Boobytrap

From the notebooks of Donald Michael Latimer

Sat., June 29-8:45 P.M.

Damn Dixon!

I had everything planned so perfectly. Timing, setting, method, everything. And he’s spoiled it by staying in San Francisco and sending his wife and kid up here with a detective, of all things. A fucking private cop.

Does he suspect? Has he figured some of it out? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have let his family come at all if he had an inkling that he was a target. Unless he figures I don’t know about his vacation home and my plan is to boobytrap him down there, the same as Cotter and Turnbull, and it’s his way of getting wife and brat out of harm’s way. That would explain the private cop. But if Dixon reasoned that far, then he’d also have to have a pretty good idea Donald Michael Latimer is the man behind the bombs, excuse me, destructive devices. And a pretty good idea of the rest of it, too, the reason I built the devices for Cotter and Turnbull the way I did and what’s in store for him. And he doesn’t know who or why, or else a police bomb squad would have arrived at the lake instead of the family and my name would be all over the news.

All right. He doesn’t suspect. The wife and son came up without him because he has a court date next week and he didn’t want them to have to delay their vacation, and the private cop drove them up as a favor in return for the use of somebody’s cabin, and Dixon will be driving up alone next Tuesday or Wednesday. The truth? It’s what the cop told Mack Judson and it sounds reasonable enough.

So now what am I going to do?

I can’t make up my mind. But I better make it up soon.

Option number one: Remove the device, then drive all the way back to the city and deliver it to Dixon at his house or some other place he hangs out. Risky to go after it now that it’s in place, with the woman and boy at the cabin. Risky to move it even a short distance with it armed, much less transport it over three hundred miles. I can disarm it, but that’s risky, too. Besides, it belongs where it is. It’s right where it is.

Option number two: Proceed according to the Plan. Stay put, don’t do anything except wait for Dixon to show up and claim his ticket to hell. Tuesday or Wednesday, four or five days. I can wait that long. I waited five goddamn years, didn’t I? Of course the danger in waiting is that wifey or sonny triggers the Big Boom before daddy shows. It could happen. Not too likely, not where and how the boobytrap is set, but it could happen. And if it does, it’ll be twice as difficult targeting Dixon again. Should I take the chance?

Option number three: Find a way to lure Dixon up here immediately. Fake emergency, something like that. Tricky. I can’t think of anything that would bring him running without also making him suspicious when he finds out there’s no emergency after all. Once he’s here he has to have his mind on R&R, nothing else, otherwise the device doesn’t get triggered. Bad idea. Scratch that one. When the bastard comes he has to come on his own hook. Hah!

The second option is the one that makes the most sense. Leave the package where it is, wait it out, trust that nobody but Dixon gets a faceful of hell. The longer the anticipation, the sweeter the revenge.