Chapter 9 #2
“Yeah, at first glance.” Ostrenga starts walking toward the meadow, and Jamie falls into step next to him. “Apparently, Wes
Drake got it in his head to pack an old Dodge with Tannerite and blow it up in front of a crowd of two hundred.” The two walk
through a meadow littered with chunks of metal and stop in front of a charred hole carved into the dirt. Tannerite is a mixture
of ammonium nitrate and ammonium perchlorate—not explosive on their own, but when combined and ignited by a high-speed bullet,
the result is a booming explosion. Mix it with pink or blue powder and you’ve got a gender reveal in a mushroom cloud. Mix
it with gunpowder or gasoline and you get an IED.
“How much Tannerite did he use?” Jamie asks, surveying the crater.
“Wes says four pounds,” Ostrenga says, shaking his head. “But from the looks of things, I’m guessing someone added something to the mixture.”
“That would explain this mess,” Jamie says. “But it doesn’t look like the debris went any farther than over there.” He points
to a gnarled hubcap.
“Yeah,” Ostrenga says, taking off his hat and running his hand across his balding head. “The witnesses I talked to say that
the explosions happened almost simultaneously.”
“Wes and Madeline Drake thought there was a second or two in between the blasts. Could one explosion have triggered the other?”
Jamie asks.
Ostrenga shrugs. “Too early to tell, but I doubt it. There’s a good football-field distance between the two blasts. The debris
fields will tell us more. Weird coincidence, though, and the Drakes aren’t exactly a low-profile outfit.”
“Arson?” Jamie asks.
“I’d like to find out what caused the second blast before I start speculating,” Ostrenga says.
“Any reason to believe the homeowners would be involved?” Jamie asks.
Ostrenga lets out a puff of air. “I’ve known the family for years, but who knows. People have done a lot more for less.”
Jamie agrees. He’s been around long enough to know that people are exceptionally good at hiding their dirty little secrets
and, when desperate, will do about anything for money. “Do local law enforcement have any initial thoughts?” Jamie asks.
“We can ask Sheriff Colson right now,” Ostrenga says, nodding toward a man who is talking intently with one of the crime-scene
techs. “Hey, Jerry,” Ostrenga calls out. “Got a minute?”
A shot of adrenaline shoots through Jamie.
He knows Jerry Colson. The deputy was one of the first people Jamie saw when he woke up in the hospital.
“I’m going to catch whoever did this, son,” Colson had told him.
He tried. Jamie had to give him that, but the case had gone cold, and then Jamie’s mother wanted to leave Wyoming, wanted to forget.
Colson tried to keep in touch, gave them updates, but they moved and then moved again.
“Jerry,” Ostrenga shouts again.
Sheriff Colson looks up, raises a finger indicating he needs a minute.
“That’s okay,” Jamie says, clapping Ostrenga on the back. “We’ll debrief later. I want to take a minute to look over the scene
and get the lay of the land.”
Jamie makes his way toward the burned-out barn and notices a man dressed in faded jeans, cowboy boots, and a Carhartt jacket
standing at the edge of stand of pine trees, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Jamie slows his pace and watches the man
carefully to see if he might bolt.
Up close, Jamie sees the Lone Tree Ranch insignia embroidered across the man’s baseball cap. It’s pulled low, but Jamie can
still see his pale face and bloodshot eyes. Jamie lifts his hand in greeting. “Mornin’,” he says and then introduces himself.
“Trent Colson,” the man says.
“Any relation to—”
“Yeah, he’s my dad,” Trent says with a hint of resignation. “I’m one of the ranch hands.”
Jamie remembers Madeline Drake saying that one of the hands helped pack the Tannerite. “You were here last night?” Jamie asks.
Trent shakes his head. “No, I only work with the horses. Once they were squared away for the day, I headed out. But when I
heard about what happened, I came right back here.”
“What time was that?”
“Around two, I think,” Trent says, his face flushing red.
“You live on-site?”
“In the cabins, back there.” Trent hooks a thumb over his shoulder.
“Were you here for the setup yesterday?”
“Yeah, I helped some. But like I said, I just take care of the horses. The Drakes hired people to help with the setup and
made sure the stage was good to go for the entertainment.”
“Reba McEntire, right?” Jamie says.
“Yes, but thankfully she wasn’t here at the time of the explosion. Apparently, someone was able to catch her while she was
still at her hotel in Jackson,” Trent says. “Listen, I was there when Dix loaded the Tannerite into the old truck. He was
very careful. Read the directions like ten times.”
“Dix Drake?” Jamie asks. “Wes’s brother?” Jamie never met Dix back when he lived in Nightjar. Dix was older, in his twenties
and away at college.
“Yeah. It had to be some weird accident, right? Have they found him yet? Dix?” Trent asks.
Jamie still hasn’t seen the list of injured or missing. “I’ll check on that. So you haven’t seen or heard anything suspicious
as of late? Any threats to Wes or his wife? Any strangers hanging around?”
Hesitation flickers across Trent’s face. Jamie waits him out. “No, no one, except Madeline’s sister, Lucy. I met her at Rick’s
last night. It’s a bar.” Trent’s face grows hot again. “Her car broke down, and I was helping her when my dad pulled up and
said that something happened at the ranch. I brought her here.”
“What time was that?”
Trent thinks a moment. “We met up at about eight at Rick’s and headed this way around two. I’m not exactly sure.”
“So what were you doing between six and eight?” Jamie asks.
Trent lifts his hat from his head and rubs and hand over his hair. “I don’t know. I wanted to get away from the ranch before all the people showed up, so I stopped at my folks’ house, but no one was there, so I grabbed a bite to eat at the Nightjar Café. From there I went to Rick’s.”
“And how long of a drive is it to Rick’s from the café?” Jamie asks.
“Hey!” comes a shout. “We got something!”
Jamie moves quickly toward the wreckage. The crime-scene techs are working in two-by-two-foot areas looking for evidence by
using screens to sift through the debris.
The tech points to a spot on the barn floor where debris had been cleared away. The wooden planks are charred and covered
in large rolling blisters that resemble alligator skin. The burn pattern along the wood floor indicates a rapid heat buildup.
Not a clear indication of arson, but it looks that way. “Is this where the victim was found?” Jamie asks.
“No, she was found just outside the barn,” Ostrenga says, his mouth set in a grim line. “It looks like she tried to run but
barely made it past the door when the barn went up.”
Using a gloved hand, the tech holds up a jag of metal. “Looks like it used to be a double-head nail. We found a whole bunch
of them along with some ball bearings.”
“An IED, then?” Jamie says, and the tech nods.
“And this,” says another tech. “PVC piping and duct tape.”
“So whoever did this would have a working knowledge of explosives,” Jamie says.
The first tech nods again. “But you can find out a hell of a lot about bomb-making from a Google search.”
“True,” Jamie says. “Let me know the minute you find anything else.”
Jamie knows he has one of the best post-blast identification teams here. In a matter of a few hours, they will be able to
determine the type of explosive and its components and come up with a solid theory of what happened.
More evidence needs to be collected, and an autopsy has to be conducted.
Cases involving improvised explosion devices can take days to process and months, even years, to investigate.
All the evidence will be packed up and sent the ATF lab in Maryland.
But at first glance, it appears that whatever killed Johanna Monaghan was no accident, and because of his experience in munitions and his arrest record, Dalton Monaghan is at the top of Jamie’s list of suspects.