The bombing at the Liongate Gallery turns a routine exhibition setup into a near-fatal attack on Kate MacKenna, while leaving the tent’s destruction—and her survival—inseparable from a small, absurdly uncomfortable piece of clothing. The blast later proves to be part of a pattern: its placement in a flower basket identifies the bomber’s signature, and evidence of Kate’s itinerary shows how closely her movements had been followed.

The Exhibition and the Detour

The gallery’s event was being prepared in a large tent, with air conditioners running around its perimeter, buffet tables arranged at one end, and smaller tables and white folding chairs filling the rest. Kate’s gift baskets were displayed at the back beneath her company logo. She straightened the cloth and arranged the baskets in a semicircle; nearby, a large basket of flowers had been placed on the ground beneath the display. She thought it was a thoughtful addition and planned to thank Carl Bertolli.

The heat inside the tent was stifling, and the strapless bra Kate was wearing had become painfully constricting. With less than two hours before guests were due to arrive, she first looked for a private room, then spotted trees screened by dense shrubs just beyond the tent. Checking that nobody was watching, she went there to remove the bra. She had just managed to take it off and could breathe again when the explosion struck. Her mundane effort to escape discomfort had, by chance, taken her away from the tent at the decisive moment.

The Blast and Kate’s Survival

The police found Kate curled on her side at the base of a hundred-year-old walnut tree. Her dress remained intact despite the leaves and dirt covering it, while her black lace bra hung from an uprooted magnolia fifteen feet away. The force had somehow stripped the garment from her without tearing her dress, leaving a startling trace of the blast’s violence alongside the evidence of her narrow escape.

The explosion tore a large section from the hillside and left a crater where the tent had stood. Fire spread down the slope, scorching its path, and the walnut tree split straight down the middle. A heavy branch fell in an arch over Kate, shielding her from glass, metal, canvas, and wood hurled through the air. The tree’s broken limbs thus became an accidental barrier between her and the debris that might otherwise have struck her.

The force was felt well beyond the gallery: houses reportedly shuddered as far as half a mile away, and some residents mistook the shaking for an earthquake. No one was killed or seriously injured. That outcome depended in part on timing. The tent was not yet occupied by the staff and guests expected for the event; had people been inside when the explosion demolished it, the injuries would have been catastrophic.

The Basket as a Signature

Later, Dylan Buchanan explained that investigators had traced the explosive’s origin to a flower basket on the ground in front of a table toward the back of the tent—Kate’s table. She remembered seeing the flowers but had not watched anyone deliver them. The placement converted what had seemed like a considerate decoration into the concealed point of origin for the attack.

The basket also gave investigators a recognizable pattern. Dylan described bombers as creatures of habit whose recurring materials or concealment methods can serve as signatures. In this case, the bomber repeatedly hid explosives in baskets, sometimes using more than one. Nate Hallinger supplied the name investigators used for him: The Florist. His recorded pattern included attacks on buildings, cars, and houses, and he appeared to take care to avoid having people inside the targets. The Liongate explosion therefore combines immense destructive force with a chilling distinction: the bomber’s apparent concern about casualties did not make the attack safe for Kate, who was close enough to be caught in the blast.

Evidence of a Wider Threat

The investigation connected the gallery party to a larger pattern of surveillance. A calendar found beside the phone in Roger MacKenna’s kitchen had notes in two distinct handwritings and was covered with fingerprints. Alongside times and locations, it recorded the date and time of the gallery party, the warehouse address, and Kate’s flight numbers for her journeys to and from Boston. The entries showed that someone had access to details of her movements, though the calendar evidence as described did not by itself identify who had gathered or used that information.

The response also widened beyond the local investigation. Nate had collected Sutherland, an expert who led the eastern national response team within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Sutherland had told him, off the record, that he recognized the bomber’s signature and had pursued the man for a long time; trained investigators and dogs still had to examine the scene. The bombing’s significance consequently rests on more than the ruined tent: it establishes that the flowers beside Kate’s display were part of a serial bomber’s method, and that her personal schedule had become part of the threat surrounding her.