Shock Wave

really odd-looking electronics, but we can’t put them with any bomb-making techniques.”
    “He made electric guitars as a hobby,” Virgil said.
    “Okay. I’ll mark that down,” Barlow said. “The other thing is, I can think of good reasons he could be the bomber and at the same time, we’d only find one pipe, and one blasting cap.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. Like, he was limiting his exposure. He was planning to do two more bombs, and he kept the other stuff off-site to limit the possibility of detection.”
    “Good thought, Jim,” Virgil said, not believing it.
    “So anyway, I haven’t talked to Mrs. Erikson yet. I want to know exactly what to ask her, when I get to her,” Barlow said. “I want her to have an attorney.”
    “Sure,” Virgil said. “Keep digging. And call me.”
     
     
    THE MATH PROFESSOR INTERESTED HIM: not only because he’d been named on the list, but because he’d be a really bright guy, and he was a little odd, both of which the bomber apparently was, and because he might have some idea of how valid the survey might be.
    Virgil looked at his watch, wondered how Shepard was doing—nothing he could do about that—wondered if Block had been arrested, then got on his phone and called the duty officer at the BCA and asked him to find out where John Haden lived, and what his phone number was.
    He had the information in five minutes, called Haden, and was surprised when Haden promptly picked up: a good sign.
    “I’ve got some questions for you,” Virgil said, after introducing himself. “I wonder if I might stop by?”
    “You think I’m the bomber?”
    “I have no idea who the bomber is,” Virgil said. “I mostly want to talk to you about a survey I took.”
    “Well, come on over. You can tell me about what happened with Henry.”

19
    J OHN HADEN WAS A TALL, slender, pale man with glasses and a mop of brown hair; he wore a T-shirt with a hand-painted yoga warrior pose, simple black and white, which Virgil envied the moment he saw it, and jeans and flip-flops.
    He lived in a modest brick house with a neatly kept yard, and pulled open the door and peered nearsightedly at Virgil, and said, “You look like a stoner.”
    “A flaw in your Vedic perception,” Virgil said; his first wife had been a yoga practitioner. “I am, in fact, a cop.”
    Haden liked that and swung the door back, and said, “Well, bring your cop ass inside. You want a beer?”
    “Sure. But no more than two.”
    “We can sit out on the patio,” Haden said. He got a couple of Dos Equis from the refrigerator, popped the tops, and handed one cold sweaty bottle to Virgil.
    On the way out to the patio, he said, “So why do you think I’m the bomber?”
    “I don’t. Not the bomber, anyway. But, as Henry’s business partner, you might have had reason to get rid of him. Either because the business was doing badly, or doing well. Either way. You might be copycatting the real bomber.”
    “Your theory’s basically screwed—the business wasn’t doing much of anything,” Haden said. He took a webbed chair, pointed Virgil at another one, and said, “I don’t want you to think I’m taking this thing lightly. I just don’t really know what to say. Henry was a heck of a nice guy. Smart, happy, good marriage—he enjoyed his job. I freaked out when I heard. I was amazed. I went over there, but his wife was in the Cities.”
    “She’s back now.”
    “She was in the Cities, anyway. So, I canceled my summer school class, and I’ve just been wandering around the house wondering what the fuck? Why?”
    “Found some bomb stuff in the garage,” Virgil said. “The feds think he might be the bomber.”
    Haden waved the thought away: “That’s absurd. If you knew Henry, you’d know how absurd it was. Somebody planted it there, which means, it has to be somebody who knows Henry.” Then, “Oh, wait—that’s why you’re here. You’re checking out his friends.”
    “That, too,” Virgil said. He took a hit on the beer, which tasted good in the hot afternoon, looked around the small backyard, and said, “You’re a marigold enthusiast.”
    “They keep moles out of your yard,” Haden said.
    “You got moles?” Virgil asked.
    “No, because I plant marigolds.”
    “I didn’t know about that,” Virgil said. “I got moles.”

    VIRGIL SAID, “I was told you’ve been divorced three times.”
    “That’s true,” Haden said.
    “Do you still think about the exes?”
    “All the time. Especially