Free Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries) by Matthew Storm Page B

me.”
    “Nobody’s
perfect.”
    I looked
him over. “So where are the files?”
    “In my
trunk.” The waiter came by and Jason ordered two soft-boiled eggs and coffee.
    “Why are
they in the trunk?” I asked. “I was expecting you to give me a thumb drive.”
    He shook
his head. “Nothing that old has been digitized. You’re getting three dusty
boxes. That’s it.”
    I
sighed. “Why can’t anything be easy?”
    Jason’s
food came and he tucked into his soft-boiled eggs. “I meant it before. It’s
nice of you to help Anita.”
    “It’ll
come to nothing, I’m sure. Have you looked at the files?”
    “Yeah,
but it’s not my field. What do I know about bomb analysis? There were never any
serious suspects. They interviewed a couple aging hippies that were involved in
the anti-war scene.”
    “Desert
Storm? Did that even count as a war?”
    “No, the
Vietnam War. You’ve heard of it?”
    “Yeah,
that’s the one that had to do with the impressment of sailors.”
    Jason
stared at me. “What?”
    “Forget
it. It was a War of 1812 joke. Actually, it was probably the only War of
1812 joke. Of course I’ve heard of Vietnam. Why were they interviewing old
hippies?”
    He
shrugged. “The hippies had their share of radicals. One of them had been part
of a group that was suspected of putting a bomb under a police car in 1968.
They were fighting the power, or the pigs, or whatever people said back then.”
    “I think
they were worried about ‘the man’ always getting them down.”
    “That
sounds about right.”
    “You
like any of them for it?”
    “No.
It’s a pretty big stretch to go from anti-war to blowing up a guy that wanted
to make smart computers. I always figured it was a jealous lover, but Anita
says neither of them had a lover, and I believe her.”
    “What’s
your take on Anita?”
    Jason
sipped his coffee. “She’s a sweet old lady. Means the world to me. I assume you
know she helped me out?”
    “Yeah.”
So Jason hadn’t seen through her mask, either. The woman was good. I wondered
if she’d fronted the rehab costs through her foundation because she wanted a
cop to owe her a favor. That actually seemed pretty likely. “What about the
bomb?”
    “Pretty
standard pipe bomb. You could get the instructions to make one off the
Internet.”
    “Or
whatever passed for the Internet in 1993, I guess.”
    “Yeah. I
think I had CompuServe back then. You could probably find stuff like that in
the forums.”
    “I
remember The Anarchist’s Cookbook ,” I said. “I think that was just hype,
though, and not anything you could actually use.” I shrugged. “I have no idea,
really. I’ll probably have to do some research.”
    “Or go
ask someone who makes bombs.”
    I could
tell from his smirk that he’d been joking, but that wasn’t a bad idea. I knew
more than a few criminals, some in prison, and some not. A few of them owed me.
    I put a
$20 bill on the table when Jason was finished eating and we went to his car, where
we transferred three file boxes from his trunk to mine. They were dustier than
I expected. “Somehow I doubt anyone’s looked at these in the last year,” I
said.
    “Besides
me, probably not. And I didn’t spend a lot of time with them.”
    I
slammed my trunk shut. “Anything else you can think to tell me?”
    “Well, I
haven’t seen you at a meeting in a while.” He gave me a concerned look. “Are
you avoiding us for a reason?”
    “No,” I
said. “I’ve just been really busy with not going.”
    “People
worry about you.”
    I shook
my head. “Jason, honestly, I don’t need to hear this. I didn’t say I’m done
with it, but I’m never going to be one of those people who goes to A.A. every
day. I don’t need it to stay clean. I have things to do besides talk about the
steps and the higher power and…whatever else. Tell everyone I said ‘hi’ if that
makes them feel better.”
    “I will.
I just think people would rather hear it from