A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

. . .

It was by pure chance that Joe Gideon was walking out of the Port Hancock Medical Center when the ambulances carrying Lily Burns and Amanda Jansen came screeching in.  And he couldn’t believe what he was told.  There had been an explosion at Amanda’s cottage that had injured them both?  What kind of explosion was the first question he asked, but the paramedics had no information.

Amanda’s injuries were confirmed to be fairly manageable, he was then advised, but Lily was another matter.  Her injuries were extensive, and couldn’t be fully determined until after surgery.

Joe was dumbstruck. But he knew where he was going.

He found Arnie Stiversen and Paul Cady at the Jansen property.  With them were Detectives Roy Flynn and Teri Coello, who were conferring with Ben Dawson and Andy Cooper, the police department’s two crime scene investigators.  Also on the scene was a significant part of the Port Hancock Fire Department that was engaged in putting out the fire that had burned the cottage to the ground.

“We’ve got the right team working on this,” Stiversen assured Joe.  “And you have my apology.  I know now that Paul and I should have taken this thing about Lily a whole lot more seriously than we did.”

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.  “What have you got?”

“Looks like it was a pipe bomb,” nineteen-year veteran Roy Flynn confirmed.

“A pipe bomb?” Joe was incredulous, having figured it was probably something like the furnace blowing.    “How?  Where?”

“We don’t know yet,” Andy Cooper said.  “All we have are pieces.”

“It must have been a pretty big explosion though,” Stiversen added.  “The neighbor who called it in lives clear on the other side of the lake.  Said he thought at first it was fireworks, but when he came outside, he saw the fire.”

“Was that all he saw?” Joe asked.

“So far as we know,” Cady replied.

“We’re going to need to talk to the two women,” Teri Coello said.  “We’re hoping they can tell us something.”

“That could be a while,” Joe told her.  “They were taking them into surgery as I was heading over here.”

Coello shrugged.  “Well, there’s really not a whole lot more I can do around here,” she said.  “So, if it’s okay with you, can I hitch a ride?”

. . .

John Dancer couldn’t remember the last time he was this angry.

He and Lily had driven Carson to his sister’s Whidbey Island home on Thursday evening, after which he had dropped Lily back at the ferry.  Amanda was going to pick her up on the other side for a weekend at the cottage.  Then, as planned, he had taken off for Spokane.

On schedule, he had returned to pick Carson back up on Sunday afternoon, and they were already off the ferry and on their way over to collect Lily when they learned that something had blown the cottage to smithereens, and injured Lily and Amanda -- he didn’t yet know how badly -- in the process.

It was Joe who called the Carson home and told Diana Hightower what had happened.  It was Diana who gave Joe the number for Carson’s cell phone.  And it was Joe who then had to call Carson.

Dancer swore only half under his breath when he and Carson met up with Joe at the hospital.  “I thought it was okay to leave,” he said.  “I thought she’d be safe.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Joe told him.  “Even if you’d been here, what could you have done?”

“I don’t know,” Dancer refused to concede.  “But I‘d damn well have done something.”

              Joe wasn’t buying it.  “More than likely,” he said, “you’d have ended up getting blown to smithereens, too, and how would that have helped?”

. . . 

It was a somber group that assembled in the second floor waiting room of the Port Hancock Medical Center, waiting for whatever the word would be -- Joe, Dancer, Carson, and soon after that, Diana, Wanda, Megan, and then Amanda’s parents, with Maynard Purcell making regular trips to the dayroom to report on what was happening.

Carson called Lily’s sisters, promising to keep them updated, and assuring them he would let them know if, Heaven forbid, it was going to be necessary for them to journey back to Port Hancock, barely three weeks after they had left.

But Janet Cahill was having none of it.  After making certain that her husband John would be able to take care of the house and the children, she threw some things into an overnight bag, and, within an hour, was in her car and on the road, speeding up the highway from Portland to Port Hancock.

“What’s going on around here?” Amanda’s mother asked Teri Coello, who waited with the rest of them.  “This used to be a peaceful town.”

“I wish I had a good answer for you,” the detective replied.  “I guess there are just some people around here who don’t like the idea of cop killers getting all the benefits of ordinary folk.”

“Crap,” Carson told her.  “This isn’t about regular folk, and you know it.  It’s about a small group of racists who don’t care much for our system of justice -- unless, of course, it’s one of them who’s caught up in it.”

“Wait a minute,” Amanda’s father exclaimed.  “You mean this wasn’t the boiler exploding or something -- you mean someone deliberately blew up the cottage?”

“Right now,” Coello conceded, “that’s the way it’s looking.”

“We think whoever it was, was after Lily,” Joe added.  “Trying to get her off the Lightfoot case.  But this goes way over the top.”  He looked meaningfully at the detective.  “And I’m sure the Port Hancock Police Department won’t rest until the perpetrator is apprehended.”

“You have my word on it,” Teri Coello assured them all.

. . .

It was eleven o’clock, eight hours after surgery had begun, three hours after Janet had arrived from Portland, and two hours after Carson had insisted that Wanda and Megan go home, when Maynard Purcell finally appeared with the news they had been waiting for.

“I