Caruso 01 - Boom Town Read Free Page B

the golf course that resembled a burnt marshmallow.
    He got out, followed closely by Panzer, and stood for a moment, surveying the scene, when he noticed the curtains pulled back from the closest neighbor’s side window on the second floor. He pulled his camera from the passenger seat, slung it over his right shoulder, and closed the door, ignoring the neighbor.
    He had been through more than a few fried dwellings. Luckily, this time, he wouldn’t trip over some crispy critter.
    Strange. There were no yellow police tapes saying not to be there. Yet, on the golf course side, a tall wooden fence had been hastily erected so those golfers with delicate sensibilities would-16
    TREVOR SCOTT
    n’t have to look at the torched house and think about what had happened there.
    Stepping through the blackened mess, he took a few photos and made his way to what he guessed had been the living room. There had been a massive picture window that was gone now. The white Berber carpeting was crystallized black and crunched under his feet with each step. The odor of smoke drifted up, tweaking his nostrils. Smells linger in your mind longer than any other sense, he knew. For a slight moment he was in the Sumatran village trying to figure out how one of his Navy pilots had mistaken it for the real target a few miles to the south. Then even farther back, he was searching through his family house after his little brother had set the place ablaze, searching for a dog that would eventually look like a pig on a luau spit.
    Panzer made his way through the room and was now on his stomach, his broad head resting on his front paws and his eyes pointing directly at the fireplace.
    Moving across the large opening, Tony stopped next to the black stone fireplace. Rocks had fallen to the floor from the explosion. He took a few more shots at wide angle, not needing a flash, since the ceiling to the second floor had been blown half way to Boise and light streamed in from the opening in the roof that had burned through. He picked around for a moment, but he guessed the police had removed any evidence of importance.
    Shifting his eyes across the floor, he could see where the two bodies had fallen, their flesh having preserved a small swatch of carpet. He took close ups of those areas.
    “You got a good nose, Panzer,” he said, patting his dog on the head. “ Sitzen .”
    The dog immediately rose up and sat next to him.
    Then Tony saw it. It wasn’t much. In fact, to the untrained eye, nothing at all would have registered. But tucked alongside the base of the bottom stone to the right of the fireplace opening was a tiny piece of wiring no more than an inch in length. He picked up the little yellow plastic coating, with a red stripe that ran BOOM TOWN 17
    lengthwise, and twirled it in his fingers, examining it more closely. It was melted and charred at the tip, but the bottom stones had sheltered the wire from the blaze. He shoved it into his front pocket. Considering the obvious explosion and resulting fire, it was amazing that anything had survived the intense heat.
    Glancing around the room one more time, he headed out.
    He didn’t expect to find much, and he didn’t disappoint himself.
    Next, he put Panzer in the back of the truck and then walked over to the neighbor’s place and knocked on the thick oak door.
    No answer.
    He stepped back and looked up to the second floor. A woman was there, but she darted back when she saw him.
    This time he rang the doorbell. Still nothing.
    Tony started to walk down the driveway, when a truck pulled up and two men jumped out. They were both bulky bouncer types, dressed in brown uniforms with silver badges sewn on the chest. On their thick biceps was a patch that read, “Cascade Peaks Security.”
    Adjusting the camera at his waist, Tony snapped off a shot of them at wide angle as they approached. Something for his website maybe.
    The two men got closer and stopped, widening their stance like sailors do on a ship in