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Authors: Dennis Meredith
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media? The cameras are ass-deep downstairs wanting to come up.”
“Tell them we don’t know.”
“Goddamnit, Gaston, give me your best guess. I’m not gonna stand there with my thumb up my ass!”
Gaston and Cameron looked at each other. “Tell them it may be an unexploded projectile of some kind,” said Cameron. “We don’t have the projectile.”
“No evidence of terrorists?”
“Nope,” said Cameron.
“I’ll say act of God,” said Barnes. “Maybe a meteor or frozen crap from an airplane. Okay?” The lieutenant could see by the two criminalists’ faces that it wasn’t okay. But he didn’t care. He yawned, indicating that he felt confident he’d exerted his control over the two. “Okay, do the samples, file a report and turn over the whole mess to … hell, I dunno … to the FBI and the insurance company. Yeah. Act-of-God kinda thing.”
“Barnes, wait a minute.” Gaston held up his notes. “Those explanations just won’t fly. We’ve got something really strange here. We’ve got something really unexplained. This could be a new kind of weapon, like a cannon, or maybe some laser beam.”
The lieutenant sighed, as if he were about to explain something to a moron. “Look, Gaston, nobody was hurt. We got no evidence of foul play. We just got a building that has a hole in it. We’ve got a couple of dozen open murder cases to deal with. Just file a fucking report, will you?”
The lieutenant left to do his own interviews of the man and woman. Gaston quietly gathered his notes and they walked back into the office, passing Balch and Mercer, who followed Barnes to a private office.
This was something different. Gaston almost tasted his need to investigate this case further.
“That was one lucky man. That Balch guy,” said Cameron enthusiastically to hide his sense of foreboding. He began to busily wind up the string and gather their tools, signaling, he hoped, their final departure.
“How’s that?” Gaston said distractedly, as he continued to stare at the two holes in the office wall.
“Well if the hole had been larger, the guy would be sucked all the way through. Or if it had been smaller and the suction larger, he’d have been squeezed like toothpaste.”
“I’m sure he figures this was his lucky day.”
“What do you think, then? Meteor? Airplane crap like the lieutenant said? Or some terrorist with a big cannon? Or maybe a secret laser beam? Like maybe from that Livermore Lab. They do fusion stuff with big lasers. There wasn’t any debris. Maybe it got burned up. Yeah.”
“Or maybe sucked out. Maybe. What we do next is follow the trajectory. Let’s see where this hole goes.”
“Where it goes?” Cameron looked dubiously at Gaston, following him into the outer office with his arms full of cameras and tools, a piece of string trailing behind him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“We might find something interesting at the impact point.”
“C’mon, man, what impact point? Let’s just do like the lieutenant says and give this to the Bureau. We’re not required to go beyond the scene. Let the insurance guys handle it. Then we can watch them jack around with it. We got no reason to go on with this thing, Ralph.”
“I’ve got an idea I want to try first.” Gaston took out his wallet and thumbed through a sheaf of cards and slips of paper. He took out a card and scrutinized it for a moment. Then he picked up the phone receiver.
“Don’t you pick up that phone,” Cameron ordered, as he began piling up tools and camera equipment for Gaston to load into the cases. “I see that damned stubborn look in your eyes. Like in that other case. It’s just been a month since the last time … the dead guy … you know what the hell I’m talkin’ about.”
But Ralph Gaston was punching in the number.
“You pick up that fucking phone, you’re not ever comin’ to my house again!”
Ralph smiled and set the card on the desk, listening to the phone ring at the
“Tell them we don’t know.”
“Goddamnit, Gaston, give me your best guess. I’m not gonna stand there with my thumb up my ass!”
Gaston and Cameron looked at each other. “Tell them it may be an unexploded projectile of some kind,” said Cameron. “We don’t have the projectile.”
“No evidence of terrorists?”
“Nope,” said Cameron.
“I’ll say act of God,” said Barnes. “Maybe a meteor or frozen crap from an airplane. Okay?” The lieutenant could see by the two criminalists’ faces that it wasn’t okay. But he didn’t care. He yawned, indicating that he felt confident he’d exerted his control over the two. “Okay, do the samples, file a report and turn over the whole mess to … hell, I dunno … to the FBI and the insurance company. Yeah. Act-of-God kinda thing.”
“Barnes, wait a minute.” Gaston held up his notes. “Those explanations just won’t fly. We’ve got something really strange here. We’ve got something really unexplained. This could be a new kind of weapon, like a cannon, or maybe some laser beam.”
The lieutenant sighed, as if he were about to explain something to a moron. “Look, Gaston, nobody was hurt. We got no evidence of foul play. We just got a building that has a hole in it. We’ve got a couple of dozen open murder cases to deal with. Just file a fucking report, will you?”
The lieutenant left to do his own interviews of the man and woman. Gaston quietly gathered his notes and they walked back into the office, passing Balch and Mercer, who followed Barnes to a private office.
This was something different. Gaston almost tasted his need to investigate this case further.
“That was one lucky man. That Balch guy,” said Cameron enthusiastically to hide his sense of foreboding. He began to busily wind up the string and gather their tools, signaling, he hoped, their final departure.
“How’s that?” Gaston said distractedly, as he continued to stare at the two holes in the office wall.
“Well if the hole had been larger, the guy would be sucked all the way through. Or if it had been smaller and the suction larger, he’d have been squeezed like toothpaste.”
“I’m sure he figures this was his lucky day.”
“What do you think, then? Meteor? Airplane crap like the lieutenant said? Or some terrorist with a big cannon? Or maybe a secret laser beam? Like maybe from that Livermore Lab. They do fusion stuff with big lasers. There wasn’t any debris. Maybe it got burned up. Yeah.”
“Or maybe sucked out. Maybe. What we do next is follow the trajectory. Let’s see where this hole goes.”
“Where it goes?” Cameron looked dubiously at Gaston, following him into the outer office with his arms full of cameras and tools, a piece of string trailing behind him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“We might find something interesting at the impact point.”
“C’mon, man, what impact point? Let’s just do like the lieutenant says and give this to the Bureau. We’re not required to go beyond the scene. Let the insurance guys handle it. Then we can watch them jack around with it. We got no reason to go on with this thing, Ralph.”
“I’ve got an idea I want to try first.” Gaston took out his wallet and thumbed through a sheaf of cards and slips of paper. He took out a card and scrutinized it for a moment. Then he picked up the phone receiver.
“Don’t you pick up that phone,” Cameron ordered, as he began piling up tools and camera equipment for Gaston to load into the cases. “I see that damned stubborn look in your eyes. Like in that other case. It’s just been a month since the last time … the dead guy … you know what the hell I’m talkin’ about.”
But Ralph Gaston was punching in the number.
“You pick up that fucking phone, you’re not ever comin’ to my house again!”
Ralph smiled and set the card on the desk, listening to the phone ring at the
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