John Sandford - Shock Wave

“Really?”

“Really,” Barlow said.

“Okay. Then I’m gonna take off, I got more people to talk to,” Virgil said. “Call me if you find anything.”

“Will do,” Barlow said.

Virgil stopped at a Superamerica, bought the Star Tribune, the Butternut Falls Clarion Call, and a Diet Coke, then sat in the convenience store parking lot and read the papers’ stories on the store bombing. Pye had announced a two-million-dollar gift to the dead man’s family, more money to the injured man, and reiterated his million-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the bomber. Virgil was identified as “one of the BCA’s top investigators.”

Virgil was uncertain how the reward would work. If he (Virgil) spoke to two hundred people in town, and from among that information fished out the strands of an identification, would all two hundred of them wind up suing Pye-or somebody-for a piece of the million-dollar action? Seemed like a truck load of trouble coming down the road.

But, that was Pye’s problem.

He tossed the papers over the seat and into the back, and took another hit on the Diet Coke. The Purdue engineer woman had given him an idea. The bomber should have a workshop of some kind, shouldn’t he?

He got on the phone to Barlow, and when the ATF man answered, he asked, “You find any pieces of the bomb casing? The pipe, or whatever?”

“Yeah, a few pieces from the trailer,” Barlow said. “It’s galvanized steel pipe, probably salvaged from an older house, used for interior plumbing. Same as was used in Michigan. Might have got it from a dump. Hell, sometimes it’s used for outdoor railings… used to be all over the place.”

“Did you ever find a piece of a cut end?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah, we did. We found both ends in Michigan,” Barlow said. “We’re not talking about it, because if we find the guy, we can match the pipe. We don’t want him to get rid of it.”

“Was it cut with a power saw, or a hacksaw?”

“Power saw, definitely… Hmm, I think I see where you’re going with this.”

“The guy has some tools,” Virgil said. “He has a power saw that cuts pipe. That’s not something you see in everybody’s workshop. He can get parts. He knows about electrical wiring… at least something. How to use batteries…”

“See? You’re profiling him,” Barlow said. “This town has eighteen thousand people? You probably got it down to a few hundred. Maybe less.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know which few hundred,” Virgil said.

Butternut Falls had a half-dozen hardware stores, but only a couple that might sell something as specialized as a pipe cutter. Virgil didn’t know much about metal-cutting tools, but even if the bomber was simply able to buy a metal-cutting blade for a table saw, there were only a few places that sold table saws: a Home Depot, a Menards, a Fleet Farm, a Hardware Hank.

He’d seen the Home Depot when he came into town, so he headed that way, a five-minute trip, parked, went inside to the “Tools” section, found a woman in an orange apron, identified himself, and asked, “You got anybody here who’s like a woodworking hobbyist, a guy who knows about workshops and so on?”

“That would be Lawrence,” she said. “Let me find him for you.”

While she did that, Virgil went down the aisle and looked at all the power saws-table saws, band saws, miter saws. He’d always been handy enough with simple tools, but like a lot of men, always felt guilty about not knowing more. Like, exactly how did a router work? Shouldn’t all males know that?

The store clerk came back with a mustachioed older man in another orange apron, and introduced him as Lawrence, who had a home workshop and gave woodworking lessons. Virgil explained the problem, and concluded with: “… so we’d like to know who’d have a workshop well-enough equipped to cut a three-inch galvanized steel pipe.”

“Well, hell, you could do that with a Sawzall. You wouldn’t need a workshop. If you didn’t want to buy the Sawzall, you could rent one from us,” Lawrence said.

“Really?”

“Sure. You’d have to buy a bi-metal blade, but I mean, you really don’t need a workshop,” Lawrence said. “Who told you you’d need a workshop?”

Virgil didn’t want to say, “I did,” because he’d sound ignorant, so he said, “This federal guy. Hang on, I’m going to give him a ring.”

He stepped away and got Barlow on the phone and relayed what Lawrence had said. “Sawzall’s are a dime a dozen, man.”

Barlow said, “Well, your Lawrence guy is absolutely right, you could cut the pipe with a Sawzall. But our guy didn’t. Our tool-marks specialist says it was cut with some kind of chop saw, not with a Sawzall.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Virgil said.

Virgil relayed what Barlow had said, and Lawrence scratched his thinning yellow hair and said, “They can tell that? Huh. Must be, heck, I don’t know-I probably know forty guys who have chop saws, miter saws, in their workshops, and there are probably two hundred floating around town. Of course, we sell almost no metal-cutting blades here. Most people use their saws for woodworking.”

“You sell any of the metal-cutting blades recently?” Virgil asked.

“I didn’t. But the guy probably wouldn’t ask, he’d probably just come in and find it himself. There’s probably some way to look at the inventory… that’d be one of the computer guys who could tell you that,” Lawrence said. “They sell them over at Fleet Farm and Menards, too. And if you were going to do something illegal, and didn’t want to buy one locally, you might run into the Cities, and they probably sell hundreds of blades over there.”

“Damn it: I thought I was onto something,” Virgil said.

“Let me ask around, the boys,” Lawrence said. “Maybe somebody’ll have an idea.”

Virgil thanked him, gave him a card, and told him to call if he learned anything.

Back in the truck, he made a note to check with the BCA researcher to see if there was a way to check with Home Depot, Menards, and Fleet Farm to see if any metal-cutting chop-saw blades had been sold recently, and if so, if there’d been a credit card attached to the sale. He had little hope that anything would come of it.

Sitting there in the sun, looking at Ahlquist’s list of possible interviews, and Kline the pharmacist’s list of names, he sighed and shook his head. He’d have to do the legwork, but if the guy was clever, the legwork wouldn’t turn up much.

What, the guy was going to confess when Virgil dropped by?

If he got anything, it’d come at an angle-he’d get it as a result of looking at something else. Looking at Kline’s list, he called Ahlquist and asked him to get subpoenas for people who used antipsychotic medications.

“I’ll have O’Hara do it, and have her serve them,” the sheriff said. “We’ll have them tonight.”

“How about the press conference?”

“We’re gonna have one whether we want to or not, with two separate incidents, now. I got a TV truck right now, taking pictures of the limo, and talking to Harvey, and more are coming in. What time should I make the conference?”

“Later this afternoon… give us some space, and time to think. Maybe… three o’clock?”

“See you then. Unless another bomb goes off. Then I’ll see you sooner.”

With that taken care of, he dug out his iPad, turned it on, and got a map with directions to the hospital. He stopped at a local coffee shop and got a skinny hot chocolate, and then went off to the hospital.

Michael Sullivan was in a bed in the critical care ward, not because he was badly hurt, but because he was confused, and the confusion could be the result of some continuing head injury.