Seeing Red(49)

“But with the Pegasus, everything was neatly wrapped up. No ambiguities. Every t crossed, every i dotted. No loose ends. Not even the culprits. The guy who confessed didn’t make it to his sentencing trial. He died of stomach cancer, which had been diagnosed months before he carried those bombs into the Pegasus.”

“Leading you to conclude what?”

“He didn’t bomb the place to settle a score with the petroleum company that had gouged him at the gas pump.”

“He claimed that he and his friends were making a statement.”

“That’s what he claimed, but what was the statement? I’ve read the transcripts, watched the videos of his sessions with the investigating agents. He rambled, he groused, but he never gave a clear-cut explanation of their gripe. He had the world’s attention, but didn’t step up on the soapbox?” He shook his head, negating the reasonableness of that.

“There was no indication of religious fanaticism, no white supremacy or anti-establishment leanings. No saber wielding, no screamed threats of annihilation, no swastikas. All the same,” he said, lowering his voice, “three men who, on the surface, were perfectly ordinary, were indoctrinated into committing mass murder.”

“Indoctrinated? That connotes the opposite of what you just said. They didn’t have a cause.”

“They had one. I just don’t know what it was. I was stopped before I could find out.”

“Is this where the aforementioned ‘somebody’ comes in?”

“He’s the indoctrinator. I was close. This close,” he said, holding his thumb and finger an inch apart, “to nailing him. But before I had all the evidence I needed, the plug got pulled. I was making a nuisance of myself, so I got called on the carpet and was reminded that the Pegasus Hotel was a closed case. Sure, my interest in it was understandable; it was deeply personal.”

“You’d almost lost your father that day.”

Trapper was thinking that he had lost his father that day, but he didn’t say so.

“Why was he in the hotel?” Kerra asked. “We didn’t cover that in the interview.”

“After retiring from the army, he went to work for a software developer. A lot of their clients were government agencies, so his military background was useful. The day of the bombing, he and other middle management were courting a potential client. They decided to break for pie and coffee in the Pegasus’s dining room. It was a two-block walk from their office.

“When Mom saw the news bulletin on TV, heard that nearby buildings had been damaged by the explosion, she called him, concerned that his workplace was so close to the hotel. She had no idea that he was in the Pegasus until two policemen showed up to tell her that he’d been taken to the hospital.”

“She must have been frantic.”

“I missed that. I was at school. She was still shaking and crying when the three of us were reunited in his hospital room that evening. He had bumps and bruises, but kept asking the medical staff about the fate of the others in his group, and when he heard, he and Mom both had breakdowns. It was a bad scene.”

“None of them survived?”

“Only two besides The Major. One lost a leg. Never really recovered. Died within a couple of years. The other didn’t suffer any serious injuries but succumbed to survivor’s guilt. He killed himself.”

“Lord.” She took the time to clear her mind of that, then asked, “What put you and The Major on the outs?”

“Several things, but all relating to the Pegasus. At work, I was being reminded that the perps were dead and buried, so what was behind all this poking around, nosing in where I didn’t belong? I was ordered to drop ‘that nonsense,’ move on, and work only on assigned cases.”

“That’s when you quit.”

“Before they could fire me,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “Seconds before.” He checked the road in both directions. It was still dark, no vehicles in sight. Sleet pecked against the windshield. Snow swirled.

“Around the same time,” he continued, “The Major was approached about writing a book, followed by a movie based on it. He’d had similar offers many times over, but this one had serious money behind it and sounded like more than just hype by a Hollywood asshole.

“When it looked like it was actually going to happen, I panicked. I sat down with him, confided my theory, told him I’d become convinced that the individual responsible for the bombing was still out there, and, I was damn sure, monitoring survivors to make sure none ever questioned the outcome of the investigation.

“I told him to scratch the book and movie idea. In fact, I urged him to shut the hell up about that bombing altogether, stop going on TV and talking about it, or the real culprit might get the idea that The Major saw and heard more that day than he even realized, that he might wind up with a bullet in his head to guarantee he wouldn’t reveal an incriminating detail while waxing eloquent at a Rotary Club luncheon.”

“He denounced your theory?”

“In spades. He said I made the whole thing up because I was jealous of his fame. Nobody was after me to write a book, were they? Nobody wanted to make a movie based on my life, did they? Unless it was a porn flick. Furthermore, I was ‘trashing my career’ as well as making a laughingstock of myself with this ridiculous fantasy. No wonder the ATF had fired me. The family could boast only one hero, and he was it.”