Copp On Ice, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (16 page)

      
I felt a bit smug about that.

      
But I'd hardly settled back into my chair when the smugness vanished. The floor beneath my feet rolled as though by earthquake and the walls vibrated to the ear-splitting roar of a huge explosion. I lurched to the door and saw people running. Someone fell through the front door of the building with his clothing flaming; a patrolman leapt onto the burning figure, trying to beat down the flames. Someone up there yelled, "Oh
shit
!"

      
I don't remember moving from my office to the front of the building, I just remember colliding with Detective Zarraza as he danced back inside with a stricken face.

      
"Captain Williamson," he croaked.

      
The smugness was gone, yeah.

      
So was Williamson. Someone had wired a bomb to the ignition of his official car, and he'd caught more air than he'd bargained for.

      
Another Brighton cop was dead, and a civilian employee who'd been standing thirty feet away from the doomed vehicle had been severely injured.

      
It was about time, yeah, to call out the national guard.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

I
took personal charge of this one
and it took the rest of Saturday to clean it up. The word got around fast and the scene was choked with off-duty cops within minutes. It looked as though the entire fire department had responded, as well, so there was a lot of confusion and churning around. I declared the entire police department "on duty" in an effort to secure the scene and establish a workable perimeter, put all those guys to work and gave them something useful to do.

There was much to be done.

Adding to the confusion, I'd considered it wise to call in bomb squads from the county and from two neighboring cities.
 
I wanted every official vehicle in the yard checked for explosives. Damned good thing, too, because they found another bomb. They found it in my car, my official car, which had been left behind in its reserved space when I took my personal car up the mountain. After that find, we sent the dogs throughout the building and into adjacent areas within the compound, also sniffed down city hall and all the vehicles parked over there. Found nothing else, but the sergeant in charge of the sheriff's bomb squad seemed very pleased with the one they did find. They were able to disarm it and take it to their lab for study. He told me, with a sober wink, "Someone's got a real hard-on for your department. This thing would blow up a tank."

They took it away with my blessing. It could represent valuable evidence and I wanted nobody but the best to mess with it.

Both Ralston and O'Brien were on the scene early and they'd been busy working with the evidence teams. The shattered body of Captain Williamson was transported to the morgue at about midnight, the shattered remnants of the car were hauled away, the visiting bomb squads departed, the fire department had withdrawn, and a crew of workers were neatly boarding up a number of the building's windows that had been broken by the explosion. There was not much more to be done, at the moment. I collared the two captains and we went in separate cars to a bar on Foothill for a drink and some quiet conversation.

The drinks notwithstanding, it was a sober group who huddled in a quiet booth at the rear of the bar at a few strokes past midnight on that Sunday morning.

Ralston muttered, "It's gone totally crazy."

O'Brien seemed to agree with that assessment. "Where's it going to end?"

I told them, "To get to that, we should decide first where it started."

"It started with you," Ralston glumly observed, meaning me.

"No. It started before me. I was called in here to stop something already started. What was that?"

      
Neither captain seemed to have a response to that so I suggested, "It started three years ago. It started with Harold Schwartzman. Would you agree?"

      
The two locked eyes with each other for a moment then Ralston said, "The man has been a disturbing influence, I'll say that, but I don't see..."

      
O'Brien added, "He started with Tim first. Then I think it spread to the mayor and some council members. But I never saw anything kinky. Okay, sure, you start flashing money and broads around a bunch like we have here, it can get a little out of hand sometimes. But Schwartzman had no reason that I could see to want to buy this department. The only local business interests he has are down in Helltown, and that's county jurisdiction, so..."

      
"Maybe he has political ambitions," I suggested.

      
"I've seen no evidence of it," O'Brien replied.

      
Ralston: "No, I think it's all been totally innocent. I think he just enjoys being a big fish in a small pond."

      
"Tell me about this guy," I requested.

      
"Schwartzman?" It was Ralston. "Not much to tell, other than...well, he cuts a low profile. Very important man—very busy—in and out of town a lot, I gather. He—"
  
"Old or young?"

      
Ralston: "I couldn't say."

      
"You never met him?"

      
O'Brien: "I don't think I did."

      
Ralston: "Well, now wait a minute... I think once, maybe a couple of years ago ..."

      
I said, "Get off it, you guys. You've both been up to that mansion probably fifty times. What is this? What are you covering?"

      
"I'm not covering anything," Ralston replied, miffed. "Schwartzman is not in town a lot."

      
"He throws parties
in absentia
?"

The guy glowered back at me. "That's right."

"You guys are nuts," I declared. "You get what you deserve."

I got up and walked out, totally disgusted with the both of them. They were covering something, for sure. Meanwhile their department was being decimated, and probably from within. Maybe they were next in line for a morgue tag on the toe, and they probably knew that too because both were shaken and obviously demoralized. But they were frozen in place. By something. What?

The answer came as simple and uncomplicated as most truths are, and it came from the blue.

They were frozen in place by their own personal involvement in whatever had been going down within that department.

And they did not know where to turn.

i went straight
to the mansion, got there at about a quarter to one. Lights were on inside, but just here and there, not like the night before when the whole place had been ablaze.

The key worked the gate, I drove in, parked beneath the portico. Lights were on out there but the grounds were in darkness. I unholstered my gun and stood with the car door open for a moment, wondering about the dogs. Heard nothing, saw nothing, no other cars were in evidence.

I briefly considered my options and decided on a soft entry, used my gadget to defeat the locks on the front door and let myself inside.

The entry foyer was softly lighted and I could hear the murmuring of a television somewhere to the rear, toward the kitchen area. I went back there to check that out, almost walked into the arms of a guy who was emerging from another small room back there. He wore a pistol in open leather about the waist, carried a flashlight, didn't look terribly surprised to see me. I asked him, "Where's Lydia?"

"Think she went to bed," he replied. "I was just coming to let you in. What's up?"

"We need to talk," I told him. "Let's go back inside."

He said, "Okay," and I followed him into the room. Maybe it had been originally designed as a pantry. Now it was obviously a security station. Three CCTV monitors were mounted into a console that covered a wall. There was room left for a swivel chair, a small table, and a filing cabinet. One of the monitors was displaying the gate approach, another was showing an automatic scan of the grounds in surrealistic infrared, the other covered the entrance to the house. I noted a stack of videocassettes on the table and a small portable TV off to one side. Some old movie was on. The guy turned off the portable and turned to me with an expectant look.

I had not seen this room during my first visit and none of the investigating cops had mentioned it to me.

"I'm Joe," I told the security guard.

He said, "Yeah, I think I saw you here before."

"Probably not," I said. "I've taken Tim Murray's place."

He said, as though he should have known, "Oh! Sorry. With all the excitement..."

"Yeah, we've had plenty of that," I agreed. "Who was in here last night when it went down?"

"Well that was Frank, Frank Jones. Or at least he had the watch. I guess he got called out. And that's when it happened."

I said, "Seems that way, doesn't it? How often do you patrol outside?"

"Well, I just walk the wall maybe once or twice a shift, or when I see something doesn't look right. We don't get bothered much up here."

"You got bothered last night."

"Sure did. Glad it wasn't on my watch."

"What do you think happened?" I decided to cultivate the guy. "As a pro, I mean, your professional opinion. What really happened?"

"Well, I been looking at the tapes," he replied, almost eagerly. "They don't show much. But I have my own idea of what went down."

"That's what I'd like to hear, uh—what'd you say your name is?"

"I'm Norm Tomkins." We shook hands. The guy seemed
very
nervous. He pointed toward the stack of video cassettes. "Shows a loose dog. Frank really loved those damned dogs. I think he took one out just to walk it, give it some exercise, and I think it picked up something at the wall. Now we're supposed to keep the dogs kenneled during onboard activities. They're really dangerous as hell, you know. Me, I don't like them. I think that was all a terrible mistake last night." He pointed to the tapes again. "I see some guys running down the drive off the portico, a couple more breaking across the lawn. This is before the shots are recorded. I think those guys heard the dog raising hell and I think they went to investigate. The shooting itself doesn't show up on the tapes. But the sound of the gun does, with all those guys running around in the dark. I think that's what happened."

"What is what happened?"

"I think it was an accident."

      
"You think someone shot Frank, mistaking him as an intruder?"

      
"I think so, yeah. Friendly fire, as they say. Why else would he get shot?"

      
"What was the onboard activity last night, Norm?"

      
"Oh well, you know, it was the board meeting."

      
"Uh huh."

      
"Very important business."

      
"Uh huh."

      
"Those guys would be a little uptight. You know."

      
I said, "I know, yeah," but I didn't.

      
"I think someone just got trigger happy. Have they arrested anyone?"

      
"Nobody came forward, Norm," I told him with a cryptic smile.

      
He smiled back and said, "Yeah, I getcha."

      
"Guess I'd better take a look at those tapes."

      
"Well, suit yourself. But they don't show nothing." He went to the stack, scooped off the top three cassettes, handed them to me.

      
I said, "Thanks. Lydia went to bed, huh?"

      
"I think so."

      
"Anybody upstairs?"

      
"I don't think so."

      
"Maybe I'll go see."

      
He showed me a crafty smile. "If you find some, send some down for me."

      
I showed him a crafty smile in return, told him, "If you don't mind sloppy seconds."

      
He laughed, and I laughed, then I took my tapes and went upstairs.