The man who came into Diane’s hospital room the next morning was easy to spot as a police detective. He was short and broad shouldered but had a narrow waist. He wore a sport coat and a necktie, something few men did during Southern California summers, particularly when the sun was hot and the sky that deep cloudless blue.
This one opened his coat so she could see his captain’s badge, and said, “Hello, Sergeant Hines. I’m Captain Bart Almanzo, Homicide Special. I wondered if we could talk for a few minutes. I promised the nurse I wouldn’t tire you out.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’ve heard of you, of course. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m in charge of the murder of the fourteen bomb technicians,” he said. “We’ve got a few issues that came up recently, and I thought it would be better to talk to you here instead of waiting. Do you think the person who put the bomb in your apartment is the same one who killed the fourteen at the house in Encino?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I imagine you’ve already talked with Captain Stahl about the technical stuff.”
“Captain Stahl was here last night, but we didn’t get into that too deeply. I was kept unconscious until a day or so ago, and I’m just sorting out impressions and memories. We’ll talk more about it later on, I’m sure.”
“Did he agree it was the same bomber?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why are you both sure?”
“In this city we have lots of scares and a small but steady supply of actual bombs. Most of the bombs we see are rudimentary—black powder in a pipe, or a few sticks of dynamite, or nitrate fertilizer mixed with motor oil. Sometimes there will be a grenade from some old war. I got a land mine once, and someone I know got a mortar shell. Now suddenly we have a few that are all complicated, well designed, insidious, and psychologically astute. The bomb in my apartment was one of those.”
“What sort of bomb did he use in your apartment?”
“He built an initiator that looked like a small version of the fuzes they put on bombs they drop from airplanes. It was cylindrical, and it had a little piece of metal like a propeller that spun around. In the real ones, when the bomb is locked onto the plane’s rack, there’s a length of stiff arming wire attached to the bomb rack that keeps the propeller from spinning around. When the bomb leaves the rack, the arming wire stays, and then the propeller on the fuze is free to turn. As it spins, it lines up a striker with the initiator. You can set the fuze to go off when it hits the ground, or just spins a set number of times. The wire keeps it from blowing up on or near the plane.
“He hid a small bomb inside the glass fixture for the ceiling light in my living room. He had a couple of ways to make the bomb go off. When I stepped inside and turned on the light, it didn’t go on, but there was no pop sound or flash. That didn’t seem right. So I used the flashlight attached to my Glock to scan the dark room for traps and triggers. When I was looking for the actual bomb it occurred to me there was one place I was sure not to look—in the burned-out light fixture. When I raised the flashlight to look, I saw a propeller spinning inside the glass dome. I’d started the initiator’s arming sequence when I turned on the light switch. By then all I could do was take cover.”
“Should we be contacting the manufacturers of military fuzes?”
“No. I’m positive he made this one. I’m not sure what turned the propeller. There might have been a small electric motor spinning it on a screw, or it might have been the spring mechanism of an old-fashioned metal windup toy. The spinner seemed to be the kind of thin, cheap metal that those toys had—usually tin.”
“How did you take cover?”
“I dashed to the next room—the dining room—dropped to the floor, and rolled under my antique wooden sideboard.”
“Is that what all the wood in the photographs came from?”
“I haven’t seen any pictures, but probably. The sideboard was made of maple planks over an inch thick. It’s so heavy that when I had it delivered, it took five men and two wheeled dollies to get it into the building. And I had it full of stuff.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“Things everybody has but seldom uses. I had a few metal trays—pewter, brass, stainless steel, some candlesticks, the good silverware in its carrying case, some pots and pans, and a waffle iron. And of course, all the good tablecloths and napkins and trivets and things you use once a year.”
“Do you think the sideboard is what saved you?”
“I don’t really know, but it couldn’t have hurt. I’d have to look at the blast pattern, see what’s embedded in the floor and walls and furniture, and maybe figure out what quantity of explosive would have fitted in the light fixture. You should probably ask Captain Stahl about that. I’m sure he will have looked, and his judgment is much better than mine.”
“I’ve heard he knows his explosives. Is he a pretty good boss?”
“We all have the greatest respect for him.”
“That reminds me. There’s another bit to clear up, and now is probably as good a time as any.”
She waited. He behaved as though he were approaching a small, wild creature that might get away if he moved too quickly.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and then he said, “You had a leather bag jammed into the space under the sideboard between you and the bomb. That may have helped too. You remember it? It seemed to be an overnight bag.”
“A travel bag. Yes,” she said. She sounded like a liar, even to herself. This suddenly seemed to be going in a bad direction.
“It contained some of your clothes. Can you tell me why? You were at work all that day, and you were scheduled to do a full shift the next day.”
“I was going downstairs to do laundry later. It made a good laundry bag.” She kept her eyes on him as she added, “The net ones you can see through make me uncomfortable. I don’t like people looking at my underwear and everything. It’s just a bit too much sharing.”
Almanzo looked at her sympathetically. “You understand that when the crime scene people arrived, there was good reason to believe you were another homicide victim, not a survivor. Your apartment was a crime scene, and they had to go over everything carefully.”
“Of course.”
“Is there anyone other than the bomber who might have entered your apartment that day? Another male?”
“Not that I know of. I haven’t given any friends a key, and the landlord has to notify me before he comes in.”
“Did you have your boyfriend over, or anything like that?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You understand that nobody on the force wants to embarrass you. But the specialists went over everything. There was male DNA on some of the clothing in your bag. What your cell phone bill showed was that at ten on the night after the bomb was removed from the gas station in Studio City, you called three one zero, five five eight—”
“Yes I did,” she interrupted. “Do you know whose number that is?”
“I told you, every lead gets checked.”
“I was calling the commander of my unit, who is also the supervisor of my three-person team. I had never met him before that day, but we had both been through a horrific, scary experience, and I wanted to talk to him about it.”
Almanzo looked at her for a second. “Good enough for me,” he said. “That is as far as I go. I respect you for immediately telling me the truth. But I’ve got to say one more thing. A secret is something only one person knows. In a homicide investigation everything gets collected, and a lot of eyes get to see it. Even on the smallest matter, do not get caught saying anything that contradicts the evidence.”
“I won’t. Thank you for letting me know about this.”
“I’m leaving my card on the table here. I’ll also give one to the nurse at the counter out there. If anything I need to know comes to your attention, give me a call, night or day.” In a moment he was out the door.
She wasn’t sure what to feel about her relationship with Dick Stahl. When she woke up from her coma she wondered if she’d dreamed what had happened. This morning she felt confused about it, but unable to think about anything else for long periods. She knew she had been very interested in Dick Stahl before she was hurt, but now the whole thought of the relationship seemed distant, as though her injuries had made her into someone else.
She had begun to think about him again after they’d talked. But then Captain Almanzo had drifted in and taken the oxygen out of the air. She felt alone and in trouble. She felt an urge to call Dick, and maybe that meant she still had real feelings for him, but she didn’t have a phone except the hospital phone. If she used it, Dick’s number would be listed on her hospital bill. She began to think about ways to get a new secret cell phone.
Diane knew she had to get her mind under control, and not make things worse for her or Stahl. But it seemed to her the world wasn’t paying attention to the right things. The whole police force was looking for a mass murderer who was not even close to being identified or located. But they were not too busy to go after two police officers who might be getting too close.
When the nurse came back and gave her the tiny plastic cup of the nauseating purple liquid to put her to sleep, she was glad to drink it.