Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  “Lose this number.”

  “I’ve got a man with a bomb in my office.”

  “Dispatch,” Van Huis said, his voice muffled—maybe his hand over the phone. “Richie, get me dispatch on your line.” His voice louder, he said, “All right, Art. Talk to me.”

  “Got a man outside with a radio detonator,” I said. “You roll up like gangbusters and this thing goes off. I’m going to put you on the speaker.” I clicked on the speaker and hung up the telephone.

  “I’m recording this line,” said Van Huis. “Tell me about the package.”

  “It’s in a briefcase tethered to the arm of Hank Dunphy.”

  “What’s it made out of?”

  “It looked like sticks of clay or putty,” said Dunphy, “smelled sweet like candy, marzipan.”

  “Probably Semtex,” I said.

  Van Huis asked, “How much?”

  “Weighs like a phone book,” said Dunphy, sweat beading on his now blanched-white forehead. “Get out to my house. They’ve got my family.”

  “We’re talking a smoking hole in the ground,” I said.

  “Someone is on the way,” said Van Huis. “I’m going to talk to the man with the bomb. What’s your name?”

  “Hank Dunphy. I live on Rosebud Court in Ada. They have my wife and daughter. It’s a Tudor, the only one on the cul-de-sac.”

  “How many men are in the house?”

  “Three. They were in the den—in the back of the house off the pool. There’s a sliding glass door.”

  “What are they driving?”

  “They don’t have a car,” said Dunphy. He closed his eyes and seemed to fight for his balance in the chair. I put my free hand on his shoulder. “They used the car they came in to bring me here.”

  “Tell me about the car.”

  “It’s green. A sedan.”

  “Taurus?” I asked.

  Dunphy turned his face to me. “Yes, I think.”

  “Look for a Taurus with Wisconsin plates,” I said. I thumbed open my notepad and read him the number.

  Dunphy exhaled a word, barely a whisper, “How?”

  I said, “I’m a detective. I know things, Hank. I know Scott Lambert was framed and you helped. Why don’t you tell us now? Before we all die and you can’t tell us—and you have to face eternity with the lie on your lips.”

  “I gave them the soda can with Scott’s cigar butt in it,” said Dunphy. “I gave them hair from Scott’s hairbrush, from the restroom in his office.”

  “Who?” said Van Huis.

  “The men who made the bomb. They broke into Hardin’s office and left the soda can. I don’t know what they did with the hair.”

  The office door opened.

  “What was in the shoe box you gave them yesterday?” I said.

  “Oh, my God,” said Dunphy.

  A man holding a fire department badge in his hand walked into my office. He was lean and athletic despite stark white hair and a furrowed face. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and blue work trousers.

  “What was in the box, Hank?”

  Dunphy didn’t answer. He looked at the fireman.

  “Mike Fulton,” said the fireman, “I’m not a bomb guy, but—”

  “Engineering samples and data CD’s,” Dunphy said.

  “—I was in ordinance disposal before I retired from the military. I know about plastic.”

  “Mike, this is Van Huis,” said the speaker telephone. “You don’t have to stay. We’ve got someone from GRPD on the way.”

  “Jesus, Jerry,” said Fulton, “I’m here, let me take a look at this.” He slipped on a pair of reading glasses and bent to examine the briefcase.

  Dunphy’s hand began to tremble. I firmed my grip. “Just try to relax your fingers,” I said. “I’ve got a good hold.”

  Fulton produced a box knife from his pants pocket and sliced through the side of the briefcase, from end to end, along the edge next to the handle. Setting the box cutter aside, he hauled out a palm sized hand mirror and a pencil. With the rubber end of the pencil he lifted up the slit and peeked into the case using light reflected with the hand mirror.

  “Definitely a bomb,” said Fulton. “Plastic with an electrically fired blasting cap. There’s a deadman’s switch and a radio receiver.”

  “Can you leave it and vacate the building?” said Van Huis.

  The telephone rang in the front office.

  “If this amount of plastic detonates,” said Fulton, “Flo Jo couldn’t run fast enough.”

  “Get it off the man’s arm and evacuate the building,” said Van Huis.

  “He’ll set it off,” said Dunphy, his whole arm shaking.

  “I’ve got a little girl on line two who wants to talk to her daddy,” Marg announced.

  “What do you want to do, Jerry?” I said. “For Dunphy to talk I have to put you on hold.”

  “Let him talk,” said Van Huis.

  Fulton lifted open the slice with his fingers, sliding the pencil into the opening like he was threading a needle. I handed Dunphy the telephone and punched line two.

  “Hi, baby. … Yes, it’s your daddy. … No, I didn’t share the cookie dough. The man isn’t here yet.”

  Fulton looked at me and whispered, “A bull dog clip.”

  I gave him one from my drawer.

  “It doesn’t hurt my hand, Baby …. It’s a pretend game.”

  Fulton clipped it to the wire leader where it passed through the briefcase.

  “Amy! Amy! … Why is my wife screaming? … you bastard! … Yes … Yes, stop it. … Yes, Hardin is here.”

  25

  HANK DUNPHY REVEALED HIMSELF TO BE A MAN WHO could evacuate a building with stunning alacrity. No sooner had Mike Fulton—full time fireman and retired military bomb disposer—clamped off and cut the trigger wire, than good ole Hank was gone like last week’s paycheck.

  I called after him on the stairs, “Hank, you forgot your briefcase!” He didn’t look back. I bounded after him, trundling the briefcase in front of me like a tea caddy.

  “Excuse me,” I told a pair of matrons as they stepped aside to make way. “Man forgot his briefcase.” They had a shopping bag full of Campbell’s Soup labels for the office down the hall from mine and could not conceal their disgust for Hank and I playing tag on the stairs.

  “I should say,” said the lady in the black straw hat with matching bag.

  “Well, I never,” said her friend, demure in a white blouse and brown pleated skirt.

  “Hold this, toots, and tell me what you never,” I couldn’t give it to her, even though she did put her hands out—I had to catch the door with my shoulder before it fell completely shut. When I got out onto the porch Dunphy was already in the middle of the lot and dodging parked cars like they were trying to tackle him. A dozen steps and half as many seconds would put Dunphy in the middle of an open field and I could lob him the “Hail Mary.”

  Flashing brakelights caught the corner of my eye. The green Taurus crept down the apron toward the street, surrounded by FBI agents in black wind-breakers, Matty among them. She wore a black skirt and hose. A sling carried her left arm. She pointed her Beretta at the driver’s window with her right.

  “Stop! Turn off the ignition! You’re under arrest!” they all chanted in madrigal, while the Taurus slowly plowed agents into the street.

  I abandoned Dunphy—wasn’t really his briefcase anyway—and scooted down the stairs to run after the Taurus. Through the rear window I could see the driver holding the detonator in view—threatening with it in his right hand.

  I ran along the passenger side of the vehicle, past agents who took me in their sights, their faces first angry, then ashen. I dived onto the hood and held the briefcase to the windshield.

  “Pop it now, asshole!” I yelled and peeked over the case to look the driver in the eyes. Jack Anders. I wish I had been surprised. He never saw me. His eyes fixed on the briefcase and his face became mostly open mouth. He bailed ou
t of the driver’s door and ran.

  Left to its own devices, the Taurus rolled into the street with me still on the hood. Lucky for me, the ride carried me wide of the of gunfire directed at the fleeing Jack Anders.

  Jack slowed to a quickmarch, then stopped. He turned to face the gaggle formation of agents with his arms spread and showing his empty palms. The firing stopped. Jack wore a tan windbreaker unzipped over a white knit shirt. A half-dozen small cones of fabric stood out from his shirt, each with a small hole at the tip. A cloud of astonishment wafted across his face as his eyes engaged each of his pursuers. He glanced at his shirt and wiped it flat with his hand. Red circles spread around the holes. He turned and, making precise steps, walked into the street like a mime descending an imaginary stairway.

  The curb on the far side of the street stopped the Taurus. I left the briefcase racked on the windshield and slid off the hood to try the passenger door. Locked. The driver’s door stood open. I ran around and threw the shift lever into park without climbing in. The detonator—a garage door opener—lay on the passenger seat.

  A yellow taxi rounded the corner. The driver seemed to be studying something in his right hand. I waved my hands and yelled. If he looked up, I didn’t wait to see. I ran for the circle of agents who stood staring down their gunsights into the vacant eyes of the pile of meat that had been Jack Anders.

  Behind me brakes locked up and tires squawked. An angry voice called after me, “What the fuck are you doing?” Matty looked up and fixed me in flaming arrow eyes.

  “That was stupid,” she said. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “I didn’t think he would pop the bomb if it was in his lap,” I said, in favor of what I was thinking: Trying to improve on your circular firing squad strategy, Matty! “Why’d you shoot him?”

  “Because he had the detonator,” said a Washington dinosaur agent, who probably knew J. Edgar personally. He had at least a decade on me and a full head of gray hair with a laser-straight part on the left and hair swept back on the right. The only one without an FBI stenciled jacket, he wore a charcoal suit over a pinstriped blue shirt with a red tie on a lithe and lean body. He holstered a chrome .357 and walked off.

  I said, “Who was that?”

  “Your best friend,” Matty said.

  “I shouldn’t tell him the detonator was on the passenger seat?”

  “Go ahead and roll him over,” Matty said to nobody in particular. She gave me a sidelong glance. “No. I wouldn’t mention that.”

  “Hey, Mack,” said an angry voice. I turned to see the taxi driver. An extra day of whiskers put more hair on his face than on his head. A hammock of soiled yellow T-shirt captured a belly that fell over his belt like an apron. “You can’t just stop your car and leave it in the street.”

  A battered pick-up truck loaded with lawn equipment rounded the corner. Its front bumper dived for the pavement and tires squealed, but it still tagged the back bumper of the taxi cab.

  “Why not?” I said. “You did.”

  “Oh, shit,” said the cabby as he turned and speed-waddled for his vehicle. “Jesus Christ, what else?”

  “There’s a bomb in the Taurus,” I told him. He cut a hard right and headed for the open field behind my office.

  “So, who is this?” said Matty. She holstered her weapon.

  “Cab driver,” I said.

  “On the ground,” said Matty, definitely not amused.

  “On the ground is what remains of Jacob Anderson, AKA Jack Anders,” I said. “He worked for the late Mr. Dixon—was doing an undercover at Light and Energy Applications in Wisconsin when he disappeared. I found him in Brandonport, wearing a ski mask and pointing a revolver at my head.”

  “Why didn’t you report him to the police?”

  “He convinced me that it was my fault.”

  Matty showed me narrow eyes and tight lips.

  “I guess you had to be there,” I said.

  “I’ve got something for you in the car.” Matty started for the parking lot.

  “Bust a flipper?”

  “Dislocated shoulder,” she said. “Your playmates hosed the tires on the Blazer and it rolled like a red rubber ball.”

  “So you didn’t get them?”

  “Not something I can discuss,” she said.

  A man decked out like the Michelin man, rolling one heavily padded leg around the other, carried Dunphy’s briefcase toward a sandbagged steel tub loaded on a trailer. A county rescue truck squeaked to a stop near the steps to my office. Two FBI agents walked by—bookends for Hank Dunphy, his hands cuffed behind him. They marched him to the rescue truck. He implored all who could hear to send help to his wife and daughter.

  I asked, “Somebody is doing that, right?”

  “He tried to blow you up,” said Matty.

  “Sins of the father.”

  “Your best friend is on the way to catch up with the SWAT team we sent while you were still in the office with Dunphy,” said Matty.

  “So who is this man who is supposed to be my best friend?”

  “Did he ask you any questions?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Return the favor,” Matty said. “He flew in last night, and if we roll up the third man in twenty-four hours he’ll be able to walk on the Potomac with a bag of congressional funding under each arm.”

  “The guy you just ventilated wasn’t Jacob Anderson?”

  “No, but he does make two down and one to go.” She unlocked the door of a tan government sedan and nodded at the passenger door. I pulled the door shut after me and Matty told me to look under the seat. I fished out a green and white football-shaped leatherette shoe bag with a black cord handle. Inside, four packets of hundred dollar bills in bank wrappers made twenty thousand dollars. It didn’t make much of a pile.

  “I don’t suppose this really matters now,” I said. “Dunphy admitted the plan to frame Scott Lambert.”

  “I wouldn’t look for Lambert to be on the street any time soon,” said Matty. “You can count on Dunphy to clam up as soon as he stops begging for help. The prosecutor will be playing heavy defense. He took Lambert for a half million in cash and twiddled his thumbs while Lambert took a beating.”

  “Guess I better count this,” I said.

  “Count it or don’t,” said Matty. “I don’t care. There’s a receipt. You don’t sign the receipt, the money stays here. Sign it, and I want to see the money once a day. You lose any of the money and the Bureau will be all over you like ants on a jelly bean.”

  I started counting cadence for Franklin and Matty started working her pockets. She searched her purse.

  “Out of smokes?” I asked.

  Matty patted the shoulder of the arm in the sling. “The patch,” she said. “Damn thing itches like mad and I’m still looking for a cigarette.”

  “What brought this on?”

  “The doctor who set my shoulder.”

  “You didn’t fall for that, did you?” I said. “They’d tell you to quit smoking to cure a hangnail.”

  “I was injured in the line of duty. The bastard wrote it on my chart.”

  “Christ,” I said, “the world is turning to shit. Now I gotta buy my own cigarettes.” I finished counting the bills, signed the receipt, and left Matty sucking her thumb.

  • • •

  Marg sat at her desk posting a ledger with her “leave me the hell alone” half glasses perched on the end of her nose. As I opened the door she said, “Am I going to blow up, or can I get some work done?”

  I patted the top of my head and said, “You kind of flattened out your hairdo while you were under the desk.”

  Marg drilled a finger into a pink message slip. “The landlord called and said he’d let us out of our lease and return our deposit if we were out of here by the end of the month.”

  “Not happening,” I said. “I’ll give him a call.”

  “No need,” Marg said. “They’ll have a door on your office and measure for car
pet today.”

  I skulked past Marg, locked the money in the equipment closet, and retreated to my desk. Marg went out the front door and down the hall. I heard every step. Searching my desk for smokes produced no joy, so I rifled my suit. In the hanky pocket of my suit coat I found a note from Wendy that read, “I said cruel things. I didn’t mean them. Sorry—I love you.”

  “’Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’” I said to my empty office. I snatched up the telephone, but found my hand shaking. I could hear myself ranting at Wendy, “You wanted to believe them. You said what you thought. You wanted to be, ‘poor Wendy.’ You spent months looking out the window watching our marriage dissolve into the night. Now it could be my fault. ‘Poor Wendy. Art was such an asshole. How could she have known.’” I banged the handset back in the cradle.

  I’d passed two party stores before I thought to stop for smokes. The next opportunity was the strip mall on Breton. The window of the “Buck-a-Piece” store displayed Detroit Red Wing Stanley Cup T-shirts. They didn’t have any Red Wing hats, so I went with a white golf hat and a Red Wings bumper sticker—probably work just fine in the dark tunnel where I was told to deliver the money. A roll of duct tape and a heavy rubber mallet with a wooden handle ran the tab up to a fin.

  The cashier at the drugstore said that cigarettes were four and-a-half a pack.

  “Cigars?” I said.

  “Aisle seven on the left,” she told me.

  I found a “special,” buy one get one free, and stopped at the greeting card aisle on the way back. How come the cards never say what’s on your mind? “I love you, but I feel like a stranger in our house … in our bed … loved not wisely but too well,” and lines about casting away pearls of great value—but that shoe had been on the other foot.

  “Maybe it still is,” I told the rack of cards and felt air rush into the void in my chest that I had been fighting for days. I read them all. It took an hour, maybe longer. I don’t know. Long enough for the store dick to get cross eyed trying to watch out of the corner of his eye while he tried to appear really interested in disposable douches.

  I settled on a card with a little girl and boy on the cover. They wore “dress up” clothes from an attic trunk in the background; him in suspenders with an old pipe, her with a string of pearls, a scarf, and an acre of hat. Inside it read, “When you’re young at heart/Life is forever new.”