Sam looked in surprise at his chief. This was a new experience, having Coopersmith on his side. The Abe Coopersmith he knew was a man of few words, few of them complimentary. It was because Liddell was rubbing them all the wrong way. When under fire, cops always stuck together.

“Let’s get back to the business at hand, okay?” said Coopersmith. “We have a bomber in town. And our first fatality. What do we know so far?” He looked at Sam, who was head of the newly re-formed Bomb Task Force. “Navarro?”

“Not a hell of a lot,” admitted Sam. He opened a file folder and took out a sheaf of papers. He distributed copies to the other four men around the table — Liddell, Chief Coopersmith, Gillis, and Ernie Takeda, the explosives expert from the Maine State Crime Lab. “The first blast occurred around 2:15 a.m. The second blast around 2:30 a.m. It was the second one that pretty much levelled the R. S. Hancock warehouse. It also caused minor damage to two adjoining buildings. The night watchman was the one who found the first device. He noticed signs of breaking and entering, so he searched the building. The bomb was left on a desk in one of the offices. He put in the call at 1:30 a.m. Gillis got there around 1:50, I was there at 2:00 a.m. We had the blast area cordoned off and the top-vent container truck had just arrived when the first one went off. Then, fifteen minutes later — before we could search the building — the second device exploded. Killing Officer Pickett.” Sam glanced at Liddell, but this time the D.A. chose to keep his mouth shut. “The dynamite was Dupont label.”

There was a brief silence in the room. Then Coopersmith said, “Not the same Dupont lot number as those two bombs last year?”

“It’s very likely,” said Sam. “Since that missing lot number’s the only reported large dynamite theft we’ve had up here in years.”