Caruso 01 - Boom Town

BOOM

TOWN

Also by Trevor Scott

Vital Force

Fatal Network

Extreme Faction

The Dolomite Solution

Hypershot

Strong Conviction

The Dawn of Midnight

BOOM

TOWN

Trevor Scott

Broadhead B

Books

Beaverton, Oregon

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

BOOM TOWN

Copyright © 2006 by Trevor Scott Broadhead Books

P.O. Box 7396

Beaverton, OR 97007

Visit the author online at www.trevorscott.com ISBN: 1-930486-63-4

For mom

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the people of Bend, Oregon, the setting of this work of fiction. Having lived in Bend for more than nine years, I saw firsthand the development of a tourist town from a high desert lumber-based community. Growth is inevitable, but expansion without restraint can be irresponsible. I hope the housing costs never reach a level where the builder of those houses cannot live within the city limits. Bend is a great town,
Boom Town
or not, and I hope to live there again soon. Forgive me for placing streets and housing developments where they do not exist.

BOOM TOWN 1

Leaning alongside an enormous Pozzi window on the second floor of his expansive house, Dan Humphrey stared wistfully at the darkness of the golf course below. A constant wind swept across the greens, bringing goose bumps to his naked body. Somewhere out there he could hear sprinklers swish-swish-ing—one last attempt to keep the championship course green before the snows of December swooped down out of the Cascades of Central Oregon.

Dan glanced over his shoulder dispassionately at the action on his king-sized bed. The new guy was on top of his wife pumping her with great ferocity, their bodies clashing in perfect harmony to an Enya song, as if the two of them had done it together hundreds of times, and his wife enjoying herself perhaps too much, Dan thought. As so many times in the past, Dan suspected he should be excited by now. Maybe reached his own goal. But, as he glanced down, he was as flaccid as a night crawler in a heavy rain. And all he could think about was his business. Could he walk away from his baby? That was the question of the week for him. And he knew deep down that his incertitude invariably led to sexual encounters that had become increasingly destructive.

Yet, he also knew that he could not stop, could not go back.

He turned back to view his back yard and thought he saw something move along the edge of the grass among the sagebrush and small junipers. Probably a deer. They had eaten most of the flow-2

TREVOR SCOTT

ers the gardener had planted.

His eyes focused on the hot tub on the flagstone patio below, thinking about all of the naked bodies that had soaked in there.

He felt for any sign of life. Nothing. How had things come to this?

Letting out a series of panting, guttural sounds, his wife finally released herself and then crashed back onto the bed. Dan could see the reflection of the man come out of her, and then go directly to the bathroom. Through the corner of his eye he saw another flash of movement below in his yard. What the hell was that?

“What are you doing?” his wife asked him.

Dan turned to her.

She was on her side, her perfect naked body sliding against the satin sheets seductively.

Before Dan could answer, the man came back from the bathroom, his manhood still partially active after pulling off the spent rubber and wiping himself down. “Hot tub time?” he asked.

When neither answered, the man shrugged and left toward the staircase.

“You aren’t jealous are you?” she asked, her tone hopeful.

“No.”

“He was the biggest. Does that bother you?”

“I said no! Let’s go.” Dan headed toward the door.

She slowly went out after him.

Downstairs, a small, dim light shone from the kitchen and allowed the two of them to see their familiar surroundings. At the bottom of the stairs, Dan stopped and his wife came up behind him, her bare breasts pressed hard against his back.

A noise to his left. His eyes shot to the right, where the man was outside, his face illuminated by the hot tub lights. What made the noise? They didn’t own a cat or dog.

Dan stepped lightly toward the living room, around the mission end table and the leather sofa, and then he stopped suddenly and his wife crashed into him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

BOOM TOWN 3

Dan reached to her, grasped her hand and squeezed tightly, his eyes focused on the far side of the living room.

“Who’s there!” Dan yelled.

“You’re scaring me,” she said, her breathing uncontrollably loud.

Suddenly, a flash and a bang. Dan’s first indication that something was truly wrong was his wife’s hand going limp in his, her body crashing to the carpet at his feet. There was no time for Dan to move. No time to react in any way. When the next flash came, it registered for a microsecond in Dan’s brain before he seemed to float to the carpet and land at his wife’s side.

4

TREVOR SCOTT

Standing on a precipice over a hundred feet above the ocean, Tony Caruso folded his arms against his chest and took in a deep breath of sea air. Along Oregon’s Cape Perpetua, there was always a strong breeze, cold and damp, the smell of wet death wafting up from the depths of kelp beds and volcanic tide pools.

Sitting to his right, his Giant Schnauzer frantically wiggled its cropped tail against the low grass.

Tony thought back on the night he bobbed in the dark, frigid sea to the south, the silence unbearable and incomprehensible.

His two fellow sailors had died instantly in the blast, he knew.

That’s the only way his mind could think. He would have died with them if fate hadn’t intervened, having him step out onto the catwalk only moments before the bomb exploded. His ordnance partner had known the dangers involved with de-arming a thousand pound bomb, but the sea-going tug captain, a victim of a tragic accidental bombing by his own Navy, had only known that his vessel was listing badly and could sink in those dark, heavy seas. A part of Tony knew he should have been there with his friend; the other part, his logical, reasoning intellect, rationalized his existence as an inevitability of some higher purpose that he hadn’t yet come to understand. Maybe more time would settle that for him.

His dog whined, turned its head, and then nudged its wet nose against Tony’s leg.

BOOM TOWN 5

“Hey, Squid,” said a voice from behind him.

Turning around, Tony nodded at his old friend, Captain Joe Pellagreno, United States Navy Retired.

“What’s up, Joe?”

Tony had been staying down the road in a condo near Yachets, trying his best to stay in wine and still find time to locate a missing sixteen-year-old girl, who had been trying her best to entertain the pleasures of a twenty-year-old commercial fisherman in Waldport when Tony found them together. His old Navy buddy had caught up with Tony squeezing the last drop of red wine from the box the night before, and asked to see him this morning when his comprehension would be more complete. Joe’s disappointment had been painfully evident to Tony.

Joe Pellagreno hadn’t changed much since his Navy days. He had always been a little thick about the middle, even though he ran three miles a day, and his hair, although a bit longer now, had only grayed slightly from the last time Tony had seen him in Seattle two years ago.

“What are you doing, Tony?” Joe asked, his sad eyes focused on the ocean.

“I’ve been hiking here every day for the past two weeks.”

“You know what the hell I’m talkin’ about. You’ve been drinking worse than a sailor.”

Tony glanced at his friend. “You should talk.”

“Been sober for a year.”

“Great. Is that why you called me? To redeem me?”

Joe shook his head. “No. I heard you retired a year ago and damn near dropped off the face of the Earth. Brad Colby said you left under...for personal reasons.”

Tony turned to his friend and grabbed his arm. “It had nothing to do with the explosion. I’m over that. Over twenty years in the Navy was enough.”

“Listen. You were nearly killed. You lost your best friend. You lost your hearing in one ear. It’s understandable you’d still harbor some ill feelings.”

6

TREVOR SCOTT

Ill feelings? If it were only that easy, Tony thought. He questioned daily if he could have done something more that night.

Anything to save his friend and the captain of that tug. The Navy had given Tony a couple of medals for that screw up. Two men died and he got medals. Brilliant. A few more accidents like that and he would have been the most highly decorated sailor in the Navy.

“Joe, I can’t lie about it,” Tony said pensively. “I should have died with Johnny that night.”

“You survived. You’re alive!”

“I don’t feel alive, Joe. I feel like I’m dying every day, little by little.”

Joe let out a deep sigh. “Can you do me a couple of favors, Tony?”

If there was anyone Tony owed a favor, it was Joe Pellagreno.

When the Navy had tried to give up the search for him in the ocean that night, Joe had stood his ground, making them look longer, knowing Tony was alive.

“Name it.”

“I retired to Bend. Have you been there?”

Tony shook his head.

“It’s a great little town,” Joe said. “A good friend of mine owns a gallery there. I showed her some of your photos and she wants you to show them just before Christmas.”

Tony shrugged. “I don’t show my photos.”

“They’re beautiful, though. You’ve gotta show them, Tony.

She’s especially interested in the faces series.”

She had good taste, Tony thought. Those were his favorites also. He had taken a series of stark photos of weathered faces in his travels around the world. But to show them? He wasn’t sure about that.

“You think it’s a good idea?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

“You said a couple favors.”

His old friend shuffled his feet and then turned his head to
BOOM TOWN 7

Tony. “Another friend could use your help. His son and daughter-in-law died and he suspects there’s more to it than the police are saying.”

“A double murder?”

“Maybe. That’s what we want you to find out.”

Since Tony’s retirement from the Navy a year ago, he had helped out on a few arson and bomb investigations in the Pacific Northwest, working as a consultant for the Portland and Seattle police. Six months ago he had picked up a private investigator’s license from the state of Oregon, one of the easiest to obtain in the country, and started his own company. Although Tony had helped on some murder cases for the police, those had always dealt with an explosion of some type—his specialty.