The Boardwalk Bomber

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 17

"You okay?" I asked, scrambling to my feet. McCain was struggling to get out from under the sail. I pulled it off and she came up spitting out sand.

She glared at me. "Are you insane?"

"Well ... I'm not certified."

"I'll sign the papers later," she said and started running across the sand to the parking lot. I followed, leaving my boat in a twisted heap for the moment. We jumped in her car and headed towards the high school.

Five minutes later we were on the scene. There were five sheriff's cruisers and two ambulances standing by. Several windows in the school were blown out and from the location I guessed it was the principal's office or some other administrative area.

It was a typical school building from the 1960s -- a long, low, yellow-brick rectangle with a bit of lawn out front where generations of students had worn dirt paths in diagonal patterns not matching the right-angle grid of the sidewalks. In the middle of the lawn was a little free-standing wall of the same yellow brick with a glass-fronted, marquee-like sign saying"See You In The Fall" in white plastic letters against black felt.

The deputies had already roped off the area with crime scene tape. McCain flashed her badge and ducked under, with a short glance back at me -- not inviting me to follow. I knew they wouldn't let me through unless she told them to and there was no reasonable explanation for her doing that.

Arkin was standing behind the tape, holding something under his arm like a football. It was a camcorder. He was videotaping the crowd.

I looked back at the clumps of people standing nearby watching. Andy and Scott were among them.

I trotted over to them. "Did you guys see what happened?"

Andy shook his head. "But we heard two bangs. They were bombs, weren't they Scotty?

"Sure sounded like it," Scotty said, grinning like he was watching an action movie. "I'm gonna see how close they'll let me get." He started down the hill towards the tape.

"We saw Detective McCain go inside," Andy went on. "She's gonna catch the bomber isn't she?"

"I hope so, " I said. "Maybe you can help her. Were you here when you heard the bangs?"

"Uh huh."

"Did you see anything after you heard it? Like a car or truck driving away fast, or anyone running?"

He shook his head. "I think it looked just like it does now. Just not as many people and police cars around."

"Was anyone here at all?"

"Just me and Scotty. We were parked right over there in his car." He gestured to Scotty's red Honda,

"Parked? Why?"

"We were driving around and Scotty wanted to stop and rest."

"So ... you stopped to rest in front of the school and that's when the bombs went off?"

"Uh huh. I'm sorry I didn't see anything. I didn't help Detective McCain."

I looked down at Scotty standing by the crime scene tape. "Tell you what, Andy," I said. "You wait here and I'm going to go talk to Scotty. See if he remembers anything else."

I walked down the hill and came up behind Scotty. "Pretty impressive," I said.

He jumped, not realizing I was behind him. "Yeah, it looks like a lot of damage."

"This is the school you go to, isn't it Scott?"

"Yeah. That's the principal's office over there." He pointed to a row of blasted-out windows.

"Sounds like you and Andy were the first ones on the scene."

"Yeah, we were just driving by." He looked past me and yelled at his brother, "Andy, come down here!" Andy was stooped over by the brick sign. He had a stick and poked at something at the base of the sign.

"Andy leave that alone!" Scott shouted. I saw the expression on his face and suddenly I knew. I turned and ran up the hill calling Andy's name.

He stopped and watched with a puzzled expression, as I ran towards him yelling at him to come down the hill. But he just stood there watching. Near his feet was something white and plastic and shaped like a cylinder. "Andy, step back from there," I said reaching for his arm.

He finally started to move, but as he did so he dropped the stick and I saw it fall in slow motion, one end hitting the ground first and then the rest of it falling slowly like a small bare tree, landing on the bomb. I had Andy by the arm, pulling him, making him run with me.

We were ten feet away, then twenty, running downhill. I felt the explosion before I heard it, like a wave that carried me and Andy into the air for a few feet and then slammed us into the grass face first, while down below I saw Scotty looking back at us, his mouth open in a scream I could no longer hear.