Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Unfortunately, she also felt a little queasy. A flu had been going around, mowing down all ranks in the Rosendaal Police Department. With a little luck, she was reacting to the heaping pile of french fries she’d succumbed to at lunch. Either way…
She was closer to the handsome, traditional courthouse than to the front entrance of the more modern wing that housed the prosecutor’s office she’d just come from. At this time of day, the courthouse would be mostly deserted.
Fine. The guards all knew her and would wave her in, no problem.
A small city north of Seattle, Washington, Rosendaal still hadn’t modernized to screen entrants with an X-ray machine and metal-detection equipment.
No, the city had never had a shoot-out in a courtroom, but in Roanne’s opinion, it would happen sooner or later.
Better to prepare than pay the consequences.
Right now, though, she really needed that bathroom.
She took the marble steps two at a time, then waved at the guards and started down the nearest hallway before seeing the Out of Service sandwich board in front of the women’s restroom.
Upstairs, then.
She’d just made it to the second story and started toward the restroom sign when an imperative voice called to her.
“Roanne? Is that you?”
Wonderful. She’d been dodging Judge Charles Anderson lately because she’d appeared as a witness in his courtroom several times in the past six months.
It was one thing to be his pal when he was one of the guests at her father’s house.
Being seen cozying up to a state superior court judge, and in the courthouse no less, wasn’t a good idea for a cop, especially not a Major Crimes detective.
Still, she could hardly ignore him. The late-afternoon hour meant most offices were deserted and the hall was quiet. Roanne took the few steps to his office, closest to the grand staircase, and stopped in his open doorway. “Judge.”
“Trying to tiptoe by, were you?”
A handsome man in his late fifties—she’d seen him blow out the forest of candles on his cake at his last birthday party—Judge Anderson had deep-cut lines that betrayed his willingness to smile…and to silence someone in court with a withering look or sharp edge of his tongue.
She propped a shoulder on his doorjamb. She wasn’t quite squirming but getting close. “Just making sure nobody questions my next appearance in your courtroom.”
In his deep, rumbling voice, he said, “Bah! Let them question. Can’t change the fact that I’ve known you since you were in diapers.”
It was true. He and her father had been roommates at the University of Washington forty years ago and had stayed close ever since.
Right now, the judge was wielding a letter opener. As she watched, he sliced the tops of several envelopes, barely glancing before tossing them aside. Apparently he had no trouble multitasking.
“What brought you here today?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “Restroom downstairs is out of order. I figured I could just run up here and use this one.”
He laughed heartily, reaching for what appeared to be a package that was next in his heap of mail.
He said something else, but her attention had snagged on the odd package.
A subliminal feeling sparked alarm, and she straightened.
No, they’d never had a bombing in Rosendaal, either, but the package looked wrong.
The effect of sloppy brown-paper wrapping coupled with big, block-like letters formed with a black marker was almost childlike. A grandkid could have sent this…but to him at work?
Roanne acted without thinking. She leaped across the office just as Judge Anderson started to slice the paper with that letter opener. Was that the end of a wire visible beneath a strip of packing tape?
She snatched it from him, raced back to the hall and, seeing nobody, threw the package in an arc toward the open space at the top of the staircase. Please God no one was mounting the stairs. If she were overreacting…
The fiery burst of light blinded her as a boom assaulted her eardrums and she was flung from her feet. Even with her arms wrapped around her head, she felt the crack as her skull struck marble. Pain stung her body, and darkness swallowed her.
* * *
NOLAN CANTRELL WOULD have enjoyed the long weekend away from work more if he hadn’t felt the tension between his sister and his brother-in-law.
It wasn’t overt enough that he’d pushed Ellen for an explanation; the couple of times he’d tiptoed that direction, she’d turned a defiant look on him that told him she had no intention of opening up to him.
Nolan wanted to believe he’d just visited at an off time.
It would be a rare couple’s relationship that consistently stayed sunshine and roses.
What he was seeing was mere irritation, the remnants of a squabble.
In his line of work, though, he’d become sensitive to nuances.
This felt as if a trip wire was stretched so tight between them, a touch would set it off.
Even behind the wheel of his car, he winced at the analogy. He’d seen the gory results of a bomb triggered by a trip wire. This wasn’t anything like that.
He also acknowledged that he’d never liked Brian Thurman all that much.
He’d tried. Ellen insisted Nolan and Brian had a lot in common, both being law enforcement officers.
He’d tried to explain that was like saying plumbers were all alike, or doctors.
She didn’t get it. A deputy in a rural Washington state county—Grant County—Brian had the swagger and arrogance Nolan saw too often.
There wasn’t a thing he could do but be prepared to offer his support when his sister’s marriage imploded. He wasn’t cut out to offer anything constructive anyway. It wasn’t like he’d been able to sustain a relationship. Or, for that matter, been sure he wanted one.
Growing up seeing his father’s dominance and his mother’s meekness probably had something to do with that. He had no doubt Ellen had replicated what she’d seen growing up at home when she chose a blusterer who frequently talked right over her as if nothing she had to say was worth hearing.
He felt mostly relief as he steered west on a minor highway.
This part of the state usually was a monotonous brown, but spring had spread a carpet of green.
Unfortunately, there was no direct route to Seattle; a sign told him he was approaching Wenatchee, where he intended to grab a bite to eat, then hop on the major highway that would take him over Stevens Pass to the west side of the mountains.
The lifts at the ski resort would be long-closed for the season.
He gave passing thought to the last time he’d skied and couldn’t remember.
Not a good sign. His preoccupation with his job left him little time for anything else, as several women he’d dated had pointed out.
As always, he shoved the thought aside.
His phone rang and he answered with “Cantrell.”
“Nolan, I can’t remember where you are. Aren’t you due back to work in the morning?”
“I am. I just reached Wenatchee.”
“That’s good news.” Rare relief sounded in FBI Special Agent in Charge Todd Simmons’s voice. “You familiar with Rosendaal? It seems to be up Skagit County way.”
“Vaguely,” he said. He pictured vast fields of tulips and daffodils, the cultivation of which the area was known for. Rosendaal surely had been named by Dutch settlers. Not a gardener, he didn’t think he’d ever had occasion to get off I-5 to look for the town before.
“A package bomb addressed to a state superior court judge just went off in the courthouse.”
Nolan’s jaw tightened. “Did it kill him?”
“No. From what I’m told, a police officer had stopped by his office and, according to him, leaped to grab the package just as he sliced into it with his letter opener.
She threw it out into the deserted hall, where it went off.
She was injured. If she’s regained consciousness yet, I haven’t heard.
Right now, that’s about all I have heard. I want you to take this one.”
Nolan had taken an exit and pulled into the parking lot of a sandwich shop. “Okay. Text me names and anything else you learn. I’m still several hours away. I assume you’ve made contact with someone at the ATF?”
“Yes, and they expect to have an NRT in place tomorrow sometime.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had rapid-response teams based in strategic parts of the country.
In a case like this, the FBI was likely to head the investigation side, while the members of the National Response Team—certified explosive specialists, bomb technicians, forensic chemists and just about everything else required—would crawl over the scene like ants at a picnic, analyzing the bomb by locating the tiniest possible components and putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle while also advising every other law enforcement agency descending on the rural city on what those components had to say about the bomb maker’s possible age, sophistication and, certainly, experience. The unit’s skills were invaluable.
Simmons continued as if he’d read Nolan’s mind. “I’m not going all in yet. One bomb, didn’t kill anybody, probably turn out to be crude. It could even be personal to the judge or have been aimed at an assistant who usually opens his mail. Now, if there’s a repetition…”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Unlike serial arsonists, serial bombers were rare, especially in a nice town surrounded by glorious swaths of blooming tulips.
Instructions for building pipe bombs and the like were easily found on the internet.
An angry fifteen-year-old could probably build one.
However… a judge had been targeted and the bomb somehow delivered to him inside a courthouse. Federal investigators had no choice but to jump in.
“I don’t suppose you know whether the package came through the mail?” Nolan asked.