A Safe Place for Dying by Jack Fredrickson Page B

wait.”
    â€œGo to the police, or I will.”
    â€œYou think the Maple Hills police can solve this?” His voice rose.
    â€œNo, but they’ll pass it off to the F.B.I. or the A.T.F. They’ll check the soil around the lamppost for D.X.12 and start a professional investigation.”
    There was a pause. “It was D.X.12,” he said.
    â€œYou know this already?”
    â€œI had Stanley take a soil sample to a lab last night.”

    â€œThat kills your theory that the first bomb was aimed at the Farradays. Your bomber is targeting all of Crystal Waters.”
    The Bohemian said nothing.
    â€œThe Feds might be able to trace the D.X.12,” I said.
    â€œThe police tried after the Farraday bomb. D.X.12 hasn’t been manufactured since the sixties. There are no sources to trace.”
    â€œThen somebody’s got an old cache,” I said, “and that’s a clue you, Stanley, or I don’t know how to handle. The Feds might.”
    â€œPeople will be ruined.”
    â€œPeople will be dead.”
    He gave an exasperated sigh. “Vlodek, ask yourself: Does he want to kill, or does he want money? He blew up a house when nobody was home. Now he’s blown up a lamppost safely outside the walls. He’s an extortionist, not a killer. He wants money. The lamppost increases the pressure, perfects his position. He’s priming us. He’ll send another note, we’ll pay him, and he’ll go away.”
    â€œHow can you be sure? He hasn’t contacted you for payment. He might just keep setting off bombs.”
    â€œHe will communicate. He’s a businessman. He wants money.”
    The Bohemian sounded so cocksure: a bomber as businessman, rational, perfecting his position. It made it all the more chilling.
    He went on, each word calm and well reasoned. “Our bomber knows publicity would ruin house values. That’s his lever against us. But it cuts both ways. He fears publicity, too. If this gets out, we’ll have no choice but to bring in the police, and that will end his chances for money. That’s why he won’t kill. This is a kind of blackmail, Vlodek. We must handle it ourselves.”
    â€œWe just wait?”
    â€œHe’ll contact us for the money.”
    â€œAnd once paid, he will stop?”
    â€œHe knows our resources are not infinite. If he gets too greedy, he knows we’ll have no choice but to involve the authorities.”
    â€œIs everything in your world always so logical, or are you just
practiced at making it sound that way?” I struggled to keep my voice as sure as his, to not let him hear I was furious with his calm logic—and furious with myself, because he was manipulating me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
    â€œThe lamppost was a heads-up, a little notification. Obviously it will be followed by a money demand, with instructions.”
    â€œWhat if you’re wrong? The police can give you security that Stanley Novak and his band of gatekeepers can’t.”
    â€œDo you recall the two groundsmen digging in the hole yesterday?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œA tall man and a shorter one?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDescribe the shorter one.”
    I thought for a minute and realized I couldn’t, at least not well. The tall man had drawn my attention; he’d done the talking.
    â€œThe shorter groundsman is from a private security firm,” the Bohemian said. “You didn’t see it, but he had a gun. There are others as well, acting as landscapers or contractors.”
    â€œNone of them did any good yesterday.”
    â€œIt was outside the gate.”
    â€œThe police need to see the note, and they need to know about yesterday.”
    â€œLet me handle this, Vlodek.” He clicked off so smoothly it took a few seconds to realize I was listening to dead air. He’d flicked me off like lint.
    I went over to the Mr. Coffee, thought better of it, and balanced