Shock Wave Read Free

phone on the front seat, locked the door, and went back to the 5B.
     
     
    VIRGIL WAS BASED IN MANKATO, Minnesota, two hours southwest of St. Paul, depending on road conditions and the thickness of the highway patrol. He routinely covered the southern part of the state. On non-routine cases, he’d be picked up by Davenport’s team and moved to wherever Davenport thought he should go.
    A couple of hours after Davenport first called, Virgil left Johnson at the 5B, romancing the volleyball player. Their attachment was such that Virgil would not be required to drive Johnson back to his truck, so he headed home, across the river into Mankato.
    Once on the road, he picked up his phone and pushed the “call” button, and two seconds later, was talking to Davenport.
    “We got a bomb early this morning,” Davenport said. “One killed, one injured, in Butternut Falls. We need you to get up there.”
    “What’s the deal?”
    Davenport told him about the explosion and the casualties, and said that the ATF would be on the scene now, or shortly.
    “I’ll be on my way in an hour,” Virgil said. “Wasn’t there another PyeMart bomb, killed somebody in Michigan a couple weeks back?”
    “Yeah. Killed one, injured one. If it’d gone off twenty minutes later, it would have taken out the board of directors along with Pye himself,” Davenport said. “This guy is serious, whoever he is.”
    “But if he started in Michigan, he could be a traveler. Unless we’ve got fingerprints or DNA.”
    “We’ve got two things on that,” Davenport said. “The first thing is, the explosives are tagged by the manufacturer. The ATF has already identified the tags in the Michigan bomb as Pelex, which is TNT mixed with some other stuff, and is mostly used in quarries. In April, somebody cracked a quarry shed up by Cold Spring—that’s about an hour northeast of Butternut Falls—and two boxes of Pelex were taken. Other than the theft in Cold Spring, the ATF doesn’t have any other reports of Pelex theft in the last couple of years. So, the bomber’s probably local.”
    “Okay,” Virgil said. “What’s the other thing?”
    “Butternut is having a civil war over the PyeMart. People are saying the mayor and city council were bought, and the Department of Natural Resources is being sued by a trout-fishing group that says some trout stream is going to be hurt by the runoff. Lot of angry stuff going on. Over-the-top stuff. Threats.”
    “There’s runoff going into the Butternut? Man, that’s not just a crime, that’s a mortal sin,” Virgil said.
    “Whatever,” Davenport said. “In any case, the DNR okayed their environmental impact statement. I guess they’re already building the store.”
    “What else?”
    “That’s all I got,” Davenport said. “Interesting case, though. I didn’t want to take you away from your sheriff. . . .”
    “Ah, she’s out in LA, being a consultant,” Virgil said. “Having dinner with producers. Guys with suits like yours.”
    “Sounds like the bloom has gone off the rose,” Davenport said.
    “Maybe,” Virgil conceded.
    “I can hear your heart breaking from here,” Davenport said. “Have a good time in Butternut.”
     
     
    VIRGIL LIVED IN A SMALL white house in Mankato, two bedrooms, one and a half baths, not far from the state university. He traveled a lot, and so was almost always ready to go. He told the old lady who lived next door that he’d be leaving again, asked her to keep an eye on the place, and gave her a six-pack of Leinie’s for her trouble. He packed a week’s clothes into his travel bag, mostly T-shirts and jeans, put a cased shotgun on the floor of his 4Runner, along with a couple boxes of 00 shells, and stuck his pistol in a custom gun safe under the passenger seat, along with two spare magazines and a box of 9-millimeter.
    A quick Google check said that Butternut Falls would be two hours away. He printed out a map of the town, and while it was printing, turned the