John Sandford - Shock Wave

“That’s not good,” Virgil said.

They exchanged cell-phone numbers, and e-mails, and then Virgil headed back downtown to the motel.

Virgil had heard of the ticking-time-bomb theory of building up stress in the movies-Bruce Willis rushing around New York to keep the schools from blowing up-but this was ridiculous. Now he had a ticking time bomb, and the biggest expert around said that more were on the way.

At the motel, he got cleaned up, put on clean clothes, and headed to Bunson’s, the restaurant.

At Bunson’s, the hostess said, “I’ll buy that shirt if you want to sell it.”

Virgil was wearing his most conservative musical T-shirt, a vintage Rolling Stones “Tongue” that he’d found on America’s Fence. “I’m sorry, I have an emotional attachment to it,” Virgil told her. “I was wearing it when my third wife told me she wanted a divorce.”

“Oh, well, in that case…” She smiled, and led him back to a booth overlooking the lake.

He had the sweet-butter pancakes with bacon and maple syrup; at eight-thirty, which was still way too early, he called Davenport at home. “I hope this is a goddamn emergency,” Davenport said, when he picked up the phone.

“The guy just set off at least sixteen bombs at once, and wrecked God-only-knows how much stuff,” Virgil said. “I’m told it was like an atomic bomb going off.”

“Ah, jeez. Tell me.”

Virgil filled him in, and when he was done, Davenport asked, “You got media?”

“We had media, and now we’re gonna get a lot more,” Virgil said. “This thing is really blowing up, if you’ll excuse the rapier-like wit.”

“So talk to the sheriff, have a press conference, emphasize that you’re making progress, that you expect arrests. That you’ve got some kind of forensic evidence. Say that because of the interstate aspect, the killer can be tried in federal court and get the death penalty. Give the bomber a reason to hunker down, to be careful, to think about it. Try to buy some time.”

“A pageant. Good idea,” Virgil said. “The sheriff likes the whole television routine. I’ll get him to organize it.”

“I never had much to do with bombers, but this Barlow sounds like he knows what he’s talking about-and it sounds like a lot of the other freaks we’ve seen. They like it. You better catch this guy, Virgil.”

“I’ll catch him. I just can’t guarantee that the city hall will still be standing up,” Virgil said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

Virgil called Ahlquist- the sheriff was still out at the equipment yard-and told him about Davenport’s idea for a press conference. Ahlquist jumped on the idea and said he’d set it up. “I’ve been working on the rest of your list, all morning. I’ll give it to you at the press conference,” Ahlquist said. “Or you can stop by anytime.”

“It’s a mess out there, isn’t it?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, yeah. Is it gonna get worse?”

“Barlow thinks so,” Virgil said.

Virgil dug out the list of contacts that Ahlquist had given him the night before. Ahlquist had suggested that he talk first to Edwin Kline, one of the three city councilmen who voted against PyeMart, and a pharmacist. Ahlquist said that Kline had been on the city council for twenty years, and had been mayor for twelve, and knew all the personalities. “Since he’s a pill-pusher, people talk to him, like they would a doctor. He knows what’s going on in their heads.”

Virgil found Kline in his drugstore on Main Street, introduced himself, waited for two minutes until he’d finished rolling some pills for a single customer, and then followed him to a backroom office.

Kline was an older, balding man in his late fifties or early sixties, with glittering rimless glasses and a soft oval face. He wore a white jacket like a doctor, and pointed Virgil into a wooden swivel chair that might have been taken from a nineteenth-century newspaper office, while he sat on a similar chair behind his desk.

“There’s some pretty damn mad people in town, and I know all of them-heck, I’m one of them-but I don’t know which one is crazy enough to do this,” he said.

“I don’t know exactly how to ask this,” Virgil said, “or where the ethics come in… but of all those angry people, do you know which ones might be using anti-psychotics? Or who should be?”

“Mmm.” Long hesitation. “You know, it probably would be unethical to give you that information, though I don’t doubt you could get a subpoena. Just between you, me, and the doorpost, I’d tell you if I thought one of them was the bomber. But the people I know of, who are getting that kind of medication, are not really involved in this whole thing. I suppose they could be picking up some reflected anger… If you want to come back this afternoon, and if you don’t let on where you got it, I could get together a list.”

“If you’d prefer, I could get Sheriff Ahlquist to give you a subpoena, just to cover your butt, if there were any questions,” Virgil said.

“That might be best-but I’ll get started on the list,” Kline said. “You ought to go out to Walmart and check with them, too. They roll a lot more pills than I do, now.”

Virgil asked him who he’d have been most worried about, of the angry people. Kline thought for a moment, then said, “Well, there are about three of them. And goddamnit, now, I have to live in this town, so this has to be between you and me.”

“That’s fine,” Virgil said. “Nobody needs to know where the names came from.”

Kline slid open a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, and said, “I can’t have people seeing me smoking. I only smoke a couple a day… Come on this way.” He led Virgil out of the office, through a stockroom, up an internal stair to the roof, where four chairs, an umbrella, and a two-foot-tall office refrigerator were sitting on a deck.

Kline took a chair, lit up, blew a lungful of smoke, and said, “First up would be Ernie Stanton. Ernie’s a redneck, a hard worker. Doesn’t show it, but he’s smart. He started out with nothing, and now he owns two fast oil-change places. Ernie’s Oil. He got hurt when Walmart came in. They’ve got that Lube Express thing. But Ernie’s faster and just as cheap, so he got hurt, but he hung on. I don’t think he’ll get past PyeMart. He’s a guy with a temper, he’s a hunter, he’s got guns and all that, and he’s spent thirty years scratching his way up. Done a lot of roughneck work-might know about dynamite. He’s gonna lose his livelihood. He’s gonna lose it all.”

Virgil made a note of the name. Kline had two others, both businesspeople. Don Banning, who ran a clothing store selling work clothes; he’d also been hurt by Walmart, but he’d moved to somewhat higher-end stuff, brand names that Walmart didn’t carry. “As I understand it, PyeMart carries the same brands he does. He won’t be able to match the prices,” Kline said.

The least likely one, in Kline’s opinion, was a woman named Beth Robertson, who ran the Book Nook. “She says she’s gone. She’s gonna try to make it through Christmas-PyeMart won’t open until spring-but then she’s getting out. But she’s crazy mad about it. The bookstore is her life. She swings back and forth between this cold acceptance, planning to sell out, and this red-hot screaming anger. It’s like watching somebody who just found out they got terminal cancer. The thing is, she’s mad enough, but I don’t think she could work a hammer, much less make a bomb. She’s the kind who doesn’t understand how a nut and bolt go together.”

“Any more?” Virgil asked.

“Well, there’s me,” Kline said. “I’m done. I’m gonna retire, sell out the store while I can still get some money for it. Got a good location, maybe somebody’ll think of something they can do here.”