Chapter 25 #2
“Wow,” said Noelle, taking in all the bright print shirts hanging in the closet.
She glanced at Carson, who wore a gray sweatshirt and faded jeans.
“He wasn’t afraid of some color in his wardrobe.
” She moved to the other end of the closet to search each item, checking pockets and squeezing hems. She stopped on one bright shirt, its trees reminding her of Michael’s tattoo.
“Carson, you’ve seen Michael’s tattoo on his chest, right? ”
“Yeah.”
The tone of his voice made her turn around. Her gaze met his blinking one. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s stupid,” said Carson. “If you’re gonna permanently mark your body, pick something that’ll still be important to you in sixty years. Not something to make you look cool with your friends.”
“What exactly is the tattoo?” she asked. “No one was sure.”
Carson scowled. “It’s an igloo and a palm tree. Stupid, right? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I thought the igloo was a stone wall,” said Noelle, now understanding what she’d seen. “And it was suggested the palm tree might be a flower.”
“The quality sucked,” said Carson in a sour voice. “Another rule for getting a tattoo: Go to someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“He got it because of the new people he was hanging around with?” asked Evan.
“Yes. I guess a lot of them have something similar.”
An igloo and a palm tree?
Evan pulled out his phone and started typing, and Noelle knew he was searching for information on the tattoo. She turned back to the closet and quickly finished the rest of the colorful shirts. Evan slid his phone back in his pocket but first gave Noelle a look.
He’ll tell me what he found later.
“You mentioned that Michael talked about a big crisis,” Evan said nonchalantly as he ran his hands under the mattress. “Was he ever more specific about a location? Like something that could actually happen here?”
Evan’s odd tone made the hair rise on Noelle’s arms.
What on earth did he discover about that tattoo?
“Well, he told me I should be prepared if like our water system got poisoned or if the power grid went down here,” said Carson. “That seemed sort of logical, so I’ve got lots of bottled water stored in the garage and bought those tablets for treating dirty water. Bought a generator too.”
“What kind of generator?” asked Noelle.
“Propane. Haven’t bought any of that yet, though. Guess I should get on it, but it’s expensive to buy a big tank.”
Evan stood up from checking under the bed. “Anything else you can tell us about Michael’s new group of friends?”
“You think one of them did it?” Carson asked slowly, blinking from one of them to the other.
“Need to eliminate the possibility,” said Noelle. “I’m going to send a forensics team over here to go through Michael’s room again. Try to not touch anything before that. Is it okay if I give his sister your number? She might like to have some of Michael’s things once they’re done.”
“That’s fine.” Carson looked around the room. “Are they going to leave black fingerprint dust everywhere? I’ve heard that’s hard to clean up.”
“I assume they will,” said Noelle. “You can ask the team what cleans it up. They would know best.” She handed Carson her card. “Call me if you think of anything else.” Carson led them to the front door, and they left the house.
Noelle breathed deep of the icy-smelling fresh air as they strode to the vehicle. The home had had a strong smell of cleaners and bleach. She yanked her car door closed and twisted in the seat to face Evan. “What did you find on that tattoo?”
“It’s a boogaloo symbol.”
“What the fuck is that?” Noelle stared at him.
“Something we need to talk to Mercy about,” said Evan.
“We’re supposed to keep an eye out for domestic terrorism signs, and according to what I found about that tattoo, it’s one.
Boogaloo has roots in white nationalism and antigovernment movements.
The people who use the term want to shake up society, bring about change by creating chaos.
Chaos through destruction. Somehow the terms big igloo and big luau have evolved from the word boogaloo, and putting together an igloo and a palm tree represents the movement. ”
“What do you mean by change? Change what through chaos?”
“It was a bit unclear, but I got the impression it was government and societal norms. More-power-in-the-hands-of-the-people-and-less-government sort of stuff.”
“Shit.” Noelle thought hard. “Was Michael’s death part of that?”
“We need to figure out who his ‘friends’ were.” Evan did air quotes.
Her phone rang, and she didn’t recognize the number. “Detective Marshall.”
“Detective, it’s Louisa, Michael Munoz’s sister.”
“Hang on, Louisa, I’m putting you on speaker so Detective Bolton can hear too.”
“I wanted to tell you about something odd that happened yesterday,” said Louisa.
“I don’t know how it could be related, but it stuck with me.
The news was on TV as I made dinner, and the station was covering that car bombing at the courthouse.
My son, Austin, was in the room. He listened for a minute, and then he told me that Michael had said that he shouldn’t be scared if a bomb went off because he would be safe. ”
“Austin would be safe?” asked Evan. His gaze met Noelle’s.
“Yes,” said Louisa. “It was creepy watching Austin listen to that news story and then say something like that. He didn’t sound like an eight-year-old.
The violence didn’t bother him one bit because of what Michael had said to him one time.
” She paused. “Do you think Michael knew that explosion was going to happen?”
“I don’t know, Louisa,” said Noelle slowly, her mind trying to process the odd incident. “Michael passed away several days before that happened, but maybe he’d heard something about it before that. Say, Louisa, did you know Michael had a tattoo on his chest?”
“No! He never told me that. Hey, Austin.” Her voice quieted as she turned away from the phone. “Did Michael ever show you a tattoo?”
Noelle heard the boy speak in the background but couldn’t make out the words.
“Austin knew,” said Louisa into the phone, irritation in her tone. “Michael showed it to him and said it hurt when he had it done. I’m surprised that Austin didn’t tell me.”
“Louisa, does the word boogaloo mean anything to you?” asked Evan.
“Isn’t that a type of music?”
“That’s one definition,” said Evan. He gave her the same explanation he’d given Noelle.
“I don’t understand,” Louisa said softly.
“I think Michael may have been involved with a group with those intentions,” said Evan. “We spoke with Carson Vohland. He said Michael’s new friends had influenced him in that direction. And by the way, Michael was living at Carson’s for the last few months. His truck is still there.”
“I’m glad he had someone he could count on,” said Louisa softly. “I was worried he was on the street.”
“Don’t feel bad that you asked Michael to leave,” said Noelle. “You did the right thing for your son. Michael was an adult and made his own choices.”
“My head knows that, but my heart is having a tough time with it.”
“That’s understandable,” said Noelle, hurting for the woman. “He was your brother.”
She hung up after another minute of reassuring Louisa. She leaned back in her seat and exhaled loudly. “This has been a hell of a day.”
“Look what we’ve learned, though,” said Evan. “Michael has been identified. And some things indicate that he might be a part of the domestic terrorism that the FBI was looking for.”
“We need to figure out who he was associating with,” said Noelle.
“We will,” said Evan. He awkwardly stretched in his seat. “Now where?”
“Back to the office.”