Page 25 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
“Great. Let’s relocate to the dining room. We can spread out there.”
“What can I get you?” Clare went to the coffee machine. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“Coffee.”
“Tea, please.”
“Water’s fine for me, Clare.”
Southern hostess duties done, Russ led Knox and Zhào through the living room into their inconveniently placed dining room. As he pulled out a chair he thought, not for the first time, that he absolutely needed to remodel the kitchen and restore the doorway that must have been there once. “Okay, Ms. Zhào, what have you got for us?”
She separated the stack of documents into piles. “These are the reports from Kevin’s undercover work in the summer.” She slid the papers toward Knox. “These are the summaries and info he was able to share with me since he’s been up in the mountains.” Russ took that. “This folder,” she reached into her backpack, “has photos, rap sheets, and any info we have on suspects that were flagged by other investigators working on the project.”
“Mmn.”
Knox flipped a page over. “Too bad we don’t have a whiteboard like at the shop.”
Russ snapped his fingers. “Oh, I’ve got something better.” He ducked into the living room and retrieved a large folded easel and pad leaning by the front door. “Clare had an outreach committee meeting here a couple days ago. She hasn’t returned this stuff to the church yet.” He set up the easel, propped the pad on it, and turned over several large sheets covered with lists to the back. “Okay, Knox, go.”
She bent to the papers in front of her. “His primary contact was a guy named Aaron Kaspertzy. Worked at the traveling carnival. Transporting guns across the state line.”
“They were all popular small arms. We think they were for sale to raise money for the organization instead of for use.”
Russ paused. “Legal purchases in their state of origin?”
“Probably a mix of purchased and stolen.” Hadley picked up a paper. “Flynn helped this Kaspertzy guy to off-load a whole box to a licensed dealer who gave them a wad of cash, no questions asked.”
Zhào nodded. “We got an ID on him and flagged him to the state police, but it doesn’t look like he’s involved with any of the white supremacy groups.”
Russ wroteKaspertzy—Guns—Moneyon the pad. “Where’s Kaspertzy now?”
“Living on unemployment in a trailer in Canandaigua.” Zhào took a photo from the folder. “That’s typical of carnies—they’re laid off in the fall, and either go down south to work the circuit in Florida, or collect their unemployment plus any under-the-table work they can find.” She handed the photo to Russ. “That was the last contact with him before the investigation was pulled.” It showed a lean, muscular man in his thirties smoking on the front deck of a single-wide.
“Did Kevin see any more guns coming in with the militia guys?” Russ dropped the marker and began looking through the papers he had taken from Zhào. “I’m wondering if Kaspertzy might be their procurer.” He picked up a sheet. “Camping gear. A chain saw. Acetylene torches. Are they building something?”
“Could be a bomb.” Clare entered the room bearing a tray with two steaming mugs, a glass of water, and a plate of cookies. “I had some shortbread a parishioner gave me, I brought them along.”
Zhào blinked at her. “A bomb?”
“Uh-huh.” She handed the girl her mug. “Acetylene and silver nitrate. You add some metal shavings. You can use the torch canister, so it’s pretty small.”
Zhào stared. “Aren’t you a… priest?”
Ross took his coffee from the tray. “Clare served eighteen months in Iraq. She learned a few things about improvised explosives.”
“Really?” Zhào’s face said she suspected they were pulling her leg. “A chaplain?”
“A Blackhawk pilot. Hadley, have a cookie.” Clare pulled a chair out. “Truthfully, the IEDs we encountered were usually made from uria nitrate, which was much easier to get hold of in such an agricultural country. You distill it from commercial fertilizers.”
“Huh.”
Russ continued sorting through the short stack of notes. “It doesn’t look like Kevin saw anything more threatening. Rifles galore, but you’d expect that.”
“I’d like to point out that rifles can be considered very threatening in the right circumstances.” Clare bit into a piece of shortbread.
“You know what I mean. What do you think about the acetylene torches?”
She shrugged. “If they’ve got mail service, they could order silver nitrate online. Although that would leave a trail.”
