I thought about the four mannequins the HRT team had found in the shed, all lying on electric heating pads that made them look like real people on the infrared scopes. I thought about the FBI agent who’d been closest to the first thaa-wumph! in the basement of Edgars’s house, which he’d said held computers and large editing screens.
He said a fireball had gone off in there, fueled by an accelerant, and that, together with the explosion upstairs, had burned the mansion to the ground. Edgars had thought of almost everything; it was as if he’d been certain we’d find him at some point and had planned for it.
Bree ended her call with the chief.
“Michaels says, ‘Well done,’ and you’re on paid leave pending an investigation again.”
“Is it possible to be double-suspended?”
“You’re going to be cleared, Alex. Pratt was going to kill Gretchen Lindel. There are multiple witnesses. You had to shoot him. And Edgars effectively shot himself.”
“I know.”
“Then why the long face?”
I hesitated, wondering if I was still suffering from the effects of the gas, but then I said, “I’ve decided not to go back even if I am cleared.”
She was quiet for a while. “What would you do? Just counseling?”
“No, I’ve got some big ideas. And the best part about them? They all include you.”
When I glanced over at her, she was smiling. “That makes me happy.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Me too.”
Chapter 112
Ten days after we reunited his daughter with her family, Alden Lindel passed away in his sleep, a happy man.
I heard the news from his wife on a chill, windy Saturday afternoon as I crutched after my family on the east side of Capitol Hill. Mrs. Lindel was grief-stricken, of course, but also relieved. With Gretchen at his side constantly since she’d returned home, Lindel had found grace, and he’d passed holding his daughter’s hand and his wife’s. I promised Eliza that I would be at the funeral, and I pocketed my phone.
Ali was dancing around. “C’mon, Dad. I’m going to be late.”
“Go on in, then,” Nana Mama said, shooing him toward the door of Elephants and Donkeys, a relatively new pub with a poster in the window advertising the District Open Darts Championship.
Ali yanked open the door like he owned the place and went in.
Bree started laughing.
“What’s so funny, young lady?” my grandmother demanded.
Bree waved a hand. “I just never thought I’d see the day when you’d be attending a darts tournament in a bar, Nana.”
“I’m not done growing yet, dear,” she said good-naturedly and winked.
We followed her inside and found Sampson, Billie, and Krazy Kat Rawlins having drafts at the bar. I helped Ali sort through the release forms and got a number to pin on the back of his shirt.
“They have a practice board,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
“You’ve been practicing every night for two hours.”
He frowned, said, “Repetition is the mother of skill, Dad.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ve heard that too,” I said, surrendering. “Go on.”
I smiled as he walked toward the knot of older darts competitors gathered at the rear of the pub, thinking that I had never been that fearless at his age.
Sampson handed me a beer, offered me his stool.
I took it and kissed Billie on the cheek. “You guys didn’t have to come.”
“What else were we going to do on a cold day off?”
Nana Mama sat up on a bar stool beside Jannie watching a college football game, eating buffalo wings, and drinking a Sprite.
“I know we’re technically on leave pending investigation,” Sampson said to Bree. “But is Lourdes Rodriguez still spilling her guts?”
Bree hesitated.
Rawlins said, “I’ve talked to her. The woman won’t shut up.”
“It’s true,” Bree said with a sigh.
Between the two of them, we got a thumbnail sketch of Rodriguez’s involvement with Nash Edgars. They’d met at a coding conference she’d attended because she’d heard coders made better money than satellite-dish installers.
Edgars seemed to have anything he wanted whenever he wanted it. Better, he could get her anything she wanted whenever she wanted it. Rodriguez wasn’t going to inherit a dime from any uncle ever, and here was this genius computer guy offering her the world.
“Through the dark web,” Rawlins said. “She claimed he was worth forty to fifty million in Bitcoin alone.”
“But it wasn’t until he started acting on his hatred of blond women that the real money started coming in,” Bree said, disgusted.
“Hundreds of thousands of subscribers,” Rawlins said, shaking his Mohawk, which was a startling violet that day. “All of them paying to see those women terrified and abused.”
Rodriguez told Bree that Edgars’s hatred of blondes stemmed from years of dealing with a drunken blond mother and more years of fair-haired girls harassing him when he was grossly obese and growing up in Southern California. Because he was an avowed computer nerd, the abuse continued even after he’d dropped the weight.
“So, what, he decided to get his revenge and help others live out their anti-blonde fantasies?” Sampson said.
“It was more twisted and diabolical than that,” Bree said. “She said he planned on putting the clips together into a horror documentary film called All Blondes Must Die.”
“That’s something we’ll never be seeing, thank God,” Sampson said. “What about that kid Timmy Walker?”
“Lourdes said if anyone killed that poor kid, it was Pratt,” Bree said. “She said there wasn’t a good bone in his body, that Alex did the world a service.”
Billie said, “How’s Ned?”
“Better,” I said, brightening. “I saw him this morning. Like you said the day he was shot, the liver’s a remarkable thing. It’s already starting to regenerate. The docs are saying he’ll make a full—”
Nana Mama appeared, said, “Enough of that. C’mon, your son’s about to throw or toss or whatever they do with darts.”
Chapter 113
I wish I could say that Ali slayed it, threw darts with consistent, dazzling accuracy, but that didn’t happen. He did toss three bull’s-eyes and an almost, but he was wild otherwise and lost in the first round to a nice guy from Texas named Mel Davis who owned a barbecue joint downtown.
Ali was crushed until Davis offered him and his friends free barbecue brisket the next time he was in. My youngest was back to his old self walking home, gabbing nonstop with Jannie and Nana Mama about his plans to make a comeback in the tournament next year. We lagged behind.
After a few moments, Bree said, “What did Ned think about your big idea?”
“He likes it. A lot.”
“Michaels?”
“We haven’t had that talk yet.”
“You’re sure you’ll be happy?”
“Extremely. I’ll have the best of both worlds.”
Ali, Nana, and Jannie went into Chung’s convenience store to pick up milk and ice cream. Bree and I kept walking.
Night had fallen when we reached our steps. The house and porch were dark. We climbed onto the porch together, hand in hand, and but for a few unresolved issues, I felt as solid as I had in—
“Hands up, or I’ll shoot you both right now.”
We startled and looked to our right, saw the silhouette of someone crouched by the railing and aiming a revolver at us. We raised our hands.