Crimes of Memory (A Detective Jackson Mystery) (6 page)

She and Adam talked about LTE’s goal of getting plastic bags banned in Eugene, then Adam smoked another bowl while she nursed a beer. Twenty minutes later, Adam passed out in the middle of a sentence. At first Dallas was pissed that she’d made out with a stranger who didn’t wear deodorant without earning a chance to probe for more information. Dallas reminded herself that undercover work took months or sometimes years, and she had to be patient.

She got up to leave, then thought,
To hell with that
. The eco-terrorists’ first act had been sabotage, damage to equipment and property, but no lives at risk. What was next? And how many people might be hurt?

Dallas tiptoed into the bathroom. She planned to search Adam’s personal documents as much as she could, but first she needed aspirin. The tequila would give her a headache in the morning if she didn’t take something.

She looked through the medicine cabinet above the sink, surprised at how clean everything was. Why would a person who kept his bathroom this clean not wash his hair every day? She chuckled at her hypocrisy. Why would an FBI agent who had dedicated her life to her country almost hook up with a man who might be plotting to burn down a manufacturer? Everyone had their own set of contradictions.

Not finding aspirin—or anything incriminating—in the bathroom, Dallas crossed the hall into the kitchen. The small house, heated with only a woodstove, sat on the back lot of a larger piece of property. She suspected an LTE member owned the bigger house up front, and she’d made note of the address when she’d driven in. Dallas found aspirin in a cupboard, downed two, and hurried into the adjacent living room.

A coffee table crafted from a tree stump caught her eye. Beside it on the floor was a silver laptop. Did she dare? She had to. That was the goal of Downdraft, as this case had been nicknamed—to catch the perps in the act. She needed to discover what they had planned next.

She stepped back into the alcove-like hall and peeked into the bedroom. Adam was sleeping, making soft little snoring sounds. Dallas darted to the laptop, flipped it open, and powered it up. Heart hammering with anxiety, she sat on the coffee table and did a quick search for files labeled Earth Day. When Adam had said that was the topic of the meeting, she’d thought it was just a convenient cover story. But what if they were really planning something for Earth Day? Terror groups couldn’t resist symbolism.

They were also prone to violence. What would Adam do if he caught her spying? Try to kill her? He and his co-conspirators faced a decade or more in federal prison if they were convicted of arson or sabotage. Judges had handed down harsh sentences to earlier eco-terrorists, so the group understood the risks, and so did she. Dallas grabbed her purse from the floor and set it on the couch next to her, so her pepper spray and small handgun would be in reach. Normally, she wore her Glock on her side, but undercover work required sacrifices, and the big semiautomatic was in her rented condo. She had a palm-size Kel-Tec in a secret compartment in the bottom of her bag, but it wasn’t quick to get
to. If Adam or anyone were to discover she carried a weapon, it would be a major tip-off.

The Earth Day search produced no files or folders in the dialogue box, and Dallas regretted wasting her time. The computer’s desktop was clear except for the hard drive icon, so she opened the documents folder and quickly scanned labels: Photos, Games, Letters, Bills, Herbs, and a dozen more that sounded equally benign. She glanced up at the hallway. What if Adam caught her? What would she say?
I’m a compulsive snoop; it doesn’t mean anything.
What would the group do if they figured out she was with the FBI? Were they any less dangerous than a drug cartel or biker gang?

Unable to stop herself, Dallas opened the Herbs folder on the chance that it might be code for environmental remedies, but it contained mostly PDFs with herbal research. She remembered the seminar on codes from her training and began keying in possibilities:
Christmas, Easter, fireworks, birthday.
Nothing. Dallas keyed in all the months and got nowhere. Think! Love the Earth was modeling its activities on a previous group, the Earth Liberation Front, so maybe Adam had used something connected to its role model. She tried
ELF, elves, magic, second chance, repeat
, then finally,
replay
.

Yes!

The dialogue box began loading with documents. She spotted the name JB Pharma, but before she had a chance to open it, a cell phone rang in the bedroom.
Oh fuck!
Her heart slammed into her rib cage as Dallas closed the dialogue box and held down the power-off button. The next time Adam turned it on, the computer might announce that it hadn’t been shut down properly, but she didn’t have time to go through the steps. Dallas snapped the lid closed, set the laptop on the floor where she’d found it, and hustled toward the bedroom.

She stepped in just as Adam groped for his pants and pulled the phone from a pocket. He put the cell to his ear and said hello without looking up. Dallas slipped back out just as quickly. A late-night call could be anything, but she might as well listen, in case it was important.

After a moment, she heard Adam say, “What the fuck?”

A pause, then, “I’m home, of course.”

A brief silence, followed by, “Why? You think I did it? Acting on my own?” Adam sounded hurt and angry.

What the hell was going down?

“I’ll send you a fucking picture of me sitting here naked, and I’ve got company who’ll vouch for me.”

Time to move. Dallas slipped into the kitchen and turned on the water, so he could hear it, then drank another glass before heading toward the bedroom. She paused in the open door and waited for him to look up. Her pulse was still throbbing in her ears, but she smiled. “Do you need more privacy?”

He nodded, so she went back to the living room and picked up her purse. Inside it, her
Fiona
phone buzzed with a text message. Dallas dug it out and stared at the caller ID:
Aunt Carla
. Code name for Agent River, her lead on this case. What the hell had gone down tonight? Dallas shouldered her purse and hurried for the bathroom, locking it behind her.

The text said:
Breakfast tomorrow?
That meant they needed to meet first thing in the morning. Dallas took three long, slow breaths and willed herself to feel calm. She would kiss Adam good-bye and simply say she had to go.

He was off the phone when she came back in. Seeing the tense look on his face, she decided to keep her distance. “It’s a good thing your phone woke me; I really need to go home.”

“That’s cool. I’ve got to go help a friend.”

So he was going somewhere.
As she walked out, Dallas plotted where she would park her car and wait for him to leave. Wherever he was headed, she would follow and find out.

CHAPTER 5

Tuesday, March 12, 8:27 p.m.

Carla River finished reading the chapter out loud and closed the book. “That’s it for tonight.” Reluctant to leave, she added, “What do you think? Do you like this one as much as the first book?” Recently, she’d read most of
The Hunger Games
to this trio of homeless teenagers, and now they were reading
Catching Fire
.

“Sort of.” June, a plump girl with a shaved head, sat up, looking serious. “I don’t like the violence, and I’m not sure we should be reading it.”

“Why not?” Saul argued. “It’s better than watching violent movies or playing video games.” A lanky boy of sixteen, Saul sat on the floor by the narrow bed. June had earned her own space in the shelter, partitioned by heavy sliding curtains, which gave them some privacy. Saul was still a drifter, who didn’t stay at the facility every night, so he had to sleep on a cot in the big room.

“I agree with Saul,” Molly added. “Reading about violence doesn’t make anyone more dangerous. In fact, I think stories like these teach us a better way to live.” Molly, the third teenager in their group, wanted to be a writer and was working on an urban fantasy story. River was glad the girl had never asked her to read it.

They all looked at her to voice an opinion.

“I’m inclined to think Saul is right, in that reading is better than watching, which can make you desensitized to violence and cruelty.” River struggled to find the best way to phrase her thoughts. These kids were so impressionable, and she didn’t want to turn them off reading. “As long as you’re aware of how you’re reacting to what you read, then its ability to influence your behavior is minimal. But good books should make you think.”

“What about people who aren’t aware?” June argued. “Millions of kids have read this. How many are discussing the sick premise and what it means?”

“I think a lot of them are.” River smiled at June. She loved the girl’s sense of worry about the world. “But we can switch to another book if the others agree.” After River’s father went to prison for killing thirteen women, and her mother committed suicide, River had lived on the streets as a teenager, and her survival had cost her dearly. She knew what teenagers had to do just to eat and sleep out of the weather. Once River had settled into her life as an FBI agent, she’d started volunteering to mentor teens in homeless shelters. She couldn’t be as consistent as she wanted, but she did what she could.

As the other two kids voiced their objection to switching stories, River’s work phone rang. She kept its ringtone distinctive from her personal cell, which rarely received calls. Sliding the phone from her jacket pocket, she looked at the caller ID:
Denise Lammers
. “Excuse me,” she said and stepped out of the curtained
space. The noise from the rec room forced her down the hall to the bathroom, a gender-neutral facility with a shower in the corner. Coming here always gave her flashbacks to her teenage homeless days.

She popped in her earpiece and clicked receive. “Agent Rivers.”

“It’s Sergeant Lammers. We had a firebomb at the Rock Spring bottling company tonight. It’s probably an eco-terrorist, so I thought the FBI should take the lead.”

River’s pulse quickened.
Their perps were escalating!
“Was anyone hurt?” The group had sabotaged a pharmaceutical company two months before without any violence.

“I don’t know yet,” Lammers said. “I sent out two detectives, Schak and Quince, but it’s only been a few minutes. I called you right away.”

“Thanks. I’ll head out there.” River started to click off, then asked, “You said firebomb. Is the factory burning?” River wondered how much evidence would be left to work with.

“Dispatch didn’t report it one way or another.”

“The business is off Laurel Hill Drive, correct?” River was still learning her way around Eugene.

“Yes. Take the freeway to the Glenwood exit.”

“I’ll be in touch.” River hung up, stopped in and said good night to the teens, then jogged for her car. Excitement pulsed in her veins, a feeling she loved and had come to live for. Turning it off had become the problem. She’d thought the transfer from Portland to Eugene would settle down her career and give her more of a nine-to-five job, but that hadn’t been the case. In the six months she’d been in town, she’d already handled a ransom kidnapping and had a shootout with a man wanted on sex trafficking charges. Now she and an undercover agent were tracking
an eco-terrorist, and if they didn’t stop him soon, people would get hurt.

The bottling plant nestled into the side of a hill at the edge of the city limits. River had heard that springwater flowed freely on the property, and the company pumped it to the surface, poured it into plastic bottles, and sold it for a premium. She didn’t understand why an eco-terrorist would target the company, but the saboteur had probably let the owner know what his grievance was. River spotted the parking lot filled with first-responder vehicles—police cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance—and knew she was in the right place. She also noticed a box-shaped reinforced vehicle and figured it had to be the police department’s Explosive Disposal Unit.

Relieved that she didn’t see flames, River parked along the arterial road and walked toward the chaos. Cops and firemen stood around, but there wasn’t much activity. She was likely the first federal agent on the scene. The giant overhead door was open, and a fire hose snaked into the building. River approached a cluster of men near a small door at the end of the building, recognizing the barrel-shaped body of Detective Rob Schakowski. The male domination in law enforcement never intimidated her. Until recently, she’d been one of them. Now she was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a strong-featured face.

The men turned at the sound of her footsteps. The halide lights from the top of the building cast shadows that made their faces seem tense and creepy. Schak said, “Agent River. Good to have you. I figured this was a federal case. I’m not even sure this property is within city limits.”

River noticed the gorgeous Detective Quince and nodded at him too. “What are the details?” She clicked on the recorder in her pocket, not wanting to take notes in the dark, wet parking lot.

“The night watchman, Jerry Bromwell”—Schak gestured to the civilian across from him—“heard someone in the building, confronted him, then escaped just before the firebomb went off.”