The Forgotten (John Puller 2)

“How’d he make his money?”

“Finance guy or something. Who the hell knows how those guys make money? They rob Peter to pay Paul.”

“I take it no one was in the car?” asked Puller. “No.”

“Anything else?”

“Isn’t a car bombing enough?” said Landry. Bullock said, “Two guards were attacked. One near the rear fence, the other over near the guesthouse.” He pointed in the direction of the building. “Found them both unconscious. They were pretty burly guys. Whoever took them out was a force to be reckoned with. They finally came to. We questioned both, but they never saw who attacked them.”

Puller gazed over at the guesthouse. “Anyone staying there currently?”

“No,” replied Bullock.

“Is it okay if I take a walk around the grounds?”

“Looking for what?” asked Bullock.

“I usually know it when I see it.”

He left them and walked around the edge of the property. He could see men in black shirts with sidearms and MP5S lurking here and there. Security. Who got their asses kicked tonight. And Lampert would probably kick them again.

But why blow up the car? A message? Was it a message enough?

He looked at the main house ablaze in light.

Then his gaze ventured to the darkened guesthouse. Why one would require a guesthouse when you lived in a mansion bigger than the White House was beyond him. But he supposed at that income bracket, there were no items of necessity, only items of desire.

But then certain possibilities occurred to him. Why have security at the guesthouse if no one was currently there?

He ventured to one of the windows of the structure and hit the flowerbed with his penlight.

Nothing.

He moved around the house, checking the dirt.

Nothing.

Until the third try.

Footprints. Big ones. He held his own foot over one of the prints and came up short by a lot. He estimated a size sixteen. A big man. He took a picture of it with his cell phone.

Maybe just a yard worker cleaning the flower beds.

He looked through the window. Clean shot into what appeared to be a bedroom.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t as simple as a yard worker. And the print was on the house side of the flower bed. Why get so close to the building?

The footprint didn’t look particularly recent. It was hard to say, but they must have irrigation here. So he doubted it had been here longer than a day. Otherwise the water would have dissolved the print.

Now he needed to see what it was the person was looking at.

CHAPTER 51

The door was unlocked. The interior was dark. Puller used his penlight to see where he was going.

Technically he probably wasn’t supposed to be in here, and he didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was. In his mind he figured out what room that window looked into.

A few moments later he stepped into the room.

Now he had confirmation that it was indeed a bedroom. If this had been a hotel room it would have been one Puller could never have afforded.

He eyed the bed. It was made, but Puller was used to the military precision of square comers and a bed tight enough to bounce a quarter off. This bed was not to that level. And it had a discernible imperfection.

There was a slight bump near the footboard. In the light it would have been hard to make out. In the dark, it was pretty much invisible. But not to Puller.

He carefully lifted up the bedcovers and shined his light under it.

It was a pair of women’s panties. He snapped a picture with his cell phone camera. Someone had made the bed in haste and forgotten this item.

He put the bedcovers back down and glanced at the window. Perfect sightline to here.

He noted the two glass ring marks on the nightstand and sniffed them. Some of the liquid had spilled.

Not a big drinker, Puller still knew what it was by the smell.

Scotch.

It had been a favorite of his old man’s.

He next scrutinized the bedposts and saw the scratches on one of them. Fingernails maybe? He went into the adjacent bathroom, checked out the trash can, vanity, toiletries, shower, and toilet.

All of these things together were telling Puller a lot about what had happened in here.

When he went back out he saw it in the front room. He shined his penlight over it.

Someone had written on the wall in magic marker: Your time is almost up, Pete.

Puller glanced back at the bedroom door and then his gaze returned to the writing. He took a picture of it with his cell phone camera.

Now there was a message that was even more direct than blowing up your super-expensive car.

He had no doubt that the message had been seen. And he was certain it would have been erased in time. Bullock had made no mention of this, so obviously Lampert, if he had been in here, didn’t want the police to know about it. And there was no reason for the police to come into the guesthouse.

And they hadn’t.

Just Puller had.

He slipped out of the space and made his way back to the wreckage of the Bentley, where Landry was talking to Bullock.

He walked over to the tech, who was poking around the car’s remains.

“Find the source of the explosion yet?”

“Pieces of it.” He held up a baggie with a twisted fragment of scorched metal inside. “I think this is the detonator. At least part of it.” Puller took the bag and looked at it. He had seen debris like this before. In fact, he had seen enough IEDs in the Middle East to last him a lifetime. He had also analyzed the remains of many exploded IEDs. Most bombs had common components: explosive element, detonator, timer, and power source. But different bombers had different techniques for creating their stuff; the bomb signature, it was called. Puller had gotten to where he could tell at a glance which local bomber had constructed a certain IED.

This detonator debris, however, was not from the Middle East. At least it was not any that he recognized, and he was pretty confident he would have. So, other things being equal, the bomber had not come from that part of the world. It would have been a stretch anyway. A jihadist in Paradise, Florida? The irony was a little much.

Bullock and Landry joined him. Bullock pointed at the evidence baggie and said, “Anything strike you about that bomb fragment?”

“Well, I’m no ATF expert, but I’ve seen lots of Middle East bombs and this isn’t one of them. If I had to guess I’d say it was more Russian than anything else.”

“Russian!” Bullock looked stricken by this. “We got Russians blowing up cars in the Panhandle?”

“Not necessarily. The bomb might be Russ- ian-made, but whoever set it off doesn’t have to be. The Russians sell to whoever is willing to pay.”

He handed the baggie back to the tech and looked up at the main house. It was the biggest home he had ever seen. The guesthouse had been about four thousand square feet. He couldn’t tell how many square feet this was. Perhaps they didn’t use square feet when measuring it. Perhaps they used acres. And there were about forty-four thousand square feet in an acre.

Peter Lampert must do quite well for himself.

But his time was coming, at least according to the writing left in the guesthouse. He had already decided not to tell Bullock and Landry about it. He shouldn’t have gone in the guesthouse, and by telling them he would have to admit to what he’d done.