I didn't go directly outside for air, but detoured to the west wing of the house where Tom and Judy had set up their office in what used to be a bedroom.
A compu-nerd sat at the PC where I had intended to sit. I introduced myself to the gent, who identified himself as Detective Mike Resnick, computer crime specialist with the county police department.
The printer was humming away and stacks of paper lay all over the desktop.
I asked Mike, "Did you find the killer yet?"
"Yeah, now I'm playing Jeopardy."
Mike was a real card. I asked him, "What do we have so far?"
"Oh… mostly…hold on, what's this? Nothing there… what do we… what…?"
"Have so far." I just love talking to butt holes at the computer. "Have so for."
"Oh…mostly letters…personal letters to friends and relatives, some business letters…some…what's this? Nothing…"
"Anything mentioning Plum Island?"
"No."
"Anything that looks interesting or suspicious?"
"No."
"Scientific papers — "
"No. I'll stop what I'm doing and let homicide know the minute I think I have something."
Mike sounded a little testy, like he'd been at this a few hours and it was past his bedtime. I asked him, "How about financial stuff? Investments, checkbook, household budget -?"
He glanced up from the monitor. "Yeah. That's the first thing I downloaded. They wrote their checks on the computer. There's the printout of all their checkbook activity for the past twenty-five months — since they opened the account." He pointed to a stack of paper near the printer.
I took the stack and said, "Do you mind if I look through this?"
"No, but don't go far with it. I have to attach all that to my report."
"I'll just take it into the living room where the light is better."
"Yeah…" He was playing with the computer again, which he found more interesting than me. I left.
Out in the living room, the latent fingerprint lady was still dusting and lifting prints. She glanced at me and asked, "Did you touch anything?"
"No, ma'am."
I walked over to the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. To the left was fiction, mostly paperbacks, a nice mixture of trash and treasures. To the right was nonfiction, and I studied the titles, which ranged from technical biology stuff to standard health and fitness crap. There was also a whole shelf of locally published books about Long Island, flora, fauna, history, and so forth.
On the bottom shelf was a row of sailing books, navigational charts, and such. As I said, for land-locked Midwesterners, the Gordons had really gotten into boating. On the other hand, I'd been out with them a few times, and even I could tell they weren't great sailors. Also, they didn't fish, clam, crab, or even swim. They just liked to open up the throttles now and then. Which brought me back to the thought that this was a drug thing.
With that thought in mind, I put the computer printouts down and using my handkerchief took an oversized book of navigational charts from the shelf and propped it up on the mantelpiece. I flipped through the pages, my finger wrapped in the handkerchief. I was looking for radio frequencies, cellular phone numbers, or whatever else a drug runner might mark in his chart book.
Each page of the navigational charts showed an area of about four miles by four miles. The land that appeared on the charts was basically featureless except for landmarks that could be seen from the water. The seas, however, were marked with reefs, rocks, depths, lighthouses, sunken wrecks, buoys, and all sorts of aids and hazards to navigation.
I scanned page after page looking for "X's," I guess, rendezvous points, or grid coordinates, or names like Juan and Pedro or whatever, but the charts seemed clean except for a yellow highlighter line that connected the Gordons' dock with the Plum Island dock. This was the route they took to work, passing between the southern shore of the North Fork and Shelter Island, keeping to the deep and safe part of the channel. That wasn't much of a clue to anything.
I noticed that on Plum Island, printed in red, were the words, "Restricted Access — U.S. Government Property — Closed to the Public."
I was about to shut the large book when I saw something nearly hidden by my handkerchief — toward the bottom of the page, in the water south of Plum Island, was written in pencil, "44106818." Following this was a question mark, similar to the one that just popped out of my head like a little cartoon balloon — 44106818? Make that two question marks and an exclamation point.
So, was this a standard eight-digit grid coordinate? A radio frequency? A disguised Dial-A-Joke? Drugs? Bugs? What?
There is a point in homicide investigations when you start to assemble more clues than you know what to do with. Clues are like ingredients in a recipe with no instructions — if you put them together in the right way, you have dinner. If you don't know what to do with them, you'll be in the kitchen a long time, confused and hungry.
Anyway, I held the chart book with my handkerchief and took it to the latent fingerprint lady. I asked her, "Could you do a real thorough job on this book for me?" I smiled nicely.
She gave me a tough look, then took the book in her latex-gloved hand and examined it. "This map paper's hard to do…but the cover is good glossy stock… I'll do what I can." She added, "Silver nitrate or ninhydrm. It's got to be done in the lab."
"Thank you, professionally competent woman."
She cracked a smile and asked, "Who has the most fingerprints? FBI, CIA, or EPA?"
"What's EPA? You mean Environmental Protection Agency?"
"No. Elizabeth Penrose's ass." She laughed. "That's going around headquarters. You haven't heard that one?"
"Don't think so."
She put out her hand. "I'm Sally Hines."
"I'm John Corey." I shook her gloved hand and remarked, "I love the feel of latex against my bare skin. How about you?"
"No comment." She paused, then asked, "Are you the NYPD guy working with county homicide on this thing?"
"Right."
"Forget that crack about Penrose."
"Sure will." I asked her, "What are we seeing here, Sally?"
"Well, the house was cleaned recently so we have nice fresh surfaces. I'm not studying the prints closely, but I'm seeing mostly the same two sets, probably the Mr. and Mrs. Only a few other sets now and then, and if you want my opinion, Detective, the killer was wearing gloves. This was no druggie leaving perfect fives on the liquor cabinet."
I nodded, then said, "Do the best job you can with that book."
"I only do perfect work. How about you?" She found a plastic bag in her kit and slipped the chart book inside. She said, "I need a set of elimination prints from you."
"Try Elizabeth Penrose's ass later."
She laughed and said, "Just put your hands on this glass coffee table for me."
I did as she asked, and inquired, "Did you take prints from the two guys with Chief Maxwell?"
"I was told that would be taken care of later."
"Yeah. Look, Sally, a lot of people, like the guys in the kitchen, are going to flash a lot of big-time ID at you. You report only to county homicide, preferably only to Penrose."
"I hear you." She looked around, then asked me, "Hey, what's with the germs?"
"This has nothing to do with germs. The victims happened to work on Plum Island, but that's only a coincidence."
"Yeah, right."
I retrieved the stack of computer printouts and walked toward the sliding glass door.
Sally called out, "I don't like how this crime scene is being handled."
I didn't reply.
I walked down to the bay where a nice bench faced the water. I threw the purloined papers on the bench and stared out at the bay.
It was breezy enough to keep the gnats and mosquitoes busy treading air and away from me. Little ripples rode the bay and rocked the Gordons' boat down at the dock. White clouds sailed past the big, bright moon, and the air smelled more of the land than the sea as the light wind shifted around and blew from the north.
Somewhere, somehow, through osmosis, I guess, I'd begun to understand the elemental forces of land and sea around me. I suppose if you add up all the two-week summer vacations out here when I was a kid and the autumn weekends, it's not too surprising that something seeped into my urban brain.
There are times I want to get out or the city, and I think about some place like this. I guess I should come out here in the winter and spend a few months in Uncle Harry's big drafty house and see if I become an alcoholic or a hermit. Hell, if people keep getting bumped off around here, the Southold Town Board will make me a full-time homicide consultant at a hundred bucks a day and all the clams I can eat.
I was uncharacteristically ambivalent about returning to duty. I was ready to try something else, but I wanted it to be my own decision, not the decision of the docs; also, if the quackers said I was through, I couldn't find the two hombres who plugged me. That was serious unfinished business. I have no Italian blood, but my partner, Dominic Fanelli, is a Sicilian, and he taught me the entire history and protocol of revenge. He made me see The Godfather three times. I think I get it. The two Hispanic gents had to stop living. Dominic was working on finding them. I was waiting for him to call one day when he did.
On the subject of my mortality, I was getting a little fatigued, and I sat on the bench. I wasn't quite the superman I used to be before the shooting.
I leaned back and regarded the night awhile. On a small patch of lawn to the left of the Gordons' dock was a tall, white flagpole with a crossbar, called a yardarm, from which ran two ropes or lines called halyards. Note how I have picked up some of the nautical lingo. Anyway, the Gordons had found a whole collection of flags and pennants in a locker in the garage, and they'd sometimes hang signal pennants from the halyards for fun — such as the pennant for "Prepare to be boarded" or "The captain is ashore."
I had noticed earlier that at the top of the mast, the Gordons had run up the Jolly Roger, and I thought it ironic that the last flag they had flown was the skull and crossbones.
I noticed, too, that on each halyard was a signal pennant. I could barely make them out in the dark, but it didn't matter because I was clueless about nautical signals.
Beth Penrose sat down on the left end of the bench. She was wearing her jacket again, which was a disappointment, and her arms were crossed around her as if she were cold. Women are always cold. She didn't say anything, but kicked off her shoes, rubbed her feet in the grass, and wiggled her toes. They also near uncomfortable shoes.
After a few minutes of companionable silence — or maybe frosty stillness — I chipped at the ice and said, "Maybe you're right. It could have been a boat."
"Are you armed?"
"No."
"Good. I'm going to blow your f-ing brains out."
"Now, Beth — "
"Detective Penrose to you, buster."
"Lighten up."
"Why were you so nasty to Ted Nash?"
"Which one is that?"
"You know f-ing well which one is that. What is your problem?"
"It's a guy thing."
"You made a fool out of yourself, everyone thinks you're an arrogant idiot, and a totally useless incompetent. And you've lost my respect."
"Then I suppose sex is out of the question."
"Sex? I don't even want to breathe the same air you do."
"That hurts, Beth."
"Do not call me Beth."
"Ted Nash called you — "
"You know, Corey, I got this case because I slapped on the knee pads and begged the chief of homicide for it. This is my first real murder case. Before this, all I got was crap — hopheads blasting away at each other, mommas and poppas settling domestic disputes with cutlery, crap like that. And not much of it. There's a low homicide rate in this county."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah. You do this all the time, so you're jaded, cynical, and smart-assed about it."
"Well, I wouldn't — "
"If you're here to make me look bad, fuck off." She stood.
I stood, too. "Hold on. I'm here to help."
"Then help."
"Okay. Listen up. First, some advice. Don't talk too much to Foster or your buddy Ted."
"I know that, and cut the 'buddy Ted' crap."
"Look… can I call you Beth?"
"No."
"Look, Detective Penrose, I know you think I'm attracted to you and you probably think I'm coming on to you… and you think this could be awkward…"
She turned her face away and looked out at the bay.
I continued, "… this is really hard to say, but… well… you don't have to worry about that… about me…"
She turned back and looked at me.
I sort of covered my face with my right hand and rubbed my forehead. I continued as best I could. "You see… one of those bullets that hit me… God, how do I say this…? Well, it hit me in a funny place, okay? Now you know. So we can be sort of like… friends, partners… brother and sister… I guess I mean sister and sister…" I glanced at her and saw she was staring out to sea again.
Finally, she spoke. "I thought you said you were hit in the stomach."
"There, too."
"Max said you had a serious lung wound."
"That, too."
"Any brain damage?"
"Maybe."
"And now you want me to believe you've been neutered by yet another bullet."
"It's nothing a guy would lie about."
"If the furnace is out, why is there still fire in your eyes?"
"Just a memory, Beth — Can I call you Beth? A good memory of a time when I could pole-vault over my car."
She put her hand up to her face, and I couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing.
I said, "Please don't tell anyone."
Finally, she got control of herself and replied, "I'll try to keep it out of the papers."
"Thanks." I let a few seconds pass, then asked her, "Do you live around here?"
"No, I live in western Suffolk."
"That's a long trip. Are you driving home, or staying around here?"
"We're all staying at the Soundview Inn out in Greenport."
"Who's 'we' all?"
"Me, George, Ted, some DEA guys, some other people who were here before… guys from the Department of Agriculture. We're all supposed to work day and night, round the clock, seven days a week. Looks good for the press and the public… in case the fudge hits the fan. You know, in case there's some concern about disease…"
"You mean mass panic about a plague."
"Whatever."
"Hey, I have a nice place out here and you're welcome to stay there."
"Thanks anyway."
"It's an impressive Victorian mansion on the water."
"Doesn't matter."
"You'd be more comfortable. I told you, I'm safe. Hell, NYPD personnel says I'm allowed to use the ladies' room at headquarters."
"Cut it out."
"Seriously, Beth, I have a computer printout here — two years' worth of financial stuff. We can work on it tonight."
"Who authorized you to take that?"
"You did. Right?"
She hesitated, then nodded and said, "I want them back in my hands tomorrow morning."
"Okay. I'll pull an all-nighter with this. Help me out."
She seemed to mull that over, then said, "Give me your phone number and address."
I rummaged around my pockets for a pen and paper, but she already had her little notebook out and said, "Shoot."
I gave her the information, including directions.
She said, "I'll call first if I'm coming."
"Okay."
I sat back down on the bench, and she sat at the opposite end, the computer printouts between us. We stayed silent, sort of mentally regrouping, I guess.
Finally, Beth remarked, "I hope you're a whole lot smarter than you look or sound."
"Let me put it this way — the smartest thing Chief Maxwell has done in his career is to come calling on me for this case."
"And modest."
"There's no reason to be modest. I'm one of the best. In fact, CBS is developing a show called The Corey Files."
"You don't say?"
"I can get you a part."
"Thank you. If I can repay the favor, I'm sure you'll let me know."
"Seeing you in The Corey Files will be repayment enough."
"It sure will. Listen… Can I call you John?"
"Please do."
"John, what's happening here? I mean with this case. You know something you're not sharing."
"What is your current status?"
"Excuse me?"
"Engaged, divorced, separated, involved?"
"Divorced. What do you know or suspect about this case that you haven't mentioned?"
"No boyfriend?"
"No boyfriend, no children, eleven admirers, five are married, three are control freaks, two possibilities, and one idiot."
"Am I being too personal?"
"Yes."
"If I had a male partner and I asked him these questions, it would be perfectly normal and okay."
"Well… we're not partners."
"You want it both ways. Typical."
"Look… well, tell me about yourself. Quickly."
"Okay. Divorced, no children, dozens of admirers, but no one special." I added, "And no venereal diseases."
"And no venereal parts."
"Right."
"Okay, John, what's with this case?"
I settled back on the bench and replied, "Well, Beth… what's happening with this case is that the obvious is leading to the improbable, and everyone is trying to make the improbable fit the obvious. But it don't work that way, partner."
She nodded, then said, "You're suggesting that this might have nothing to do with what we think it has to do with."
"I'm beginning to think there's something else going on here."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well… some evidence doesn't seem to fit."
"Maybe it will fit in a few days, when all the lab reports are in and everyone's been questioned. We haven't even spoken to the Plum Island people."
I stood and said, "Let's go down to the dock."
She slipped her shoes on, and we walked down toward the dock. I said, "A few hundred yards down the beach from here, Albert Einstein wrestled with the moral question of the atomic bomb and decided it was a go. The good guys had no choice because the bad guys had already decided it was a go without any wrestling with the moral questions." I added, "I knew the Gordons."
She thought a moment, then said, "You're saying you don't think the Gordons were capable — morally capable — of selling deadly micro-organisms."
"No, I don't. Like atomic scientists they respected the power of the genie in the bottle. I don't know exactly what they did on Plum Island, and we'll probably never know, but I think I knew them well enough to say they wouldn't sell the genie in the bottle."
She didn't reply.
I continued, "I remember Tom once told me that Judy was having a bad day because some calf that she'd become attached to had been purposely infected with something and was dying. These are not the kind of people who want to see children dying of plague. When you interview their Plum Island associates, you'll find this out for yourself."
"People sometimes have another side."
"I never saw a hint of anything in the Gordons' personalities to suggest that they'd traffic in deadly disease."
"Sometimes people rationalize their behavior. How about the Americans who gave atomic bomb secrets to the Russians? They were people who said they did it out of conviction — so one side wouldn't have all the power."
I glanced at her and saw she was looking at me as we walked. I was happy to discover that Beth Penrose was capable of some deeper thinking, and I knew she was relieved to discover that I wasn't the idiot she thought I might be.
I said, "Regarding the atomic scientists, that was a different time and a different secret. I mean, if nothing else, why would the Gordons sell bacteria and virus that could kill them and their families in Indiana or wherever, and wipe out everyone in between?"
Beth Penrose pondered that a moment, then replied, "Maybe they got paid ten million, and the money is in Switzerland, and they have a château on a mountain stocked with champagne and canned food, and they invited their friends and relatives to visit. I don't know, John. Why do people do crazy things? They rationalize, they talk themselves into it. They're angry at something or somebody. Ten million bucks. Twenty million. Two hundred bucks. Everyone has a price."
We walked out on the dock where a uniformed Southold policeman was sitting on a lawn chair. Detective Penrose said to him, "Take a break."
He stood and walked back toward the house.
The ripples lapped against the hull of the Gordons' boat, and the boat rocked against the rubber bumpers on the pilings. The tide was out, and I noticed that the boat was now tied to pulleys to allow the rope to play out. The boat had dropped about four or five feet below the dock. I noticed now that the writing on the hull said "Formula 303," which, according to Tom, meant it was thirty feet, three inches long.
I said to Beth, "On the Gordons' bookshelf, I found a book of charts — nautical navigational maps — with an eight-digit number penciled on one of the pages. I asked Sally Hines to do a super print job on the book and report to you. You should take the book and keep it someplace safe. We should look at it together. There may be more marks on the book."
She stared at me for a few seconds, then asked, "Okay, what do you think this is about?"
"Well… if you ratchet down the moral dial about halfway, you go from selling plague for money to drugs for money."
"Drugs?"
"Yeah. Morally ambiguous in some minds, big money in everyone's mind. How does that sound to you? Drugs."
She stared at the high-powered boat and nodded. She said, "Maybe we got panicky with this Plum Island connection."
"Maybe we did."
"We should talk to Max and the others about this."
"We should not."
"Why not?"
"Because we're just speculating. Let them run with the plague theory. If that's the right theory, better keep it covered."
"Okay, but that's no reason not to confide in Max and the others."
"Trust me."
"No. Convince me."
"I'm not convinced myself. We have two strong possibilities here — bugs for money or drugs for money. Let's see if Max, Foster, and Nash come to any conclusions of their own, and if they share their thoughts with us."
"Okay… I'll play this one your way."
I motioned toward the boat. "What do you think that goes for?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure… the Formula's a pricey item… you figure three thousand a running foot, so this one, new, would be about $100,000."
"And the rent on this house? About two thousand?"
"I guess about that, plus utilities." She added, "We'll find all this out."
"And what's with this commuting by boat? It's almost two hours one way from here, and a small fortune in fuel. Right?"
"Right."
"It takes maybe thirty minutes to drive from here to the government ferry on Orient Point. How long is the ferry ride? Maybe twenty minutes, compliments of Uncle Sam. Total about one hour door-to-door, as opposed to nearly two hours by speedboat. Yet, the Gordons took their own boat from here to Plum, and I know there were days when they couldn't take their boat back because the weather had turned bad during the day. They'd have to take the ferry back to Orient and hitch a ride home with someone. This never made sense to me, but I admit I never thought much about it. I should have. Now maybe it makes sense."
I jumped into the boat and landed hard on the deck. I put my arms up, and she jumped, grabbing my hands as she did. Somehow we wound up on the deck, me on my back, Beth Penrose on top of me. We stayed there about a second longer than we had to, then we got to our feet. We smiled awkwardly at one another, the way strangers of the opposite sex do when they find themselves accidentally bumping T amp;A and whatever.
She asked me, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah…" In truth, the wind had been knocked out of my bad lung, and I guessed she could see it.
I got my breath back and went to the rear, the stern, as they say, where the Formula 303 had a bench seat. I indicated the deck near the seat and informed her, "Here's where the chest always sat. It was a big one, about four feet long, three deep, and three high. Maybe thirty cubic feet on the inside, insulated aluminum. Sometimes, when sat on the bench, I'd put my feet up on the chest and slug beers."
"And?"
"And, after work, on designated days, the Gordons leave Plum at the appointed hour and make a high-speed dash out to sea. There, out in the Atlantic, they rendezvous with a ship, maybe a South American freighter, maybe it's a seaplane, or whatever. They take on board about a hundred kilos of Colombian marching powder and dash back toward land. If they're spotted by the DEA or Coast Guard, they look like Mr. and Mrs. Clean out for a spin. Even if they're stopped, they flash the Plum Island ID and do a song and dance. In reality, they could probably outrun anything on the water. It would take an aircraft to chase this thing. More to the point, how many boats are stopped and searched? There are thousands of pleasure boats and commercial fishermen out there. Unless the Coast Guard or Customs or somebody has a serious tip, or someone is acting weird, they don't board and search. Right?"
"Usually. Customs has full authority to do that and sometimes they do." She added, "I'll see if there are any reports with DEA, Coast Guard, or Customs regarding the Spirochete."
"Good." I thought a moment, then said, "Okay, so after the Gordons cop the junk, they make land at some prearranged spot or rendezvous with a small boat, and transfer the ice chest to the local pharmaceutical distributors, who give them another chest in return with a bunch of bucks in it. The distributor then drives into Manhattan, and another duty-free import is completed. Happens every day. The question is, Did the Gordons participate, and if so, is that what got them killed? I hope so. Because the other thing scares me, and I'm not easily scared."
She mulled this over, looking around the speedboat. She said, "It might fit. But it might be wishful thinking."
I didn't reply.
She continued, "If we can determine it was drugs, we can rest easier. Until then, we have to go ahead with the idea that it's plague, because if it is and we're not on top of it, we could all be dead."