Boobytrap

12

Long, restless night. I woke up half a dozen times, the last one at six-twenty. Tuesday A.M. was cloudy, windy, the lake choppy and the color of slate; it matched my mood.

As I stood under the shower I tried again to figure a reasonable plan of action. None of my options looked any better in the daylight than they had during the night. I did not have enough facts to sic the local law on Jacob Strayhorn, whoever the hell he really was; if I even hinted that he might be guilty of a homicide, and it turned out he was an innocent party and had more or less legitimate reasons for using an alias, I was wide open for all sorts of legal ramifications. So the thing to do was to gather more information. Which meant another talk with him, and if I could work it, a look around his rented cottage when he wasn’t there. I didn’t much care for that last, but if it became necessary I’d have to risk it. Quid pro quo.

I toweled off, put on a clean shirt, decided a clean pair of trousers was in order as well, and opened the closet door — something I had stupidly neglected to do last night. And then stood flat-footed with my chest going tight.

The Mossberg .410 shotgun was missing.

The gun cabinet’s lock had been forced; the glass door wobbled open when I tugged on it. A box of Magnum shells lay on a shelf at the bottom. Just one box — and I was pretty sure there’d been two.

Now I knew part of the reason he’d come here twice yesterday. The first time to look around, and he’d spotted the weapons when he opened the closet door. The second time had been to swipe the Mossberg.

Why? And why hadn’t he taken the shotgun on the first pass through?

Strayhorn, dammit, I thought. Has to be.

I was mad as hell by the time I finished dressing. And not all the anger was directed outwardly. I was thinking now, much later than I should’ve considered it, that Chuck had gone off fishing with Strayhorn this morning. I should have put a stop to that idea last night, after Tamara’s call. No reason to believe then or now that Strayhorn had any harmful intentions toward the boy, but that missing shotgun added menace to an already tense situation.

The Colt Bodyguard was on the nightstand where I’d laid it as a nighttime precaution. I zipped it into the pocket of my windbreaker. Next to an assault rifle, a shotgun is the deadliest of small arms, but only at close to medium range; in very tight quarters your self-defense survival rate is a hell of a lot higher with a handgun. The thing to do first of all—

— was to answer the phone. The bell shrilled, slicing through the early-morning quiet, as I came out of the bedroom.

I got it on the second ring, with my eyes on my watch. Seven-ten. A call this early, here, couldn’t be anything good.

It wasn’t. Pat Dixon’s voice said my name interrogatively, then his name without waiting for a reply. There was a quality in it, a kind of suppressed urgency, that screwed the tension in me down another couple of notches.

“Listen,” he said, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Name it.”

“Go get Marian and Chuck and drive them back to the city. Right away.”

“What—”

“Don’t bring them here — our house. I’ll give you another address, friends of ours.”

“Okay, but tell me why first.”

“Precaution. I don’t think… I don’t want to think they’re in any danger up there, but we can’t afford to take chances.”

“Pat, what’s got you so spooked?”

He drew a heavy breath; I heard it hiss like steam when he released it. “We’ve got a probable ID on the bomber finally. Ninety-five percent probability match. Dave Maccerone just called from the Hall. It looks… chances are there’s at least a third person and probably more on his hit list. Third one is me.”

“…Are you sure?”

“Yeah. His name is Latimer, Donald Michael Latimer. Former financial consultant here in the city, fairly successful at one time. Ex-Marine with explosives training. Went over the edge five years ago when he found out his wife was having an affair and put a boobytrap bomb in the trunk of the boyfriend’s car, hooked up to the trunk release. It didn’t go off because of a bad solder joint, but a second bomb under the back porch of the man’s house did go off — cut him up with flying glass and debris. Latimer claimed he didn’t intend bodily harm, the bombs were just messages to leave his wife alone.”

“You prosecuted the case, is that it?”

“That’s it. Doug Cotter and me — Doug was on the D.A.‘s staff then. Judge Turnbull was on the bench.” Dixon blew out another ragged breath. “We went after Latimer pretty hard. Mainly because he had a classic profile — intelligent but egocentric, with sociopathic tendencies and a paramilitary attitude. Collected guns, including a couple of semiautomatic weapons. Even had a subscription to Soldier of Fortune. Workaholic, too, totally driven. Add all of that together and you had a ticking bomb in human form, capable of much greater violence than he’d shown toward his wife and her lover. We’d have let his lawyers plead him down if he’d been willing to accept psychiatric help, but Latimer refused and insisted on pleading innocent. We felt putting him away for the maximum was our best option. Tried to get him on attempted homicide, but the jury felt there was reasonable doubt on that issue. They convicted on two other counts — explosion of a destructive device and setting boobytraps. Turnbull gave him five years on each count.”

“How long was he in prison?”

“Five years total. Paroled seven weeks ago. Maccerone rousted his parole officer out of bed before he called me. Last contact the PO had with Latimer was three weeks ago. He tried to get in touch with him last week, when a job offer came up, couldn’t find him, and violated him right away. No indication of Latimer’s whereabouts since. There’s an APB out on him now.”

My stomach had begun to cramp; I sat at the kitchen table, leaning forward to ease the ache. A measure of fear had mixed with the anger in me. I could see the rest of it coming now, like a storm roiling wild and black on a near horizon.

“Maybe he’s left the state, maybe he hasn’t,” Dixon said. “Maccerone thinks there’s a chance of it, that’s why I’m still… why nothing’s happened to me yet. But I don’t buy it. Best I can figure is that Latimer set a boobytrap for me somewhere and I’ve been blind lucky enough so far not to trigger it. Charley Seltzer’s bringing his bomb techs out here to the house—”

“What was Latimer’s last known address?”

“…What?”

“Latimer. Where was he living the last time his PO saw him?”

“Daly City. He took an apartment there when he was released.

But he only stayed a month. The PO should’ve checked to make sure the address remained current, but he’s got a heavy caseload and he screwed up.”

“What does Latimer look like?”

“Why? What’re you—”

“Come on, Pat. Describe him.”

“Midforties, average height, average weight. Brown hair, light-blue eyes…”

“Does the name Strayhorn mean anything to you?”

“What name was that?”

“Strayhorn. Jacob Strayhorn.”

“How did— Yes, that’s the man Latimer’s wife was having the affair with. A pharmacist on West Portal. She’s married to Strayhorn now, they live in his home state, Indiana, and they’re the other possibles on Latimer’s hit list. Why the hell are you asking all these questions? You know something, don’t you?”

I told him. Quick and terse, not pulling any punches. The only things I didn’t go into were the missing shotgun and the fact that his son was very likely in Latimer’s company this minute.

“Jesus!” he said when I was done. “You’re telling me Latimer’s been up there since last Thursday?”

“Waiting for you to show, evidently. He must’ve found out somehow about your cabin up here and that you were going on vacation.”

“I never made a secret of it. But why would he go after me at the lake instead of— Oh shit, you don’t think…”

“What?”

“Not just me, Marian and Chuck, too?”

“Easy. There’s no reason to believe that.”

“You’ve got to get them out of there!”

“I will. Just stay cool. He hasn’t done anything to them in four days, he’s not going to. It’s you he’s after.”

“But why at the lake? There has to be a reason.”

“Whatever it is,” I said, “it’s keeping him here. Tied in, maybe, with the reason he used different types of bombs on Cotter and Turnbull. Something different for you, too.”

“Different. Bombs, boobytraps…”

The way he said that prompted me to ask, “Suggest something to you?”

Span of silence. Then Dixon said, talking to himself as much as to me, “Tripwire, that’s how Cotter… and in the judge’s boobytrap, those sharpened steel rods… Christ almighty!”

“Pat?”

“Not rods, stakes — sharpened stakes! That’s why he’s up there waiting for me… the sick son of a bitch!”

I said sharply, “Make sense.”

“His boobytraps, all three of them, must be tied to the penal code.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The statute we convicted him on — the boobytrap statute, Chapter Three point Two of the California Penal Code. One of the section subdivisions reads… let me think… it says ‘Boobytraps may include but are not limited to explosive devices attached to tripwires or other triggering mechanisms, sharpened stakes, and lines or wire with hooks attached.’ Hooks. You see it?”

I saw it, all right, the way Latimer had twisted the statute to suit his own perverted brand of revenge. My hand was slick on the receiver as I got to my feet. “Fishhooks,” I said.

“Has to be. Something to do with fishhooks.”

And in my mind, then, I was reliving a few minutes of yesterday. Seeing Chuck emerge from the storeroom under the deck, carrying his father’s heavy tackle box. Hearing him say Dad’s got a lot more junk in here than I remember. Feeling the weight of the box as I lugged it up into the cabin, set it on the floor. Not hard enough to jar it, but I could have, and if I had…

“Pat,” I said, “how fast can you get a bomb squad up here?”

“…You have an idea where he put it?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

“Where, for God’s sake?”

“Your tackle box, the one you keep in the storeroom.” That’s why the padlock was off the storeroom door, I was thinking. The second one, from the boathouse, was to confuse the issue. “How fast on the bomb squad?”

“Nearest one’d be Sacramento. They’d have to assemble and fly in by helicopter… couple of hours, soonest.”

“Okay. One thing, Pat. I’m not leaving here with your family until I’m sure Latimer has been neutralized.”

“That’s not your problem. The county sheriff—”

“It’ll take him and deputies a while to get here from Quincy.” My problem, all right, and for more reasons than that one. “You’ll have to call them, let them know. No time for me to do it, and you’ve got the authority.”

“First thing. Where’ll they find Latimer?”

I told Dixon which cottage he’d rented. “He may be there, he may not. I’ll try to pinpoint him. Have the sheriff look for me at Judson’s.”

“You make sure Marian and Chuck are safe before you do anything else.”

“I will. Have you talked to Marian?”

“This morning? No.”

“Well, I doubt they’re together. Chuck’s gone fishing at Chuck’s Hole. I’ll have to go get him.” Dixon said something but I kept talking through it. “You do the explaining to Marian — I’ll have her call you from Judson’s. Don’t tell her anything about Strayhorn being Latimer or about the boobytrap. She doesn’t need to know any of that yet.”

“All right. Move, will you?”

“Moving,” I said.

I banged the phone down and went out of there on the run.