A Wild and Lonely Place Read Free Page B

Nations delegation. The bomb was
     inside a florist’s box delivered by messenger. The messenger was never identified, and all the florist’s personnel were checked
     out and eliminated as suspects. No fatalities, but the maid who accepted delivery was badly injured.”
    Renshaw said, “January of ninety-one, right?”
    “Right. The usual message arrived at Ghana’s U.N. offices the following day, postmarked midtown Manhattan.”
    Renshaw kept advancing the slides. “The bomber really had it in for the U.N. He blew up the head of the Yemeni delegation’s
     car in June of ninety-one, severely crippling the son of a minor official. In February of ninety-two the Mexican ambassador’s
     apartment was hit. A lot of destruction, but no fatalities or injuries there. In December of ninety-two the entire Panamanian
     delegation was at a Christmas banquet at a midtown restaurant. A messenger with a package for them seemed overly eager to
     leave; restaurant management got suspicious and called the bomb squad, but the man got away and was never I.D.’d. Of course,
     the usual message arrived after each incident.”
    “And then he took a couple of years off.”
    “Until last December.”
    The next slide showed the bombed-out facade of the storefront offices of the Libyan Trade Commission on Howard Street here
     in the city.
    “One fatality,” I said, “again, the clerk who opened the package. It was mailed from the main post office, as was the message
     that followed.”
    Another slide: an office with furnishings knocked helter-skelter. There was a big hole in the rear wall, and on the floor
     chalk marks outlined where a body had fallen.
    Renshaw said, “Belgian consular offices. Last month. Bomb and message both mailed from the Lombard Street substation. One
     fatality.”
    He left the slide on the screen, and we contemplated the destruction silently. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, but
     I was entertaining emotions, rather than intellectual concepts.
    Somewhere in this city was a person who methodically plotted and carried out monstrous crimes. A person who’d gotten away
     with them time and again. He could be any nationality, could come from any walk of life. Could look as ordinary and harmless
     as the wrappings that concealed the bombs. Could kill or maim again at any moment. The thought of such a creature walking
     the same streets as the people I cared about chilled me through and through.
    Renshaw had only guessed at part of my interest in the Diplo-bomber case. I wasn’t sure if even Joslyn was aware of it. Yes,
     a million-dollar reward was attractive; I’d be a fool if I didn’t want to claim it. But there was more.
    Last August a hired killer had blown up a house that had stood on the Mendocino coast property that now belonged to Hy and
     me. I had been his target, but someone else had died in my place, and other lives had been ripped apart as a result. Time
     had passed, people had healed, the rubble had been cleared from the cliff top; the place seemed beautiful and serene once
     more. But often at night I could sense violent ripples beneath the surface of that serenity, could hear the echoes of grief
     and loss in the waves and sea breeze. The aftershocks of that bombing would never be stilled.
    I couldn’t do anything about the tragedy in Mendocino County, but I sure as hell could take steps to prevent any more bombings
     in San Francisco. I was, as Adah told me when she asked me to help, “a flat-out fine investigator, if sometimes a pain in
     the butt.”
    I turned to Renshaw. “Okay, Gage, we’ve reviewed what’s public knowledge. Now show me something new.”
    He smiled thinly and advanced the slide.
    An imposing house: creamy white plastered brick, with a mansard roof and heavy cornices. The arched windows were elaborately
     ornamented, and carved pillars rose beside the massive front door. Yew trees stood like sentinels at its corners. I’d seen
     it before but couldn’t place