“Vlodek, this is Agent Till of A.T.F.,” the Bohemian said.
Agent Till stood up to shake hands. He was shorter than he seemed sitting down, no more than five-seven or -eight, and stocky. He looked like he could wrestle crocodiles. And win.
“And the chief, of course,” the Bohemian finished.
Chief Morris of the Maple Hills police, red faced, wearing a tan sports jacket and the kind of blue tie they give to tollbooth attendants, sat across the table from the Bohemian. He was also in his late fifties. He nodded but didn’t bother to get up. I’d met the chief when I’d gone to Village Hall to purchase an auto license. He must have heard the counter clerk repeat my address, because he came bounding out of his office to introduce himself. I thought it odd, the chief of police introducing himself to a car license applicant, and realized, reluctantly, that it had everything to do with Crystal Waters and not the subtle sophistication of my voice.
“As soon as Bob Ballsard arrives, we’ll begin,” the Bohemian said. Agent Till sat down and went back to examining the photocopies of the two notes. I took a chair on the chief’s side of the table.
No one spoke. It was like we had arrived early for a wake and were waiting for someone to finish powdering the guest of honor and wheel him in.
Bob Ballsard, chairman of the Board of Members of Crystal Waters, and future inheritor of great wealth, breezed in at five o’clock. He wore summer-weight gray slacks, a navy blazer like mine but undoubtedly acquired at five times the cost and most certainly without any trace of ketchup on its sleeve, and a white shirt with agreen tie that had little sailboats on it. He caught me leaning to take a discreet look at his shoes. He was wearing polished penny loafers, not Topsiders, and I was relieved to see he had on socks. He acknowledged me with a frown and a narrowing of his eyes. To the others, he offered a perfunctory apology that meant nothing of the sort, ignored the chair between the Bohemian and Stanley, and went down to sit at the foot of the long table.
Agent Till unstrapped his wristwatch and placed it in the center of the table in front of him. “Mr. Chernek has advised me of a developing situation at Crystal Waters.” His voice was raspy and had the hard edge of Chicago’s south side. “Before I proceed, I must tell you that for now, my role in this matter is strictly advisory. This matter is still under the jurisdiction of Chief Morris.”
Everyone looked at Chief Morris. Morris looked at the A.T.F. agent and cleared his throat. “That’s mostly a formality, though. A.T.F. will assume control of this case?”
“If the situation later warrants.” Till turned to the Bohemian. “Let’s start with a summary of where we are now, so we’re all singing out of the same hymnal.”
The Bohemian began with the letter that came in 1970, prior to the guardhouse explosion, and the subsequent letter and ten-thousand-dollar payment. He then moved to the two recent letters, the bombings of the Farraday house and the lamppost, and the five hundred thousand in cash left in the Dumpster. He ended with my discovery, the previous afternoon, of the extra wiring underneath the lamppost. He did it all in ten sentences.
Till looked at me. “And from this you’ve concluded…?”
“The bombs in Crystal Waters are wired to one or more remote locations. The bomber triggered the Farraday house and the lamppost from someplace else.” I paused and then said it: “The bombs are all wired together. He can flip the remaining switches at one time, to send all of Crystal Waters up in one huge fireball.”
“Jesus,” Chief Morris said next to me, but everyone else wassilent. The Bohemian, Ballsard, and Stanley had known since I called the Bohemian that morning. Stanley grabbed for his handkerchief anyway. The Bohemian and Ballsard sat like granite.
Till turned to the Bohemian. “To date, there have been just the two payments made?”
“Correct,” the Bohemian said. “Ten thousand, back in 1970, and then five hundred thousand last Sunday night.”
“It didn’t occur to you to inform us before last Sunday night so we could monitor the drop site?”
“We were hoping that, if we paid him, he would go away like the last time.” The Bohemian’s face was expressionless.
Till turned to scan the faces of everyone else at the table. To the Bohemian, he said, “Your man came back. He will come back again. The only way to stop him is to catch him. That’s why it’s a damned pity nobody was watching that drop site.”
I cleared my throat. “I was.”
The room went quiet again, but this time it was as if the air had been suddenly sucked out of it. The Bohemian and Stanley looked away, but the eyes of the others were hot on my skin.
Till looked at me. “You were there?” he asked in a slow, deliberate voice.
“In a garage across the alley.”
“Jesus, Elstrom-” Ballsard muttered.
Till cut him off. “Let him continue.”
I took them through the kids passing the basketball, Stanley putting the bag of money in the Dumpster, the arguing midnight lovers, the garbage truck arriving at dawn, and my futile search for the money. To me, my voice sounded normal enough, but I felt like I was wearing a clown suit and a red rubber nose.
“No chance the garbage men hauled it off?” Till asked.
“More and more, I’m thinking that could have happened. I think they tossed the top bag from the Dumpster into the truck before I got to them.”
Till studied me for a minute and then said, “How long were you asleep?” The contempt in his words cut like a razor through a rotted peach.
“I took every precaution. I sat tilted-”
Till shook his head abruptly. “You fell asleep.” Dismissing me, his eyes turned to the Bohemian, then to Ballsard, Stanley, and back to the Bohemian. “You’ve all been cute, keeping this to yourselves. What you’ve done with your five hundred thousand is give your bomber a taste for easy money. Next time he’ll want a million plus, guaranteed.”
Ballsard made a noise like something was stuck in his throat. “We can’t come up with that.”
Till ignored Ballsard; he wasn’t done with me. “What exactly was your role supposed to be in this?”
“I was hired to examine the notes.”
“You’re a document examiner?”
“I provide that service. I brought the notes to a well-regarded document specialist.”
“He’s not much of anything, according to the Tribune.” Chief Morris jerked his thumb at me as leaned across the table toward Stanley. “You brought in this jamoke without bothering to contact us?” It was theater, and everybody knew it. Morris didn’t want to touch the Gateville explosions; he wanted to ride in parades and pose for the Assembler next to new squad cars. But Morris was right. I was too obviously a mistake.
The Bohemian spoke up, to cover both Stanley and Ballsard. “For the record, Chief, it was I who insisted on pursuing the investigation privately.”
“Let’s move on.” Agent Till held up a copy of the contractor list. “We do have a lead. An electrician, no?”
“Likely as not,” I said. “Anybody else stringing wires in an electrician’s trench would have been noticed by the electricians. And stopped.”
Till set the list back on the table. “There were five electrical outfits working at Crystal Waters, all of which are still in business. How many have you interviewed, Elstrom?”
I’d told him about hiring Ziloski to look at the lamppost. Stanley said he hadn’t gotten around to his four.
“The chief and I will get to them,” Till said. He looked down the long table at Bob Ballsard. “There’s one more thing. You’ve got to evacuate.”