by Diane Kelly
The man continued on until the shoe was properly affixed. The instant he released the mare’s leg, she took a few steps forward as if to test out the new shoes, like a woman parading around in a pair of stilettos in the Macy’s shoe department. Evidently satisfied, she stopped at her trough for a drink of water.
The man gathered up his things and stood. “Here you go.” He held out one of the horse’s old shoes as he stepped to the gate. “It’ll bring you good luck.”
I could definitely use some of that. “Thanks.”
As I took the shoe from him, my eyes went to the nails grasped in his other hand.
Oh, my God.
Could it be?
“Can I see one of those?” My heart rate escalated as I pointed to the nails in his hand.
He handed one to me. “Keep it. I don’t reuse them.”
I looked down at the nail in my fingers. It was long and sharp, with a squared head.
Just like the nail the Tunabomber had put in his bomb.
I whipped out my cell phone and dialed Detective Jackson. The instant she answered, I blurted out, “That odd nail. I know what kind it is!”
“You do?”
“It’s a horseshoe nail.” I told her where I was and how I’d reached my conclusion.
“Good work, Luz.”
As much as I’d like to think I deserved the praise, I knew this discovery had come not due to hard work on my part but rather through sheer dumb luck. Nonetheless, after we ended our call I racked my brain, trying to determine how this piece of information fit into the puzzle.
Had the nail been planted as a clue? Did the horseshoe nail have something to do with Michael Lipscomb’s arrest at the truck stop? After all, the men he’d assaulted had been hauling horses to slaughter. Was the nail some type of symbol? Or had the bomber merely gathered up nails at random, not even realizing he’d included a horseshoe nail in the mix? Had the nail been planted with the intent to throw investigators off track or maybe to frame someone else?
There were so many pieces of the puzzle left to sort out. I could only hope we’d complete the picture before the bomber struck again.
FIFTY-THREE
MUCKETY-MUCK
Brigit
As Megan led her back to the cruiser at the end of the evening, Brigit noticed a woman using a shovel to scoop up a pile of horse poop, mucking out a stall. Brigit knew her partner didn’t like picking up her droppings, but after one look at the enormous turds these animals produced Brigit thought maybe her partner should count her blessings.
FIFTY-FOUR
OF COURSE
The Rattler
It was 3:00 on the following moonless Monday morning when the Rattler sneaked onto the golf course at Colonial Country Club to scout sites for his bombs. He’d dressed all in black and wore night-vision goggles, blending in with the night.
Planting the bomb at the mall had been a no-brainer, but he’d have to be more strategic with these bombs. If he planted them too early, there was a chance a golfer might find one or more of them before the timers went off and all of his efforts could be in vain. But if he didn’t allow enough time between placing the bombs and his escape, there was a greater chance he’d be apprehended.
A rustle sounded in the rough nearby, and the two glowing eyes of a possum locked on him.
The Rattler put his hands on his knees and leaned toward the animal. “If anyone asks,” he whispered, “you didn’t see me.”
As he strolled about the perimeter of the fairway, accompanied by cricket song and using the trees for camouflage, he found his first site next to the third hole’s sharply angled fairway, what golfers referred to as a dogleg. The tree stump just after the turn would provide a raised platform for the bomb, allowing for greater distribution of the bomb’s contents. Of course he’d have to cover the bomb with leaves to ensure it wouldn’t be visible to those shitty golfers who might hit a ball into the rough.
After a half hour of wandering the course, he’d located all five positions. In addition to the one at the dogleg, he’d place another near a water stop, a third in the sand trap by the sixth-hole green, and the fourth near the water hazard of the eighteenth hole. Of course he’d plant one in the bushes by the clubhouse so those dining at the club could participate. No sense letting the golfers have all the fun, right?
The tree-lined Trinity River would provide a perfect escape. He could easily and quickly swim across and vanish into the neighborhood on the other side.
Of course he wasn’t fully prepared yet. He’d have to make some additional purchases to ensure he blended in with the golf course crowd or he might draw attention.
He slipped through the rough and out onto the street. Time to go home and make a shopping list.
FIFTY-FIVE
SECRET STASH
Megan
It was a Tuesday in the first week of September now. Just over three weeks since the bomb had exploded and exactly twenty-two days since my lunch with Seth.
He hadn’t called.
I’d since written him off as nothing more than a shameless flirt whom I’d stupidly let get under my skin. Well, it wouldn’t happen again, I promise you that. Still, he was like a male version of a cock tease. There should be a name for guys like that. Twat tease, maybe?
I’d spoken with everyone who had purchased the fondue fork sets and the unicorn corkscrews. I thought I’d hit pay dirt when two of the credit cards had been linked to the same address, but it turned out the cards belonged to a couple who were living together in a downtown condo. They’d still had both the fondue forks and the corkscrew in their possession.
The bombing investigation, like leftover fondue, had gone cold.
The only outstanding lead was the Lipscombs, who still had not returned from their camping trip. The team that had searched the Lipscombs’ house found the couple’s cell phones on the kitchen counter. Evidently the two had gone off the grid and might not even be aware the police were interested in talking with them. No incriminating evidence was found at their house.
My only hope at this point was that the bombing would be an isolated incident, a prank that the bomb maker realized had been taken too far. But since there was no way of knowing if that was the case, I couldn’t completely let it go.
As I cruised Vickery, a Cadillac Escalade entering from a side street failed to yield. A minor offense that resulted in no damage, fortunately, but the driver’s transgression had forced another car to swerve momentarily into the oncoming lane. Had I been feeling generous, I would have let the driver slide. Given my aforementioned twenty-two days of disappointment, you can probably guess that I was not feeling generous at the moment.
I eased up behind the man and flipped on my lights.
The man pounded his steering wheel once in obvious frustration, then pulled to the shoulder, leaving his engine running.
I stepped out of my cruiser and walked up to the SUV’s driver’s side window. A quick glance at the stickers on the windshield told me his registration and inspection were current.
A white man in his late twenties sat at the wheel. His brown hair was cut short, and he was dressed in a button-down and navy pants. By all accounts he was some type of business professional, other than the fact that it was 9:30 AM and he wasn’t yet at work.
“Sorry, Officer.” The man offered me a polite smile. “I’m late for a doctor’s appointment. I’m a little distracted. I’m worried he’s got some bad news for me.”
I glanced down the road at the hospital district in the distance, then back at the man, wondering what type of medical problem he suffered. I had no right to ask, of course, but from the awkward way he was sitting and the strained look on his face I’d guess severe constipation, colon polyps, or anal fissures.
I was inclined to set my personal frustrations aside and let the guy go on his way but figured I might as well check his license and registration first. After all, he was already late. Another thirty seconds wouldn’t make a difference and I’d alre
ady made the effort to get out of my car, after all. Might as well do my job. I held out my hand. “License and insurance, please.”
The polite smile remained on his face, but his eyes flashed with anger and frustration. He hesitated a brief moment, his eyes cutting to the road ahead, before he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and retrieved his license. He held it out to me. “No compassion for a sick man?”
I gave him my own polite smile. “We’ll see.”
The license indicated the man’s name was John Taylor Greene. Brown eyes. One hundred and sixty-eight pounds. Twenty-nine years of age. Not an organ donor. Hmm. Sort of hypocritical for him to accuse me of lacking compassion for the sick, was it not?
Greene sat with both hands on the wheel, looking over at me.
“Insurance?” I repeated.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah.” He reached across to the glove box and opened it with his right hand, holding it open only a couple of inches while he rummaged around with his left. Strange. When he found what he was looking for, he finagled it out of the narrow space. “Here you go.” He flipped the door of the glove box upward, but it failed to catch and instead fell back open, dumping a tire gauge, a pack of gum, and a large wad of bills onto the passenger seat.
My eyes went from the cash to the man, alarm bells going off in my brain. “Any reason you’re carrying so much c-cash?”
“Got some shopping to do. My mother’s birthday is coming up.”
A highly questionable answer. “Why not use a debit or credit card?”
He hesitated just a moment too long. “I don’t trust banks.”
I took two steps back. “Please exit the vehicle.”
The man’s mouth fell slack. “Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
After another hesitation and glance at the road ahead, the man grudgingly complied.
I pushed the button on my shoulder-mounted radio and requested backup. I couldn’t search the guy’s car and keep an eye on him at the same time. The last thing I needed was him sneaking up behind me and putting a bullet in my head.
Two minutes later one of the other W1 officers, a stocky black man in his early thirties, pulled up.
I greeted my coworker as he climbed out of his car: “Morning, Spalding.”
He merely lifted his chin in acknowledgment. Spalding was a man of many muscles yet few words.
While my fellow officer kept a close eye on the driver, I ran the license on my in-car computer.
Bingo.
The data indicated Greene had spent three years in the state pen for possession with intent to distribute. Given the pricey car and the wad of cash, I suspected the guy was back in business.
I stepped back over to Greene. “I see you’ve got a record.” I angled my head to indicate the car. “Anything you want to tell me?”
He snorted. “You’re not going to find drugs in my car. It’s clean.”
As if I’d take his word for it.
While Spalding kept an eye on Greene, I performed a quick search of the car. No drugs in the glove box. Nothing in the console but an assortment of fast-food napkins and ketchup packets. Nothing under the seats but a petrified French fry.
Short of dismantling the vehicle, there was no way for me to tell if drugs had been hidden inside. It would take precious hours for human officers to perform such an intensive search, and if no drugs were found the department risked a suit for property damage.
That’s where my partner came in. With her superior olfactory capabilities, Brigit could sniff out illicit drugs in seconds.
I opened the back door of my cruiser and Brigit hopped down onto the street. It might have been my imagination, but my partner seemed smug, holding her head high, her nose angled upward, as if she knew we humans were vastly inferior when it came to searching for a hidden stash of narcotics.
Greene backed up several steps as Brigit made her way to the car, his eyes bright with fear. He must be scared of dogs. Then again, with Brigit’s bulk and sizable fangs she could strike fear into the most avid animal lover.
I opened every door on the Escalade, as well as the hood and trunk. Giving Brigit the signal to sniff for narcotics, I let out a few more feet of leash so she could do her work. Still standing on the street, she started her search by sniffing the floorboards. She found no drugs there, though she did find, and eat, the weeks-old French fry. Blurgh.
Continuing her search, she hopped into the car and ran her nose down the dashboard. Still no luck. She spent a good deal of time sniffing the driver’s seat, though she eventually moved on without alerting. A thorough sniff of the backseat, trunk, engine, and tires yielded nothing. With her belly to the ground, Brigit sniffed the undercarriage, likewise finding no drugs.
I glanced over at the men.
Spalding shook his head.
Greene crossed his arms over his chest and sneered. “Told you.”
Brigit backed away and put her nose to the air, her head turning toward the suspect who stood fifteen feet away.
The sneer faded.
With me following along behind, Brigit trotted over to the suspect.
“Hold on, now!” He threw his arms out in front of him, his fingers fanned as if he were about to perform a jazz dance routine. And-a-one and-a-two and-a-shift-ball-change! “I don’t want that dog near me.”
Spalding decided to spare a couple of words. The first was “tough.” The second was “shit.”
As Brigit drew near, Greene kicked out at her. Brigit snarled, but I yanked her back before she could bite the guy.
I whipped my baton from my belt.
Snap!
“You kick at my dog again,” I hissed, “you’re losing a tooth or a nut. I’m not telling you which, so it’ll be a surprise.”
I almost hoped he’d do something stupid so I could whap him. Seriously. Twenty-two days? Come on!
Okay, so my irritations with Seth were carrying over into my job. Given that I was a cop and that this situation called for some bravado and trash talk, I supposed that wasn’t entirely a bad thing.
I gestured with my baton. “Hands on your head.”
The guy executed a couple of frustrated figure eights with his head before complying.
Spalding readied his baton, too, and stepped up closer.
I led Brigit up to Greene again. She sniffed his expensive sneakers first—sniff-sniff—then moved up his legs to his crotch, nuzzling the guy’s nuts through his jeans.
The guy took a step backward. “Get your damn dog away from my junk!”
I brandished my baton. “Stand still.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t sure where dog ended and cop began. Was Brigit sniffing his crotch as a mere dog who thought nosing around in a person’s gonads was an appropriate icebreaker? Or was she a K-9 officer performing a thorough search, perhaps catching a whiff of drugs that had once been in the guy’s pant pocket?
Brigit circled behind the man and he turned with her, as if they were performing a tango and Brigit were leading.
I brandished my baton again. “I said stand still!”
Muttering expletives at my partner, the man stopped moving.
Brigit went behind him and promptly stuck her nose between his butt cheeks.
“This is bullshit!” the suspect cried, thrusting his crotch forward as he squeezed his glutes together.
I put the end of my baton on the man’s crotch and pushed it back. “I told you not to move.”
“I can’t help it!” Greene hollered. “That stupid dog’s got her cold nose up my ass!”
Behind him, Brigit sat, giving her passive alert.
Oh.
Gawd.
Spalding and I exchanged looks of disgust. My partner had found drugs, all right.
A buttload.
Although “boofing” was a kayaking term that referred to raising a boat’s bow during a free fall, the term was also used for the practice of hiding drugs inside one’s posterior orifice. Luckily for us offic
ers, Brigit’s alert was enough evidence to haul the man into the station, where another officer would have the privilege of retrieving the evidence.
“He’s all yours now,” I told Spalding.
“Gee,” Spalding said, taking the man by the arm. “Thanks.”
* * *
The pool at Forest Park had closed after Labor Day, so I didn’t bother pulling into the parking lot. I continued on to the zoo and turned into the lot.
With the children back in school now, the place was virtually empty today, only a few employees meandering about, feeding, watering, and cleaning up after the animals. It probably wasn’t the best use of my time as a cop to be walking around at the zoo. With so few people around, the chances of my being needed here were slim to none. But after the unpaid overtime I’d put in on the bombing investigation I figured the department owed me. And, really, wasn’t busting a guy with drugs up his ass enough for one day?
“C’mon, girl.” I led Brigit to one of the newer exhibits, referred to as the Museum of Living Art. This section of the zoo contained a herpetarium that featured a number of amphibians and reptiles.
I stopped in front of the enclosure containing the critically endangered gharial crocodiles, a strange-looking species with an especially long, skinny snout. Brigit and I stood there for several moments, watching the long creatures’ slow, graceful movements through the water. When one swam close to the window, Brigit put a paw on the glass and growled: Grrr.
“Careful, girl,” I warned. “That thing could eat you alive.”
As we watched, one crocodile swam up over another, latched on to her, and proceeded to engage in underwater coitus, crocodile-style. Had these crocs no shame? Given that their species was in serious trouble, it was probably a good thing they had no qualms about getting it on with an audience present. Perhaps it said more about me that I continued to watch them.
“Kinky amphibians, huh?”
I looked up to find Seth standing a few feet behind me. “Actually, they’re reptiles.”