Time Expired (23 page)

The light burned my eyes. The bang was deafening. Dirt and rocks spewed everywhere. The explosion blew me off my feet.

F
OR A MOMENT AFTER
the explosion there was silence, as if every creature in the underbrush was standing taut, too shocked to move, every leaf and branch paralyzed, and even the air holding its breath. Then leaves shook free of their branches, twigs snapped, paws and hooves ran frantically across rocks, and claws raced up the bark of the live oaks. The roar of the blast echoed off the canyon walls, batting back and forth like a barrage of Ping-Pong balls.

The force of it threw me on my butt. Pellets of cement and rock and hard wood flew like buckshot. I rolled over and covered my neck; the rubble hit my arms, my ribs, the back of my head. I pulled my revolver free, rolled to the side of the platform by the stream, and slipped over the edge, squatting near the protection of the raised cement. The dirt-filled air clogged my nostrils with the smell of spent explosive and dry earth. My scraped hands throbbed. Through the swirling dirt, I eyed the shiny-leafed live oak trees, the dry brown underbrush, the little stream. The perp could be anywhere, with a stash of rifles, grenades, bombs. … The low cement ledge gave me almost no protection. Both hands on the revolver, I moved back against the canyon wall next to the metal overhang—seemingly un-jarred by the explosion—and crouched.

It was the most dangerous kind of wait. Nothing moved abnormally; the sounds grew dimmer. No one was out there—probably. Just one perp who’d booby-trapped this place and left—probably. One perp with one Flash and Sound device aimed at disorienting rather than maiming. One stun canister. I was just wasting time here. I could be … but I stayed put. Those 120 hours of training with the Hostage Negotiation Team had at least taught me that.

How far had the noise carried? Were the residents of Canyonview panicked? Had they heard it at all? Pereira would have, through the walkie-talkie. She’d be on the horn, calling for the bomb squad. In a quarter of an hour the place would be swarming with Explosive Ordnance Technicians. It’d be a show that’d make last Sunday night look like a lounge opener.

I forced myself to scan the hillside, to look twice at moving branches, still sure I was reacting to nothing more lethal than deer or squirrels. I kept looking, all the time knowing I wasn’t seeing beneath the obvious. If the bomber were perched on the oak branch over my head, I wouldn’t spot him. “Observe, dammit,” I muttered to myself, shifting my gaze more slowly. Fifteen minutes. I’d make myself stay that long. The bomber wouldn’t have that kind of self-control. He’d be out of here long before, if he wasn’t already gone.

I thought of Pereira, my closest friend on the force. I’d put her in an awful spot. She be trying her walkie-talkie and getting no answer. She’d have no way to know I wasn’t dead or maimed. She’d ache to get down here, but there was no way she could leave her post; she had to be there to direct the EOTs, and to protect the civilians from the battalions of bombers she couldn’t be sure weren’t down here.

That meant she’d call for a lot more than just the EOTs. Half our force would be coming down the canyon side.
All
of Kensington’s small department would be involved.

My legs began to shake. I scanned around me, then figured
screw it
and sat. My gloves were in shreds; I glanced at my palms. Dirt was embedded in the scrapes. I was probably going to die of tetanus. I’d end my days muttering incoherently and foaming at the mouth—or was that rabies?

Another minute passed before an awful possibility crossed my mind. Could the explosion
not
be the work of the parking perp? Could this perp be merely a canyon loony? Could this be an entirely unrelated case? Had Berkeley become so specialized that we had a loony for every need? Then I remembered the tickets and the meter maid’s marking stick. No, there was only one perp; the quarry office was our parking perp’s lair.

It was close to the ten-minute mark when I heard branches shaking and shoes sliding down a path. I leaned forward into a crouch and braced the revolver.

“Anybody down here?” The voice was Michael Wennerhaver’s.

How had he gotten past Pereira? Or was he already down here? I pushed back under the overhang and waited silently. I wanted to see him before I decided friend or foe.

As he came into view the sun was glinting off his short dark hair. His jeans were smudged with dirt, his striped shirt bedecked with leaves and twigs that would have shaken loose from the trees. But his hands were free and there was no place he could have been hiding a gun. I eased forward.

“Officer Smith! Are you okay?” His pale flat cheeks were red and shiny with sweat. He couldn’t have faked the fear and excitement in his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“I thought it was kids down here. I didn’t know what was going on. It’s so frightening for our residents when something like this happens, something down here. They need to know what it is.”

I nodded. Was he protesting too much? I wished I could see to the canyon rim, to note whether windows along both sides were open revealing curious faces. Michael had made it down here awfully fast. Most people wouldn’t even have known I was coming down here. But Michael could have seen me. And if he’d set the explosion, he’d have been listening for it to go off. Most people wouldn’t have known the location of the explosion, they’d just have heard the bang and seen the smoke. But Michael had come right here. I hadn’t considered him for the parking perp. But he fit the psychological mold—a loner, one who feels life has overburdened him. He had no history of parking tickets, but still …

“Weren’t you worried about leaving your residents, Michael?”

“Of course. But they’d tell me to come down here and find out for them, like my aunts were always doing at home. They’ll want to know. And anyway, Delia’s there. She’ll reassure the residents in the main house.”

“And Claire?”

The creases around his mouth deepened. The sun hit his face like a spotlight, and the contrast with the deep shade made his pale skin look translucent. “Claire won’t notice. She’s—well—had a bad night. You know how she is—here now, and then back twenty years ago. I was hoping that would protect her, that Madeleine’s death would mean no more than if she remembered a friend who’d died back then.” He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, as if the air were still thick with dirt and it wasn’t easy to draw it in. “But I was wrong. It must have been an awful shock for her. Death is too close for these old people. Something like that, a friend dying in the next room, it’s like the Grim Reaper peering over their doorsills.”

“How bad shape is she in?” I asked. Michael had propped a foot on what remained of the edge of the office floor. He might have been standing in the street at the top of the canyon resting a foot on the curb, instead of next to a bombing site, however minor. This was, it struck me, a remarkably odd conversation.

“Last night Claire was frantic. Delia couldn’t calm her. I sat up with her till dawn. Now she’s asleep. The questioning and all: it’s been too much for her.”

Behind him I could hear someone coming through the underbrush. “Michael, get over here, and get down.”

“What do you—”

“Now. Move!” I pushed him under the overhang next to me, backed against the canyon wall, and braced my revolver.

I was barely there when I spotted Victor Champion, hurrying toward the platform, camera in hand. He glanced at the platform, his mouth drooping in disappointment, before he spotted me. “I heard a bang, an explosion. Was it around here?”

“Right here,” I said.

He glanced around again, his expectation clearly unfulfilled. Beside me Michael scooted free of the overhang, stood, and began brushing off his jeans. Champion, in his well-holed denims, looked at him as if he thought Michael was a maniac.

I wondered what Champion would have given for a bit of artistic carnage.

Before either of them could speak again, I stood up and said, “We need to get out of here now.”

I’d have to question both of them and hope one might have seen someone coming down here, or might be that person. Chances were the greatest danger now was of their talking to each other and muddying their memories. Odds of the two of them being in this together were slim. I moved between them and started our procession along the path. My legs worked awkwardly as if the explosion and my fall had knocked my joints out of kilter. When we came to the path up to Madeleine’s, I hesitated momentarily. Across the canyon came the rustling of leaves, and in a minute I spotted one of the Kensington officers. I called to him, took him aside for a quick briefing, and passed Champion on to him.

Champion, none too pleased about the prospect of dealing with yet another law enforcement agency, began hedging: “It was just a muffled bang,” he said, ignoring the Kensington officer. “I was in the darkroom. The negatives weren’t ready yet. I couldn’t open the door for another two minutes. So, I didn’t see anything.”

“Sometimes you see more than you realize. Particularly if you’re an artist.”

He wasn’t entirely mollified, but flattery exists for a reason. He started to protest, then shrugged and gave me a mock salute.

The colonel’s son—who had inherited from the colonel. “Champion,” I said, “we’re going to need to see any weapons you have, ones you bought, and any that were your father’s.”

The Kensington officer nodded.

Michael and I started up the path, grabbing onto branches, feet slipping on the damp grass. Michael was having little more success with the ascent than I. He was stiff-jointed and climbed as if he’d never seen a tree as a boy, as if those aunts had kept him too busy gathering gossip. He was halfway up when I heard a siren shriek and die.

“Michael. Get behind me,” I yelled. In seconds EOTs would be racing down the hill, grabbing the first “perp” they spotted.

Michael stopped. Yanking myself up by a shrub branch, I edged around him. It was only then that I realized we were almost at the path. I could make out a figure at the top. Not one of the EOTs, but Inspector Doyle, hands on hips.

Damn.

I motioned to Michael to wait by the companionway. To Doyle, I said, “The steps to the platform where our perp kept his parking tickets was booby-trapped. He had one of the meter maid wands down there.” Putting the best face on the situation, I added, “I tossed my pack on it and set it off. Lots of dirt, spray of cement: Flash and Sound device.”

Doyle’s eyes narrowed. He glared at me and muttered something I couldn’t make out.

From the street new sirens whined. Brakes squealed.

“Place’ll be crawling with press,” Doyle grumbled. “They’ll be here before the EOTs roll. We’ll have patrol contact everyone on the rim, again. We scoured the canyon Monday morning. This device has been planted since then.” He glanced around the rim of the canyon. I could almost see him figuring how many men, how many hours it was going to eat up, how long he and I were going to have to fend off the press.

Slowly, he focused on me as if he’d never seen me, or any other representative of my species, before. “Mother of God, Smith, you look like the missing link. That’s all we’ll need on the front pages. Not only can’t we get a clue to the parking perp, but we can’t even stay clean.”

“In future I’ll only take on nuclear blasts!” I said in full sarcasm. I hadn’t realized how wired and stressed and downright angry I was.

He started to retort but caught the words before they came out. Then he looked me over again. “You okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked in a tone I suspected he used with his daughters.

“I’m fine, just a little stiff.”

“I’ll have a uniform take you to Emergency.”

Pereira strode across the path. “Inspect—”

I laughed. “Inspector, I climbed out of the canyon; I can drive to the Emergency Room.”

“Inspector!” Pereira stepped partway between us. “We found Madeleine Riordan’s husband.”

Doyle turned his glare on Pereira.

“I’ve been after the man for days,” I said. “Where is he?”

“In town. In his office. Seeing spaniels like any other day.”

“Holy Mother, Pereira! What kind of man is he?” Doyle demanded.

“His staff
must
have told him to call us,” I added. “So he ignores ten or twelve messages from the police?” I tried to run my thoughts fast-forward. Where had Madeleine Riordan’s husband been? Why hadn’t he come back before? Why hadn’t he even driven her to Canyonview? Was he too disinterested to care, or had Madeleine left without his knowing? Had she escaped? Because of him? Herbert Timms had ignored me for days; now he would pay attention and he’d give me answers! I could feel the muscles of my back and legs tightening, ready to go after him.

Still, it galled me to leave the investigation here. When the EOTs gave their first report, I wanted to hear every word. And wanted to question Michael who’d made it into the canyon so fast; ditto, Champion, and Delia, who hadn’t shown her face yet. What was with her? No one is so laid-back they can’t be bothered to step out their door when a bomb goes off in their backyard. I had to decide quickly. There’d be plenty of patrol here to do the preliminary interviews. I could finish with Timms and get back here to do the final. “Inspector, I need to get to Timms before any more time elapses.”

“Smith, I’ll tell you what you need to be doing. You need to be going to the Emergency Room. Now go on.”

“I’ll stop by the hospital later. After I finish with Timms—”

He grabbed my shoulder. “You get yourself to Emergency now. When they finish with you, then you worry about these meter maid incidents. You pull every report on every one of them. We’ve got to find this guy before he blows up the entire city.”

My fingers were squeezing together as if Herbert Timms were about to slip out between them. “Inspector, we don’t know this explosion is connected to the meter pranks.”

Doyle breathed slowly, angrily. “If it’s not, fine; you can write up a report supporting that theory. But, Smith, if this is the work of our perp, we’ve got ourselves a guy who’s gone over the edge. He’s setting traps for no apparent reason.”