Chapter Eight
“What the heck, guys?”
Sarah said, hugging Thayne and then gripping Jarrett’s hand.
They’d just walked into the LA office, heading to SAC Stanger’s office to debrief, when they stopped at her desk the following day.
Thayne shook his head.
“It sucked big time, Sarah, we’re just glad to be home in one piece.”
“Even though someone wanted us in pieces,”
Jarrett said.
He still had a tiny white bandage covering the bullet graze at his temple.
His eyes twinkled; his snarky personality seemed to have returned since Thayne acquiesced and let him drive their rental car back up to LA, listening to whatever music he favored, which was usually old-school Country or Blue Grass, something Thayne found horrific.
At least the music seemed to put Jarrett in this happy-go-lucky mood so Thayne tolerated it, even though banjos made him want to wail and rend his garments.
He realized that just watching Jarrett’s expression light up when he was happy was worth any tiny sacrifice Thayne had to make.
It made Thayne’s heart flutter just a little bit every time Jarrett’s dimples appeared.
At least he had the excuse of a damaged eardrum so Jarrett kept the music low, humming along with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.
“Evans! Wolfe! Get in here!”
Stanger barked.
Thayne turned back to Sarah.
“No rest for the wicked.”
He rolled his eyes.
She grinned at him.
“Go on then.”
“Connor, will ya check for that autopsy report?”
Jarrett asked.
“Sure.
Now go before you get your asses handed to you… again,” she said.
Thayne nodded and grabbed his partner’s sleeve.
“Come on.”
They walked into the SAC’s office and sank down into the chairs in front of it.
Stanger looked them both over with a critical eye and then turned toward Thayne.
“You okay? First of all, did the doctor clear both of you?”
Thayne pulled out the discharge papers they’d gotten from the hospital and handed both of them to their boss.
“We’re both cleared for regular duty.”
That was pretty much the truth.
Jarrett still complained of a headache but that was to be expected.
The doctor had emphasized that Thayne would have ringing in his ears for a couple of weeks and that he was supposed to stay away from loud noises because they could cause permanent hearing loss if he wasn’t careful.
He could hear just fine now, but every once in a while the ringing came back and conversations around him sounded like a low buzz if he didn’t focus on them.
His right leg felt like it had an extremely bad sunburn but for the most part, he felt good.
Besides that, he wanted to get back to work and figure out what happened out at the Marine Corps base.
They both had the niggling suspicion they had a religious fanatic on their hands and Thayne was bound and determined to find out if the Chinatown explosion was linked to it in some manner.
Stanger sat and read the hospital discharge papers and then put them in a folder on his desk before looking back up at them.
“I’ll put these in your files.”
He tapped the folder and crossed his arms, sitting back in his chair, looking them both over.
“Now, tell me what the hell happened down there and make me believe it.
I know you told me some of it over the phone but I want the whole story.
I want to know what you wouldn’t put in your official report.”
He eyeballed them both, pointing his finger at each of them.
“Don’t lie to me because I’ll know it.
If you tell me this was a one-time incident, I can go back to finding you an assignment that won’t get you killed, but if there’s something more, I want to know it. Clear?”
Thayne exchanged a gaze with Jarrett.
When Jarrett opened his mouth to speak, Stanger held up a hand, stopping him.
“Don’t speak, Evans.
Half of what comes out of your mouth is horseshit.”
He turned to glare at Thayne.
“You.
Tell me what happened and don’t embellish.
You’re beginning to take on your partner’s habits of bending the truth.”
He frowned at Jarrett who slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms defensively.
Thayne flushed with embarrassment as Jarrett clapped his mouth closed.
The truth was, Thayne knew Jarrett would have probably told the boss everything they’d discovered but it wasn’t easy trying to get a straight story out of him.
In fact, it was one of the things Thayne found the most fascinating about his partner.
He took a deep breath and looked over to Stanger, starting by telling him what they’d found out, beginning with their tour of the blast site at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, their subsequent visit to the coroner’s office, and what they found when examining the note that had been mailed to the base operations office.
“So, you think this is a religious nutjob?”
Stanger concluded.
Thayne nodded.
“We think it’s possible.
What other reason could he have for sending a note quoting scripture?”
“If that’s even what it is,”
Stanger said.
“It wasn’t a complete bible verse so it could be something he remembers from his childhood or for that matter, something he saw on the History Channel.”
He shook his head.
“The evidence pointing to him being on a religious mission is thin.”
“Which is why we hope to find out more when we interview Investigator Chang about the Chinatown accident which happened back in February,”
Jarrett added.
“The police investigation concluded it was an accident and Chang agreed with that.
We just think it deserves another look, that’s all.”
“Okay,”
Stanger said with a purse of his lips.
“Now, tell me what the hell happened during that raid.
This should be fun.”
He sat back as if he was prepared to be entertained.
Thayne launched into the story of what had happened when they joined the FBI, Homeland, and their operation, leaving out Jarrett’s reckless run into the burning barn without backup.
Thayne knew Stanger would probably suspend his partner if he thought he did one more stupid thing and he was pretty sure that one ranked high on the list of reckless things Jarrett did.
He explained how the CIA had been involved with intelligence gathering in South America and Mexico and even how Mossad had an operative there, hoping to find a bomb-making terrorist among the militia.
Finally, he told the boss about what had happened with Jarrett’s Jeep and then sat back waiting to see what he would say.
Stanger finally looked up.
“Well, it sounds like you two stepped into it down there.
If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you either have a magnet which draws killers to you or you have a death wish, Evans.”
“I find that I do some of my best work while paralyzed with intense terror, sir.”
The look on Jarrett’s face was so innocent, Thayne wanted to laugh.
Instead, he just gaped at him, shaking his head.
“So I’ve noticed,”
Stanger growled.
“I am rather pissed that we have a homegrown domestic terrorist cell so close to home,”
he said, ignoring Jarrett’s statement for the moment.
“Do you think they had ties to the fireworks explosion at the Marine Corps base?”
“They might, sir.
A lot of it is going to depend on what we find when we get that autopsy report.
If Greg Mason was knocked out prior to the explosion, it narrows the field of suspects,”
Jarrett said.
“The only people close to the display before, during, and after it was set up, were the Mason’s themselves and two others in their employ.
It’s unlikely anyone else had access.
Sarah has been looking into all of it but so far, nothing stands out.”
“Okay.
Go interview Chang and put the Chinatown fireworks explosion to bed.”
Stanger turned to frown at Jarrett.
“I’m not generally this much of a micromanager, Evans,”
Stanger said, almost apologetically.
“Wolfe knows that.
But when my agent’s cars are being sabotaged and they are getting shot at, something’s wrong and I want to be kept in the loop,”
Stanger said.
“Now go do your thing and don’t get blown up again.”
Thayne stood up as Jarrett shot to his feet beside him.
He almost laughed at how desperately his partner wanted to get out of there.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned and followed Jarrett out of the boss’s office.
“What time is our appointment with Chang?”
he asked Jarrett.
“At ten thirty.
We can stop for coffee if we leave now,”
he said, glancing at his watch.
Thayne smiled.
“You’re as jumpy as a ferret.
It’s decaf for you,”
he said affectionately.
Jarrett glanced over at him and smirked.
“Uh-huh.
Maybe I’ll have one ‘a them green teas you drink.”
He put his finger in his mouth as if he were gagging himself.
All Thayne could do was laugh and shake his head.
****
They stopped for coffee and picked up a black Crown Victoria from the motor pool, leaving the rental in the garage below the building so the ATF could return it to the agency.
At least they had a little legroom in the Crown Vic, a lot better than the Nissan they’d picked up in San Diego.
Until Jarrett replaced his Jeep, he’d be taking the Crown Vic or driving his Harley.
The ATF investigator, Suki Chang, and her newborn daughter lived in Pasadena, close to the LA field office in Glendale, so getting there took only a few minutes.
She lived in a nice home and greeted them holding a sleeping baby on her shoulder.
“You must be Special Agents Evans and Wolfe.”
“Yes,”
Thayne said pleasantly as they stepped into the foyer of the large house.
She closed the door behind them.
“I’m just going to put the baby down.
I’ll be right back.
Make yourselves at home.”
She pointed to a comfortably furnished living room and they headed in there while she went upstairs.
Thayne walked around the room, admiring the silk tapestries, Chinese porcelain vases, and hand-knotted Oriental rugs on the floor.
He passed by a low table covered with a red cloth where a small golden Buddha sat.
Jarrett came up to stand beside him and they waited silently until she returned a minute or so later.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.
Please have a seat.”
She waved at a yellow silk settee and they walked over and sat down on it while she lowered herself to a matching couch across from them.
“So you’re here to talk about my investigation of the Chinese New Year fireworks explosion.
Did I leave anything out of my report?”
She wasn’t smiling and gave off a slightly defensive air although Thayne might have been wrong about the way he was reading her.
She sat very still on the sofa, just staring at the two of them.
“Well, we’re not sure,”
Thayne said.
“We just got back from San Diego where there was an explosion at a Marine Corps base,”
Jarrett added.
“We’re just here to see if there are any parallels to be drawn between the two incidents.”
“Parallels,”
she said flatly.
“Do you think there are parallels between Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and the Chinese New Year explosion?”
Thayne cocked his head to the side.
“I take it you’ve heard about the Miramar explosion.”
Chang smiled thinly and then reached up, grasping her necklace and running a finger over a pendant.
Thayne wondered whether she was deliberately trying to stall.
“I may be on maternity leave but I do keep my ear to the ground.”
Thayne exchanged a glance with Jarrett whose face was impassive.
“No problem.
So, can you tell us anything that you perhaps left out of the report.
Obviously, you explained that you concluded the incident was an accident and didn’t require any additional follow-up,”
Jarrett said.
She fingered her necklace.
“Yes.
That’s what I determined.
I don’t know why you think I left something out of my report.”
She rushed to explain.
“It looks like one of the parade goers sent up a large balloon lantern which was equipped with fireworks which he’d meant to shoot out of the sides of the basket underneath, once it reached a safe altitude.
Unfortunately, it only went up about twenty feet before the fireworks ignited which meant that several people in the gathered crowd were injured.
But it certainly wasn’t anything malicious.”
“And that’s the report you gave the LAPD as well?”
Jarrett asked.
She frowned, dropping her hand from the small gold pendant that hung around her neck.
Thayne realized it was a tiny cross.
“Why are you asking that?”
she said.
“Of course that’s the report I gave the LAPD.”
“The reason why I asked what you left out of the report, was that there was no name of the person who sent up the lantern.
Did you interview him?”
“Yes, of course I did,”
she said tersely.
“I didn’t put that in my report?”
Thayne handed her the file.
“No, I’m afraid you overlooked that.”
She flipped open the file and read her report thoroughly.
“Huh.
Well, I may have to go back and review my notes to see if I wrote the woman’s name down.”
“It was a woman who sent up the lantern? I thought you said he’d meant to shoot the fireworks out of the sides of the lantern but they ignited before it got to a proper height and that you interviewed him.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
She stared, looking between them for a few seconds.
“Oh I see where the confusion is.
In Chinese, the pronouns he, she, and it, are often confused when being translated to English because in Chinese there is one word for them.
It makes sense in the context it’s used.”
Jarrett glanced at Thayne and then turned back to Chang, giving the woman a small nod.
“So it was a woman who sent up this lantern?”
he drawled.
“Yes.
That’s right.
Is it clear now?”
Chang’s speech was clipped and Thayne could tell she was not at all pleased.
He stood up and Jarrett followed.
“Yes, much clearer.
Thank you for your time, Investigator Chang,” he said.
“Of course.
I hope you two agents realize that I made a judgement call here.
I really didn’t think there was anything suspicious about the explosion.
The LAPD issued the woman a citation and I doubt she’ll be welcomed back to the parade next year.”
Thayne’s blood was boiling.
People had ended up in the hospital as a result of the fireworks explosion… if it really was only a mishap.
He looked over at Jarrett who was glaring at the woman and realized his partner was thinking something along the same lines.
“Thank you for your time, Investigator Chang.
If you would consult your notes and get back to us with her name, that would be great.”
“Of course.”
He and Jarrett shook her proffered hand before exiting the house.
Jarrett was vibrating hard beside him as they walked down the steps in front of the house to their car.
As soon as they were in the car, Jarrett turned toward Thayne.
“Somethin’s fishy as hell with her.
She was lyin’,”
Jarrett drawled.
Thayne nodded.
“Agreed.
I read that police report and I don’t remember reading anything about the officer issuing a citation.”
“Something was totally off with that woman, Wolfe.
Obviously, she left off the name of who she interviewed, glossed over the whole incident, and why the hell does she have a Buddha in her house if she’s wearin’ a cross around her neck?”
“I noticed that too.
Maybe the Buddha is just symbolic of her Asian culture?”
Thayne started the car and pulled away from the curb.
Jarrett shook his head.
“I suppose that’s possible but I got other questions.
I know I’m from West Virginia and I may sound like a hick, but did you even hear an accent on her?”
“No.
She sounds like she was born here,”
Thayne frowned.
“Yeah, she does for the most part, but something about the way she pauses between words makes me think English ain’t her mother tongue.
She also should know the difference between he and she.
Unless she’s translating it in her head from Chinese to English, and then I could see her makin’ that mistake.
Otherwise, she was lying.”
“Why, though?”
Thayne asked.
“Spy comes to mind.”
Jarrett frowned.
Thayne was speechless for a second.
That was a leap if there ever was one.
If Chang was a Chinese national, she couldn’t obtain the security clearance needed to work at the ATF.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know, Jarrett.
It’s probably just that she was raised by Chinese native speakers and she thinks in Chinese.”
“I have no fuckin’ idea what it is.
I just know that somethin’ about the woman is off.
We need to check her out and find out why she left the name of the woman she interviewed off the report.
I mean, fuck, I hate paperwork more than anyone and even I know, ya need to list the witness’s name on a report if you’re gonna put it down on paper.
And it’s a good point about the citation, though why she’d lie about something so easy to check is beyond me.
Gotta check that out too.”
Now it was Jarrett’s turn to shake his head.
“I have a niggling suspicion about this one, Thayne.
It seems strange.”
“I feel really strange to be investigating one of our own.”
Jarrett reached for Thayne’s hand as he drove.
“Let’s just wait and see before I start making accusations.
I may be totally off base.
Where are we headed?”
“I thought we should go talk to Ari Deukmejian, the LAPD officer who filed the report about the incident in Chinatown.
I want to know why he didn’t interview anyone connected with the explosion.
If he issued a citation, he should have noted it.
In addition, at least a hundred people must have been on the street.
Yet the only two witnesses he interviewed about what happened were the parents of the kids admitted to the emergency room.
I also think we should check out the site in Chinatown where the lantern fireworks exploded.
It’s been months since the parade but I still want to get a feel for where it happened.”
Jarrett squeezed his hand and smirked at him.
“Okay, partner.
You’re drivin’.
I’m at your mercy.”
Thayne smiled back, pointing the car toward downtown to talk to the LAPD.
****
Ari Deukmejian worked out of the LAPD’s Chinatown substation in downtown LA.
It took them only about twenty minutes to get there.
They’d called ahead to make sure the officer was there to meet them when they arrived, and he greeted them with a smile and a handshake, introducing them to his partner, Chin Wu.
The officers ushered them into the conference room.
Deukmejian held a file folder in his hands.
“Here’s my report.
I know you said you wanted to look at some pictures from the scene of the accident.”
Jarrett lifted an eyebrow as Thayne took the file from the officer, sitting down and flipping it open as the others took seats at the large table.
“Are you sure that’s all this was?”
Jarrett asked.
“An accident?”
Deukmejian frowned and nodded.
“Yes.
We had the ATF out there right after the explosion and your investigator concluded there was nothing to indicate anything different.
Is there a reason it’s coming into question now? It’s been nearly six months.”
The officer frowned.
“We can’t be sure,”
Thayne said, paging through the photographs of the scene.
Deukmejian leaned forward a little.
“What’s this all about?”
“We’re followin’ up at this point because there was a fireworks explosion down in San Diego at a fireworks show.
One man died and several people were seriously injured,”
Jarrett added.
“San Diego?”
Wu asked.
“Isn’t that a little far away to draw a parallel to the Chinatown incident?”
“We have to follow it up of course,”
Jarrett said.
“I spoze what I really wanted to find out was why there were so few witnesses interviewed at the Chinatown scene.
There must have been tons of people on the street to witness it.”
Deukmejian’s partner, Wu, nodded.
“Yes.
Hundreds.
It’s the largest event of the year down here.
Not only is it attended by the locals but it has also become a massive tourist destination.
LA’s Chinatown draws almost as much spectator traffic as San Francisco or New York.”
“So why so few witness interviews?”
Thayne asked, looking down at the report he was reading.
Jarrett could tell he was trying to keep an accusation out of his voice.
When Thayne glanced back up, Wu was shaking his head.
He looked positively sheepish as he looked from Thayne to Jarrett.
“My wife went into labor that morning and I was in the hospital with her so Ari didn’t have his partner by his side.”
“It was just unfortunate timing, Chin.
Stop beating yourself up about it,”
Ari said, looking at his partner affectionately.
He glanced back at Jarrett.
“I don’t speak Chinese and my chief sent me out with a rookie who doesn’t speak Chinese either.
I couldn’t interview most of the witnesses and couldn’t find any reason to detain them.
Chin usually handles our interviews when there’s a language barrier.”
He glanced out of the conference room windows toward his boss’s office before looking back and leaning forward.
“Can I ask that you please don’t share this with my captain?”
Thayne glanced out the window and then back at Officer Deukmejian.
“No problem, officer.
We know how it works and we’re not here to get you in any trouble.
We just need to see if there’s a correlation between this incident and Miramar.
If it wasn’t an accident, then maybe these are the same perpetrators or the Chinatown incident was a test run.
See where our heads are?”
Jarrett recognized his partner’s sympathetic glance, knowing that Deukmejian had been in an impossible situation.
Thayne glanced back down and studied the photos for a minute or two then he looked back up to meet Jarrett’s eyes.
“Check these out.”
Jarrett stood and walked around the table, bending down to look at the pictures as Thayne turned them over slowly.
They showed a lot of debris on the street—mostly burnt pieces of the lantern that had crashed to the ground on narrow Hill Street in Chinatown.
Jarrett was surprised at the size of the lantern.
He didn’t know what he had expected, but the remains of the lantern were perhaps six feet long and three feet in circumference, shaped like a large football with pointed ends.
It was painted with what had been bright yellow and red with Chinese characters.
It showed the remains of a basket that had clearly been where the fireworks had been packed.
Jarrett pointed to the picture.
“Can you tell me how this was supposed to work?”
Deukmejian walked over to them and tapped the photograph.
“The lantern is hollow and works like a hot air balloon.
The fireworks are packed in a basket underneath and in between, the designer hangs a source of fuel, generally a thick piece of dense cardboard which will burn very slowly.
The way it’s supposed to work is that once the cardboard is lit, the heat will fill the balloon with hot air and then it will begin to rise.
The basket is then lit from the bottom on all four sides from strings that hang down to the ground where the operator stands.
He lights the strings on fire when the lantern gets a ways off the ground and the fire travels up the string to ignite the basket.
The fireworks are not supposed to ignite until the balloon is about fifty feet above the ground.
In this case, everything started out all right but the fireworks ignited prematurely, beginning to explode when the balloon was only about fifteen to twenty feet off the ground.
The fireworks shot straight out the sides and down into the crowd as it continued to rise.
It must have been like standing above a cannon spraying out sparks.
That’s how so many people got injured.”
“Shit.
That looks incredibly dangerous even if it worked like it was designed to,”
Thayne said.
He exchanged a look with Jarrett.
“It was.
Several people were injured with minor burns and two kids ended up in the hospital with more extensive burns,”
Deukmejian said.
“The lanterns are dangerous but they’re very common in China and they’re not as tightly regulated there,”
Wu added.
“Here, the city issues permits for them only when the LAFD is on the scene and supervising the ignition.”
“So, it’s not likely the builder was issued a permit.
I take it no one hung around to talk to you afterward?”
Jarrett asked.
He looked at Deukmejian who exchanged a glance with his partner.
“Like I said, I wasn’t available to translate that night,”
Wu replied, “And even if I was, I don’t think many people would have been forthcoming in their witness statements.”
“Why is that?”
Jarrett asked.
Wu sighed.
“It might help if I explain what we’re dealing with down here.
We have a heavy immigrant population in this area.
They are very distrustful of any outsiders and that includes anyone in a position of authority like the LAPD or the fire department.
When they are victims of a crime, they are often reluctant to report it and we have to drag it out of them.
The residents and businesses circle the wagons like nothing you’ve ever seen and they clam up like crazy.
Even if they speak English, and most do, they pretend not to.
Some are here illegally and fear the possibility of being sent back to China.
Some just prefer to handle things on their own.
That allows Chinese street gangs to prey on them as a result of their closed-mouth behavior.
The locals feel it’s better to deal with it as a Chinese problem than bring in police because they are often threatened by these street thugs.
There’s a fair amount of organized crime down here with gambling, prostitution, and the extortion rackets.
People would rather pay protection money than talk to the police. They’re afraid of retaliation.”
“Honestly, I was lucky to get the two interviews I did,”
Officer Deukmejian said.
“And even then, I didn’t learn anything except how the explosion went down.
Like I said, I really thought it was an accident.
Nothing pointed to anyone suspicious hanging around to watch it like an arsonist does, but then again, I didn’t arrive to take the report until after the fact.
In addition, I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to admit they caught it on their phones or cameras.
Honestly, our resources down here are so overtaxed, I doubt I could get anyone to analyze a video tape or a phone recording even if I could have found one.
I checked store security video from two stores which recorded the incident, but I couldn’t find evidence of a crime here.”
He shook his head, looking down at his hands before glancing back up.
He spread his palms up in a helpless gesture.
“Look, I’m not trained in profiling.
I’m just a beat cop.
I think the only reason the parents of the injured kids spoke to me was because they knew me from the neighborhood.
Wu and I have been out here working the beat for over five years and they still don’t trust us completely and probably never will.
And if I thought there was a crime here, I would have taken it further.
No one died and unfortunately, that’s the only thing that gets a hell of a lot of attention.”
“That’s rough,”
Thayne said.
Jarrett watched him turn his attention back to the photos, leaning down to examine them closely.
“So maybe this was only an accident,”
Jarrett replied.
“What about the maker of the lantern? Did she cooperate with you after you issued the citation?”
“No one was there by the time I got there,”
Deukmejian said.
“How do you know the lantern maker was female?”
“The ATF investigator, Chang, says it was a woman but she didn’t put the name in the report.
She’s checking her notes.
She also told us you issued them a citation.”
“I never told her that,”
he said, sounding offended.
“I don’t know how she came by that information.
By the time I got the call and got out to the site of the explosion, whoever sent up the lantern had vanished from the scene.
No doubt it was someone who either knew very little about the nature of the way fireworks explode or someone who wanted to hurt a lot of people at once.
To be honest, if someone deliberately wanted to hurt a lot of people at once, there’s better ways of doing it,”
Deukmejian replied.
“The LAPD is more concerned with getting illegal weapons off the streets, as the ATF well knows.”
Jarrett nodded.
He did know that but he and Thayne had to investigate these fireworks incidents for the time being.
Hell, Thayne had spent two years undercover to break up a gun runner’s operation and it had nearly gotten them both killed in the end.
He understood the LAPD’s desire to get unregistered weapons off the street and he and Thayne shared it.
The fact that Chang outright lied about the citation was troubling in and of itself.
She couldn’t be so stupid to think that they wouldn’t follow up on what she told them.
This case just got weirder and weirder.
“I’d like to see the permits that were pulled for the parade that day,”
Jarrett said.
“The parade permits?”
Wu asked.
“Okay, I can do that but can I get them to you tomorrow? It might take a while to hunt them all down.
You want street vendors as well as anyone in the parade itself?”
Thayne nodded.
“All of them, please.
I take it no one took out a permit for a Chinese lantern with fireworks?”
Deukmejian shook his head.
“No.
Unfortunately, no one did.
Like I said, the LA Fire Department would have to be there if one of those lanterns was approved.
That’s one of the things that made investigating this accident so difficult.
If you’ll read the rest of the report, you’ll see, I concluded it by saying I couldn’t locate the owner of the lantern.”
Jarrett nodded.
He was certain Deukmejian was telling them the truth.
He could usually smell a lie and that’s probably what made him so suspicious of Chang.
“Jarrett, look at this,”
Thayne said.
Jarrett glanced down at a photo that Thayne had been staring at for quite a few minutes. “What?”
“I saw this out at the blast scene down at Miramar but I didn’t know what it was.”
Jarrett stared at the tiny yellow papers crumpled and lying on the ground near a shop’s picture window on the street near the lantern debris.
He recognized them immediately.
“You saw this out at Miramar?”
Jarrett asked.
“Yeah, what are they?”
Thayne looked up at his partner.
“Field strips,”
Deukmejian answered before Jarrett could reply.
“I didn’t think they could be related to the accident.”
“What’s a field strip?”
Thayne asked.
“Those are cigarette papers that have been stripped of the filter.
Folks in the military are taught to strip out the filter and then roll the papers so they don’t leave cigarette butts in the field.
Less likely the enemy will know anyone’s been there but if you ain’t military, ya wouldn’t know what you’re looking at,”
Jarrett explained.
He glanced over at Deukmejian with a raised eyebrow.
“Army,”
Deukmejian said in answer to the unasked question.
“Marine Corps,”
Jarrett replied, nodding.
He looked back at Thayne.
“You sure you saw this same thing out at Miramar? I can’t believe I missed it.”
“Yeah, positive.
I thought it was detritus from the explosion but it stuck with me because the cigarette papers were colored, unlike most of the burn debris.”
Jarrett knew why he hadn’t seen the papers.
He’d been too busy having flashbacks to that shitty day two years before when he’d seen pictures of the little rag doll on the ground in Gaza City.
“I got to get another look at them pictures from the base, Wolfe.”
Thayne eyeballed him as he nodded.
“Okay, we can do that.”
He looked back down and pushed the file toward Jarrett.
“You wanna look at these?”
“Yeah.”
Jarrett sat down again and Deukmejian moved closer to him.
“I’m gonna go start on those permits,”
Wu said, leaving the room as they continued perusing the file.
He walked out as Jarrett started paging through the photos stopping on one and looking up at Thayne and Deukmejian.
“What’s this?”
He pointed down at a photo showing what appeared to be a strip of white paper with some writing on it.
It was singed, obscuring some of the letters.
“I don’t even think it was related to the scene but I took a photo of it anyway.
We collected it and it’s in evidence.”
Thayne stared down at the paper.
“What does it say? I can’t make it out.”
“It’s a portion of a biblical passage,”
Deukmejian said, looking slightly embarrassed.
“It reads: And the beast was taken.”
“It sounds like a bible passage,”
Thayne looked over at Jarrett.
“How do you know that, Deukmejian?”
“I studied to become a priest before changing course and going into the police academy.
It’s actually from Revelation 19:20.
The complete passage is: “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone”.
Jarrett stared hard at Thayne.
“The lake of fire and brimstone again.
Sounds like we got a theme here.”
“You’ve seen this before?”
the young officer asked.
“Yeah, a portion of another verse was written on a note and sent to the Marine Corps base down in San Diego after the fireworks explosion there,”
Jarrett said.
“The breath of Jehovah,”
Thayne replied.
“So it sounds like the two crimes can be tied together,”
Deukmejian said, frowning.
“How likely can it be that you’d have two fireworks explosions with notes about fire and brimstone and field-stripped cigarettes at two different crime scenes hundreds of miles apart? Do we have a religious nutjob on our hands?”
“It might be too soon to say that, but until we examine the note better to see if we can get some prints off it and then try to get some DNA off those cigarette papers, we won’t know for sure.
The note down in Miramar had no prints so we may get nothing from this one either.”
“That’s gonna be a problem,”
Deukmejian said.
“Why?”
Jarrett asked.
“I’ve got the note in evidence but I didn’t pick up any of the field strips.
I feel really bad about it now, knowing this.
I just figured it was a parade goer and never connected the field strips with the accident,”
Officer Deukmejian said.
He actually looked guilty.
“I really thought it was an accident.
I never thought to collect them.
I don’t even know why I collected the note, to be honest.
I just had a feeling that if the explosion turned out to be a crime rather than an accident, we should have something.”
“It’s good that you followed your instincts.
There might still be some field strips out there,”
Thayne said, glancing at Jarrett hopefully.
“After nearly six months? Whatever DNA we find on them would be so degraded and contaminated by now, I doubt we’d get anything useful from it.
And also, what message was the writer of the note trying to send with that passage?”
“I suppose you can interpret the dragon as a beast,”
Officer Deukmejian said, hopefully.
“The dragon!”
Thayne said, pointing down at the picture in front of Jarrett.
A highlight of the parade was a massive Chinese dragon that was walked through the streets draped over the backs of several men.
There was a picture of it in the background in one of the photos.
Jarrett looked at his partner, nodding.
“I think we just found our connection.”