Demolition Angel

by Robert Crais

  Starkey’s head hurt from the gin. She was hungry, but there was nothing to eat in her house and she didn’t want to go out again. She put the tapes in her living room by the VCR, but decided to shower first, then read the reports.

  She let the water beat into her neck and skull until it ran cold, then dressed in a black T-shirt and panties. She found a box of raisins, ate them standing at the kitchen sink. When she was finished, she poured a glass of milk, struck a fresh cigarette, and sat at the kitchen table to read.

  The manila envelope contained seven ATF explosives profiles written at the ATF’s National Laboratory Center in Rockville, Maryland. Each report contained an analysis of a device that was attributed to an unidentified suspect known only as Mr. Red, but each was heavily edited. Pages were missing, and several paragraphs in each report had been deleted.

  She grew angry at the deletions, but she found herself interested in the details that were present and read with clear focus. She took notes.

  Every one of the devices had been built of twin pipe canisters capped and sealed with plumber’s tape, one pipe containing the radio receiver (all receivers identified as being from the WayKool line of remote-control toy cars) and 9-volt battery, one the Modex Hybrid explosive. None of the reports mentioned the etched names that Pell had described. She thought that the deleted material probably referenced that.

  When she finished with the reports, she went into her living room and stared at the tapes. She knew that she had been avoiding them, evidence that could potentially offer a breakthrough in her case. But even now, her stomach knotted at the thought of seeing them.

  “Oh, goddamnit. This is stupid.”

  She went into the kitchen, poured herself a stiff gin, then loaded the first tape into the machine. She could have watched the tapes with Buck Daggett or Lester Ybarra, or with Marzik and Hooker, but she knew she had to see them alone. At least, this first time. She had to see them alone because she would be seeing things that none of the rest of them would see.

  The image was a wide shot of the parking lot. The Bomb Squad Suburban was in place, the parking lot and the nearby streets cordoned off. The frame did not move, telling Starkey that the helicopter had been in a stationary hover. Riggio, already in the suit, was at the rear of the Suburban, talking with Daggett. Seeing them like that chilled her. Seeing Daggett pat Riggio’s helmet, seeing Riggio turn and lumber toward the bomb was like watching Sugar.

  “How you doin’, cher? You gettin’a good air flow?”

  “Got a windstorm in here. You?”

  “Wrapped, strapped, and ready to rock. Let’s put on a good show for the cameras.”

  They checked over each other’s armor suit and cables. Sugar looked okay to her. She patted his helmet, and he patted hers. That always made her smile.

  They started toward the trailer.

  Starkey stopped the tape.

  She took a breath, realizing only then that she had stopped breathing. She decided that her drink needed more lime, brought it into the kitchen, cut another slice, all the while knowing that she was simply avoiding the video.

  She went back into the living room and restarted the tape.

  Riggio and the Suburban were in the center of the screen. The bomb was a tiny cardboard square at the base of the Dumpster. The shot was framed too tightly on the parking lot to reveal any of the landmarks she had paced off that morning. The only figures visible were Riggio, Daggett, and a uniformed officer standing at the edge of the building in the bottom of the frame, peeking around the corner.

  When Riggio started toward the bomb, the frame shifted, sliding above the minimall to reveal a small group of people standing between two apartment houses. Starkey focused on them, but they were too small and shadowed to tell if any wore long-sleeved shirts and baseball caps.

  Starkey was cursing the tiny image when suddenly the frame shifted down, centering on Riggio and losing the people. The camera operator in the helicopter must have adjusted the shot, losing everything except the side of the mall, the bomb, and Riggio.

  Riggio reached the bomb with the Real Time.

  Starkey knew what was coming and tried to steel herself.

  She had more of the drink, feeling her heart pound.

  She glanced away and crushed out her cigarette.

  When she looked at the screen again, Riggio was circling the box.

  They were in the azaleas, wrestling the heavy branches aside so that Sugar could position the Real Time. Sugar looked for all the world like some kind of Star Trek space invader with a ray gun. She had to twist her body to see him.

  Her eyes blurred as the white flash engulfed her …

  Starkey strained to see into the shadows and angles at the outer edge of the frame, between cars, on roofs, in garbage cans. She wondered if the bomber was somehow underground, peering out of a sewer drain or from the vent of a crawl space beneath a building. Riggio circled the bomb, examining it with the Real Time. She put herself in the killer’s head and tried to see Riggio from the ground level. She imagined the radio control in her hand. What was he waiting for? Starkey felt anxious and wondered if the killer was growing frightened at the thought of murdering another human being, or excited. Starkey saw the switch as a TV remote, held in the killer’s pocket. She saw his eyes on Riggio, unblinking. Riggio finished his circle, hesitated, then leaned over the box. In that moment, the killer pressed the switch and …

  … the light hurled Charlie Riggio away like an imaginary man.

  Starkey stopped the tape and closed her eyes, her fist clenched tight as if it was she who had clutched the switch and sent Charlie Riggio to hell.

  She felt herself breathe. She felt her chest expand, her body fill with air. She gripped her glass with both hands and drank. She wiped at her eyes.

  After a while, she pressed the “play” button and forced herself to watch the rest of the tape.

  The pressure wave flashed across the tarmac, a ripple of dust and debris sucked up after it. The Dumpster rocked backwards into the wall. Smoke rose from the crater, drifting lazily in a swirl as Buck Daggett rushed forward to his partner and pulled off the helmet. An Emergency Services van screeched into the lot beside them, two paramedics rushing in to take over. Buck stood watching them.

  Starkey was able to pick out the boundaries she had marked and several times found knots of people at the edge of the hundred-yard perimeter who were hidden behind cars or buildings. She froze the image each time, looking for long-sleeved males in blue baseball caps, but the resolution was too poor to be of much use.

  She watched the other two tapes, drinking all the while. She examined the murky images as if willing them to clear, thinking all the while that any of those shadowed faces might belong to the man or woman who had built and detonated the bomb.

  Later that night, she rewound the tapes, turned off her television, and fell into a deep sleep there on her couch.

  She is kicked away from the trailer by a burst of white light.

  The paramedics insert their long needle.

  She reaches for Sugar’s hand as his helmet is pulled free.

  His head lolls toward her.

  It is Pell.

  5

  • • •

  The next morning, Marzik walked through CCS like a shy student handing back test papers, passing out copies of the suspect likeness that had been created from Lester Ybarra’s description. Kelso, the last to get one, scowled as if it were his daughter’s failing exam.

  “There’s nothing here we can use. Your wit was a waste of time.”

  Marzik, clearly disappointed, was stung by Kelso’s words.

  “Well, it’s not my fault. I don’t think Lester really saw anything. Not the face, anyway.”

  Starkey was at her desk when Kelso approached with the picture. She kept her eyes averted, hoping that neither he nor Marzik wouldn’t notice their redness. She was sure the gin was bleeding through her pores and tried not to blow in their faces when she commented on the liken
ess.

  “It’s a ghost.”

  Marzik nodded glumly, agreeing.

  “Casper all the way.”

  The portrait showed a white male approximately forty years of age with a rectangular face hidden by dark glasses and a baseball cap. His nose was undistinguished in shape and size, as were his lips, ears, and jaw. It worked out that way more times than not. If a wit saw no identifying characteristics, the portrait ended up looking like every other person on the street. The detectives called them “ghosts” because there was nothing to see.

  Kelso scowled at the portrait some more, then shook his head and sighed deeply. Starkey thought he was being an ass.

  “It’s nobody’s fault, Barry. We’re still interviewing people who were in the laundry at about the same time. The portrait is going to develop.”

  Marzik nodded, encouraged by Starkey’s support, but Kelso didn’t look impressed.

  “I got a call from Assistant Chief Morgan last night. He asked how you were doing as the lead, Carol. He’s going to want a report soon.”

  Starkey’s head throbbed.

  “I’ll go see him whenever he wants. That’s not a problem.”

  “He won’t just want to look at you, Carol; he’ll want facts, as in progress.”

  Starkey felt her temper starting to fray.

  “What do you want me to do, Barry, pull the perp out of my ass?”

  Kelso’s jaw knotted and unwound like he was chewing marbles.

  “That might help. He suggested that we could forestall the ATF taking over this case if we had something to show for our efforts. Think about it.”

  Kelso stalked away and disappeared into his office.

  Starkey’s head throbbed worse. She had gotten so drunk last night that she scared herself and had spent most of the morning worried that her drinking was finally out of hand. She woke angry and embarrassed that Pell had once more been in her dreams, though she dismissed it as a sign of stress. She had taken two aspirin and two Tagamet, then pressed into the office, hoping to find a kickback on the RDX. She hadn’t. Now this.

  Marzik said, “Kelso’s a turd. Do you think he talks to us like that because we’re women?”

  “I don’t know, Beth. Listen, don’t sweat the picture. Pell has three other likenesses that he’s going to deliver. We can show those to Lester. Maybe something will click.”

  Marzik didn’t leave. Starkey was certain that she needed another breath mint, but wouldn’t take one with Marzik standing over her.

  “Even though Lester didn’t get a face, he’s solid on the cap and long-sleeved shirt.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve got him set up to come in this afternoon to look at the tapes. You see anything last night?”

  Starkey leaned back to stay as far from Marzik as possible.

  “Not on the wide shots. Everything is so murky you can’t really see. I think we need to have them enhanced, see if that won’t give us a better view.”

  “I could take care of that, you want.”

  “I already talked to Hooker about it. He’s had tapes enhanced before when he was working Divisional Robbery over in Hollenbeck. Listen, I need to check the NLETS, okay? We’ll talk later.”

  Marzik nodded, still not moving. She looked like she wanted to say something.

  “What, Beth?”

  “Carol, listen. I want to apologize for yesterday. I was a bitch.”

  “Forget it. Thanks for saying so, but it’s okay.”

  “I felt bad all night and I wanted to apologize.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Don’t sweat the picture.”

  “Yeah. Kelso’s such a turd.”

  Marzik took her portrait and went back to her desk. Starkey stared after her. Sometimes Marzik surprised her.

  When Marzik wasn’t looking, Starkey popped a fresh Altoid, then went for the coffee. When she checked the NLETS system on the way back to her desk, this time something was waiting.

  Starkey had expected one or two hits on the RDX, but nothing like what she found.

  The California State Sheriffs reported that Dallas Tennant, a thirty-two-year-old white male, was currently serving time in the California State Correctional Facility in Atascadero, a facility for prisoners receiving treatment for mental disorders. On three separate occasions two years ago, Tennant had exploded devices made with RDX. Starkey smiled when she saw it was three devices. RDX was rare; three devices meant that Tennant had had access to a lot of it. Starkey printed off the computer report, noting that the case had been made by a Sheriff’s Bomb and Arson sergeant-investigator named Warren Mueller out of the Central Valley office in Bakersfield. Back at her desk, she looked up the phone number in her State Law Enforcement Directory, then called the Central Valley number, asking for the Bomb and Arson Unit.

  “B and A. Hennessey.”

  “Warren Mueller, please.”

  “Yeah, he’s here. Stand by.”

  When Mueller came on, Starkey identified herself as a Los Angeles police officer. Mueller had an easy male voice with a twang of the Central Valley at the edges. Starkey thought he had probably grown up downwind of one of the meatpacking plants up there.

  “I’m calling about a perp you collared named Dallas Tennant.”

  “Oh, sure. He’s enjoying a lease in Atascadero these days.”

  “That’s right. Reason I’m calling is I got a kicker saying that he set off three devices using RDX. That’s a lot of RDX.”

  “Three we know of, yeah. Coulda been more. He was buying stolen cars from some kids up here, hundred bucks, no questions, then driving’m out into the desert to blow’m up. He’d soak’m in gas first so they’d burn, you know? Crazy fool just wanted to see’m come apart, I guess. He blew up four or five trees, too, but he used TNT for that.”

  “It’s the RDX that interests me. You know where he got it?”

  “Well, he claimed that he bought a case of stolen antipersonnel mines from a guy he met at a bar. You believe that, I got some desert land up here I’ll sell you. My guess is that he bought it off one of these meth-dealing biker assholes, but he never copped, so I couldn’t tell you.”

  Starkey knew that the vast majority of bombings were the result of drug wars between rival methamphetamine dealers, many of whom were white bikers. Meth labs were chemical bombs waiting to happen. So when a meth dealer wanted to eliminate a rival, he often just blew apart his Airstream. Starkey had rolled out on almost a hundred meth labs when she was a bomb tech. Bomb Squad would roll even for a warrant service.

  “So you think you could still have a guy up there with RDX to sell?”

  “Well, that’s possible, but you never know. We didn’t have a suspect at the time, and we don’t have one now. All we had was Dallas, blowing up his goddamned cars. The guy’s your classic no-life, loner bomb crank. But the guy stood up, though, I’ll give’m that. Wherever he got it, he didn’t roll.”

  “Did he have any more RDX in his possession at the time of his arrest?”

  “Never found any of his works. Said he made everything at home, but there was no evidence of it. He had this shithole apartment over here out past the meat plant, but we didn’t find so much as a firecracker. We couldn’t find any evidence of these mines he claimed to have bought, either.”

  Starkey considered that. Building bombs for bomb cranks like Dallas Tennant was a way of life. It was their passion, and they inevitably had a place where they built their bombs, in the same way that hobbyists had hobby rooms. Might be a closet or a room or a place in their garage, but they had a place to store their supplies and practice their craft. Such places were called “shops.”

  “Seems like he would’ve had a shop.”

  “Well, my personal feeling is that he was butt-buddies with the same guy sold him the RDX, and that guy packed up when Dallas was tagged, but like I say, that’s just my feeling.”

  Starkey put that in her notes, but didn’t think much of Mueller’s theory. As Mueller had already pointed out, bomb c
ranks were introverted loners, usually of low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy. They were often extremely shy and almost never had relationships with women. Sharing their toys didn’t fit with the profile. Starkey suspected that if Tennant didn’t cop to his shop, it was because he didn’t want to lose his toys. Like all chronics, he would see explosions in his dreams, and probably spent much of every day fantasizing about the bombs he would build as soon as he was released.

  Starkey closed her pad.

  “Okay, Sergeant, I think that about does it. I appreciate your time.”

  “Anytime. Could I ask you something, Starkey?”

  “I’ve asked you plenty.”

  He hesitated. She knew in that moment what was coming, and felt her stomach knot.

  “You being down there in L.A. and all, you the same Starkey got blown up?”

  “Yeah. That was me. Listen, all I’ve got here is what the Sheriffs put out on the kicker. Could you fax your casework on Tennant to give me a little more?”

  “This about that thing happened down there in Silver Lake?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sure. It’s only a few pages. I can get to it right away.”

  “Thanks.”

  Starkey gave him the fax number and hung up before Mueller could say any more. It was always like that, even more so from the bomb techs and bomb investigators, from the people who lived so close to the edge but never looked over, in a kind of awe that she had.

  Starkey refilled her coffee and brought it into the stairwell where she stood smoking with three Fugitive Section detectives. They were young, athletic guys with short hair and thick mustaches. They were still enthusiastic about the job and hadn’t yet let themselves go, the way most cops did when they realized that the job was bureaucratic bullshit that served no purpose and did no good. These guys would bag their day at two in the afternoon, then head over to Chavez Ravine to work out at the Police Academy. Starkey could see it in their tight jeans and forearms. They smiled; she nodded back. They went on with their discussion without including her. They had made a collar that morning in Eagle Rock, a veterano gang member with a rep as a hard guy who was wanted for armed robbery and mayhem. The mayhem charge meant he’d bitten off a nose or an ear during one of the assaults. The three Fugitive cops had found him hiding under a blanket in a garage when they made the pinch. The tough veterano had pissed his pants so badly that they wouldn’t put him in the car until they’d found a plastic trash bag for him to sit on. Starkey listened to the three young cops relive their story, then crushed out her cigarette and went back to the fax machine. Another cop story. One of thousands. They always ended well unless a cop took a bullet or got bagged in an unlawful act.