Peck was pleased. “Excellent. So even if somebody sent back a non-original copy, a Xerox, you’d still know who it was.”
“Yeah, I guess, but I didn’t think of that,” Virgil said. “Hey-here’s the list. Take a look.”
Peck settled in front of Virgil’s laptop. Looked at the list, his lower lip stuck out, stroked his left cheek with an index finger, then muttered, “What a fascinating list. McLachlan is a moron, there’s no way he did these bombings. Throw him out, and you’ve got eighty people with two or more nominations. I know most of them, and I wouldn’t have nominated several of them, but I’d still say, ‘Yes, I can see that.’ Fascinating.”
“You think the bomber’s on the list?”
“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars he is-that he’s among those eighty, for sure. He’s probably among the top ten or twelve, once you throw out McLachlan and a couple more.”
“You know this Greg Sawyer?”
“Yeah, he’s another semi-professional criminal. I mean, he’s a big rough redneck bully who steals stuff when he can, usually pigs and calves, and usually gets caught. He’s not the guy.”
Ahlquist came in, saw Peck, frowned, but then said to Virgil, “On that other thing. We’re going to let you guys handle it. You want me to call Davenport?”
“You can do it, if you want,” Virgil said. He said to Peck, “George, keep thinking. I’ve got to go talk to Earl in secret, where you can’t hear.”
Peck waved them off: “Go ahead. Ignore my feelings.”
Down in Ahlquist’s office, Virgil called Davenport at home. “I’ve got the sheriff here, and he’s got a request. We’re cracking the city council, big-time. Here, talk to him.”
Ahlquist took the phone, explained the situation-that he worried about the appearance of a conflict of interest-nodded a few times, and said, “We’ll be in touch, then. Virgil or me.”
He handed the phone back to Virgil, who told Davenport, “We’re also going to need some tech support, if we manage to flip Pat Shepard. I got a name and number for you, a Shirley Good Thunder.”
“Not a problem,” Davenport said, and took down the information. He was too cheerful about it, and Virgil said so.
“What you’re doing, is proving that we’re worth the money the taxpayers give us,” Davenport said. “That’s always good. Anyway, I’ll call Good Thunder, and send Jack Thompson down with the equipment. When you’re ready to move, I can have Shrake and Jenkins down there in two hours. I’ll call everybody and get them cocked and locked.”
Virgil said, “Ten-four. Say hello to your old lady for me.”
Back with Peck, Ahlquist took his turn looking at Virgil’s list. “Heck of a list. You got some serious people on there, important people, and every one of them is a sociopath,” Ahlquist said. “But don’t quote me.”
“Are any of them instructors at the college?”
“Mmm… no. Not regular instructors, anyway, not that I know of,” Peck said. “Somebody might be a part- timer. There’s all kinds of guys teach a class from time to time. I do myself, photography and Photoshop.”
“This guy here… he’s pretty far down, John Haden, he teaches there,” Ahlquist said, tapping the screen. “He’s on the staff. And this guy, Bill Wyatt.”
Haden had been nominated twice, Wyatt, three times.
“Gotta look at them. And the top eighteen,” Virgil said.
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow,” Virgil said. “And pray to God that there’s not another bomb.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Peck said. “There is no God, and why an intelligent person would think so, I cannot fathom.”
As they broke up for the evening, Virgil said, “Listen, guys, do me a favor. Ask yourself, ‘Why would the bomber try to blow up Virgil Flowers?’ Because it’s a lot more interesting question than you might expect. If we could figure that out, it might help.”
They said they’d think about it, and Virgil went back to the Holiday Inn, where he carefully parked his truck in a no-parking zone directly in front of the front window, where the desk clerk would be looking straight out at it.
He went in the lobby, to explain, and Thor came out of the back room.
He said, “Hey, Virg.”
“I parked my truck there so nobody would put a bomb in it. Keep an eye on it, would you?”
“No problem. I’m going off in an hour, I’ll tell the night girl.” Then, “So, you talk to Mrs. Shepard?”
Virgil said, “Thor…” He sighed, shook his head, and said, “I need some sleep.”
“Hot damn, you did! I’m going over there.”
“She’s not over there,” Virgil said. “She moved out.”
Thor thought for one second, or less, then said, “She’s at her sister’s. I’m going over there.”
“If you mention my name in any way…”
“You’ll kill me. Got it.”
“She’s in pretty delicate shape,” Virgil began.
“So am I,” Thor said. “You wouldn’t believe how delicate a shape I’m in. And don’t worry about it, dude. I’m not gonna go in there and jump her. I’m gonna offer her my friendship.”
“And a pizza.”
“Well, yeah. A meat lover’s.”
Virgil went up to bed, undressed, lay in the dark, and asked God, “Why did the bomber try to kill me? And how did he sneak into the Pye building? You can answer this question either as a sudden revelation, or you could write it up in the sky, or whisper it to Thor, your namesake. Okay? Deal? I’m going to sleep now, God. Please answer before anybody else gets hurt. Oh-and keep an eye on Mrs. Shepard. She seems like a nice-enough lady. And Thor. Keep an eye on Thor.”
Satisfied, he went to sleep, and slept well, for a man who’d almost been blown up.
The last thing he thought of, as he drifted off, was that Lee Coakley hadn’t called.
15
The bomber was worried. He’d missed twice in a row, once with Pye, once with the cop. The misses weren’t really the problem. His intention with the cop was to pull more cops into town, to bring more pressure, to tear the place up. That would now surely happen, would it not?
What worried him was not the misses, but his own reaction to them. When he heard about the miss with Pye, he’d been angry about it, but accepted it as just a matter of chance and inexperience. He’d taken a shot-a good shot, a creative one-and it had gone sour. The cop was no different, though he’d taken some extra risks there, in placing the bomb so close to a busy street; but again the reflexive anger came, stronger this time, almost despair.
He controlled it, but… where did that come from? The despair?
He’d started out thinking of the bombs as tools. But now, he thought, it was like he needed them. Almost like he was addicted to them.
The bomber had been addicted to cigarettes earlier in life, and kicking the habit had been a struggle. He could remember the gravitational pull of the cigarette packs, sitting on their shelves in the gas stations and the convenience stores, calling to him. For years after he’d quit, he would wake up in the night, having dreamed that he’d fallen off the wagon, that he’d taken a cigarette… and when he woke, he could taste the nicotine and tar, and feel the buzz.
The bomb thing was almost like that. When he heard that he’d missed the cop, he felt a powerful impulse to get in his car, drive up in the hills, to the box of explosives, and get what he needed for another bomb. To do it right now.
To hit them again.
To kill somebody. That was the problem.
His whole campaign had been a rational effort to solve a serious problem-serious from his point of view,
