information that could be quite damaging to Robie.
Robie cleared the police barrier and was immediately engulfed by reporters. He looked at none of them, made no attempt to answer their shouted questions. He pushed mikes and notepads out of his face and kept going until he reached the three street people.
“You hungry?” he asked.
The s’mores fellow, wild-eyed and looking as though reason had left him long ago, nodded and laughed. “Always hungry.”
At least he can understand me, thought Robie. He eyed the other two. One was a woman, small, bloated, blackened by the street. Her garbage bag bulged with blankets and what looked to be recycled trash. She might have been twenty, she might have been fifty, Robie couldn’t tell under the layers of grime. “You hungry?”
She just looked at him. Unlike S’mores, she apparently didn’t understand English.
He led them farther away from the sea of reporters and then glanced at the third person. She looked more promising. About forty, she did not have years on the street grafted onto her. And there was both intelligence and terror behind her eyes. Robie wondered if the recent economic crisis had left her as one of the new millions who were once working- or middle-class, but now were neither. “Can I get you something to eat?”
She took a step back, clutched the canvas bag. It was monogrammed. That was another clue as to her background. Longtime homeless did not have such bags. Over the years they rotted away or were stolen.
She shook her head. Robie understood her trepidation. The next thing he did would confirm his suspicions of her.
He took out his badge and held it up. “I’m a federal agent.”
The woman stepped closer to him, looked relieved. S’mores’s grin faded. The other woman just stood there, looking out at a reality that had clearly left her behind.
Robie had his answer. Recent homeless still respected authority. They in fact craved the law and order they had recently left for the anarchy that awaited them on the concrete. People long on the streets, after years of being told to move, get off their ass, clean up their crap, get the hell out of here because they were not wanted, did not. They feared and loathed the badge.
To S’mores Robie said, “There’s a café down this way. I’m going to get you some food and bring it back. For her too,” he added, indicating the woman who stared off at nothing. “Will you wait until I get back?”
S’mores slowly nodded, looking suspicious. Robie took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the man for reassurance. “You want coffee, sandwich?”
“Yeah,” said S’mores.
“And her?” Robie said, pointing to the other woman.
“Yeah,” said S’mores.
Robie turned to the third homeless person. “Will you come with me to the café? And wait there while I get their food?”
“Am I in trouble?” she asked. Now she did sound like a longtime streeter.
“No, not at all. Were you here the night that bus blew up?”
S’mores tapped his chest and said, “Me.”
Robie almost said, “I know,” but caught himself. S’mores was actually starting to concern him. He sounded reasonably sane.
If he remembers seeing me?
“Have any other agents talked to you?” asked Robie, looking at the three.
S’mores glanced away when the sounds of a siren started up. He pulled his lips back. He looked like he was snarling. Then he started to howl along with the sirens.
“We all were there,” the second woman said. “But we left after it happened. I don’t think the police are aware that we saw anything.”
Robie focused on her. “What’s your name?”
“Diana.”
“Your last name?”
The fear sprang up again in her features.
Robie said quietly, “Diana, you’re not in any trouble. I promise you. We’re just trying to find out who blew up the bus and I’d like to ask you some questions. That’s all.”
“My last name is Jordison.”
S’mores gabbed his arm. “Hot eats?”
“Coming up.” Robie escorted Jordison to the café. When they walked in, the man behind the counter started to shoo Jordison away, but Robie flashed his badge. “She stays,” he said.
The man backed off and Robie seated Jordison at a table in the rear. “Order anything you want,” he said, handing her a menu from a stack on the next table.
He walked up to the counter and said, “I need some food to go.” He placed the order. While it was being prepared he sat down across from Jordison. A young waitress came over to take their orders.
Robie said, “Just coffee.” He glanced at Jordison.
She flushed and looked unsure of herself. Robie wondered how long it had been since she had ordered anything in a restaurant. A simple process for most people, it was astonishing how quickly simple processes became complex when you slept in alleys, parks, or over steam grates and gathered your daily bread from trash cans.
Robie pointed to an item on the menu. “The American has just about everything: eggs, toast, bacon, grits, coffee, juice. How about that one? Eggs scrambled? Orange juice?”
She looked like she could use a boost of vitamin C and protein.
Jordison nodded meekly and handed the menu back to the waitress, who seemed disinclined to accept it.
Robie looked at her. “My friend will have the American,” he said. “And could you please bring the coffee and juice out now? Thanks.”
The waitress walked off to fill the order. She brought back the coffees and juice. Robie drank his black, but Jordison doused hers with cream and several sugars. He noted that she slipped most of the sugar packets into her pocket. He looked over and saw the owner giving him the high sign and pointing to two bags he was holding and a carrier with two coffees riding in it.
Robie said, “I’m going to take the food to the other two and then I’ll be right back, okay?”
Jordison nodded but wouldn’t meet his eye.
Robie paid the check, grabbed the bags, and headed out.
CHAPTER
49
WHEN ROBIE GOT BACK to S’mores and the other woman, a male reporter he’d seen earlier was circling the pair like a shark after shipwreck survivors.
The reporter looked at Robie. “Playing the Good Samaritan?” he asked, eyeing the bags and beverages.
“Your tax dollars at work,” replied Robie. He handed one bag and coffee each to S’mores and the woman. The latter snagged her food and coffee, grabbed her plastic bags, and disappeared down the street. Robie let her go because he didn’t think she would be able to tell him anything.
S’mores stood there sipping his coffee.
The reporter said, “Can you answer a few questions for me, uh, Agent…?”
Robie hooked S’mores by the arm and walked off.
The reporter called after him, “I’ll take that as a ‘no comment.’ ”
When they had reached the next intersection Robie said, “Tell me what you saw the night the bus blew up.”
S’mores had opened the bag and dug greedily into the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. He crammed a handful of hash browns into his mouth and chomped down.
“Take it slow, friend,” said Robie. “Don’t want to choke.”
The man swallowed, took a slurp of coffee, and shrugged. “What you want?”
“Everything you saw or heard.”
S’mores took another, smaller bite of his sandwich. “Boom,” he said. “Fire. Holy shit.”
He took another sip of coffee.
“Anything more detailed than that?” Robie added slowly. “Did you see anyone around the bus? Maybe get off or on?”
S’mores crammed another handful of hash browns in his mouth and chomped. “Boom,” he said again. “Fire. Holy shit.” Then he laughed. “Grilling out.”
Robie decided that his first impression of S’more’s sanity was the correct one. He wasn’t sane. “You didn’t see anyone?” he
asked halfheartedly.
“Grilling out.” Then he laughed and finished his sandwich in one bite.
“Good luck to you,” said Robie.
S’mores gulped down the hot coffee.
Robie left him there and fast-walked back to the café.
Jordison had gotten her food and was eating it slowly. There was none of S’mores’s energetic desperation. Robie hoped that boded well for her being able to tell him something useful, or at the very least intelligible.
Robie sat down across from her.
“Thanks for this,” said Jordison quietly.
“No problem.”
He watched her eat for a few seconds and then said, “How long you been out there?”
“Too long,” she said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin.
“I’m not here to grill you about that. It’s none of my business.”
“I had a house and a job and a husband.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. Surprised me how fast it all went to hell. No job, no house, no husband. Nothing but bills I can’t pay. I mean, you hear about it happening, but you never think it’ll happen to you.”
Robie said nothing.
Jordison continued, “He’s probably homeless too for all I know. My ex, I mean. Well, I call him my ex. He never even bothered to file for divorce. He just up and left. And it wasn’t like I could afford a lawyer to get it done.” She paused and added, “I went to college. Got my degree.”
“It’s been really bad times the last few years,” said Robie.
“Worked hard, did all the right things. The American dream. Right.”
Robie was afraid she might start crying.
She took a quick sip of coffee. “What do you want to know?”
“The night the bus blew up? What can you tell me?”
She nodded. “I’ve been sleeping behind a Dumpster the last couple of weeks. Nights haven’t gotten too cold yet. Last winter was a bitch. Didn’t think I was going to make it. January was my first month on the street.”
“That’s rough.”
“I thought something or someone would come through. Half my friends are like me. The other half will have nothing to do with me.”
“Family?”
“None that are in a position to help anymore. It’s just me now.”
“Where did you work before?”
“Admin support for a construction company. Like the worst possible job to have in this economy. I was just an expense item, generated no revenue. I was one of the first to go even though I’d been there twelve years. No severance, no health care, nothing. Salary stopped but the bills sure didn’t. Then my unemployment benefits ran out. I fought to keep my home for a year. Then my husband got sick. That sucked what little savings we had and left a whole ton of bills. Then he gets better and off he goes. For better pastures, he told me. Can you believe that shit? What happened to the marriage vows for better or worse?”
She glanced up at him, looking ashamed. “I know you don’t need to hear this.”
“I can understand how you might need to get it off your chest.”
“I’ve already vented plenty, thanks.” She finished her breakfast and pushed the plate away.
She took a few moments to collect her thoughts. “I saw the bus come down the street. It was really noisy so it woke me up. I don’t sleep well on the street. Concrete isn’t too comfortable. And it’s just not… well, safe. I get scared.”
“I can see that.”
“And then the bus stopped, right there in the middle of the street. I remember sitting up and leaning around the Dumpster and wondering why it had stopped. I’ve been over to that bus terminal going through the trash cans. It wasn’t a city bus. It goes up to New York. Leaves same time every night. Seen it before. Sometimes I wish I were on it.”
Not that night you don’t, thought Robie.
“What side of the street were you on? Side facing the bus door or the other side?”
“The door was on the other side.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Well, it just blew up. Scared the hell out of me. Saw stuff flying everywhere. Seats, body parts, tires. It was horrible. I thought I was in the middle of a war zone.”
“Did you see anything that might have caused the bus to explode?”
“I just assumed it was a bomb on the bus. You mean it wasn’t?”
“We’re still trying to figure it out,” said Robie. “But if you saw something, anything impact the bus, that could be important. A shot fired into the gas tank, maybe? Did you see or hear anything like that?”
Jordison shook her head slowly. “I know I didn’t hear a shot.”
“Did you see anyone?”
Robie stared directly at her but hid the tension he was feeling.
“After the bus blew up, I saw two people on the other side of the street. Before the bus was blocking my view. But then there wasn’t any more bus. A man and what looked to be a girl, maybe a teenager.”
Robie sat back but kept staring at her. “Can you describe them?”
Better it come out now, he thought.
“The girl was short, wearing a hooded coat, so I didn’t see her face.”
“What were they doing?”
“Getting up. Well, the guy was. The blast must’ve knocked them both down. Maybe knocked them out. I guess I was far enough away and the Dumpster I guess acted as a barrier. But they must’ve been closer. They were on the other side of some parked cars.”
“What happened next?”
“The guy came to first and then he went over and helped the girl up. They spoke for a few moments and then the guy started looking around the parked cars. That’s when the old guy back there started dancing around yelling about s’mores. Then the guy and girl took off.”
“Any idea where they came from?”
“No.”
“What did the guy look like?”
She stared at him pointedly. “He actually looked a lot like you.”
Robie smiled. “I guess I look like a lot of people. Can you be more specific?”
“I’ve got great eyesight. Had eye surgery done before my life fell apart.”
“But there were flames and smoke between you and the man. And it was dark.”
“That’s true. I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, if that’s what you mean. But the fire really turned night to day.”
“But my height, build, age roughly?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re sure you saw nothing hit the bus before it blew up?”
“Well, I was pretty wide awake by that time. But I didn’t see or hear anything that would have made that bus detonate.”
“Thanks, Diana. If I need to get back in touch with you, will you be around here?”
“I really don’t have any other place to go,” she said, her gaze downcast.
Robie handed her a card. “I’ll see what I can do to get you off the streets.”
Jordison’s voice shook as she looked down at the card. “Whatever you can do, mister, I’d really appreciate it. There was a time when I didn’t take charity. Figured I could get it done by myself. Those days are long gone.”
“I understand.”
Robie drove back to Donnelly’s and was getting out of his car when
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