Page 52 of South of Nowhere

“No, sir.”

“The copper mine?”

“Not in weeks.”

Dorion ran to the occupied tent and—startling everyone—grabbed Tolifson’s sou’wester off a chair. She smelled it too. “Yep, Colt. Both of them have residue.”

“We probably had it on ours too, but we showered and changed right away.” Colter was scanning the levee again, looking at the clean-sliced-off top. He should have made more of the dynamics of the collapse.

He shouted to Olsen, “Get your man out of the water now! And tell the sandbaggers to move back from the levee, at least a hundred feet.”

The sergeant saw the urgency in his eyes and pulled her phone out, asking, “What is it?”

He gestured toward Starr’s stained sleeve. “The mud from the levee? I can smell explosives residue. It didn’t collapse on its own. Somebody sabotaged it.”

21.

Time Elapsed from Initial Collapse: 6 Hours

Colter asked, “You have a crime scene lab?”

Tolifson squinted, thinking, and Colter recalled he had only become the police chief by default and, it seemed, recently.

It was Debi Starr who answered when she saw that the mayor wasn’t able to. “We farm all that out, if we ever need it, which is hardly ever. Burglaries, we know who’s done it usually. And the two murders in the past three years, the state came in, ran the scenes and sent the prosecutor the report. It didn’t matter anyway, because both of the suspects confessed. Most courteous of them.”

Colter regarded his sister briefly. “A lab’d take too long anyway.” She nodded.

The mayor’s face grew mystified. “But who the hell would blow it up? You have to be wrong. Maybe the husband, in the SUV? He did construction or demolition.”

“No. He runs a funeral home.”

“Who on earth would do such a thing?” Tolifson muttered, paraphrasing his earlier comment. “Any chance you might just be wrong? All respect.”

“A possibility. But we have to find out for sure. That other officer of yours? McGuire?”

Starr said, “He’s down in the village, herding evacuees out.”

“Ask him to scoop up samples from the mudslide. Three or four, from different sections. And I need one other thing.”

“What’s that?” Tolifson asked.

“A beekeeper.”

—

Twenty minutes later, Colter Shaw was in room 117 of the Hinowah Motor Inn, a quarter-mile north of the levee.

The owner/manager, a stocky woman in what Colter believed was called a housedress, of tiny yellow flowers on a purple background, had given him the key and returned to the office, not the least curious why someone had checked in with no luggage other than a grocery bag containing six coffee cups filled with mud.

While most people were sheltering in the college a mile away, up the road from the inn, some of the wealthier citizens of town had decided to go for the private mode of protection, securing rooms here. The guests had arrived in fancier pickups than what was the average set of wheels of the evacuees: these residents were in BMWs, a Jaguar, a Mercedes, two Land Rovers.

The news was playing on the large TV monitor; video footage showed a long string of cars on Route 94. There were also some videos of the levee shown via long-angle lenses. Reporters had tried to come into town but, with Route 13 closed, 94 and 58 were the only access. Town council head Martinez had ordered them roadblocked except for emergency vehicles going in and evacuees going out.

A news chopper from a Sacramento station was hovering. By phone Colter had pointed this fact out to Sergeant Olsen, but she said it was not the weather here that was keeping the helicopters from delivering the sealant but the weather at the base. The ceiling was below minimums to take off.

On the TV, the story about the “devastation” to Fort Pleasantwas unfolding. Yes, there was flooding, and a few dramatic images showed basements filling with gray water, but at worst the film crews had found only thigh-high levels, just as Starr’s cousin had reported.

There would be significant damage to retail inventory and property, but that was about all.

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