Michael McGarrity - Everyone Dies

Isabel, who’d remained frozen in silence on the couch during the conversation, her hands clasped in her lap, rose and went to gather up the children. When they came into the room, Orlin Chatto shook Kerney’s hand, said good night, and ushered his wife outside. Grace, Clayton, and the children followed behind.

Kerney watched from the front door as Clayton put his family in his father-in-law’s car. The state police officer took the lead in his unit and the two vehicles slowly drove away.

Isabel brushed past him in the doorway and turned to face him. An expression of cold anger, which had been carved across her face from the moment she saw him, remained.

Kerney looked at the woman who in his distant past had once meant so much to him. Eyes that had once danced with humor now flared with accusation, and her soft mouth was a thin, angry line.

As a cop, he’d taken the brunt of people’s misplaced outrage many times before. But this time it felt justified. He waited for her to confront him, but she left without saying a word, stopping only to give Clayton a hug before hurrying to her car.

“Are you leaving?” Clayton asked as he drew near.

“Not yet,” Kerney answered. “I want to see what turns up at the crime scene. It could yield some important evidence.”

“Thanks for not going into too much detail with the family.”

“It would have only served to upset them more than they already are. Grace handled it well.”

“She’s a strong person.”

“Yes, she is,” Kerney said, reaching for his cell phone. “I need to make some phone calls.”

“I’ll let you know when the feds get here.”

Kerney searched Clayton’s face. Although he was still keeping the lid on, the strain had become more visible, especially around his mouth. He wondered when Clayton would let himself feel something. It needed to happen soon.

“Good deal,” he said.

Clayton left Kerney at the house and checked in with tribal dispatch on his handheld. Officers were still out on the back roads, the fire was out, firefighters were scouring the surrounding woods looking for any flare-ups, and Perry Dahl had returned to the bomb site, accompanied by officers who’d secured the perimeter.

He disconnected and started walking through the trees in the direction of the spot where his home had once stood. He forced himself to move at a steady pace and tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see. Ahead, the spotlights and headlights of police cruisers and several fire trucks broke the darkness, illuminating the ruins of his home. Crime scene tape had been strung across his driveway, and officers were posted at strategic locations.

He approached quietly, not wanting to be seen. They’d lost all the landscape trees at the front of the house as well as a stand of pines on the back of the lot. The charred trunks of the tallest trees rose thirty feet into the sky.

Where the house had stood there was nothing but rubble. Large, twisted sections of the corrugated metal roof partially covered the few standing walls, and the metal headboard of Wendell’s twin bed jutted through a shattered window frame.

He moved closer and looked away from the light, letting his night vision adjust. What appeared to be the refrigerator lay on its side next to his two burned-out vehicles, both of them resting on wheel rims over black puddles of melted rubber.

He saw a flashlight beam at the rear of the house and Dahl came into view, casting his light over the littered concrete pad where the new tool shed had been, then over the remnants of the propane tank scattered under some trees that had been burned halfway up the canopy. If the fire department hadn’t been standing by before the explosion, the whole forest could have gone up in flames.

The swing set and slide had been taken out by the exploding gas tank, and the vegetable garden was nothing more than a scorched plot enclosed by the post-and-wire fence.

It was worse than he’d imagined. His hands were shaking, so he stuffed them into his trouser pockets. He started to sweat in the cool night as a lump rose up in his throat and he thought about what might have happened to Grace and the children. He waited for the dizzy feeling of shock to pass. Finally, his heart stopped pounding in his chest and the tremors in his arms and legs lessened.

He watched Dahl put his dog in his unit and drive away. Quickly, he made his way back toward the Naiches’ house, trying to convince himself that the burning sensation in his eyes came from the lingering smoke and soot in the air. He saw Perry Dahl talking to Kerney and Sheriff Hewitt at the front of Eugene and Jeannie’s house and hurried to join them.

“What have I missed?” Clayton asked as he reached the men.

Bits of ash clung to Dahl’s short-cropped hair and speckled his unshaved face. His shoes and trousers were caked with black soot and mud. Clementine, his German shepherd, sat at his feet busily cleaning gobs of muck from her front paws.

“Not much,” Dahl replied, as he reached down to scratch Clementine’s head. “I just started my briefing. I’m thinking the plastique was homemade, which means there won’t be any detection agent that could lead us back to a manufacturer.”

Dahl unsnapped Clementine’s leash. “The two charges were shaped to do maximum damage upwards through the floor. I’d say they were a pound each. One was placed next to the gas line that ran under and up into the house from the outside propane tank, which guaranteed a secondary explosion.”

“Where was the second charge placed?” Clayton asked.

“Facing the house from here, on the left side,” Dahl replied. He wrapped the leash around his hand and stuck it in his back pocket. “Which I assume is where the bedrooms were located.”

Clayton nodded and said nothing.

“What kind of chemical agents were used?” Kerney asked.

“That will have to wait until we can run some tests,” Dahl answered. “But it could’ve been anything from a potassium or chlorate compound, a phenol derivative, to an antifreeze concoction treated with calcium chloride then filtered to remove the water and the calcium chloride, which is my best guess right now.”

“Why do you say that?” Hewitt asked.

“Because it acts like a nitro-gelatin explosive, which means it’s highly flammable, and there was fire almost immediately after the explosion on both sides of the house.”

“Do you have anything that can help us find the perp?” Kerney asked.

“The hardware that was used is our best bet,” Dahl said. “Based on what I saw, I’m thinking he built everything from scratch, which means he had to buy the components somewhere. But more than that, I’d also be looking for someone with electronics experience, who is good with his hands, has had some formal training, and has a basic understanding of chemistry.”

“An amateur couldn’t do it?” Clayton asked, forcing himself to stay focused on the subject. He wanted to find the asshole and kill him.

“He’d have to be very gifted,” Dahl replied. “No matter what you’ve heard about bomb-making instructions on the Internet, none of this stuff is that easy to do, especially the electronics.”

“Give us an example,” Hewitt said.

“A radio detonator was used to trigger the charges placed inside the house,” Dahl replied. “To do that the perp had to accomplish two things to ensure success: first, use a microwave transmitter so the signal would penetrate into the structure, and second, shield the signal so that a random transmission wouldn’t prematurely set off the plastique. That takes a high degree of knowledge and skill.”

“So we start checking electronic suppliers to see who has been buying what,” Kerney said, “and look for a perp with some formal training or education in the field.”