2 hours after the explosion at Mary Anne's apartment…
"Smitty I want you and Baez are to run a grid search starting with the kitchen. I want you to go over every square inch of that room and report to me what you find. When you are finished with that room move outward towards the outer perimeter. Charlie, I need you to disassemble the door frame and the door and check for any possible DNA evidence that might be under the duct tape that was used to hold the match and striker material in place. I think it has been done already but I am going to review all security camera footage from her front door for the last six hours before the explosion."
"Rick listen we will go over every square inch of this apartment. But if this guy is good, he didn't leave any DNA so Charlie would be spinning his wheels. I do think that we need to take our time and thoroughly tear this place apart. Nobody is invisible at a crime scene you've taught us that. There is always something that we can find to tie someone to." Smitty says.
"Fine. But I want the door included in your sweep of that room. We might just get lucky."
The three men nod and get their gear on to go to work. About two hours later Smitty and Charlie are almost finished with the kitchen area and come to where Rick is working the living room corner where Mary Anne died in her recliner. They may have something for him and they want to confirm that it wasn't a part of Mary Ann's house.
"Rick do you have a second?" Smitty asks. Rick gets up off his knees looks Smitty in the eye. When he does, he looks over Smitty's shoulder and he sees that there is a small box that could contain legal documents and such lying on what was left of the table in the living room.
"We were going through the kitchen and in one of the utensil drawers or cupboard if you will we found this small but very heavy Honeywell fire resistant security box. I don't have the key for it but I know you are Mary Anne's key holder. Do you know if you would have a key for this box?" Charlie asks.
Rick reaches for his belt where his key chain is kept. He pulls the clasp off the holder and starts sorting through the keys that he has on his ring. He vaguely remembers Mary Anne giving him a spare key for some sort of safe box or maybe a firebox some time ago. His choices are limited to two Master keys and he knows which two keys those belong to. The last key he has looks like an Alco key that he has no idea what it fits. He walks up to the box inserts the key into the lock. He twists it to the right. The air that escapes smells a little like natural gas but it does open. The first thing he sees inside the box is a semi-automatic handgun. It looks like a Colt but he can't be sure. Since he already has his rubber gloves on, he picks up the weapon, ejects the clip and counts how many rounds are in the magazine. The holes in the side of the clip tell him that there are 7 rounds available to fire. He pulls the slide back end another round ejects from the chamber. He knew that Mary Anne had kept a weapon for her protection but didn't exactly know where.
He places the weapon on the burnt table and then digs deeper into the box. Underneath the weapon is her deed for the condo, her Social Security information, in about $15,000 in cash. But what raises his interest is the laptop that sits on the bottom of the box. He knows that the fire could probably have gotten to be around 1200 degrees. He hopes and prays that the temperature where they found the fire-resistant box didn't get that hot only because the box is rated for 1500 degrees. If he's lucky there is information that she kept on here that he can use. He lifts the laptop out of the box and sees that it's a little charred where the battery sits. That's the least of his problems he can always find a power cord just to plug into it to get it to power up.
"We'll bring this back to BDU headquarters. I'm not going to give the only lead we might be able to find in this mess over to the arson squad. I know that it's wrong but I need to find out what's on that laptop. And if I tell myself that it isn't part of their case start to believe it."
"Rick even though it's wrong, you're right. It doesn't seem right to give them something invaluable to their investigation about what happened here when we both know that this is personal."
"So why don't we finish up so we can get back to headquarters and figure out what message she was trying to leave us. I knew Mary Anne and she would never leave a laptop in a fire-resistant box. Charlie, how much more do you have to go with the bedroom?"
"The bedroom, bathroom, hallway closet, and spare room have all been gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Whoever did this only used these two rooms. They used the living room and the kitchen. I have the door and the door frame on the truck downstairs ready to be brought back to headquarters. So, once you finish up in here me and Smitty will be ready to go at about the same time."
In less than an hour Rick, Charlie, and Smitty we're heading back to BDU headquarters with the laptop.
Xx
Kate was waiting for her friend in her office. She needed to know if there was any foul play other than the way the apartment was blown up. That was her husband's job and she knew that he would not rest until he found out the truth.
"Well, Lanie?"
"Kate this is still only the preliminary report. I won't have the complete report until tomorrow."
"That's okay Lanie. What I need to know is if she was rendered incapable of being able to leave her apartment before it was blown to pieces."
Lanie flips the report open on her desk and starts to read. She sees that the victim had smoke in her lungs meaning that she was alive when the apartment blew up. Then she reads on to see that the woman who was living in the apartment was hit over the head with something hard. So hard that there were splinters of glass embedded in her skull. That evidence and the hairline fractures of the right side of her skull told her that this woman was not able to get out of her apartment under her power.
"Kate she was in all probability knocked unconscious before the apartment blew up. She had glass embedded in her skull."
"At least she didn't have to live through how she would have died. I guess that's a good thing."
"Speaking of good things Kate, what are you going to tell him?"
Kate just looks at her friend with a very confused look.
"Tell who what Lanie?"
"Rick. He will find out about this. What will you tell him when he does?"
"Lanie I need to do this. She was my friend."
"Kate while that might be true, do you remember his words to you before he married you? He told you that if he ever caught you going behind his back again that would be it. I don't think that you would want to throw away your marriage just so you can investigate something that he will be doing anyway."
"Lanie listen I need to do this. If what I find can help him then so be it. I'll deal with the consequences later."
"Girl, have you lost your mind? Why bring this trouble upon yourself when all you need to do is back off? This person was killed by a bomb well not technically a bomb but the apartment was filled with gas and it acted like one. Her downstairs neighbor also died in this and she was an innocent bystander which is what you will be if you don't stop investigating this case."
"Okay, okay. I'll slow down but I won't stop. I'll just make sure that he won't catch me doing it."
"You are about as smart as a box of rocks Kate. You do know that he will look into this and when he does, he'll see your name written all over everything. Summons requests, evidence requests, and of course you do know that he will be coming to see me. And then I am going to have to tell them everything I just told you but with him a more in-depth report."
"Lanie keep my visit between us. Don't tell him that I was here."
"God now you have me lying to him. I sure hope you know what you getting into Kate because if you don't, don't come running to me when it all falls apart."
"I'll take your advice under consideration." Kate turns and leaves the morgue and heads back up to her car in a bad mood.
Xx
Smitty had been to see Rick twice since Mary Anne's death. The first time it was official. He was bringing him Mary Anne's post autopsy report. The second time it was at her funeral. He felt for his friend and hoped that he could see a way from his sadness and turmoil. He had known Mary Anne since he became a cop, well maybe even before then.
They were both there every step of the way as well as every BDU member. The service was a closed casket service since Mary Anne wasn't presentable. They had followed her from the funeral home to the cemetery and the priest had said his prayers over her casket. It was then when Rick realized how hard this was for him. When they lowered her into the ground and he dropped a rose on top of her coffin and vowed to her that whoever did this to her would pay.
Xx
Colin took a chance on taking out the old lady. Well, old ladies. It wasn't his fault that Mrs. Kirkpatrick decided to come back and drop off her friend's supermarket purchases. But in the end, she was the one to set off the gas and inadvertently caused her death in the process. Now there are two fewer people he has to worry about finding out what his secret is.
He's been putting the final touches on his masterpiece. The Guggenheim is holding its annual fundraiser next week. This fundraiser will take place this coming Saturday night and if all goes the way he plans it not many of the 750 people who are attending will make it out alive. He's going to take his cue from Aashif Kazim. He has the place wired in so many separate locations to wreak the most havoc, death, and destruction it should be a blast… literally. Security was a joke. He posed as a pest control employee and was granted access to every area he needed to plant his explosives. No one escorted him anywhere he had free reign over the whole venue. He also knows that with this type of explosive and the locations where he places it two things will happen.
The first thing that will happen is that he will create a sense of unsureness or better yet fear in all the people attending that night. The second thing is going to happen is that people are going to be going in every direction trying to get to safety and that will be their demise. That's when he will put the second part of his plan into effect. Knowing that they think they'll be safe if they exit the building there will be a mass exodus. But the reality is that this is where the rest of them will die. They will be so close to the exit but they can't get out. As he studies the floor plans of the Guggenheim, he sees that there will be a general meeting place for the fundraiser to take place. There is also an open bar area where he figures a majority of the people will be migrating towards before the dinner. He will let everyone get seated for dinner before he puts the plan into effect.
First, he will give the illusion that there is a small fire by placing canisters of smoke grenades under the unused portion of the second bar near the back of the dining area. It will start slowly and burn rather fast. When they react to that they will be seeing the many 9-1-1 calls will flood the call center and people trying to escape the fear that a fire might get the feeling that they will burn. If he plans their human nature correctly, they should all start to congregate in the main dining room. But just in case he'll have a very small amount of explosive in the first bar out in the lobby. Once that detonates the bomb at the bar the second explosion will happen almost instantaneously. The floor is wired in a star pattern on the concrete underneath with Semtex and wireless blasting caps to detonate the Semtex. This will take out the floor underneath their feet and send them directly into the basement forty feet down. The few lucky ones who are not in the initial kill zone will be running for the doorways. The Guggenheim has one main exit on 5th Avenue and four exits on the Northside of the building with an additional loading dock entrance on East 89th Street. The Southside has six doors on that side of the building leading out to the sidewalk on East 90th Street.
Each entry point is wired with C-4. And the second the door is pushed open by the panic bar it will complete the circuit and detonate the C-4 around that door. Each door is wired separately and it's going to be in like a big game to watch them try to leave. Will they push the bar at the first door they see making it explode or will they be cautious and try to leave through another means. He rubs his hands in anticipation.
Everything's in place for the party on Saturday night. All he has to do is wait for twelve hours to go by he will be in position across the street sitting on a park bench watching it all unfold.
Xx
"Mom you need to tell him what you're doing before this goes any further. Aunt Lanie is right. Her assumption of what dad will do will be worse than you can imagine, he will leave you."
"Alexis, baby, she was our friend, she meant so much to us and I am being careful."
"You know that I love you but do you realize that dad almost lost both of us the last time something like this happened?"
"What do you want me to do here Alexis? There is no happy medium and I know that. But I think I've done a better job keeping this a secret this time than I did last time when we were trying to figure out who is trying to kill him. I promise this will be done before you know it."
"Mom you just don't get it do you. It doesn't matter if you stop now or keep going with this because if you do and he does find out I can't imagine how hurt he will be. He will climb right back into his shell again like he was before you met him. You weren't there then you don't know what it was like. He was like a machine all he did was work sleep and eat. Yes, he did make sure I was taken care of but other than that he had no way of keeping himself sane. You were the one who saved him from that."
Kate found her feet very interesting right about now. She knew that if she looked up now it would all be over because if she knew her daughter, she would be giving her the saddest face with puppy dog eyes she had never seen before in her life. But she needs to look her in the eye to tell her what she needed to tell her.
"Baby listen this is important. If I don't get him the information that he needs to prosecute or even find out who was doing this we are all going to die. There's just something that I feel that's wrong. I don't want you or the twins losing your lives over something that I could have prevented."
"What about you mom?"
What about me?"
"What if you find out something or you find someone who is doing this and they decide to make an example of you. I can't lose another mother as I did before. Please don't do this."
"It will be fine Alexis. I'll get what I need to do done and show everything to your father."
She can't believe her mother can be this pigheaded. She gets up from the couch she was sitting on walks over to her room and closes the door without another word to her mother. Before she lies down on her bed, she looks in on her sleeping babies. She can see that it's wrong but she just hopes that her mother will drop everything and do the right thing.
TBC
