by Diane Kelly
“Any idea who he is?”
“Not yet. Neither the mall manager nor any of the security team recognized him, but I was able to snag the license plate of the rental truck from the camera footage. U-Haul should be able to give us his contact information.”
Of course that assumed he hadn’t provided false identification to U-Haul. But I was getting way ahead of myself here. We weren’t even sure the rental truck had anything to do with the bomb.
Brigit and I appeared on the screen, first as tiny figures in the background ordering our food at Stick People, then becoming larger as we made our way to the booth.
Irving’s face suddenly appeared on the screen, filling the entire field as if he were a giant.
“Whoa!” I jerked my head back reflexively.
On-screen, Irving reached up to unscrew a lightbulb, his mouth falling open and giving us a close-up view of his tonsils. Lovely. Now I knew how dentists felt. Irving turned his head to the side and his lips moved. Though there was no audio feed, I realized what I’d just witnessed was him greeting me yesterday. He looked down as he passed the old bulb to his assistant, who handed him a new one. The two repeated the process three more times over the course of nearly four minutes according to the clock. At one point my eyes spotted a flash of something bright orange in the background near the trash can, but then Irving moved and blocked the lens again.
Jackson clicked her mouse to pause the screen and eyed me. “Thoughts?”
My first thought was that Irving had a cracked molar, but that wasn’t exactly what the detective was looking for. My mind raced with possibilities. “Assuming Irving knew there was a hidden camera in the clock, he might have intentionally blocked the lens to allow someone else to plant the bomb.” Wow, I’d gotten through that entire complicated sentence without a single stutter. Good for me. “But wouldn’t one of the visible cameras have recorded the same area, too?”
“Normally that would be the case,” Jackson said, shooting me a pointed look before maneuvering her mouse again. “But not yesterday.”
She pulled up a feed from another camera. All it showed was the tile floor and the tops of people’s heads, including a bleached blonde who was two inches overdue for a root touchup.
When I offered a questioning look, the detective said, “Remember that banner hanging in the food court? Irving hung it from the camera’s support bracket on Friday morning. When I asked about it he said he must’ve bumped the camera out of place without realizing it.”
A plausible story. But was it a true story?
I gestured to the screen. “Don’t the security guards keep a real-time eye on these feeds? It seems like they would’ve noticed the problem with the camera.”
Jackson raised a brow again, as if challenging me to think things through.
I racked my brain. “Maybe the security team was so busy dealing with the crowds that they didn’t constantly monitor the feeds. Or maybe someone from Security noticed but decided they could take advantage of the situation. Maybe the bomb was planted by a member of the security team.”
She took another sip of her Mountain Dew. “Now you’re thinking like a detective.”
Using the mouse, I took the feed back a few seconds earlier. “See that?” I pointed to the orange flash. “That could be one of the security guards’ helmets.”
“Good eye, Luz.”
“Have you questioned them?”
“Of course. Your guess was spot on. They’ve usually got one person pulling desk duty, watching the cameras. But increased traffic means an increase in shoplifters. Thieves think the store personnel will be too busy to notice them sticking things in their pockets, or that they can easily escape into the hordes. The security team was running like crazy all day Friday and Saturday morning dealing with shoplifters and never got around to fixing the camera. The food court isn’t a high-priority area since there’s no pricey merchandise for thieves to snag.”
“That doesn’t rule them out as s-suspects, though, right?”
“Nope.”
As I continued to watch the screen, the protestor with the saggy, sunburned butt cheeks appeared near the front of the screen wearing a gauzy cover-up over her bathing suit. I recognized her blond curls and Day-Glo tennis shoes. The gray-haired man in the bike shorts walked next to her, though thankfully he’d put on a T-shirt that hung down over his nards. He held a large white bag in front of him as he walked. Unfortunately, the bag faced inward, toward his abdomen. Given that the Stick People bags bore the printed logo on only one side, it was impossible to tell if the bag was from that particular food stand. He walked over to the trash can and deposited the bag inside.
Extremist animal rights advocates had been known to destroy labs and free caged animals. But would this couple plant a bomb to deter people from buying fur coats? Seemed overkill to me. The hot Texas summer was deterrent enough, at least for the time being. “Think he’s the bomber?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Detective Jackson said again. “The woman bought their lunch at Stick People earlier. She may be an accomplice.”
Randy headed toward the can next, a plastic grocery store bag in his hand. The guy always brought his own homemade lunch and often ate alone outside, a habit he’d likely developed years ago in school. Given his quirkiness, I’d hazard a guess that making close friends had been about as easy for him as it had been for me. The balloons drifted in front of the camera, obscuring Randy from view, but when he walked off to the left of the screen it was clear from his now empty hands that he’d discarded the plastic bag in the can.
Jackson paused the feed and lifted her chin to indicate the screen. “This guy who runs the carousel. What can you tell me about him?”
“Randy?” I shrugged. “He’s an odd guy, but he seems harmless.” I reminded her that he’d helped to remove a couple of children from the horses before fleeing out the door himself.
“So he was back at work when you discovered the bomb?”
I nodded.
“That rules him out,” Jackson said. “The fact that the bomber set a timer means he wanted to be out of the vicinity when the bomb went off.” She scratched his name off her list and resumed the camera feed.
On-screen, two customers walked up to the can. One threw out what appeared to be a paper plate containing pizza crust, while the other tossed out an empty French fry basket.
On-screen, the two boys I’d repeatedly caught skateboarding on the property walked up behind me, their skateboards in their hands. One saw me and elbowed the other, pointing my way. The two began making faces behind my back, sticking out their tongues, waving their hands in the air. One even raised his middle finger and danced a little jig. Of course I’d been on my lunch break and too absorbed in my Internet surfing to pay much attention to the activity around me. It was embarrassing to see myself sitting there, ignorant and oblivious.
Jackson shot me a look. “You want to make detective? Work on your observational skills.”
“Point taken.” I watched the boys move about the screen. They, too, put something in the can, though the camera angle and constantly moving foot traffic made it impossible to see what it was.
Jackson paused the feed again. “We need to find out who those boys are. If you see them again, hold them for questioning.”
A moment later, Ariana shoved an empty cardboard coffee cup into the can. The woman seemed to live on lattes alone. The cup was much too small to accommodate a bomb and, besides, it was not inside a Stick People bag. Darn. I’d kinda hoped she’d be sentenced to death in the electric chair, get a feel of what the rabbits and minks experienced. I’m just sayin’ …
There was a knock at the door, but before Jackson could respond Mackey opened it and stuck his head in. Nosey ass.
He looked from me to Jackson. “Everything okay in here?”
The detective skewered Mackey with her gaze. “Don’t you ever open a door on a private conversation without permission from your superior officer. Do you hear me?”
>
Mackey muttered something about “women on the rag” before closing the door.
Jackson exhaled a sharp breath. “I’ll never understand how that prick became the chief’s golden boy.”
The interruption over, we resumed watching the video footage. Next on the screen was Serhan. He held a large white bag from his stand in each hand. He pushed first one, then the other into the can.
Uh-oh.…
Detective Jackson paused the feed. “Not looking good for our Turk, is it?”
Given the frozen image on the screen and the time shown in the bottom corner, I had no choice but to agree. But was Serhan really the bomber? Would he sacrifice a happy life with his wife and young daughter and risk going to jail? If so, to what end? He served beef at his stand, but I didn’t know him to have a beef with anyone.
I chewed my lip, half in thought, half in concern. I didn’t want Serhan to be a suspect. I liked the guy. But I couldn’t let my personal feelings get in the way of my judgment. The facts had to be examined as objectively as possible. Yet …
“He didn’t seem to be very careful when he put the bags in the trash,” I pointed out. “If there had been a bomb in one of them, wouldn’t he have been more gentle?”
“Depends,” Detective Jackson said. “If he’s used to handling explosives, he might be less worried about accidentally setting them off.”
“Did you question him about it?” I asked. “Show him the video?”
She nodded. “He claimed the bags were from his family’s lunch.”
Again, a plausible explanation. But was it a true explanation?
“You didn’t arrest him,” I noted.
“The video alone doesn’t provide enough evidence for an arrest,” she said. “It may not even be sufficient to support a search warrant for his home, but we’ve got people working on that.”
“So where do we go from here?”
She exhaled a long breath. “We look into anyone and everyone and start eliminating suspects.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
I’VE GOT A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU
Brigit
When Megan had pulled her car into the mall parking lot, Brigit first felt apprehensive. Yesterday had been scary. But then her stomach superseded her brain and her mouth watered in anticipation of more meat from the shish-kebab stand. But when they’d arrived in the mall courtyard it had contained only residual smells of food. Nobody seemed to be cooking today. Rats. Heck, Brigit would eat a rat if she could find one. It would be a nice way to top off the sandwich Megan’s mother had made for her.
If she couldn’t have more food, she could at least have a nap. With all her tossing and turning, Megan had made it impossible for the dog to sleep well last night. Brigit settled on the floor, closed her eyes, and in minutes was dozing peacefully at her partner’s feet.
THIRTY-NINE
A CLOSE SHAVE
The Rattler
While the fishhooks had been a creative purchase on his part, he wanted his next bombs to have their own unique flair. Razor blades and throwing stars should do the trick nicely.
Though Texas law gave lots of leeway to gun owners, it prohibited the possession of throwing stars. If you wanted to kill someone in the Lone Star State, the legislature preferred it be with a good old-fashioned bullet rather than some type of ninja blade. Texans were nothing if not traditional, and gunfights had been a way of life here since back in the days of the Wild West. But throwing stars? That was something relatively new and unknown and therefore to be feared. It was a ridiculous distinction, really. After all, dead is dead.
Despite the fact that throwing stars were illegal, they were easy to find and buy. All it took was one trip to a flea market, a few subtle hints dropped to a knife dealer, and the Rattler left with a half-dozen eight-point stars, three five points, and even one shaped like a butterfly. He liked the irony of that particular model. The entire purchase had cost him less than two hundred dollars.
Though he’d disguised himself with the mirrored sunglasses and baseball hat at the flea market, the Rattler didn’t fear that the dealer would come forward even if word got out about the stars being in the Rattler’s next bomb. No way would the dealer willingly implicate himself in a violent felony. Hell, the jury might decide to convict him for the crime and he could find himself facing lethal injection.
Rather than return to Home Depot, the Rattler purchased the razor blades along with more screws and nails at a small Ace Hardware location. Fortunately, he had enough pipe left at home to make several bombs. The only question now was where he should plant his next bombs.
Decisions, decisions.
Eenie-meenie-meinie-BLOW!
FORTY
DIGGING DEEP
Megan
I felt a little odd sharing the next tidbit of information with the detective, but Jackson would need every fact she could get her hands on as quickly as possible in order to rule out suspects and move this case along. Besides, Jackson was the one who’d raised the issue of first responders yesterday.
“I spoke with the bomb tech who arrived first yesterday. He told me he’d just finished swimming at the Forest Park Pool when he got the call.”
The pool was only a mile or so from the shopping center and he could have driven the distance in less than two minutes.
Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “You questioned a potential suspect?”
A blush warmed my cheeks. “He invited me out for drinks and it came up in conversation.”
She stared at me a moment. “Look, Officer Luz. I know you want to help out here, but you’ve gotta be careful not to overstep or you could jeopardize the investigation. Before you ask anyone questions, check with me first, okay?”
She made a valid point, but it still rankled. I’d taken shrapnel in the butt. Shouldn’t that entitle me to do some snooping? No sense arguing with her, though. Sometimes it was easier to ask forgiveness afterward than to get permission beforehand. “Okay.”
“That said, I’m glad for the assistance. You can do some of the grunt work.”
Grunt work? How flattering. Still, grunt work or not, I was thrilled to be included in the investigation.
Stifling another yawn, she handed me a slip of paper with the letters MN and TX written on it, each followed by a sequence of numbers. “I was able to snag the U-Haul’s license plate number from an outside camera feed. It’s the Minnesota plate. Call U-Haul, find out who rented the truck, and run a criminal background check. The Texas plate belongs to the protestor in the bikini. Get her name and address for me, and run a check on her, too.”
Next, she handed me a stapled document approximately twenty pages thick. “That’s a list of everyone who’s worked in the mall in the last six months. Run checks on all of them. Start with the names I’ve underlined.”
I thumbed through the list of workers. The document included each worker’s name, birth date, Social Security number, and date of hire. When applicable, the list also included the date of the worker’s termination or resignation. There had to be at least three hundred names on the list, but only seven were underlined: Irving Boles. Richard Espinosa. Serhan Singh. Scott Rylander. Stacy Vandercook and her partner, Karla Kuykendall. And, last, Vu Tran.
Jackson gestured to a metal file cabinet in the corner. “Take a look in their personnel files, too. See if you find anything unusual.”
Electronic files would have been more convenient and secure and taken up less space, but given that the mall manager was in his early sixties, I supposed he liked to do things the old-fashioned way and maintain paper copies.
“I’ll need a computer to run the background checks,” I told the detective. “I don’t have mine with me.”
She stepped to the door and opened it a couple of inches. “Mackey! Bring me your laptop. Officer Luz needs to use it.”
He began to voice a protest, but Jackson cut him off with a chop of her hand. “Just do it.”
As we waited for Mackey to return with the computer, Detectiv
e Jackson continued to review the video feeds, going back in time minute by minute to see if she could spot anyone acting suspicious in the food court area earlier yesterday morning. Meanwhile I searched the Internet on my phone and found a number for a U-Haul rental location not far from the mall. When I called and explained that I needed information on the party who had rented a particular truck, the clerk transferred me to a manager. The manager, in turn, refused to provide the information unless an officer came to the location in person.
The detective sighed when I gave her the news. “What’s the address? I’ll run by there right quick while you dig around on the computer.”
I jotted the address down and handed her the slip of paper. Just after she walked out, Mackey walked in with his laptop.
He scowled as he held it out to me. “You better be careful with it, Luz. It’s brand-new.”
I took the computer from him, noting it was much lighter weight and had a faster processor than the one in my cruiser. Lucky jerk.
I logged into the DMV system and ran the license plate number associated with the protestor in the bikini. According to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, the plates had been issued for use on a Nissan Leaf. No surprise that a socially conscious activist would drive an environmentally friendly electric car. The owner’s name was Sherry Ketchell Lipscomb. The registered address was in the town of Benbrook, which sat directly to the southwest of Fort Worth. I double-checked the driver’s license records to make sure the address on Sherry’s license matched that on the registration. It did. I wrote the information down on a fresh sticky note.
Now that I knew the identity of the woman in the bikini, I typed her name into the criminal background check program. The system whirred for a moment before spitting out the data.
Whoa.
Sherry Lipscomb had a rap sheet that started two decades earlier and included a variety of charges. Her first brush with the law was a theft charge at the age of twenty-three. Over the years she’d gone on to commit several acts of vandalism, criminal trespass, and burglary, at shorter and shorter intervals. Most recently, she’d pled guilty to felony destruction of property. For this particular offense she’d paid a fine and restitution, served a month in jail, and been sentenced to two years probation.