Déjà-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes to pick up the pies.”

  My plan was to sneak out the back door and return to the apartment building behind our home. I needed to find the bomber’s hiding place. If he, or a helper, watched me from the front of Dinkel’s, I didn’t want them to see me leave.

  Having Kerry with me was a major plus, especially if the apartment manager was a female. No one would ever guess that a mommy with her daughter was up to anything suspicious.

  I exited from the back of Dinkel’s and pushed Kerry in her stroller to the front door of the apartment building. The door was locked, so I rang the buzzer that said “Manager.”

  A lady in her mid-forties opened the door.

  “Hi, I’m Tina,” I said. “This is my daughter, Kerry.”

  “I’m Annie Foley, the building manager.”

  “We live in the neighborhood, and we need an apartment for my parents who want to move here from Omaha. Do you have any available?”

  “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I rented the last unit in June.”

  “Do you think you might have any coming up?”

  “I haven’t heard any of the renters mention moving.”

  “Could you check your list, you know, sort of refresh your memory? Maybe something will pop out at you.” I gave her my best pleading look. “Please.”

  She let me in and walked to the first apartment on our right. I took Kerry out of the stroller and followed.

  Annie left the apartment door open and went to her computer-free desk. Picking up a ledger, she thumbed through it and shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t see any vacancies coming up.”

  “How about if I give you my phone number and then you can call me if anything changes?”

  “Sure, be happy to.”

  She picked up a pad and pen. Stepping into the room, I looked around and then gave her my phone number.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that you don’t have a computer,” I said.

  She pointed to her ledger. “I will never use a computer, as long as I live. That’s all my three kids do. Facebook this, blog that, Twitter in between. I’m sick of it. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a newspaper, let alone read one.”

  “I can relate. My husband works for the Chicago Tribune. The circulation continues to decline, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Pardon me for asking, but this is an awfully small room. I hope all the apartments aren’t this tiny.”

  She laughed. “Oh no, our units are quite nice. This is the manager’s office. I live in Lincoln Park with my kids.”

  I need one more piece of information.

  “Then you’re not here at night?”

  “No. In fact, you caught me just as I was about to leave. I try to get home by five so I can cook dinner for them. Teenagers need at least one healthy meal a day.”

  “Don’t you have a night manager in case someone needs help or something?”

  “Mr. Kavich, our owner, thinks it’s too expensive. If there’s a problem, the tenants call me at home, and I come back and take care of it.”

  “Reassuring to know.”

  “For them, but a pain in the you-know-what for me.”

  “Thanks again, Annie. Please call me if anything changes.”

  As I walked out with Kerry in my arms, I scouted the door locks. The one on the door to her office would not be much of a problem. Neither would the one on the front door. I put Kerry into her stroller and pushed her back to Dinkel’s to pick up our pies.

  Annie would never know I was going to return, after Carter went to sleep, to find out who the new renter was.

  78

  Late Wednesday night, I sat in our family room. The Glock sat in my lap. Carter was conked out, thanks to the full bottle of Fourth Estate Pinot he’d consumed along with the Italian braised spareribs and rigatoni.

  The last time I’d done something like this, I’d forgotten to disconnect the old baby monitor and Kerry’s whimpers had awakened him. This time, I shut off his cell phone so he wouldn’t hear the Nanit. I kept my cell phone app on to monitor her movements in case there was a problem.

  I stared out the back windows. All the apartment units facing me were dark. If it came to having to use my gun, I felt confident in my skills. I had spent many hours with Tony at the gun range. He hated that I was a better shot than he was, but I’d never told him that Jimmy and I had grown up hunting ducks, geese, and pheasants with my dad in Nebraska.

  And I was a better shot than Dad and Jimmy.

  The simplest thing would be to call Tony and let him handle this, but I was positive he would laugh at my suggestion that the bomber lived behind me.

  And I hate to have any man laugh at me.

  My plan was to find out who had moved into the building in June. My next move would be to knock on that apartment door, with my right hand on the Glock. If the tenant was a man who looked like the bomber, or one of the female helpers, I would hold him, or her, at gunpoint and then speed-dial Tony. If the person didn’t look like any of them, I would come up with some ridiculous excuse for being there and go home.

  Walking away from our house, I watched to see if I was being followed. After two blocks, I was certain no one was there and backtracked to the apartment building.

  I arrived at the same time a cop car pulled in and parked in the lot of the Walgreen’s diagonally across Belmont from the building.

  Better go home.

  I turned to do that, but over my shoulder, I watched as both officers got out of their car and walked into the pharmacy.

  Do it while they’re in there.

  I whipped around, ran to the front door of the building, and jammed the lock pick gun into the lock. I kept peeking around for the cops as I applied the torque wrench. When I pulled on the doorknob to open the door, I found myself face-to-face with a wide-eyed elderly man who stood in the hallway holding the leash of a growling Pekinese.

  Damn!

  79

  “Hi,” I said, my heart rate accelerating to a near lethal rate.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the man asked.

  “Who am I? I’ll tell you who I am.”

  Gotta come up with something fast.

  Linda!

  “I’m the knocked up ex-wife of the worthless dickhead who’s been hiding from me since June,” I said. “I followed him here, and this time, he isn’t going to get away from me. That’s why there are two cops over there at Walgreen’s.” I jerked my thumb toward the black and white in the parking lot. “Once I make sure it’s him, those cops are gonna throw his sorry ass in jail.” I stepped forward. “That’s who I am.”

  Sounds good to me.

  He held up his hands. “I don’t want to know anything about this. Mildred has to do her business. Please, let me by.”

  I stepped aside, theatrically waving my arms. “Gladly. I have work to do here, and you better not try and stop me.”

  He ran out the door and moved quickly in the opposite direction of the still-empty police car. I inserted the pick gun into the manager’s lock and was in her office within seconds.

  Picking up her ledger, I ran my finger down the page and found that a man named James Edwards had moved into 3C in June.

  My brother’s name!

  The renter in 3C used it to taunt me.

  It has to be the bomber.

  I locked Annie’s door and ran up to the third floor. Standing in front of the door to 3C, I held the Glock next to my leg and knocked.

  No response.

  I knocked again, harder this time.

  Still no answer.

  I considered knocking again, but I was afraid I would wake up the neighbors. After putting on latex gloves, I took out my lock pick gun and torque wrench. I held the Glock in my left armpit.

  The lock was cheap and easy to open. I put the devices back in my backpack and put it on the floor. I grabbed the Glock in my right hand and slowly turned
the knob with my left.

  Pushing the door open, I stepped inside. The only light in the darkened apartment came from the uncovered windows opposite the front door.

  I listened, but all I heard was the thumping of my pulse in my ears and the low-level hum of machines. There was a red glow coming from two video cameras, which were on and pointed toward the back windows of our home. They were positioned far enough away from the glass that they couldn’t be seen from the outside.

  On a large table next to them were ten glowing computer screens filled with multiple camera views of my home, my life.

  The place looked like the command center for an FBI stakeout. The room had the same electronic smell as Linda’s home computer room. The only other odors came from cleaning products.

  I pulled out a small penlight and scanned the room. It was a combination living room/dining room. To my left was an efficiency kitchen and to my right, a bedroom. No one was there.

  Stepping back into the hallway, I pulled my backpack into the apartment and shut the door. I flipped on the room lights and snapped pictures with my cell phone. I went into the bedroom and took more pictures. The closet was empty. So was the chest of drawers. The bathroom was devoid of any toiletries.

  I moved into the small kitchen and found nothing, not even a cracker. The bomber used this location, but didn’t live here.

  My mental break-in time clock continued to warn me to hurry, but I took the time to take a video with my cell phone. I relocked the door and left, this time using the elevator.

  When the front door creaked open, the elderly man stood in front of me once more. He backed up, holding his arms up in a defense posture. The pissy little dog began growling again.

  “Oh, hi,” I said. “I had the nicest chat with my ex. I love him so much. You’ll be happy to know he’ll be moving out and back in with me before the baby is born. I’ve never been happier.”

  I stepped off the elevator and walked out the front door before he could respond.

  80

  Thursday morning, While Kerry was upstairs taking her nap, I invited David over to show him the pictures of what I’d discovered in the apartment behind our home.

  He walked into our entry hall. “I want you to see something,” I said. “Follow me.”

  We went into the family room. My plan was to show him the way the apartment faced our back windows to give him a sense of what he was going to see on my cell phone pictures.

  We didn’t get very far.

  “Oh, my,” he said.

  “It’s okay, David,” I said, as I gently pushed him away from the chaos of glistening DVDs and paper jackets covering the hardwood floor. “Kerry’s found a new form of self-expression.”

  For the past six weeks, she’d been yanking DVDs out of their jackets and flinging them haphazardly around the room. I attributed this behavior to a gene she inherited from her Uncle Jimmy, who seemed to have several loose screws in his head even though he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford. Being a pitcher for the San Diego Padres might have had something to do with it too.

  Disorder of any type seemed to be out of David’s comfort zone.

  Not a big surprise.

  He began scurrying around the room picking up DVDs in one hand and empty paper jackets in the other.

  “David, stop.” I grabbed the DVDs and jackets out of his hands. “I have to show you something.”

  His eyes blinked several times behind his big glasses. “It’s just that... Clutter like this... It’s really hard for me to concentrate when I’m around chaos. Please, let me clean it up.”

  “I need to show you something first, but I think we should do it in the kitchen.”

  He visibly relaxed when he turned his back to the mess on the floor. I put the discs and jackets on the dining room table. I would deal with those later.

  To distract David from the disorder in the family room, we stepped out on the front porch. I handed him my cell phone. He scrolled through the pictures of the apartment. As he watched the screen, sweat appeared on his upper lip.

  And it’s not from the DVDs on the floor.

  “Amazing,” he said. “Unbelievable.”

  “Oh, it’s believable, especially after you watch the video.”

  I flipped it up on the screen. He watched it three times before he said anything.

  “Something doesn’t make sense,” he said. “There are two cameras, but ten screens. Why not have only two screens?”

  “That’s what I couldn’t figure out until I drove by Molly’s house this morning and found it.”

  “It?”

  “A video camera hidden in the tree in front of her house.” I took my cell phone from his hands and flashed another picture on the screen. “Here, check it out.”

  He stared at the picture. “We had these units at Hogan. They’re expensive.” He paused. “Let me scroll though those original pictures again.”

  He did and then ran the video. “There.” He pointed at the video. “The screen on the top left. It’s Molly’s house.”

  “That’s how I figured it out.”

  “Let me watch the video one more time.”

  When he finished, he looked up at me.

  “The camera shots rotate on a timed basis,” he said. “Like the security systems in large buildings.”

  “Why do it like that?”

  “To send recorded information to another set of computers. That way, they don’t have to be close to you, or even in the same city, to see what’s happening.”

  “And they know where our cars go by using the GPS trackers.”

  “They do.”

  “Why not sit in that apartment and watch the house?”

  “This setup allows them to work regular jobs and still monitor what we do by checking the recordings when they get home.”

  “That’s a little scary. He, or his helpers, might be going to work in the daytime like everyone else. The only time they physically have to be on site is when they want to kill a doctor or blow up a building.”

  He handed my phone back to me. “The bomber has our lives on his screens. Like it or not, we’re all part of this, and the sooner we catch him, the safer we’ll all be.”

  Hard to argue with that.

  David began to fidget.

  The DVDs.

  “Would you like to help me clean up the DVDs in the family room?” I asked.

  His face brightened. “I would, but do you mind if I do it alone?”

  “You have your own way to do it, right?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Let’s go back inside. I’ll wake up Kerry. Have fun.”

  Without another word, he opened the front door and ran into the family room. He was so upset, I noticed he didn’t put on his latex gloves to protect himself from the germs covering the DVD covers.

  81

  Thursday afternoon, The Irregulars met at Linda’s home since she was now on bed rest. Her nanny watched all of our kids play while I told the moms about the bomber spying on us from the apartment building I could see out my back window.

  David was in the kitchen preparing snacks. He already knew what I was going to say.

  “We have to assume that he pretty much knows what we’re doing in our daily lives,” I concluded.

  “Can he see in our windows?” Molly asked.

  David walked into the playroom. “Tina is the only one who has physically seen his setup, so I haven’t had a chance to assess the resolution of the cameras. He might be able to zoom in enough to see activity in some of our rooms.”

  Linda lounged in a recliner. “But I’m sure he won’t. He’s too busy bombing clinics and killing doctors.”

  “I have a question,” Cas said. “The bomber has two stationary cameras aimed at the back of your house, right?”

  “He does,” I said.

  “Why does he need to live this close to you?” she asked. “If he can put portable cameras outside of all of our homes and not be close to them, why didn’t he do th
e same thing at your house?”

  Uh-oh!

  “They might have audio in my home,” I said.

  “How do you know that?” Cas asked.

  “The ‘industrial spies’ had to be close to Micah’s home because of the short range of the audio reception so they could listen to everything Micah and Hannah said.”