Thomas Perry - The Butcher's Boy

THE MAN AT Treasury said, “That one’s not in our bailiwick, I’m afraid. Have you tried the FBI?”

“Not yet,” said Elizabeth. “I’d hoped to get something on it today.”

The man chuckled. “Oh, you’ve noticed. But I’ll tell you what you can do. There’s a guy over there who knows just about everything about explosives. Name’s Hart. Agent Robert E. Hart. If you call him direct you’ll avoid all the referral forms and runarounds. He’s the one you’d get to in the end anyway. He’s at extension 3023. Write down that name and number, because it’ll come in handy every now and then. Agent Hart.”

“Thanks,” said Elizabeth. “That’ll save me a lot of time.”

Elizabeth dialed the FBI number and waited. The female voice on the other end seemed to come from the soul of a melting candy bar: “Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Elizabeth retaliated, making her voice go soft and whispery. “Extension 3023 please, dear.”

“That’ll hold her,” thought Elizabeth.

“Whom would you like to speak with, ma’am?” said the voice, now suddenly businesslike and mechanical.

“Agent Hart,” said Elizabeth.

“I’ll ring his office,” said the voice.

The line clicked and there was that sound that seemed as though a door had opened on a physically larger space. “Hart,” said a man’s voice.

Elizabeth wondered if she had missed the ring. “This is Elizabeth Waring at Justice, Agent Hart. We have an explosives case and we need some information.”

“Who told you to call me?”

“Treasury.”

“Figures,” he said, without emotion. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell me about fertilizer blowing up.”

“About what?”

“Fertilizer. Er … manure. You know, fertilizer.”

“Oh.” There was silence on Hart’s end.

Elizabeth waited. Then she said, “I assure you, Agent Hart, this isn’t a—”

“I know,” he said. “I was just thinking. What’s the LEAA computer code designation?”

“Seven nine dash eight four seven seven.”

“I’ll take a look at it and call you back. What’s your extension?”

“Two one two one. But does that happen? Have you heard of it before?”

“I’m not sure what we’re talking about yet,” said Hart. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” He hung up and Elizabeth said “Good-bye” into a dead phone.

She looked up and saw Padgett dash by with a cup of coffee in one hand and an open file in the other. Just then a loose sheet in the file peeled itself off in the breeze and wafted to the floor. He stopped and looked back at it in remorse.

“Got it,” said Elizabeth, and sprang up to retrieve it for him.

“Thanks,” said Padgett. “Too many things at once.”

“Are your friends having a nice time out west?”

“Much better than I am,” he said. “We’ve got to get a few investigators out there today before anything has a chance to happen, and I don’t know where we’re going to get them.”

“You mean it might be something?”

“Probably not,” he said, “but you never know. You can’t take a chance of missing another Apalachin just because somebody’s got the damned flu and somebody else is at an airport that’s fogged in.”

“How about holding the fort with technicians until the cavalry arrives? Locals even? Wiretaps and so on.”

“You know what that mess is these days,” said Padgett. “And we don’t even have probable cause. Just four men we can’t even prove know each other taking winter vacations within a couple hundred miles of each other. Want to go in front of a judge with that one? I don’t, and I’ve been there.”

“Well, good luck with it,” said Elizabeth, not knowing what else to say. The telephone on her desk rang, and she answered it with relief. “Justice, Elizabeth Waring.”

“Hart here,” came the voice.

“Good,” said Elizabeth. “What can you tell me?”

“It’s pretty much what I figured,” he said. “It’s the fertilizer all right.”

“You mean manure blows up?” she asked, a little louder than she had intended. She looked up and noticed that Richardson was watching her with a smirk on his face.

“No,” Hart said. “Fertilizer. The kind they make in factories and sell in stores. A couple of the nitrate fertilizers are chemically similar to dynamite. If you know how to detonate them you can use them the same way. They’re cheaper and you don’t have to have a license to use them. If you run out you can go down to the store and buy all you want.”

“That’s incredible,” said Elizabeth. “Do people know about this?”

“Sure,” said Hart. “A lot of construction companies use fertilizer all the time. Been doing it for years.”

“Then my case is closed, I guess,” said Elizabeth. “The poor man probably just blew himself up by accident. But somebody ought to sue whoever makes that fertilizer. It could happen to anybody.”

“No it couldn’t,” said Hart. “It doesn’t blow up by accident. You have to use blasting caps and an electric charge. Theoretically the gasoline in Veasy’s pickup truck is more dangerous than the fertilizer. More explosive power and easier to set off.”

“So you think it was murder?”

“Or suicide. I haven’t seen enough to tell, really, but I don’t think it’s likely he bought a bag of fertilizer for his garden and it just went off. I suppose if he was carrying blasting caps or shotgun shells or something, and the conditions were right, maybe. But the report says he was just sitting in a parking lot, not jolting along a country road, and something would have to set off whatever served as the detonator.”

“So it is murder.”

“I don’t know. But if this is a case you’re interested in I wouldn’t write it off yet. I’d at least find out what he was carrying around in the bed of his pickup, and whether he even bought any fertilizer.”

“Are you on this case too? What I mean is, is the FBI interested?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. If the explosive had turned out to be dynamite we would have been. There you have a federal statute having to do with a traceable substance. But as it is, unless it somehow ties in with another case, I doubt there’ll be anyone on it. Local jurisdiction, no reason for the FBI to take an interest.”

4

“Gentlemen, we’re running this country like a goddamned poker game. The average man sees that he has nothing and somebody else has everything. He doesn’t make trouble because he’s optimistic enough to think that after the next hand he’ll have everything. Watch out for the day when he figures out that the chips aren’t changing hands the way they used to. And when he finds out that it’s because the fellow with the chips is playing by different rules, we’d better be ready with our bags packed. You talk about a tax revolt, hell, there’ll be a real revolt. See you next session, if there is one.”

“It’s the only game in town, Senator,” said the senator from Illinois, putting his arm on the old man’s shoulder and walking with him out of the committee hearing room. “Don’t worry. We’ll get a new tax bill passed next session. You put the fear of God into them.”

They were walking down the quiet private hallway that led back under the street to the Senate office building. No one was now within earshot. The old man continued, “Hell, Billy. You’re young yet. Boy senator from Illinois. But I may not even be alive next session. I’m seventy years old, you know. Six terms in the Senate. I’m not going to have a seventh, one way or the other, and when I go the chairmanship goes to—”

“I know, to Fairleigh. You watch seniority pretty closely if you don’t have any yourself. But don’t worry, Senator. Your tax bill is in the bag. Our esteemed colleagues aren’t even dragging their feet anymore. Too much mail from home.”