Warning Signs

"I won't tell them anything, Sam."

He stared at me with rheumy eyes. "Okay. I don't know why Lucy was at Royal's house that night. When Susan Peterson was interviewed by our detectives, she confirmed that a female cop had visited Royal 'numerous times' in the past, but she maintains she never met the woman, says she was always upstairs in bed during the visits. Susan figured the woman who was stopping by had something to do with the prosecutor's office, a case Royal was working on, or something like that."

"Susan's sure it was a cop, not a DA?"

"That's what she says."

"Does Susan have a name for the cop?"

"No. Royal never told her or she doesn't remember. Susan says the voice she heard downstairs was female. That's all she knows."

"But she thinks it was the same cop each time?"

"Yeah."

"Multiple visits?"

"Yeah."

"Lucy never mentioned Royal to you, Sam?"

"Not once that I can remember. Not even casually. That's what's so goofy. But she's private, always has been."

I said, "She suggested to me that the reason she was there that night has to do with something she's really ashamed of."

Sam stopped and grabbed his cart back from me. "She said that to you? Recently?"

I nodded.

He checked all around him for the presence of other shoppers, lowered his voice to a whisper, and said, "You think Lucy was sleeping with Royal? Is that what she was saying?"

I could tell how distasteful the thought was to Sam. I could also tell that this wasn't the first time in the past couple of days that the thought had crossed his mind. I said, "I don't know. She was just talking about things she was ashamed about. Said one of them had to do with the reason she was at Royal's house that night."

"She's engaged, you know," Sam said. "Just got engaged. Wouldn't wear a ring, though, wanted to keep it private."

"She told me that, too. You know the guy?"

"She's talked about him some, but I've never met him." Sam was exceeding the grocery store speed limit now, not even pausing to see whether the shelves he was passing had anything at all to do with the items Sherry had penciled on his grocery list. I caught up with him only because an elderly man was blocking the aisle with his cart while he tried to retrieve a can of guava juice from the top shelf. I helped the man get the can of juice down and he pushed his cart away. I think Sam's driving was scaring him.

Sam argued, "She couldn't have been screwing Peterson. If Lucy loves her fiancé enough to marry him, why would she be having an affair with Royal?"

"We don't know that she was having an affair, Sam. But people do strange things."

"Royal has a reputation. But Lucy?" he muttered. "I don't get it. She's too smart to get involved with somebody like Royal."

"She was obviously involved with him somehow. She was at his house, right? People don't always do what's smart."

"Tell me about it."

I guided him to a stop in front of the condiments and picked out some ketchup. Sam was shaking his head.

He said, "Don't get that kind. It's ru

"You're giving me grocery advice?"

"Believe it or not, I know about some things. If it goes on hot dogs or bratwurst, I know about it."

I wasn't ready to digress into discussing meat on buns. "What kind of reputation did Royal Peterson have, Sam? Indefatigable crime fighter? Justice superhero?"

Sam laughed before he said, "Cad."

I raised my eyebrows. "Cad?" I wasn't questioning the concept, just Sam's choice of descriptors.

"It means he screwed around. I think it's a British thing."

"Screwing around is a British thing?" I said.

Sam hit me on the arm. It hurt.

"You know what I mean."

He waited until I looked up and nodded before he spoke again. "It's my nature to chew on you about what you don't tell me, you know that. That doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for what you do tell me. I'm guessing that the tip you gave me about the explosive means you crossed a line that you're not real comfortable crossing. Finding the bomb in Royal's basement will complicate the case against Lucy. I'm grateful to you for that. But"-he smiled in a way that made both of his lips disappear up into his mustache-"I'm not done trying to get you to tell me what else you know. It doesn't stop here, Alan. Friend or no friend, it doesn't stop here."

CHAPTER 18

Ramp flipped among the Denver news channels about a hundred times between the hours of four and six-thirty Friday afternoon. The only breaks he took from thumbing the remote control were to check his computer to see if any of the TV stations had updated their Web sites with fresh information about the explosion in Denver's Dahlia neighborhood.

Two mistakes in one job.

Ramp couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.

When the local news programs were over, he retrieved a Zip disc from its hiding place in a hollowed-out section of the trim that skirted the floor around the perimeter of his small apartment.

He inserted the disc into his computer and retrieved a Microsoft Word document he'd labeled Log 7.

He didn't really need to see the written record; Ramp could have recited the data that was recorded in Log 7 from memory. But he checked the log anyway. It took him no more than five minutes to review the details of the series of trials he had done at the ranch near Limon.

The device had worked properly all four times that he'd tested it.

All four.

"So what went wrong with number five?" he said out loud. "And why was she driving his car?"

He called Boulder.

"It's me," he said when his call was answered. "You saw the news?"

While he listened to the answer to his question, Ramp stood and moved back to his computer. He linked to the KCNC Web site. It hadn't been updated. He clicked over to KUSA and then to KMGH. Nothing had been added to either site.

You call this news?

Ramp tried to keep the irritation out of his voice when he spoke out loud again. "Like I told you, I followed him twice before I placed it. Both times he was in that car. It was definitely the car he drives to work. I don't know why she was driving it this morning. Bad luck for her is all I can say. I don't feel bad I got her. I only feel bad that I didn't get him and that the message was lost. I'll have to make up for it."

He tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he removed the Zip disc from the drive and tucked it back into its hiding place in the floorboard trim. The trim slid back into place like a hand into a glove.

He shook his head as he said, "No, it was almost all solid state. It shouldn't have shorted. I don't think that's it. I'm thinking it was a rogue radio signal that set it off. The odds are astronomical that another device would be on that frequency in that vicinity, but that's all I can come up with. I've been glued to the news all afternoon. It doesn't look like the police understand the target. And the ATF will waste some time piecing together the device. I'm thinking we're okay. What about the thing at your end? Any fallout from them discovering the bomb in that guy's house?"

Out the front window, Ramp watched a white Denver Police cruiser crawl slowly down the road in front of his Pe

"Yeah, I think so, too. Finding the device in Boulder won't point to us at all. I think we're still on track. My guess is that we've had as much bad luck as we're going to get. I say that we both go ahead with tonight's work. You agree?… That's right, we should keep the faith."

Ramp pressed the button disco