Dying Embers (34 page)

Rusty walked around the end of the counter, made a u-turn, and sat at my feet. I forked the roast out of the pan—a pork roast Wendy had rubbed with sage and cooked in a nest of potatoes, carrots, and fat slices of onion with a little garlic salt—and set it on the platter. Rusty studied my moves with bright, expectant eyes and about an inch of pink tongue lolling from his open mouth.

“Okay, here it is, Pop,” said Ben. The TV set showed Hank Dunphy, ersatz fiduciary for Light and Energy Applications, climbing into a silver Mercedes SL with a shoebox under his arm. In the lower right of the screen the time rolled continuously—10:15
A.M.

I sliced a steaming sliver off the end of the roast and pushed it aside with the fork. Rusty reeled in his tongue and danced his front paws on the linoleum.

“He only begs because you encourage him,” said Wendy.

“I am the soul of canine discipline,” I said. “Your guys shoot this out of a car?”

“Rented a van,” said Wendy.

I winked at Rusty and mouthed, “Too hot.” He wiped his nose with his tongue.

The next shot was Dunphy walking into the Old Kent Bank branch on Twenty-eighth Street in Grand Rapids. The trip had taken twenty-two minutes.

Wendy took the roaster pan and spooned the potatoes and carrots into a serving bowl. I made half-inch slices of roast. The scene on the TV wiped, nine minutes had passed, and Dunphy was exiting the bank with a fat white plastic bag the size of a football, rolled up and tucked under his arm.

“You want to fast forward this?” said Ben. “He just goes to lunch.”

“Let it run,” said Wendy. She mixed cornstarch in a cup of water for gravy.

Dunphy wheeled his Mercedes into Popeye's Chicken on South Division Ave. Rusty's nose did the boogie-woogie around the end of his face. I flipped him the sliver I'd let cool. Dunphy backed his car into a space at the rear of the building. The surveillance vehicle had obviously pulled into the drive-thru line.

“Risky,” I said.

“You. Are. Feeding. The. Dog.” said Wendy.

“Little piece of fat,” I said.

“What's risky?” said Ben.

“Pulling into the drive-thru line,” I said. Rusty wiped his muzzle, his tongue as big a dishrag. “If the subject pulls out, you're stuck and your surveillance is over.” I cut another small sliver. Two men walked up to Dunphy's car.

“Right there,” said Wendy. “The guy in the windbreaker gets the shoe-box and the guy in the suit gets the bag. I hope you know who they are, because this surveillance tied up two of my people and cost Lambert over a thousand dollars.”

“Cheap at twice the price,” I said. “The guy in the windbreaker made an appearance at my office the day I left for Brandonport—done up like a deliveryman—and said he had a package for me. I saw him again when I got back. He drove the ‘cable truck' the cops found in the gravel quarry. I think he's on the FBI's short list of things to do.

“The guy in the suit is a fellow by the name of Luis. I don't know his last name, but he's the leader of the Chingos. I'm told his street name is Poco Loco.”

“What's a Chingo?” said Ben.

“Street gang,” I said. I flipped Rusty the sliver. Wendy picked up the platter.

“Let's eat while we still have some roast,” she said.

• • •

After dinner Ben re-embarked on his video odyssey, Wendy fixed a plate for Daniel, and Rusty tidied up the scraps. I retired to the bathroom, made a pile of my clothes, and filled the bathtub—an oversized fiberglass number with waterjets.

With the jets on full whoosh, I reclined in the hot water with a wet washcloth on my eyes—the nose brace had come completely unstuck—and replayed the surveillance video in my mind. Deliveryman/Andy had done the talking, finger pointing, and instructing—made Dunphy sit in the car while he loomed over him in the open door.

Luis, in the same suit I'd seen him wearing at The Rabbit, had taken the white plastic bag and made an insolent face. Deliveryman/Andy had leaned into Luis's space and made slow instructions—maybe threats—
around an index finger hovering scarce inches from Luis's nose.

Deliveryman/Andy had slammed the door of the Mercedes, made some last pronouncement, and walked off with Luis, the shoebox under his arm. They had departed in a pale green sedan—a disappointment—I had expected a little more style from Luis. Wendy's operative had zoomed tight on the license plate: Wisconsin, MKT … something, I'd jotted the number into my notepad.

The bathroom door opened and closed. The lights went out.

“I thought I'd find you here,” said Wendy.

“Everybody has to be somewhere,” I said and lifted the washcloth off one eye. Moonlight frosted the room with a silver glow. Wendy stood beside the tub in her robe.

“Where are you?”

“Hoping for an out-of-body experience,” I said. I rinsed the cloth, folded it, and put it back on my eyes.

“Why's that?”

“Because the fit inside this body has a few pinches, just now.”

I heard Wendy's robe hit the floor and felt her step into the tub, a foot on either side of my hips. She whispered, “Let's check the fit in this body.”

• • •

I don't know if Dunphy had more lumps than I did, but his were fresher. He sat, catatonic, on my office sofa. His hand clutched the handle of the briefcase. Blood dripped from his wrist onto the upholstery.

Marg sat at her desk, her eyes mostly whites and her face pale. She shook her head at me as I opened the door.

Dunphy wore sunglasses and the same suit I'd seen in the surveillance film. His collar loose and his tie at half mast, he turned his face toward me. The left side of his face was purple and a half-size larger than the right. His lip was torn but had stopped bleeding. The left sleeve of his tan cashmere suit coat bore a rust-brown stain from the elbow to the wrist, probably from wiping his lip. I couldn't see his eyes.

I asked him, “Why did you come here, Hank?”

He said, “I'm sorry.” His hand began to tremble on the handle of the briefcase.

“The briefcase,” Marg squeaked.

I slipped my hand around his and tightened his finger against the handle. “Don't do it; you won't have to be sorry.”

“They have my wife and daughter.”

I looked him straight in the sunglasses and told him, “Ten seconds after this goes off, they'll kill 'em.”

“No,” he said.

“Think about it,” I said. “Once you do this—give them what they want—they'll have no use for your family.”

The telephone rang.

Marg picked it up. “Peter A. Ladin Agency.” Her voice would have sounded calm to anyone who didn't know her. “No, Mr. Hardin isn't in yet … He called. He had to stop at the courthouse. … Maybe an hour or so. … Would you like to leave a number? … Certainly.”

Marg shook her head, her mouth not quite closed.

I told Marg, “Just go. And pull the fire alarm on the way out.”

“No,” said Dunphy.

I squeezed his hand. He winced.

“He's out there,” said Dunphy, his voice an octave high and strained through glass shards. “He's watching. He can set this off.”

I eased up.

“If she leaves, he'll set it off. If there's a fire alarm, he'll set it off. If he knows you're here, that's it.”

“I had to have walked right by him,” I said.

“I wasn't sure when you walked in,” said Dunphy, “not until you spoke. When we met, you had a moustache. They said you had a brace on your face, and walked with a cane.”

“Is there a trigger in the handle?”

“There's a piece of fishing leader … it goes,” Dunphy swallowed, “from my thumb … through a hole in the briefcase. It's on a spring. If I pull out, it goes off. If I let it go slack, it goes off.”

I inspected the handle. They had installed the line into Dunphy's palm with a fishhook sunk into the base of his thumb.

I looked at Marg. “You can go to the far end of the building. Get up to the ground level.”

“If I don't answer the telephone, they might set it off,” she said.

“I'm taking Hank into my office,” I said, and nodded toward the open doorway. Dunphy eased off the sofa, my hand still clutching his hand to the handle of the briefcase.

“They said I had one foot in prison and the other in the grave,” said Dunphy. “Said if I did this they'd provide for my family. If I didn't, they'd just kill us.”

Marg pushed a pink message slip at me as we passed her. She took the telephone and climbed under her desk. The message was from Detective Van Huis: “Call me.”

I sat Dunphy in my desk chair, the briefcase on the desk, and picked up the telephone. I pecked out the number for the direct line into Van Huis's desk.

“Van Huis, Kentwood Detectives,” he said.

“Hardin,” I said. “This is important.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Wrote my report this morning and some fed came in with the chief and took it—made me sign some paper—if I mention the incident they'll send me to Allenwood to play shuffleboard with Mob guys.” He hung up.

I dialed back. Van Huis had it in the middle the first ring. “Better not be Hardin,” he said.

“Listen,” I said. “This is important.”

“Lose this number.”

“I've got a man with a bomb in my office.”

“Dispatch,” Van Huis said, his voice muffled—maybe his hand over the phone. “Richie, get me dispatch on your line.” His voice louder, he said, “All right, Art. Talk to me.”

“Got a man outside with a radio detonator,” I said. “You roll up like gangbusters and this thing goes off. I'm going to put you on the speaker.” I clicked on the speaker and hung up the telephone.

“I'm recording this line,” said Van Huis. “Tell me about the package.”

“It's in a briefcase tethered to the arm of Hank Dunphy.”

“What's it made out of?”

“It looked like sticks of clay or putty,” said Dunphy, “smelled sweet like candy, marzipan.”

“Probably Semtex,” I said.

Van Huis asked, “How much?”

“Weighs like a phone book,” said Dunphy, sweat beading on his now blanched-white forehead. “Get out to my house. They've got my family.”

“We're talking a smoking hole in the ground,” I said.

“Someone is on the way,” said Van Huis. “I'm going to talk to the man with the bomb. What's your name?”

“Hank Dunphy. I live on Rosebud Court in Ada. They have my wife and daughter. It's a Tudor, the only one on the cul-de-sac.”

“How many men are in the house?”

“Three. They were in the den—in the back of the house off the pool. There's a sliding glass door.”

“What are they driving?”

“They don't have a car,” said Dunphy. He closed his eyes and seemed to fight for his balance in the chair. I put my free hand on his shoulder. “They used the car they came in to bring me here.”

“Tell me about the car.”

“It's green. A sedan.”

“Taurus?” I asked.

Dunphy turned his face to me. “Yes, I think.”

“Look for a Taurus with Wisconsin plates,” I said. I thumbed open my notepad and read him the number.

Dunphy exhaled a word, barely a whisper, “How?”

I said, “I'm a detective. I know things, Hank. I know Scott Lambert was framed and you helped. Why don't you tell us now? Before we all die and you can't tell us—and you have to face eternity with the lie on your lips.”

“I gave them the soda can with Scott's cigar butt in it,” said Dunphy. “I gave them hair from Scott's hairbrush, from the restroom in his office.”

“Who?” said Van Huis.

“The men who made the bomb. They broke into Hardin's office and left the soda can. I don't know what they did with the hair.”

The office door opened.

“What was in the shoe box you gave them yesterday?” I said.

“Oh, my God,” said Dunphy.

A man holding a fire department badge in his hand walked into my office. He was lean and athletic despite stark white hair and a furrowed face. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and blue work trousers.

“What was in the box, Hank?”

Dunphy didn't answer. He looked at the fireman.

“Mike Fulton,” said the fireman, “I'm not a bomb guy, but—”

“Engineering samples and data CD's,” Dunphy said.

“—I was in ordinance disposal before I retired from the military. I know about plastic.”

“Mike, this is Van Huis,” said the speaker telephone. “You don't have to
stay. We've got someone from GRPD on the way.”

“Jesus, Jerry,” said Fulton, “I'm here, let me take a look at this.” He slipped on a pair of reading glasses and bent to examine the briefcase.

Dunphy's hand began to tremble. I firmed my grip. “Just try to relax your fingers,” I said. “I've got a good hold.”

Fulton produced a box knife from his pants pocket and sliced through the side of the briefcase, from end to end, along the edge next to the handle. Setting the box cutter aside, he hauled out a palm sized hand mirror and a pencil. With the rubber end of the pencil he lifted up the slit and peeked into the case using light reflected with the hand mirror.

“Definitely a bomb,” said Fulton. “Plastic with an electrically fired blasting cap. There's a deadman's switch and a radio receiver.”

“Can you leave it and vacate the building?” said Van Huis.

The telephone rang in the front office.

“If this amount of plastic detonates,” said Fulton, “Flo Jo couldn't run fast enough.”

“Get it off the man's arm and evacuate the building,” said Van Huis.

“He'll set it off,” said Dunphy, his whole arm shaking.

“I've got a little girl on line two who wants to talk to her daddy,” Marg announced.