote.
He took out his phone, turned it on and called Marlene Flower Moon.
She answered by saying, “Where are you, Tall Wolf? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Keely Powell stared at the stack of pancakes Ron Ketchum placed before her.
“Looks good enough to eat,” she told him.
Ron grinned and asked, “Maple syrup?”
“Yes, quickly, before the cakes get cold.”
Ron returned post haste with the syrup, and a cup of coffee for each of them.
Keely doused her pancakes and took a first bite. A look of bliss appeared on her face. “You know, you’ll make some girl a fine catch.”
