“Yes, of course.” But why had the man done it? She was fairly certain it was linked with everything else going on, but she couldn’t see what the purpose would have been. Then the other half of the detective’s comments clicked in her brain. “You don’t think my father is dead?”
“There are no bone fragments in the debris.”
“And if he had died in the fire, there would be?”
“Yes. It’s a myth that everything is destroyed in a fire. There should be some indication of your father’s remains in the debris if he were a victim of the explosion.” He paused as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he went on. “Either your father woke in time to get himself out or he set the explosion himself.”
“Why would he do that?”
“According to our investigation, he does not have a completely stable temperament.”
“My father is not crazy.”
“Past students say that he subscribes to conspiracy theories.”
“That’s hardly unique in this country.”
The detective actually chuckled. “True, but your father chose to act on his theories, living a lifestyle well outside the norm.”
“Different does not equate to crazy, and my father would have no reason to blow up his own school. Training elite soldiers is his life.”
“It’s an avenue we have to explore, particularly since there is no evidence of his demise in the blast.”
“I understand.” And she did, but it wasn’t a scenario she had anticipated. “Was there anything else, Detective?”
“There were three vehicles found at the sight that were damaged by the blast.”
“Yes?”
“One of them was registered to you, Ms. McCall.”
“Yes, my car was on the mountain that night.”
“I asked you a question earlier that you neatly sidestepped, so I’ll ask it again. Were you at your father’s compound when the explosion occurred, Ms. McCall?”
“Are you accusing me of setting the blast now?”
“It is my understanding your specialty is explosives, is that right?”
“Yes, but I can assure you that I did not blow up my father’s training compound.”
Daniel went rigid beside her at her words. She met his eyes, hers asking him what she should say.
“Tell the truth,” he mouthed.
She nodded. At this point, it was the only thing that would do.
“Ms. McCall.” The detective was talking again. “We have to investigate every possibility when a crime like this is committed.”
“So you are positive it was a crime?”
“It’s highly likely, yes.”
“Besides myself and my father, do you have any other suspects,” she asked.
“No.”
“What about the media’s belief it was an ecoterrorist?”
“We do not know where they got that information, Ms. McCall. While every fire that threatens national forest must be investigated with that possibility in mind, there is no evidence to support that theory at this time.”
“So, you’ve ruled it out?” Someone should have told the reporters milling around on her lawn.
“Not entirely, no.”
Well, that was as clear as mud.
“We had hoped you might be able to shed some light on the subject.”
“I’ll try.” And she told him everything that had happened from waking up and taking a walk in the dark, to identifying the whereabouts of her laptop.
She also gave him a detailed description of the phony officer, able to add the number on the patrol car because Daniel remembered it.
She hung up the phone and turned to Daniel. “He’ll be here in an hour or so. He wants the backup copy of Dad’s files.”
“He accused you of setting the bomb?” Daniel asked, his expression unreadable, but his body language all about tightly controlled anger.
“Not exactly. Apparently Dad and I are the number one suspects; at least we were until I told him about the nature of yesterday’s break-in and the GPS device on my laptop. He thought the current location was really interesting.”
Daniel relaxed slightly. “I do, too.” He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “So, Officer Devon isn’t an officer after all.”
“Not according to the records division of the state police.”
“He acted like a soldier, but a lot of police officers are former military, so that didn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary. I’d like to know how he got a hold of a state police car.”
“So would the state police.” She frowned, wishing they had more to go on. The longer her dad was MIA, the more chance something could happen to him. “The phony officer wasn’t familiar at all.”
Daniel shrugged. “You’ve spent a lot of time away from your dad’s school in recent years. There are probably a lot of people he’s come into contact with that you’ve never seen.”
“His records included photos of each student. I scanned them all into the computer. I don’t remember anyone looking like Officer Devon.”
“You probably weren’t paying close attention to them.”
“That’s true.” She hadn’t given any of the pictures more than a cursory glance.
“And although we know the school was as much a target as your dad, we can’t assume we’re looking for a former student.”
“Besides instructors, potential and current students are about the only people my dad sees.”
“That you know of.”
“True. He mentions a lot of Vietnam buddies in his diaries. I don’t remember meeting any of them, but apparently they kept in contact.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“No, but a lot of them have died. It must have been hard for him, and he never told me.”
“You and your dad are pretty close.”
“Not as close as I thought, but our relationship is better than anything most of his buddies had with their families. Several who died didn’t have anyone to mourn their passing but my dad. I wish he’d told me. I would have mourned with him.”
“He was protecting you from the ugly side of life.”
“I guess. Still, it’s sad.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed in thought. “What exactly did he write about these friends that died?”
“Just their names and where they were from, the fact he went to their funerals. No one could accuse my dad of being a flowery writer.”
“Do you remember their names, or would you have to go back through and search for them again?”
She had a semiphotographic memory, which was how she reread books in her mind during a lot of long, dark, and of necessity, silent nights in the jungle or desert as a mercenary. “I remember them, why?”
“It’s a lot easier to establish an alternate identity using that of a person who has died, but shares superficial life traits with you.”
“You think Dad used the names of his former friends to establish aliases?”
“It makes sense.”
She thought about it. “You’re right. It does. For whatever reason, he believed he needed a bolt-hole and made sure he had it in the form of several established alternate identities.”
“He hinted as much to me once.”
“He trusted you a great deal to have done that.”
Daniel shrugged. “He didn’t tell me names.”
“He didn’t tell me either. He said it was safer for me that way.”
