This wasn’t the technicians’ fault. They were all properly qualified, trained, and certified. Some of them had been on the squad for over ten years, and all had served a number of years as Los Angeles cops or federal agents before then. He wondered if they were talking about him yet. He hoped not. They still seemed to see his willingness to go downrange himself as a positive quality. But it was time to quit doing that. He was going to make a conscious effort to loosen his grip and act like a supervisor, which was his real job. He would touch a device only if he was convinced the killer had planted it.
From now on, every week he would bring one team at a time into a conference room and give each an intensive review of everything the squad had learned so far about this bomber’s work. Frequent updates would do the most to help the teams handle the devices they encountered in the field. It occurred to him that it would be a good idea to include some of the homicide detectives too. If they knew exactly what to look for, they might find this guy.
He nodded as he agreed to his own proposal, and then his mind returned to Diane. He realized she might be part of his solution. She had seen the bomber’s work more often and more closely than anyone else but Stahl. Together they had studied the placement, the hardware, and the explosive substances and talked about every aspect of the scene—the power sources, the blast radius, the selection and origins of the parts, and the bomber’s preferences. She could probably teach an intensive class for the technicians as well as he could. Maybe he would mention the idea to her tonight, if he had a chance.
Maybe he should save it for another visit, when her recovery was more complete. He should probably just drop in as though he were a good supervisor coming by to visit a brave wounded police officer, and then leave. He must not look to the doctors and nurses like what he was—a high-ranking public official who had been engaged in a secret sexual relationship with a colleague he supervised. Her injury had turned the idea that he was going to be off the force in a couple of weeks into a fantasy. He’d had to stay because the bomber was still out there, and now he had to stay to protect her.
Stahl drove up the hospital driveway and into the parking structure. He glided up and down the rows of spaces with signs indicating they were reserved for doctors, then up another level, and finally onto the visitors’ levels. When he found a space, he took a picture with his phone so he would remember where he’d left his police car.
Stahl took the elevator down to the ground floor, where he could enter the main building. He strode across the busy lobby, then got into the elevator. Just as the doors rolled shut he saw three members of the Bomb Squad come in the front door together. They were Team Two—Curtis, McCrary, and Bolland. It was nice they’d come to visit Diane, but it was a bit of a disappointment. He knew they would have to stop at the reception counter to find out where to go and to get visitors’ stickers, so he might still have a little time to see Diane alone.
When his elevator doors opened and he stepped out, the elevator beside his arrived and Elliot emerged. “Hi, boss.” They shook hands, and walked toward Diane’s hallway together.
Stahl said, “This is pretty interesting. I just saw Curtis, McCrary, and Bolland downstairs.”
“What’s the latest on her condition?” Elliot asked. “Have you heard anything?”
“Supposedly her recovery is better than normal, but what’s normal for having a bomb go off twenty feet from your head?” said Stahl.
“That would be deceased,” said Elliot.
“That’s been my observation,” said Stahl. “If she’s ready for a bunch of visitors, she’s got to be doing great.”
They reached the nurses’ station at the end of the hall, and one of the nurses Stahl had met before was on duty. “Gentlemen,” she said. “Go to the waiting room down the hall, and do what its name implies. Wait.”
Elliot and Stahl went to the waiting room at the end of the hall. Stahl saw that all of the two dozen or so seats were taken. About fifteen of the people in the room were from the Bomb Squad. He leaned in and addressed the group. “What’s everybody doing here at once?”
Elliot took a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Haven’t you seen this?” He handed it to Stahl.
It was an invitation printed on good stationery that bore the name, address, and logo of Cedars-Sinai hospital. The text said, “Dear members of the LAPD Bomb Squad, Sergeant Diane Hines cordially invites you to her Coming Out (of a Coma) Party, which will be held on September 15 at 8:00 p.m. at her current residence, Floor Five of the Cedars-Sinai hospital. Refreshments will be served. No RSVP necessary.”
Dick Stahl read Elliot’s invitation and thought about it. The fourteen remaining members of the original Bomb Squad were Diane’s friends. When the new squad members read the invitation they might see the evening as a chance to become closer to the original Bomb Squad members and to each other. He said, “I hadn’t seen this before.” He looked around. “And I don’t see Hines.”
Bolland said, “The nurse told us she wants to get dolled up before she sees us.”
“‘Dolled up,’” Judy Welsh repeated. “There’s an expression you don’t hear much anymore.” She touched her hair as though she were arranging it.
“That’s because you don’t see it much anymore, either,” McCrary said.
Welsh grinned. “If you could see what Diane and I look like when we go off watch and clean up, it would fuel your adolescent fantasies for the next five years.”
That brought loud laughter and a few side comments.
A moment later Elliot appeared behind Stahl in the doorway. “The nurse was about to come down here and tell you all to keep the noise down. I headed her off, so don’t get me kicked out of here.”
Stahl had a vague sense that this gathering wasn’t something Diane would agree to. Maybe the nursing staff had decided it would be good for her, and made the arrangements.
Stahl heard footsteps on the hard floor behind him and turned. Wyman and Neil walked up.
Wyman said, “We used the dogs and searched every locker, everyplace where you could hide a device in the school. The crime scene people are still running tests, taking more pictures, and collecting prints. They’ll call if they find anything for us.”
Stahl nodded. “Okay.” But he was distracted. He had come here expecting to be the only one. This larger gathering had an odd, premature feeling.
The nurse from the desk appeared behind them. She was some kind of supervisor, and she was middle-aged. Stahl guessed she was the one who had said “dolled up.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said. As they turned, she slipped past them and into the room, where she saw Welsh and Terranova. “And ladies.”
The room was silent.
“A while ago the big sheet cake, soft drinks, and coffee you ordered were delivered to the floor. That is against the rules. We’re grateful, and we love you all, and we especially love Sergeant Hines. We’re going to let you have a quiet—and I mean quiet—visit with her in this waiting room. Where’s the boss?”
She leaned in farther and saw Stahl. “Oh, there you are. You’re responsible.”
“I’ll try to live up to that,” Stahl said.
“I’m going down to the break room to cut the cake. If it’s loud down here, nobody gets any.”
“Need any help?” said Elliot.
“From a bunch of cops?” she said. “Hardly.”
She turned and hurried off. As she approached the nurses’ station she grabbed a hospital orderly by the arm and made him push the cart that held the cake and the drinks. Stahl saw her turn to the left a few doors down.
Stahl held up both arms and waved them urgently for attention. “Can anyone tell me who arranged this party?”
In her room across the hall from the nurses’ station, Diane sat in her wheelchair. The nurse lifted Diane’s feet onto the foot pedal as though they weighed nothing, and then straightened her gown and put a clean blanket over her knees. She took Diane’s hairbrush out of her hand and brushed her hair, as though it were long enough, and then held the mirror while she put on her makeup. Diane said, “Thank you so much, Sonja. I’ll be okay from here.”
Sonja said, “Okay.” Then she disappeared into the hallway.