‘Frank Bell? I’m Lieutenant Walter Chessman from the Los Angeles Police Department and this is Detective Stan Booker. I understand that you were a witness to The Cedars school bombing this morning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I also understand that your son was a casualty. I want to offer our condolences.’
‘That’s . . . Thank you.’
‘If you don’t want to talk to us now I’ll quite understand. But I don’t think I have to tell you that the sooner we find the bastards who set off that bomb, the better.’
‘It’s OK. Come on in. To tell you the truth, I think I need to talk to somebody about it. My wife’s . . . well, my wife’s very distressed about it. She . . .’
Margot appeared from the bedroom. Her eyes were pink and swollen and she was clutching Danny’s old brown teddy bear, Mr Rumbles. ‘Frank?’
‘It’s the police. They want to ask me some questions about this morning.’
Margot nodded. ‘I see.’ She turned to Lieutenant Chessman and said, ‘Do you know who did it yet?’
Lieutenant Chessman shook his head. ‘Not so far, ma’am.’
‘At least I know who killed my son.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Lieutenant Chessman raised one eyebrow.
Frank said, ‘Margot, for Christ’s sake.’
‘There he is,’ said Margot, pointing directly at Frank. ‘Danny was dying and his own father left him bleeding in the back seat of his car while he went to take care of a whole lot of people he didn’t even know. His own father. Behold the man.’
Lieutenant Chessman glanced at Detective Booker and then he looked back at Margot. ‘I have to tell you, Mrs Bell, I’ve been in this game for twenty-seven years and it isn’t always easy in such stressful circumstances to make the most appropriate decision.’
‘Oh, the most appropriate decision. I see. You don’t think that saving the life of your only child is not just an appropriate decision, but a critical one?’
‘Mrs Bell, I really need to talk to your husband alone. I want to go through his recollections, one by one, and I don’t want those recollections distorted by any untoward pressure.’
‘Untoward pressure? Oh, you mean guilt.’
‘Mrs Bell, I have to find the group or individual who killed all of those children, and the longer it takes to gather all of the information I need, the further away that group or individual is going to be.’
‘Yes, of course. Yes. I’m sounding aggrieved, aren’t I?’
‘Mrs Bell, what you’re feeling – it’s perfectly understandable. But I haven’t come here to blame anybody for anything. I’ve come here to collect some more facts, that’s all.’
‘Do you have a child?’ Margot challenged him.
‘Yes, ma’am. Three daughters, as a matter of fact.’
‘And if a bomb went off, would you leave them, even for a minute?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s a hypothetical question that I can’t honestly answer.’
‘You wouldn’t leave them for a second, would you, those girls of yours? You certainly wouldn’t let them die.’
Lieutenant Chessman said nothing, but shrugged and took out his notebook.
‘You wouldn’t let them bleed to death, all alone, would you? Well, would you?’
‘If you don’t mind, ma’am. We’re kind of pushed for time.’
Frank sat hunched forward on the couch, his arms wrapped around himself as if he were feeling the cold.
‘You saw the van stop outside the school gates?’ Lieutenant Chessman asked him.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t really take any notice of it. It was just a van.’
‘It had no distinguishing markings at all?’
‘Not that I recall.’
‘Did you notice the driver?’
‘No. It was too far away. Besides, there was no reason to.’
Lieutenant Chessman made a few quick notes, and then he said, ‘In your opinion, how tight was the security at The Cedars? The gates to the parking lot were always closed at nine A.M., or so I’m told. What happened if you wanted to enter the parking lot after that time?’
‘You’d have to stop at the security booth and show yourself. Or some ID, if Mr Lomax didn’t know you.’
‘Do you have any first-hand experience of that?’
‘Well, sure, I’ve been late taking Danny to school a couple of times, and Mr Lomax would always take a look into the car to see who it was. And once there was a delivery truck ahead of me, and Mr Lomax came out of his booth and made quite a performance of checking the driver’s ID.’
‘Did he come out of his booth this morning?’
‘No, he didn’t. The van only stopped for a second, and then he waved it through.’
‘So what do you conclude from that?’
‘I don’t know. You’re the detective. He must have known the driver by sight.’
‘That’s a reasonable conclusion, yes.’
The sun was gradually sinking, and it shone into Lieutenant Chessman’s eyes. Frank went over to the patio window and angled the blinds. Outside in the yard Danny’s swing set was casting a long-legged shadow across the grass, as gaunt as a scaffold.
Lieutenant Chessman came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re sure you’re OK with this?’
Frank said, ‘Yes, sure. Yes. Let’s get it over with.’ He didn’t want any sympathy. He felt as if somebody was squeezing his throat and if Lieutenant Chessman gave him any sympathy he wouldn’t be able to speak at all.
‘Did you see any kind of flash when the bomb went off?’ Detective Booker asked him.
‘A flash? Yes.’
‘How bright was that flash?’
‘Not particularly bright. Not much brighter than a camera-flash. But there was a whole lot of smoke.’
‘Would you say that was black smoke or gray smoke or brown smoke?’
‘I don’t know. Dark gray, I guess. What difference does it make?’
‘You’d be surprised. Different explosives produce different amounts of smoke. IMI demolition blocks produce a whole lot of black smoke, because they’re almost one hundred percent TNT, while your RDX, for example, produces considerably less. Once we’ve identified the type of explosive, we can start to source it, find out where it was acquired, and who acquired it.’
‘Well, there was a lot of smoke. Dark gray smoke, almost black. For a time it was like midnight. I couldn’t see the school building at all.’
‘The officer who spoke to you at the scene . . . he made a note that you mentioned another witness, a young woman.’
‘That’s right. She came up to me right after the blast. One of her shoes was blown off but otherwise she seemed OK.’
‘You said your son seemed OK, too.’
Frank stared at him. ‘Excuse me? What exactly are you trying to imply?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I was simply trying to suggest that this young woman could have been more seriously injured than she first appeared.’
‘She was walking and she was talking and she was articulate, OK?’
‘Did you know her?’
‘No. No, I didn’t.’
‘She wasn’t a parent at The Cedars or a member of the faculty or anything like that?’
‘I have no idea who she was, none at all. She asked me if I was OK, and then she asked me if I had lost anybody in the blast. I said . . .’ He pursed his lips, and then he looked away, toward the window.
‘I understand,’ said Lieutenant Chessman. ‘At that time you didn’t know that Danny had been hurt.’
‘We’re just trying to find as many eye witnesses as possible,’ put in Detective Booker. ‘Like, if you saw this young woman again, do you think you would recognize her?’
Frank pictured the young woman’s dusty, short-cropped hair, and her bleached-out blue eyes. She had been almost beautiful in a rather Slavic way. Not the kind of looks that usually attracted him – he had always preferred Audrey Hepburn types like Margot, small and dark and vivacious. But now he came to think about the young woman again, he thought yes, there had been something about her, something both assertive and wounded. Something that would catch you like fish hooks, and cause you a whole lot of trouble to get free.