Crime Exploded, A Buck Taylor Novel

Chapter One

He looked up at the uniformed guard as they stood waiting for the steel gate to roll back from its latching plate. He felt tiny next to the large black man with the bald head and dark-rimmed glasses. They weren’t friends, but he felt a particular affection for the guard after all these years. Friendships were not encouraged, but this particular guard had been friendlier than some others, which made him feel a little more human.

The gate stopped, and the guard looked down at the frail man standing beside him. The clothes he wore were baggy, and he looked like he was wearing his father’s old suit, a faded dark blue jacket with mismatched blue pants. The faded and yellowed white shirt was two sizes too big, and he had decided not to wear the tie they had given him because it hung funny around his neck. His brown shoes, one size too large, were scuffed, and the soles had seen a lot of walking over the years. He wondered who they had originally belonged to and why they were still in the storage unit.

He carried a small rectangular suitcase that was scuffed and had one latch that locked. It contained all his worldly possessions: a couple of books he had read over the years, three pairs of new underpants and undershirts he had bought at the commissary and two pairs of socks that had seen better days. The underwear had cost him a big chunk of his savings account, but someone had told him once that clean underwear could make a man feel wealthy no matter what he wore on the outside.

The guard tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s time,” he said, showing no emotion on his face. “Good luck.”

He nodded at the guard, pulled his watch cap tighter onto his balding head, lifted the collar of the old wool coat and stepped out into the snow that was lightly falling. He checked the coat pocket once more and felt the bus ticket the assistant warden had given him. In his pants pocket were the hundred dollars he’d received as gate money, twenty-seven dollars and twelve cents that he had left from his savings account, and the bottle of oxycodone the prison doctor had given him.

The steel gate behind him rolled closed, and he took a deep breath of the cold morning air. He heard the gate clang shut, a sound that no longer bothered him after all these years, and he walked towards the steel gate in front of him. He stood and waited.

Time had become less important over the years, but he sensed that more than a few minutes had passed, yet the gate remained closed. He wondered if they were having second thoughts and had decided to keep him inside to finish his sentence. He started to feel panicky, but he dared not look behind himself for fear he would see the guards coming to take him back to his cell, so he stood motionless as the snow settled on his hat and shoulders. He looked down at the old King James Bible he held in his other hand and said a silent prayer that this was all for real and that the freedom he had started to experience a few minutes before wasn’t going to be taken away as part of some sick joke.

He wasn’t sure what to do next when the loud blaring horn sounded, and the red light over the gate started flashing. The steel gate started rolling open, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The gate stopped rolling, and a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Move forward.”

He straightened up his shoulders, pulled himself up as tall as his five-foot-nine-inch frame would allow and stepped through the gate into freedom. Freedom for the first time in forty-four years, six months, and twenty-two days. The gate clanged shut behind him, and he accepted, for the first time, that this was all real. He stepped over to the green metal trash can that stood next to the gate, looked at the King James Bible one more time and threw it in the trash can. He smiled and headed across the parking lot to the covered bus stop and the waiting bus that would take him to Denver and then on to his final destination.

Chapter Two

Connor O’Connor woke up from a restless night’s sleep with terrible abdominal and back pains. The pain was so intense that he lay in a fetal position waiting for the oxycodone to take effect. The doctor at the prison had told him that the pain would increase, as would the nausea, and that there was nothing left to do but manage the pain. He had agreed with the doctor to stop taking the various chemo pills he had been offered, since they were no longer effective. He was also aware that he had only a couple of weeks to live.

The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer had come too late. By the time the doctors at the prison hospital, conferring with experts, had diagnosed it, the disease had metastasized into his lungs and his bones. Connor had always prepared for the fact that he would die in prison. He had been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole, and he knew he was never getting out. He figured he would either die of old age or die of some kind of prison attack. He had many enemies in the real world, and any one of them could have reached into the prison population and found someone to kill him. His frail body bore the scars of several of those attempts, but he always came out on top.

Connor O’Connor was a survivor. He was also a predator of the highest order. After word got out to the prison population about Connor’s victories in dealing with too many attacks to count, it became obvious that Connor O’Connor was not to be messed with. He’d spent the last ten years living in relative solitude. He was untouchable, and everyone knew it. They also knew that with two life sentences hanging over his head, he had nothing to lose.

Connor’s life had been as peaceful as it could be, until a few months back, when he started having severe back pains and losing weight. When the doctors eventually diagnosed the cancer, he was relieved that his stay at the state penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, would end sooner than he had expected. Then came the surprise he never expected.

A national prisoner rights group called the Dignity Project had quietly petitioned the governor of Colorado to commute Connor’s sentence to time served and allow him a compassionate release, so he could die peacefully on the outside instead of on the inside. After several weeks of lobbying and multiple lawsuits, finally, with the consent of the state prison board, the governor had reluctantly granted the release. Connor O’Connor was a free man—except as he thought about it, when he received the news of his impending release, he realized he was trading a life sentence for a death sentence, but at least he would die a free man.

The bus ride to Denver had taken over two hours, and Connor was in pain when he stepped off the bus with his meager belongings. He removed the slip of paper from his pocket that contained the name of a downtown hotel, where the Dignity Project had reserved a room for him. He found the hotel without issue and checked into the small but clean room. It was the first time he’d had a room, and a bathroom, all to himself in over forty years.

Connor had never realized how difficult it would be to fall asleep in a soft bed. He was exhausted from the trip, but in all that wonderful silence, sleep would not come. He tossed and turned all night until the pain in his abdomen hit and doubled him over.

The sun was peeking through the thin drapes when the pain finally subsided enough for him to take a long, hot shower and dress in his shabby prison hand-me-downs. He had several things to do while in Denver, one of which was getting some money and buying some newer clothes. The desk clerk had told him about a thrift store a block over that carried decent men’s clothing, and that would be his first stop after eating a couple of slices of toast in the hotel breakfast bar.

It was a cold morning as Connor left the hotel and walked to the thrift store. The snow had let up during the night, leaving an inch on the sidewalk, but walking in the cold snow with his prison shoes on chilled him to the bone. The man who ran the thrift store was a huge help to Connor, and by the time he came out of the changing room, he looked like a new man.

The jeans were a little loose, but the length was perfect, and they dropped just the way he liked it, over his new insulated hiking boots. He found a flannel shirt that fit his frail frame and an insulated jacket that was so thin, he never thought it would keep him warm, but he was surprised when he stepped out of the store. The only thing he kept was his prison watch cap, which was now pulled down over his ears. The insulated leather gloves helped keep his hands warm. When he looked in the mirror, he felt like a new person, and the whole thing only cost him twenty-five dollars, which made everything even better.

Connor stepped up to the bus stop and checked the schedule. He found the stop closest to his next destination, even though he had no idea if it was still there. He boarded the bus and settled in. Denver had changed a lot since the last time he had been there. But then, everything had changed since that day, forty-four years ago, when they put him in the back of the prison van and drove him to the place that would become his home for the rest of his natural life.

He fondly remembered fighting the two prison guards as they tried to put him inside the van and also remembered, not so fondly, getting smacked in the head with a wooden baton. He hoped that his so-called friends and people from the neighborhood had been watching. He wanted everyone to know he was still fighting. He wanted them to know that if he were ever released or managed to escape, there would be hell to pay.

Chapter Three

1977

The trial had begun like every other trial Connor O’Connor had been forced to sit through. He was thirty-four years old and had been arrested more times than he could remember, but up till now, he had never seen the inside of a prison. Witness intimidation, juror intimidation and any other intimidation you could think of was his stock and trade, and he was always acquitted.

He had learned his trade from the best in the business, having spent several years learning how to build bombs for the Irish Republican Army. He always thought back to the first bomb he ever planted. That one had killed a local constable who had started working for the British Army, and two soldiers patrolling with him. Connor had watched from behind a fence as the bomb tore the men to shreds. He felt no pity for the poor men. As a matter of fact, he didn’t feel a thing, and that surprised him. Over the years, the more he killed, the less it bothered him.

He had returned to Denver by way of New York City, where he had taken care of several loose ends for some friends in the Irish mob. His reputation was spreading, and no one wanted to mess with Connor O’Connor.

His life in Denver wasn’t as exciting, but he managed to make good money working for his Irish friends and even did a couple of jobs for the Italians. He hated their guts, but they paid well, so he didn’t mind.

What he did mind were people who reported on his Irish friends. One such person was a reporter for the old Rocky Mountain News. He had somehow gotten close to someone in the organization and was preparing to name names, as they called it. This would have been bad for a lot of people, including some influential politicians, so it was decided that the reporter needed to be taught a lesson. A lesson that would make other local reporters think twice before entering the dark world of the Irish mob.

Connor had sat outside the reporter’s apartment on Pearl Street for several days to establish his routine. The reporter was so dumb, he thought. He followed the same routine every day, and Connor was quick to develop a plan. The reporter usually took the bus to the Rocky Mountain News building, but each Friday, he would slide into his car and head south to a nursing home in Lakewood. Connor found out that he was visiting his mom, and that would be perfect.

Connor had no qualms about killing up close. He had killed using a gun, a knife and had even beaten one poor fuck to death using a lead pipe, but he still enjoyed the power of killing someone with a bomb. Not only was the power something to be enjoyed, but the pictures that would follow on the late-night news were a thing of beauty.

Connor had gathered all the materials he needed from several local hardware stores and a construction site that belonged to one of his friends. He had decided on a different kind of bomb for this job. One that wasn’t connected to the car’s starter, which was the usual way a car bomb worked. This bomb would use a timer that was set to go off at a specific time. He had used it in Ireland on several occasions, and it had worked well. It also messed with the FBI’s heads because they weren’t able to pin him down to one signature method, something he also learned working in Ireland.

That Thursday night was still warm as he waited in his car down the block from the reporter’s apartment. Once he felt confident that there was no activity on the street, he grabbed his small duffel bag off the seat next to him and casually strolled up the street. He stopped across the street from the reporter’s car and looked both ways.

Connor moved in the darkness like a cat. He crouched next to the car and pulled the bomb out of his backpack. He slid under the car and set the timer. A couple of wraps of black electrical tape secured the bomb to the car’s frame, and he was back in his car less than a minute later. He was right on schedule. Now he just had to wait.

His internal clock woke him up just before eight, and he sat up in the seat and watched as the reporter came down the stairs from his apartment, but something was wrong. The reporter wasn’t alone. He was standing next to the car talking to a woman, and next to them stood a young girl, maybe four or five years old. This wasn’t the reporter’s regular routine. So who were these other people, and what were they doing in his plan?

The reporter handed the woman something, kissed her full on the mouth and then kissed the little girl on the top of her head. He turned and walked down the street towards the bus stop he took every other day. The woman put the little girl in the back seat of the reporter’s car, leaned in and belted her in. She stepped around the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

Connor looked at his watch. “What the fuck?” he said out loud. He didn’t know what to do. He had one rule: No women or children. He had to do something, but he felt like he was glued to the seat. He started to sweat as his eyes darted from the watch on his wrist to the car.

The woman had rolled down her window to adjust the mirror and had just pushed down the gearshift when the explosion went off, right on time.

Connor had used enough black powder to take out the car but not enough to cause a lot of collateral damage. However, the explosion still blew out the front-facing windows of several apartment buildings, and shrapnel tore through the cars parked to the front and rear of the reporter’s car. He looked up in time to see the reporter running towards the burning car and watched as several neighbors held him back from the wreckage. He fell to the ground, and Connor could hear the bloodcurdling scream a block away.

Connor’s hands were shaking as he pulled away from the curb and did a U-turn in the street. He drove two blocks, pulled into a gas station, parked and cried harder than he ever remembered crying in his life. He could hear the sirens in the distance as the fire engines raced to the scene, but they would be too late