by David Archer
“She’s gone,” he said softly.
“Oh, God, no,” Summer said. A sob escaped her. “No, she can’t be gone!”
Darren put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and suddenly the room was filled with police officers. Sam got to his feet and looked around, then suddenly contorted his face as he lunged at one of the officers who was standing there, staring wide-eyed at the devastation.
“You!” Sam shouted, grabbing the officer by his shirt and slamming him against what was left of the wall. “You brought those boxes in here,” he said menacingly. “You did this!”
“God, man,” the officer said, “I just pushed the cart here, like I was told. You think the bomb was on the cart?”
“Told? Who told you to bring that in here?”
The officer stared at him, his own eyes wide and round. “Well, Detective Franklin,” he said. “You said you wanted everything we had on the case, and that he found these old files.”
Sam stared at him and slowly relaxed his grip. “Where the hell is Franklin now?” he asked.
“Sir, I don’t know. He just spotted me in the hall and told me to bring the cart with those files down to you guys. I swear, that’s all I know.”
“What on Earth has happened here?” came another voice, and Sam looked around to see Chief Kelly standing in the doorway.
“Where is Franklin?” Sam asked. “He sent a cart full of files up here to us, and there was a bomb in one of the boxes. One of my people is dead, dammit. Where the hell is Franklin?”
Chief Kelly looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ve no idea, but I’ll help you find him. There’s no way in the world he would’ve done this, but we need to find out who could’ve gotten access to those boxes.”
“Yeah? Well, we’re going to start with Franklin.”
Sirens were tearing the air apart and paramedics were running into the building from every direction. Two of them followed directions and checked on Jade, then confirmed Sam’s conclusion. She was dead.
Several others were injured, and rescue efforts are underway already. While most officers were involved in trying to find people in the rubble of the rooms that had been affected by the blast, Chief Kelly assigned a dozen more to finding Detective Franklin. The dispatcher said he was listed as still being in the building, but no one could find any trace of him. Calls to him on the radio and his cell phone went unanswered. When the search of the building was complete, Chief Kelly ordered a BOLO, instructing all officers to keep their eyes peeled for Franklin and report his whereabouts whenever he was seen.
Darren, Summer and Eric were all checked out by paramedics and then taken to the hospital for further evaluation. Summer had insisted that Walter ride along with her in the ambulance, which managed to forestall the meltdown she suspected was coming. Sam called Edith to let her know what had happened, so she could tell Steve, and then suggested that she bring Walter up to see Steve as soon as possible.
And then he called Indie.
“Sam?” she asked as she answered the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Good God, have you heard about it already?” Sam asked.
“I haven’t heard anything,” she said, “except that Mom just called and said Beauregard told her there was something serious happening down there. He didn’t know what, so tell me. What’s going on, Sam?”
“Somebody rigged a bomb and sent it into our conference room,” Sam said. “I’m okay, Walter and I were already outside the building when it went off, but—Indie, Jade was the only one still in the room when it exploded. She’s gone, Indie. Jade died in the blast.”
“Oh, my God,” Indie said. “Oh, no, Sam.” He could hear the tears in her voice, and he was expecting them. Indie, Jade and Summer had all become good friends.
“I know, babe,” he said softly. “I knew you’d want to hear about it right away, so I called you first. Now I have to call Ron and Jeff, and let them know.”
“Okay, Sam,” Indie sobbed. “Call me back when you can, will you?”
“Sure will, babe.” He cut off the call, then immediately dialed the number for the Windlass offices.
The phone rang several times, and then went to the after-hours voicemail message. Sam cut it off and dialed Ron’s cell number, and he answered on the second ring.
“Sam? I just heard something about an explosion down there.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Somebody put a bomb in our conference room at the police department. Ron, Jade Miller is dead. Darren, Summer and Eric are shook up, and Denny was at the hospital with Steve, so he’s okay. Walter and I were outside the building when it happened. We’re okay physically, but Walter is pretty shook up.” He sighed. “So am I, to be honest. Right now, it looks like it may have been Detective Franklin who bombed us.”
“James Franklin? He’s the lead detective on the cold case. Do you really think it might have been him?”
“Another officer said Franklin told him to bring a cart full of boxes, supposedly files, to the conference room. The bomb was in one of the boxes, and Franklin can’t be found anywhere. So, yeah, right now he’s my number one suspect.”
“But, why? Why would he do something like this?”
“We’ve been learning some things up here,” Sam said. “One of the things we found out is that Martin Jensen had an accomplice, and we have reason to believe that accomplice might have been a policeman. Franklin’s been on the force since before Jensen was killed, and he was even the first on the scene. Right at the moment, he’s also my number one suspect for that murder, along with a lot of the kidnappings.”
“Sam, I don’t know what to say. Jade—oh, my God. I need to contact the police department there, to get whatever information I can so that I can notify her family. This is going to devastate them. Hell, it’s devastating me.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty rough on all of us. Jade was part of the team, and a very good one. She will definitely be missed.”
“Sam,” Ron said, “you find who did this. Whether it’s Franklin or somebody else, you find them. Somebody needs to pay for this, and I want you to make damn sure they do.”
“You know I will,” Sam said, and then he cut off the call without another word.
He stalked his way toward Chief Kelly’s office, which was on the other end of the building and undamaged, and barged in without waiting for the secretary to announce him.
“Any word on Franklin?” he asked.
“Not at the moment,” Chief Kelly said. “Prichard, listen…”
“No, you listen,” Sam said, cutting him off. “Here’s what we know so far. Martin Jensen was involved in the kidnapping and murder and God knows what else of several young boys, but he was afraid of heights. Some of those boys were taken out of second-story bedrooms, with ladders used to gain entry to the windows. He had an accomplice that handled that part for him, and I don’t know what else, and the only things we know about the accomplice is that he had dark brown hair and smelled like cigars. There’s been something about that poking at the back of my mind ever since I heard about the cigars, and then it hit me a few minutes ago. One of the first things Franklin told me when I met him was that he had recently stopped smoking cigars, after a lifelong habit. And while his hair might be graying now, the fringes are still dark brown. Now we have the fact that Franklin told an officer to bring those boxes into the conference room, the boxes that had a bomb hidden inside. Considering one of my men has been shot, one of my team is dead and the rest of us were supposed to die with her in that bomb blast, James Franklin is now my number one suspect.”
Chief Kelly’s face went white. “Dear God,” he said. “I can’t believe what you’re saying, but I can’t call you a liar, either. As soon as we find him, we’re going to bring him in for questioning. We will get to the bottom of this, Prichard, I guarantee it.”
“You’re damn right we will,” Sam said. “You’re damn right.”
TWENTY-ONE
Because they had been clos
e to the blast, Darren, Eric and Summer were taken to the hospital to be checked out. None of them had any serious injuries, although Eric could seem to have a mild concussion. He was ordered to stay overnight and placed in the same room as Steve, who had been taken off the intensive care list and moved to a regular room.
Rob Feinstein, the head of security services for Windlass, had arrived with a squad of his soldiers and secured a section of the floor they were on. No one who wasn’t positively identified as having reason to be there was going to get past them.
“I heard about Jade,” Rob said. “I’m really sorry, Sam.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sam said. “But not nearly as sorry as I’m going to make the son of a bitch who did this. We have a pretty good idea who’s behind it, but it still remains to prove it. You just make sure nobody gets close to these guys, will you?”
“No chance of that,” Rob said. “Brought my best people. This is family, and we take care of our own.”
Sam nodded and then stepped into the room. Edith and Kenny were still there, and Kenny was sitting beside Eric’s bed.
“Sam,” Steve said, a growl in his voice. “I’m hoping you’re coming in here to tell me it was all a mistake, and Jade is okay.”
Sam looked sadly at his friend. “I wish I could,” he said. “I’m sorry, Steve, but she’s gone.”
Steve closed his eyes and Sam saw tears begin to flow down his cheeks. “Damn,” he said. “I always figured if one of us was going to get killed, it would be you or me, Sam. That poor little girl shouldn’t have been in that situation.”
“She was an investigator, Steve,” Sam said. “As much as we hate it, it’s one of the risks of the job. We all take the same risk, every day we get up and come to work. You have to remind yourself that at least she was doing what she enjoyed doing.”
“But it’s not fair,” Eric said suddenly. “Jade was always so nice to me, it’s not fair that she’s gone.”
“She was a nice person,” Sam said. “That was just her way. We’re all going to miss her, Eric.”
He turned back to Steve. “We have reason to believe that Detective Franklin is the one behind all of this. It’s also very likely that he was the accomplice Jensen had, the one who climbed the ladders. I remembered what was bugging me about the cigar thing; Franklin said he smoked cigars most of his life, and only recently quit to go to an e-cigarette. He’s also got brown hair, or at least it was before he turned gray. When you add in the fact that nobody knows where he is, he’s looking pretty good as a suspect.”
Steve’s eyes opened up and shook his head. “Sick bastard,” he said. “If he was the accomplice, then he’s the one…” His eyes cut over to Kenny, and he fell silent.
Kenny looked at him, and nodded slowly. “Then he’s the one who raped me,” he said. “He’d be the one in the gorilla mask. I wish I had gotten to meet him at the station, I think I would’ve recognized his voice. Believe me, I’ve never forgotten that.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “You hadn’t? You never told anyone about the sexual abuse aspects before. Why not?”
Kenny lowered his eyes. “It’s not exactly an easy thing to say,” he said slowly. “Guys are just as ashamed of being raped as women are, you know? I never wanted to tell anybody about that, but—well, it was just time.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully. “I understand,” he said. “Good enough.” He turned back to Steve again. “I’ve got to get back to the station. Walter is down there, going through the blast area the best he can. I tried to get him to come with me, but he refused. He wanted to look at the scene and try to come up with something to help.”
“That’s Walter,” Steve said. “You tell him I’m taking him out for ice cream when I get out of here. He loves ice cream.”
Sam grinned. “I’ll tell him.” The grin faded quickly, and he turned and left the room.
Strangely enough, there had been very little in the way of fire after the explosion, and it was put out quickly by fire extinguishers. Sam saw a couple of fire trucks parked outside the station when he got back there, but there was really nothing for them to do. The firemen were helping to clear some of the damaged area, and they even put up some posts to keep the ceiling from caving in any further than it already had in the conference room.
Sam found Walter down on his hands and knees, looking closely at pieces of charred cardboard.
“Walter? What do you think so far?”
“The bomb was in one of the boxes on the bottom of the cart,” Walter said. “The cart had three shelves, and the middle shelf was blown upward while the bottom shelf was blown downward. I found pieces of a cell phone embedded in some of the cardboard from the boxes. The bomb was set off that way, by somebody calling the number of the phone.”
Sam looked at the piece of cardboard Walter was pointing at and saw the little electronic pieces stuck in it. He had figured the bomb might’ve been rigged to go off when a box was opened or something like that, but this meant that the perpetrator, Franklin, had deliberately set the bomb off when he expected to get them all at once. It was nothing but pure luck that everyone but Jade had chosen that moment to leave the conference room.
Sam felt sick. Franklin had been a decorated officer, and later a highly decorated detective. How does a man like that become a murderer, he wondered.
“Mr. Prichard?” said a voice, and Sam turned to find a young officer standing at the doorway. “Chief Kelly wants to speak to you, sir.”
Sam nodded and followed him out of the room, and back down to Chief Kelly’s office. Once again, he walked past the receptionist without even a glance, but this time she just ignored him.
“You got something?” Sam asked as he entered Chief Kelly’s office. “Something on Franklin?”
“Not yet,” the man replied. “However, I did come across something I thought you might want to know about. I sent officers to Franklin’s home, naturally, and they just reported in. Mrs. Franklin says James had come home earlier, around the time Mr. Beck was shot, and spent half an hour in the garage. When he left, she saw that he had a file box with him, but she had no idea what was in it. She tried calling him while my officers were there, but he didn’t answer.”
“He’s not going to,” Sam said. “He’s burned himself, and he knows it. He’s probably had an escape plan set up for a long time, just in case he ever got caught out. I’d be surprised if he’s even still in town.”
“I feel the same way,” Chief Kelly said. “I can’t imagine he would stick around here, not knowing that we would all be out looking for him after this.” He shook his head. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me, though,” he said. “Why would he try to interfere in the investigation in such a drastic manner? Even if some of the evidence seemed to lead back to him, his record was so spotless that it would have been hard to believe. He would’ve had plenty of time to make a run for it, then, without adding more murder and attempted murder charges.”
“I don’t think he could stand the thought of being found out without bringing it down on himself,” Sam said. “For whatever reason, he figured that if Kenny and Steve got to talking, they would probably figure out that he was involved. He may have thought that taking Steve out would protect him, which would explain the shooting, but Steve didn’t die. At that point, knowing we’d never let him get close enough to Steve to finish the job, I think he just decided to go out in a blaze of glory. I think he figured if he could take all of us out, he’d be able to make a getaway.”
“Then he’s probably pretty upset about now. I know I would be, if I were him. He’s got to worry about Sam Prichard being on his trail, now. And your reputation definitely precedes you.”
“I don’t care about my reputation,” Sam said. “I just want to find Franklin and bring him in.”
Chief Kelly looked at him closely. “Are you sure that’s what you want? To bring him in? Look, Prichard, I know I’d be thinking about something a lot more permanent, if I were you.”
“I believe in j
ustice, sir,” Sam said. “We bring him in, he stands trial. That’s how the system works. Our job is just to make sure there’s enough evidence to see that he’s convicted, if he’s guilty.”
“You have some doubt of his guilt?” Chief Kelly asked. “As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t.”
“I don’t have any doubt he’s behind this,” Sam said. “But it’s not my doubt we have to be worried about. The jury has to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, remember? We not only have to bring them in, we have to build enough of a case to be sure that the jury is going to convict.”
Scowling, Chief Kelly nodded. “Of course,” he said. “But I’m sure the evidence is there; all we have to do is find it.”
“And that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Sam replied. “Our office is contracted with the Department of Homeland Security; I’m using that to get law enforcement officers everywhere looking for this guy. I plan to use every tool available to me, but I intend to bring Franklin in, and then it’s up to the courts.”
“Then we’ll do whatever we have to do to back you up. You can count on my department, Mr. Prichard.”
Sam thanked him and left the office, returning to the blast zone to find Walter sitting cross-legged in the very spot where Jade’s body had been removed.
“Walter? You okay?”
“I’m okay,” Walter said. “I’m okay. I was just thinking about Jade. She was always nice to me.”
Sam nodded. “She was nice to everybody, I think. That was just her way.”
“She was smart. She used to talk to me about computers and math. Nobody else likes to talk to me about computers and math.”
Sam sat down on the floor beside him and chuckled. “That’s because you make us all feel stupid,” he said. “We don’t know as much as you do about those things.”
The two of them sat there for a couple of minutes, and then Walter got to his feet. In a rare display of respect, he held out a hand to help Sam get up. Walter normally hated to be touched at all, and wouldn’t even shake hands with most people. Sam was touched, but knew better than to say anything. Walter could get embarrassed easily at times, and he didn’t handle embarrassment well.