Warning Signs

by Stephen White

  "The coup de grace was from the lamp, yes. Current theory is that the initial blow was from the ceramic thing."

  "And Lucy's prints aren't on the lamp?"

  "No. Just some partials from Susan and the woman who comes in to help her with the cleaning. That's it. The theory to explain that little discrepancy is that Lucy wiped it where she touched it. She couldn't wipe the ceramic because it was busted all over the floor."

  "And now your colleagues are working under the assumption that Lucy planted the bomb we found?"

  "Current theory is yes. They searched her place and her car again this afternoon, looking for evidence from the bomb or residue from the explosive. That's something they didn't cover with the initial search warrant. The thinking goes that she planted the bomb, and Peterson discovered her doing it, confronted her. She picked up the ceramic whatever, climbed the stairs, and bashed him in the head with it."

  "Why didn't she just use her gun? Shoot him or hit him with it?"

  Sam gave me a disgusted look. "Don't go there. She didn't do it. The reason she didn't choose her weapons carefully is because she didn't choose her weapons at all. It's simple."

  I knew about the second search warrant at Lucy's place, of course. Lauren and I had discussed some of the day's events at dinner a few hours before. "They find anything at today's search?"

  "I don't know yet. God, I told you-of course not. She didn't do it." He waved at the case in front of us. "Are all these eggs the same? Does it make any frigging difference which box of frigging eggs I choose? Never mind, don't answer that."

  I pretended to be interested in the fat content of Philadelphia cream cheese as I said, "I'm sure you heard about the explosion in Denver this morning." This was the real reason I'd agreed to meet Sam at the grocery store so late on Friday evening. I wanted to know what he could tell me about the car bomb that I'd heard about from Naomi Bigg and later, on the news.

  "Sure. That woman was killed when her car blew up." Sam was still distracted by the eggs. "Denver," he added, shaking his head.

  The tone implied that, as far as random explosions went, Denver belonged in the same category as Beirut or Sarajevo or Belfast.

  I asked him, "You think it's just a coincidence that a car exploded the same day we found a device in the Petersons' house?"

  Sam rolled his eyes, tugged a cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans, and scrolled through the memory until he found the number he wanted. While he was dialing, he said, "The ATF people are way ahead of you. They've been trying all day to see if there's any evidence the two devices were made by the same person. Chemistry takes some time." A few seconds later, he said, "Walter? Sam Purdy in Boulder. How you doing?"

  I couldn't tell how Walter was doing, but describing his condition to Sam took quite a bit of time. Sam spent the time examining a rack that displayed single servings of highly processed cheese spread that was packaged with a wide variety of crackers and pretzels. There were some cookies packaged with globs of white goo that looked like frosting, as well. Finally Sam asked Walter what the Denver Police knew about the car explosion earlier that day. Sam apparently wasn't pleased with Walter's response, which caused Sam to remind Walter that Sam was the one who had located the radio-controlled explosive device in Royal Peterson's home that morning.

  As I attempted to eavesdrop, I watched the woman with the strawberries from the produce department choose between vanilla and plain soymilk. In her cart she also had a big bag of Cheetos and some Häagen Dazs.

  I tried to guess the parameters of her diet. Couldn't. But I guessed that she would go for the vanilla. She did.

  Sam flipped his phone closed. "It was definitely a car bomb. They just got a read on the explosive an hour ago. As I said, ATF's involved. They're still filtering debris to try to identify what kind of initiator or timer was used. By the way, the explosive is totally different from what we found in the device in Royal's home this morning. Walter thinks they'll know something specific about the initiator in the Denver bomb the next day or so."

  "Motive?"

  "Walter says they're not there yet."

  "Who's Walter?"

  "Somebody I know."

  "He's on the Denver Police Department?"

  "He's somebody I know. That's all. And his name's not really Walter."

  "Really? But you call him Walter? Who is he?"

  "Tell me who tipped you off about the bomb in Royal's house and I'll tell you who Walter is. But I won't tell you his real name."

  "You know I can't do that."

  "It's a patient, isn't it? One of your patients knew that there was a bomb in Royal's house? You know something that will help Lucy and you keep it from me, I swear I'll find a way-"

  "You know I can't tell you anything about my patients. Tell me who Walter is or I'm not going to teach you anything else about groceries."

  "Promise?"

  We walked down the pet food aisle. Sam was perusing the dog treats even though he and Sherry and Simon didn't have any pets. I asked, "Why isn't Lucy in jail? It sure sounds to me as though your colleagues have probable cause."

  He pulled a little ball of tissue from his pocket, unfolded it the best he could, and blew his nose. After he stuffed the tissue back into his pocket, he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles before he replied. "Jeez, do you have allergies? What a pain. It's the only thing I don't like about springtime, the only thing. To answer your question: There're a bunch of reasons Lucy hasn't been picked up. One, in Boulder we have a rather well-known history of crossing every t and dotting every i before we arrest somebody, especially somebody with a high profile, and especially for a high-profile felony. Two, Lucy's no flight risk. Three, the prosecutors don't want to have to deal with Cozy and Lauren about discovery yet, and if we arrest Lucy then they have to start turning stuff over, and four-the real home-run reason-is that nobody has a clue about motive yet. They'd like to have at least a clue about her motive before they lock up a cop for murder. Especially a pretty, blond cop. PR, you know."

  He'd let go of the handle of his cart. I pulled it behind me as I continued down the aisle; I still had hopes of finishing the grocery shopping by midnight. Sam trailed absently behind the cart. He was looking for something.

  While I waited to find out what, I asked, "Why was Lucy at the Peterson house that night? Has she told you?"

  He waved at the incredible variety of dog treats on the upper shelves. "Do your dogs like this crap?"

  "Emily will eat anything. Anvil doesn't eat anything. Answer my question about Lucy."

  "That little dog is a weird dog. I like him, but he's a weird dog."

  "I'm glad you like him, Sam," I said. I didn't argue; Anvil was a weird dog. I loved him anyway.

  "I'm in an awkward place here, Alan. I don't mind telling you what I know, but if you go and tell Lauren and Cozy, then the people who are willing to talk to me so far won't be willing to talk to me anymore. Does that make sense? If Lucy gets charged, Cozy and Lauren will get all the investigators' reports. So everybody just needs to be patient."

  "I won't tell them anything, Sam."

  He stared at me with rheumy eyes. "Okay. I don't know why Lucy was at Royal's house that night. When Susan Peterson was interviewed by our detectives, she confirmed that a female cop had visited Royal 'numerous times' in the past, but she maintains she never met the woman, says she was always upstairs in bed during the visits. Susan figured the woman who was stopping by had something to do with the prosecutor's office, a case Royal was working on, or something like that."

  "Susan's sure it was a cop, not a DA?"

  "That's what she says."

  "Does Susan have a name for the cop?"

  "No. Royal never told her or she doesn't remember. Susan says the voice she heard downstairs was female. That's all she knows."

  "But she thinks it was the same cop each time?"

  "Yeah."

  "Multiple visits?"

  "Yeah."

  "Lucy never mentioned Royal to you
, Sam?"

  "Not once that I can remember. Not even casually. That's what's so goofy. But she's private, always has been."

  I said, "She suggested to me that the reason she was there that night has to do with something she's really ashamed of."

  Sam stopped and grabbed his cart back from me. "She said that to you? Recently?"

  I nodded.

  He checked all around him for the presence of other shoppers, lowered his voice to a whisper, and said, "You think Lucy was sleeping with Royal? Is that what she was saying?"

  I could tell how distasteful the thought was to Sam. I could also tell that this wasn't the first time in the past couple of days that the thought had crossed his mind. I said, "I don't know. She was just talking about things she was ashamed about. Said one of them had to do with the reason she was at Royal's house that night."

  "She's engaged, you know," Sam said. "Just got engaged. Wouldn't wear a ring, though, wanted to keep it private."

  "She told me that, too. You know the guy?"

  "She's talked about him some, but I've never met him." Sam was exceeding the grocery store speed limit now, not even pausing to see whether the shelves he was passing had anything at all to do with the items Sherry had penciled on his grocery list. I caught up with him only because an elderly man was blocking the aisle with his cart while he tried to retrieve a can of guava juice from the top shelf. I helped the man get the can of juice down and he pushed his cart away. I think Sam's driving was scaring him.

  Sam argued, "She couldn't have been screwing Peterson. If Lucy loves her fiancé enough to marry him, why would she be having an affair with Royal?"

  "We don't know that she was having an affair, Sam. But people do strange things."

  "Royal has a reputation. But Lucy?" he muttered. "I don't get it. She's too smart to get involved with somebody like Royal."

  "She was obviously involved with him somehow. She was at his house, right? People don't always do what's smart."

  "Tell me about it."

  I guided him to a stop in front of the condiments and picked out some ketchup. Sam was shaking his head.

  He said, "Don't get that kind. It's runny."

  "You're giving me grocery advice?"

  "Believe it or not, I know about some things. If it goes on hot dogs or bratwurst, I know about it."

  I wasn't ready to digress into discussing meat on buns. "What kind of reputation did Royal Peterson have, Sam? Indefatigable crime fighter? Justice superhero?"

  Sam laughed before he said, "Cad."

  I raised my eyebrows. "Cad?" I wasn't questioning the concept, just Sam's choice of descriptors.

  "It means he screwed around. I think it's a British thing."

  "Screwing around is a British thing?" I said.

  Sam hit me on the arm. It hurt.

  "You know what I mean."

  He waited until I looked up and nodded before he spoke again. "It's my nature to chew on you about what you don't tell me, you know that. That doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for what you do tell me. I'm guessing that the tip you gave me about the explosive means you crossed a line that you're not real comfortable crossing. Finding the bomb in Royal's basement will complicate the case against Lucy. I'm grateful to you for that. But"-he smiled in a way that made both of his lips disappear up into his mustache-"I'm not done trying to get you to tell me what else you know. It doesn't stop here, Alan. Friend or no friend, it doesn't stop here."

  CHAPTER 18

  R amp flipped among the Denver news channels about a hundred times between the hours of four and six-thirty Friday afternoon. The only breaks he took from thumbing the remote control were to check his computer to see if any of the TV stations had updated their Web sites with fresh information about the explosion in Denver's Dahlia neighborhood.

  Two mistakes in one job.

  Ramp couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.

  When the local news programs were over, he retrieved a Zip disc from its hiding place in a hollowed-out section of the trim that skirted the floor around the perimeter of his small apartment.

  He inserted the disc into his computer and retrieved a Microsoft Word document he'd labeled Log 7.

  He didn't really need to see the written record; Ramp could have recited the data that was recorded in Log 7 from memory. But he checked the log anyway. It took him no more than five minutes to review the details of the series of trials he had done at the ranch near Limon.

  The device had worked properly all four times that he'd tested it.

  All four.

  "So what went wrong with number five?" he said out loud. "And why was she driving his car?"

  He called Boulder.

  "It's me," he said when his call was answered. "You saw the news?"

  While he listened to the answer to his question, Ramp stood and moved back to his computer. He linked to the KCNC Web site. It hadn't been updated. He clicked over to KUSA and then to KMGH. Nothing had been added to either site.

  You call this news?

  Ramp tried to keep the irritation out of his voice when he spoke out loud again. "Like I told you, I followed him twice before I placed it. Both times he was in that car. It was definitely the car he drives to work. I don't know why she was driving it this morning. Bad luck for her is all I can say. I don't feel bad I got her. I only feel bad that I didn't get him and that the message was lost. I'll have to make up for it."

  He tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he removed the Zip disc from the drive and tucked it back into its hiding place in the floorboard trim. The trim slid back into place like a hand into a glove.

  He shook his head as he said, "No, it was almost all solid state. It shouldn't have shorted. I don't think that's it. I'm thinking it was a rogue radio signal that set it off. The odds are astronomical that another device would be on that frequency in that vicinity, but that's all I can come up with. I've been glued to the news all afternoon. It doesn't look like the police understand the target. And the ATF will waste some time piecing together the device. I'm thinking we're okay. What about the thing at your end? Any fallout from them discovering the bomb in that guy's house?"

  Out the front window, Ramp watched a white Denver Police cruiser crawl slowly down the road in front of his Pennsylvania Street apartment. He tracked it with his eyes as it moved south and turned the corner.

  "Yeah, I think so, too. Finding the device in Boulder won't point to us at all. I think we're still on track. My guess is that we've had as much bad luck as we're going to get. I say that we both go ahead with tonight's work. You agree?… That's right, we should keep the faith."

  Ramp pressed the button disconnecting the call. To no one in particular, he said, "Wouldn't it be cool?"

  In this phase, Ramp had one more device to place. The schedule called for him to install it that night.

  He decided not to alter his plans.

  CHAPTER 19

  S aturday morning brought Lauren, Grace, and me back to our weekend routine. We left the house early, met our friends Diane and Raoul for breakfast, and did the usual round of errands on North Broadway. During breakfast I tried to maintain a conversation with Raoul, pretending I gave a whit about his newfound passion for fly-fishing while I was simultaneously eavesdropping as Lauren responded to a question about her health from Diane. Raoul was rambling about feathers and string and tying flies; Lauren was saying that she was in less pain and that her brain mud had eased, but that her vertigo was still giving her fits, and, fearing that she might fall, she wouldn't carry Grace more than a few feet. Lauren usually didn't go into such detail about her health with friends.

  Or with husbands, for that matter.

  When I said "Yes" in answer to a question I didn't really hear from Raoul, he seemed pleased. He said, "Diane didn't think you'd come with me. I told her I thought you would."

  I was afraid I'd just agreed to go fly-fishing.

  A lthough April had been warmer and dryer than usual along the Front Range,
the weatherpeople were predicting the midday arrival of a cold front from the north preceded by strong winds. It turned out that the meteorologists were wrong by at least a couple of hours. As we were driving home from our errands the winds began to sluice down from Cheyenne with a force that would cause alarm in most places on the North American continent. But not in Boulder. Winds in the fifty- to one-hundred-miles-an-hour range were frequent events in the winter and spring seasons. Only in the upper reaches of the range did the populace seek shelter. In the moderate, fifty- to seventy-five-miles-an-hour range, the primary impact of the winds was inconvenience.

  Lauren and I agreed that although these gusts were no stronger than sixty miles an hour, my hopes for a late-morning bicycle ride were shot. As I pulled the car into the garage, Lauren suggested a trip up the turnpike to Flatiron Crossing to buy Grace her first pair of shoes.

  "They sell baby shoes in Boulder, don't they?" I asked naively.

  "I'd rather go to Flatirons," she replied. Lauren, like many Boulderites, said "Flatirons," not "Flatiron," when referring to the new mall, intentionally refuting all efforts of the huge facility's marketing people to modify the local vernacular. "I want to check out Nordstrom's baby department."

  As we entered the house, I was still struggling mightily to find a reason not to go to a suburban shopping mall on a windy weekend morning when everyone else in Boulder County would be looking for an indoor haven to escape the gales. I was actually considering offering to clean the garage when I heard the telephone ringing as we walked in the door.

  "I'll get it," I said.

  "You're too eager," Lauren said. "If you don't want to go to the mall, just say so."

  I didn't want to go to the mall. But what I said was "Hello."

  "Alan, Sam. Something's come up about Lucy and the bombs. Can you meet me?"

  "Now?" I tried to keep the glee out of my voice.

  "Yeah, now."

  "Sure, where?"

  D uring my drive back downtown to meet Sam, I counted three resounding whacks as the wind lifted rocks and launched them into my windshield. It was one of the reliable melodies of springtime in the Rockies.