“This isn’t the end of the line, lady.”
“I’m a cop,” I told him.
“It’s PoliceFest. Everyone here is a cop.”
The people I’d cut in front of echoed the statement.
“Look,” I said, lowering my voice. “I’m on the Chemist case. Have you heard of it? I think he’s here, and he’s going to kill a bunch of people. Now, who is in charge?”
“Jim. Jim Czajkowski. I’ll call him.”
He used the walkie-talkie attached to his belt buckle. A minute later a short, slightly pudgy man with a waxed handlebar mustache stepped into the booth.
“I’m Jim, Skokie PD. What’s going on?”
I leaned in and spoke softly. “We have reason to believe that this festival might be the target of a terrorist attack. Have you noticed anything unusual?”
“Not really. I mean, setting up an event like this is a nightmare. There are always snags.”
“What kind of snags?”
“Well, the music tent has collapsed twice. The garbage cans are filling up faster than expected. Some moron drank too much and cracked open his skull.”
“Are you sure it was alcohol?”
“I’m sure. He got into a drinking contest with his buddies.”
“Anything else out of the ordinary? Problems? Complaints? Maybe from before the festival started?”
“There’s that damn portable toilet truck.”
Where had I recently heard about portable toilets? Herb. He was searching for a stolen truck.
“What about the truck?”
“Parked here real early this morning, right in the middle of everything, but didn’t unload. All of those Porta Potties are sitting up there, just taking up space. We can’t even take them down ourselves, because they’re wrapped up in chains.”
“Show me.”
Jim led the way. Harry once again fell into step behind me, this time eating a hot dog. We walked past a Tilt-A-Whirl, a ring toss booth, and the aforementioned music tent, which appeared to have collapsed again. Eventually, we wound up behind a row of carny game booths on a small patch of dirt, next to a semi with a flatbed trailer attached. Stacked on the trailer were thirty-six portable toilets.
“Yipes!” McGlade said. “Johns!”
Jim spit onto the grass. “Someone just drove them up and left them there. And look at the way they’re chained together.”
I moved closer and agreed it went above and beyond simply securing them to the trailer. The heavy gauge chains formed a net around the toilets, and there were thick padlocks wherever two chains intersected. It would take an hour just to unlock them all.
I pulled out my cell phone and called Herb.
“Hi, Jack. I heard about the Bains wedding. Nice work.”
“Thanks. That stolen Porta Potti truck, was it a flatbed, red Peterbilt cab?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you at the fest?”
“Bernice and I are in the music tent, watching the volunteers wrestle with the collapsing canvas. Why?”
“I think I found your truck. I’m to the west of you maybe fifty yards, behind the Tilt-A-Whirl.”
“I’ll be right there.”
McGlade had climbed up to the driver’s side of the cab and was peering in the window.
“Hey, Jackie. Maybe you should take a look at this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a clock.”
“Most trucks have clocks, McGlade.”
“This one is counting down. It’s at 18:52… 51… 50…”
That didn’t sound good. Not at all. I turned to Jim. “We need some tools. Bolt cutters, a saw, anything to get through these chains. Is there a PA system?”
“There’s one in the music tent.”
“Use it. Get some bomb squad guys over here.”
Jim made a face. “If I go on the mike and say we need the bomb squad, people are going to panic. You ever see a human stampede?”
“Announce that it’s time for the Bomb Squad Beer Keg Defusing Contest or something stupid like that. Snag the first guy that shows up.”
Jim trotted off, and I pulled myself up onto the flatbed and cautiously approached one of the portable toilets. It was an aqua green color, made of fiberglass, about seven feet tall, and had a padlock on the door. The thing wouldn’t budge, even when I leaned into it, hard. I wrapped my knuckles on the side and there was a dull thump, like it was full of something. I knelt down and tried to pry away the door using the lower corner. I couldn’t get my fingers in the crack.
But I knew who could.
“McGlade! Come here!”
“Where are you?”
“Next to the toilets!”
“I don’t have to go right now.”
I clenched my teeth, remembered that he had the emotional maturity of a three-year-old, and forced myself to relax.
“Harry, you do want me to talk to the mayor, right?”
He sauntered over and stared up at me.
“What do you need, baby? Moral support?”
“You think you can crack one of these things open using your hand?”
“Maybe.”
He tried to pull himself onto the trailer, but couldn’t get a leg up over the edge. I had to help him.
“Whoa. I need to rest for a minute. Be a good girl and run get me a lemonade.”
“Dammit, Harry, we don’t have time for you to play around. See if you can open up one of these.”
He sighed, crawled over to the toilet, and rolled up his sleeve. I watched, both fascinated and revolted, as he peeled off the flesh-colored rubber, revealing a curved metal claw with one lower thumb and two upper fingers.
“Here, Jackie. Hold my hand.”
He tossed me the rubber cover, and I flinched and it fell at my feet. McGlade didn’t notice. He’d gripped the lower corner of the Porta Potti and I saw his lips whisper, “Close.” The fiberglass made a cracking sound, then splintered inward.
“Aw, Christ. That’s disgusting. Open.”
When McGlade retrieved the claw, it was covered with a brown, pasty goop. He stared at it, scowling, and then tentatively brought it under his nose.
“What the hell is this stuff? Smells kind of like gasoline.”
I walked up to him, though I could honestly say it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. The stuff on his hand had the consistency of toothpaste, and was a brownish gray with various-sized flecks of white and silver.
“Taste it.” Harry stuck his claw under my chin. “Lemme know if it’s poisonous.”
I shoved him aside and bent down to look into the hole he made. The smell of gas was even stronger, and some of the stuff had poured out onto the trailer. Mixed in with the gunk was a one-inch nail.
“Don’t touch it!”
McGlade and I looked behind us. Jim was hurrying over with a tall black guy wearing a T-shirt that said If I Get One More Restraining Order I’m Gonna Kill Someone.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m Murray. CPD, bomb squad.”
Murray hopped onto the trailer with much more ease and grace than McGlade, and crouched down next to me. He peered into the hole.
“This is ANFO. Not commercial quality. Looks homemade. But competent. There’s aluminum in here. An accelerant.”
“It also has nails in it,” I said. “Shrapnel?”
“Probably. Shit, that’s bad.”
“Question.” McGlade raised up an arm. “What’s ANFO?”
“It’s a high explosive. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. It’s what Timothy McVeigh used for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.”
“Oh my God,” McGlade said. He put his good hand on my shoulder. “I’m so glad we took your car.”
I thought about the last thing the Chemist said to me on the phone. I had a blast. When he told me he wasn’t going to poison anyone else, that had been the truth.
“Isn’t this hard to get?” I asked.
“A few states have restricted policies for buying ammonium nitrate, and some require additives that make it difficult to weaponize. Unfortunately, Illinois isn’t one of those states. The process isn’t very easy, and it isn’t very well-known, but anyone can learn how to make ANFO on the Internet. Luckily, most people get the proportions wrong and blow themselves up.”
Murray knocked on the next toilet over, and then the one behind it.