“Well grenades, from a military base, explosives from a construction warehouse and fertilizer from a feed store?” She was thinking out loud. “That feels like two completely different MO’s. Grenades are more personal, suicide bomber style.”
“Okay.” I was interested to see where she was going with this line of thinking.
“Fertilizer is a broader more widespread impact. Less personal.”
“Unless you pack the grenades together, create a big boom that way.” I offered. “So, you’re thinking the two aren’t connected?”
“Not sure I’m willing to go that far yet, it isn’t very straight forward.”
“Is it ever?”
“Guess you have a point.” She nodded.
It was getting late and so far, we had a bunch of different pieces of a puzzle and nothing was fitting yet. It felt like we were chasing our tails. “People we really need to figure out the target.”
“It would help if we knew who was doing it. No luck on the credit card from the feed and seed?” Stephanie asked.
“Stolen card. The card holder is a college student whose wallet was stolen.” Jared said.
“Great.” My eyes were tired. “Why don’t you guys call it a day, we can look at this fresh tomorrow.”
“You sure?” Logan asked.
“Yeah, it’s late, you guys get out of here.” I waved in the direction of the door.
“What about you?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m going to call it a night too.” At least I was thinking about it.
They all gathered up their things and went home.
I made sure the office was secure then I went and made a fresh pot of coffee. I wasn’t fooling myself. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight anyway. So, I might as well try looking at this from a different angle. The office was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The silence was ringing in my ears. It was almost worse than too much noise. I paced back and forth trying to get a handle on this case.
Stephanie was right; grenades and fertilizer implied two different styles of attack. I could almost take the fertilizer as a coincidence if a stolen credit card hadn’t been used. Jared had left his computer running the facial recognition program on the images we got from the video camera above the register at the feed and seed.
My cell phone rang.
“Craddock.”
“Ethan, it’s John, I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
“No, I’m still at the office, What’s up?”
“I am hearing rumors of a possible attack on the city.” John’s voice conveyed his concern.
“I imagine it was part of your security brief this week, yes.” Frankly, I was surprised I hadn’t gotten a call before now.
“I know the FBI is working very hard to uncover if the threat is real or not so please know if there is any resources the city can offer you, let me know.”
“You know, I’ll keep you in the loop once I have anything to share.”
“I know you will Ethan.”
“Good night, John.”
I clicked off. Vice Mayor John St. Clair and I had known each other a long time. Our kids went to the same school, our wives were in the same clubs. He never used his position or our friendship to curry professional favor, so this phone call was interesting. There had to be more to it and if John didn’t tell me over the phone, I trusted that it was because he couldn’t.
I got up and check Jared’s computer. Still nothing. I had a bad feeling about this case. I felt like we were missing a big piece. I scanned the headlines, for any stories of anyone important visiting the city this week that could be a potential target or any recent court cases that might have caught the interest of any local radical groups. Other than local dinners and functions I didn’t see anything that would garner the attention of someone with enough juice to steal from the Camp Allen armory and a feed and seed brazenly as they had. Maybe they just got lucky.
I sat down at my desk and stared up at the ceiling. I was starting to get past the idea of a divorce as Diane had filed the paperwork with the court and had moved to North Carolina as part of our one-year separation. I kept the house since it seemed like I wasn’t the only thing she was tired of around here.
It was an amicable split and I could see Madelyn whenever I wanted. There were no restrictions and Madelyn was too wrapped up in her own teenage life to care too much about what me and her mother were doing or not doing. Things really could be a lot worse. Diane had her own career and she wasn’t looking for support from me. I, of course, provided support to Madelyn and that was more from a requirement than anything Diane pushed for. She made more money than I did as a corporate tax attorney working down in Charlotte. So why was I so miserable? I have a soon to be ex-wife that wasn’t demanding. I could see my daughter whenever I wanted, I had a good career going with the FBI and I drank too much and slept too little. I could try and blame in on the cases, but that wasn’t it. Sure, I lost a bit of sleep due to the more stressful ongoing cases, but I rarely let them bother me after it was over. There was always a new one to take its place so there was no point in getting hung up on one case or another.
If I was honest with myself what had been keeping me up at night was the thought of Kay. I don’t know why. I had thought of her over the years and wondered if I would ever see her again. I hoped I would. I had filed that weekend under the category of two ships passing in the night. It was a great memory, but realistically I doubted I’d ever see her again. But, lately my thoughts of
