Page 19 of Flash and Bang
Jarrett leaned down and kissed Thayne, letting his tongue slide into his mouth as Thayne opened for it. Jarrett backed him toward the bed, reaching down and pulling at the hem of his T-shirt.
Thayne stepped back and laughed. “Don’t rip it. I know how you are when you get urgent about things.”
Jarrett ignored him and pulled the T-shirt up and over Thayne’s head, throwing it into the corner as he backed Thayne toward the bed. The dimples in his cheeks reappeared as he stalked him backward, pushing him onto the bed and following him down. “You’re the one who rips shirts, remember?”
Thayne chuckled against Jarrett’s lips as he felt his lover’s hard erection grind down on his body. “You’re impossible.”
“Shut up and kiss me, Wolfe,” Jarrett said, going for his lips.
Thayne, always obedient when Jarrett got that growl in his voice, did just that. Whenever Jarrett let that dominant warrior out into the open, he knew he had no choice but to back down and he loved it.
****
Jarrett was apologetic when they met up with Ada for coffee later that morning. He explained that he’d been having a tough day and she smiled sweetly, telling him that she understood completely, letting the subject drop. He was really grateful for that. He’d hoped that being married to a Marine who probably had his own memories of what he’d done over there,would make her sympathetic. Besides, Jarrett was just enough of an asshole that he really didn’t care if she understood or not. He just wanted out of San Diego, the sooner, the better. They began running their theory by her and she looked more than a little disturbed to think that Greg Mason could have been killed by someone that she had cleared for licensing, someone she knew.
“You’ll probably want to talk to the crew first and then afterward, I’ll get you into the medical examiner’s office to talk to the coroner about her findings in Mason’s death. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to his wife, Mary, yet,” Ada said.
“Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone,” Thayne said, “I think she was on the crew, right? Maybe she can add some insight to the new people they hired as well.”
Ada nodded. “Yes, she always tried to work the shows with him. Their home isn’t here in San Diego. It’s up in LA somewhere but they traveled a lot.” She shook her head. “I bet she’s just devastated.”
“Okay, let’s finish up here and try and talk to her and the others, then we need to go see the M.E.” Jarrett picked up his black coffee and downed the rest of it. He was still tired from the workout he andThayne put themselves through after Thayne shut down his computer early that morning. They’d never gotten back to sleep before getting up and hitting a 24 Hour Fitness center just before meeting Ada for coffee.
As it turned out, when Ada called Mary Mason, she learned that she was at the medical examiner’s office and had been all morning, waiting for the coroner to complete the autopsy on her husband so that she could have his body released to the funeral director she’d hired. She told Ada that she would be willing to answer any questions they had if they’d meet her downtown. They piled into Jarrett’s Jeep for the short ride to the coroner and when they walked into the office, they were directed to a small waiting room. Jarrett was slightly surprised to find a thin older woman, easily at least sixty years old, with long graying hair drawn back into a braid, wearing a sweater over a T-shirt and a pair of jeans covered in soot. She looked as though she’d been crawling around in a chimney with black smudges on her teary face.Is it possible she hasn’t changed since the explosion?
She rose to greet them and after introductions, she explained that indeed, she hadn’t left her husband’s side since the explosion, following him from the scene to the hospital, and now to the M.E.’soffice. Jarrett had to wonder if she was in denial that he was actually dead.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Mary,” Ada said. “I know this must be hard on you.”
Mary Mason nodded. “Yes. I was there when it happened. I just can’t believe Greg’s gone.”
“Can you tell us what happened, ma’am?” Thayne asked quietly.
Mrs. Mason turned to his partner and nodded. “We finished the setup like we always do. I was doing my final check of the launching system while Greg checked the e-match connections to the pinboard.”
“So you would have noticed if any of the launch tubes were pointed toward the spectators?” Jarrett asked.
Mary Mason blinked and shook her head, looking quite shocked that she’d actually been asked the question. “Well, yes, I would have noticed. We’d never let that happen. That could hurt someone if a shell were launched toward the crowd.”
“What is your theory as to why the explosion happened, Mrs. Mason?” Thayne asked.
“Theory?” She seemed to stutter and pause before continuing. “I have no idea. We’ve been doing this for over twenty years. We’ve always been careful.I can’t understand what went wrong. Greg was a professional. That’s why Miramar asked us back every year. We worked that show for a dozen years in a row. It always came off without a hitch. This was just an accident but I’ve been sitting here since it happened, turning it over in my mind, and I honestly can’t understand what happened. It makes no sense.”
“So you and your husband, Greg, were the last two people who went through the setup once it was completed? What was the rest of the crew doing?” Jarrett asked.
“We had Beth and Anthony with us that day. They are the two new interns we’ve been using since we hired them in December. We’d used them on two jobs before this. One in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles. Anthony was going over the delivery manifest with Beth and the big rig driver. I was checking the launching system shortly before the explosion happened. I’d just walked outside the fencing to answer questions for curious folks in the crowd and was about fifty yards away when suddenly everything went crazy. Greg was still inside the barrier we had set up to keep the crowd at bay when it happened so he got the worst of the burns. The rest of us were pelted with burning debris.
“I guess I was knocked on the head bysomething when it happened. I must have passed out for a couple of minutes. When I woke up, Anthony was dragging me further away from the explosion. The paramedics looked me over and then told me that they were transporting Greg and some other spectators to the hospital and then stuck me in an ambulance as well. They treated me for a concussion and then released me. When I found out Greg was in grave condition, I just waited out in the corridor with Beth and Anthony until the doctor told me Greg died.”
“But that was hours after he was taken in, right?” Ada asked.
Jarrett noticed how she put her hand on Mary’s forearm, probably to comfort the crying woman. Mrs. Mason looked up into Investigator Carrillo’s face and gave her a nod, wiping away tears that streaked down her sooty face. “Yes, about twelve hours. I sent Beth and Anthony home and I waited until the doctors let me into Greg’s room.” She shook her gray head. “He never regained consciousness.”
“Can you think of anyone who held a grudge against Greg or your company?” Thayne asked.
“A grudge? No,” Mary said. “No one would want to kill Greg. He was a good man and doing pyrotechnics shows was his passion. After he retired,it’s all we did. We enjoyed the travel and working with different people but we were a tight group. I just can’t believe anyone would ever really want to hurt or kill Greg or any of the spectators either.”
“So you never noticed the launch tubes being tampered with or set in weird angles?” Jarrett asked to clarify.