Drago #6: And the City Burned. Art Spinella
the guys?”
Tim shuddered, “The one was about my height. 5-foot-9 or so. About 160 pounds. Red hair, brown eyes and big hands.”
“Long or short?” I asked.
“His hair? Short. Not a military cut. He had it combed.”
Dorothy added, “Natural red, too. His eyebrows were the same color and his beard was coming in. Like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. It was red, too.”
“And the other one?”
“Six-foot, 200 pounds, black hair and blue eyes. Moustache but clean shaven otherwise.”
“Age?”
“Maybe 35 or so,” Dorothy said. “Both of them.”
Sal interrupted, “The six-footer. Muscular or going to fat?”
Dorothy smiled, “Very muscular.”
Tim gave her a sideways glare.
She continued, “Big arms and legs. Big chest and maybe a 34 inch waist. He looked like a guy who works out regularly, but not muscle bound. Know what I mean?”
Sal nodded, “Not a runner, not a weight lifter, just someone who isn’t afraid of physical work.”
Dorothy nodded and gave a slight grin at Sal. “He reminded me of a field hand. Outdoorsy. Know what I mean?”
“One last question,” I said. “Any accent? Southern, Texas, Mid-western?”
A spark flared in both teens’ eyes.
Tim answered first. “English! The red head sounded like he was from England or something.”
“And the other guy?”
Dorothy shook her head. “No. Nothing that stood out, anyway.”
Tim nodded, “American.”
Glancing at my watch, “Look, we’re in deep stuff here timewise. I want you two to get back to town, go the police station and give Chief Forte written statements. Do it quickly. And then get the heck out of town. Got me?”
Both nodded. Tim climbed from the table, grabbed Dorothy’s hand and pulled her with him to the front door. Not before she gave Sal a big grin and softly said, “Thank you, Mister Rand.”
Sal’s beard twitched. A smile, though no one would see it behind all those whiskers.
After phoning in our conversation with the two teens to the Chief, Sal and I began a quick survey of the back room with the circles in the dirt.
“Footprints look like three people, not two,” I said.
Sal agreed. “Something odd, though.” He pointed to one set of prints, “Like this one was shuffling. Not a lot, but a little.”
I pulled out my cell phone, scrolled through the contact list and settled on Doctor John DiMaggio. Hit the “call” button and got him on the second ring.
“Doc, it’s Nick Drago. You got some time right now?”
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
DiMaggio, a dapper guy with bright eyes and an undercurrent of having been a hellion in his younger days, is a recognized and published forensic podiatrist who does case evaluations, expert testimony and crime-scene evaluations of footprints. Bandon’s got all kinds.
Filling him in on the help I needed, he clicked off.
While waiting for DiMaggio, Sal and I began a quick survey of the abandoned mill. It smelled of mold, mildew, damp earth and a hint of the river just outside its door. The largest area now void of any of the milling equipment that once was so important to Bandon and Coos County economies. Secondary rooms, some small and clearly habitat for rodents of all variety judging from the number of droppings on anything flat. Rust as common as marshmallows at a Girl Scout campout.
Sal stood in the middle of one of the rooms, eyes scanning the dirt-crusted windows, long central workbench.
“Good place to stage and prep these bombs.”
I nodded. When I worked in the woods, this place was one of the most active mills on the river. Log trucks drove in, delivered old growth and not-so-old growth trees and other trucks or barges left with cut-to-dimension lumber to feed a booming housing industry.
“You know, Sal, the world has changed in 20 years. Not just a little, but fundamentally. There’s a shortage of young men to work in the woods.”
I toed a huge industrial bolt, rusty and half buried in the dirt. “Can’t find enough to do the logging even though the trees are there, the contracts are there, the demand is there. A whole generation of kids who once would kill to get a job with a lumber company has been lost. The knowledge of what to do and how to do it, cutting down trees, was stymied when logging became a politically incorrect industry.”
The bolt broke loose of the dirt and flipped on its side. “Now that there’s growing demand and government is pulling back from some of the more onerous restrictions, there aren’t enough people who know how to do the work. Stuff their dads and uncles once taught ‘em isn’t being taught any more.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Nicky.”
DiMaggio’s black Chevy Impala SS rumbled into the gravel parking lot in front of the building and parked next to the Crown Vic. The duo looked like a pair of weight lifters on Pismo Beach. Flames on the Vic. Lipstick red bow-tie in the grill, a matching red Impala SS emblem on its flank and a red spoiler on the rear deck.
The doc, dressed in casual slacks, button-down shirt and wearing soft loafers, climbed from his car, reached into the rear seat and pulled out a small briefcase.
“Nick. Sal. What do you have for me?”
We led DiMaggio into the old mill. He sniffed as he entered, the mustiness clearly not to his liking.
At the central work area, Sal and I stood back so DiMaggio could look into the room.
Pointing a chin at the imprints, “What are the circles?”
“The rings at the bottom of propane tanks.”
“Lots of circles,” he said.
“About 50.”
“This to do with the bombs going off around the county?”
Sal and I nodded in unison.
Putting his briefcase down, he started to lean against the door jam, thought better of getting the decades-old grit on his shirt, and inspected at a distance the 30 or 40 footprints in the dirt floor. Some were overlapping others as the walkers traipsed from workbench to propane tanks. His sharp and experienced eye imagining what caused the markings.
Looking over his shoulder, I said, “The way I read it, three guys moved the propane tanks to the workbench, attached the timing mechanism then moved the bombs to here,” pointing to a spot just inside the doorway.
“Two.”
Sal raised an eyebrow. “Looks like three different sets of footprints to me.”
DiMaggio leaned over, opened his briefcase and pulled out a clear plastic sheet with some sort of grid printed on it. Careful to avoid stepping in the prints, he gently placed the sheet over one of the impressions.
“Two, Sal.” Looking at the grid, “This one is a size 10 if it’s a man’s shoe, size 11 and a half if it’s a woman’s print.” He moved the grid to another print, “Ditto this one.” Laying the clear plastic over the third print, “And this one’s a size 11 if a man, 12 and a half if a woman.”
I took the sheet from DiMaggio, put it on the first print then on the second. “The one print is far wider than the first, though.”
“Bunion, probably,” DiMaggio answered. “Look here.” He walked to the workbench,