Night Fall jc-4

by Nelson DeMille

  I had another cup of coffee, and Mrs. Winslow sipped hers. I said, “Last night, I spoke to the man who was originally assigned to this case-Ted Nash. Do you remember him?”

  She nodded.

  I continued, “And some weeks ago, I spoke to Liam Griffith. Do you remember him?”

  Again, she nodded.

  I asked, “Who else interviewed you at that time?”

  She replied, “A man who identified himself as Mr. Brown from the National Transportation Board.”

  I described Jack Koenig to her, including the impression that he had a steel rod up his ass, and she replied, “I’m not sure. Don’t you know?”

  I ignored the question and asked, “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Did you sign a statement?”

  “No.”

  “Was a video or audio recording made of anything you said?”

  “No… not to my knowledge. But the man called Griffith took a few notes.”

  “Where were these interviews conducted?”

  “Here.”

  “Here in this house?”

  “Yes. While my husband was at work.”

  “I see.” Unusual, but not unheard of with a friendly or secret witness. Obviously, they didn’t want to log her in at a Federal facility. I asked, “And the gentleman with you at that time?”

  “What about him?”

  “Where was he interviewed?”

  “I think his interviews were done in his office. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m checking procedures and guidelines.”

  She didn’t reply to that and asked me, “What new information has come up, and what do you need from me?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss what new information has come up. And what I need from you are some clarifications.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for instance, I need an update on your relationship with your gentleman friend.” And his name.

  She looked a little annoyed or exasperated and replied, “I don’t know what relevance that has now, but if you must know, I haven’t been involved with Bud since that happened.”

  Bud. “But you see and speak to him.”

  “Now and then. We run into each other at parties, or at the club. It’s unavoidable and awkward.”

  “Oh, I know. I run into my ex-wife and ex-girlfriends all over Manhattan.” I smiled, and she smiled in return.

  She asked me, “Have you spoken to him?”

  “No. I wanted to speak to you first. He’s still at the same address?”

  “Yes. Same address. Same wife.”

  “Same job?”

  “Same job.”

  “Would you know if he’s in town?”

  “I think so. I saw him at a Labor Day barbeque…” She looked at me and said, “When I see him… I don’t know why…”

  “You don’t know what you saw in him.”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t worth it.”

  “It never seems to have been worth it afterward. But at the time, it seems like a good idea.”

  She smiled. “I guess.”

  “You’re probably disappointed that he gave your name to the FBI. You think he should have protected you.”

  She shrugged and said, “I don’t think he could have. They were very persuasive… almost threatening… but a stronger man might have…” She laughed and said, “I think he held out for about three minutes.”

  I smiled and said, “Well, don’t be too hard on Bud. He was doing the right thing as a citizen.”

  “Bud does what’s right for Bud.” She thought a moment, then said, “If the FBI had come to me first, looking for him, I’d have probably done the same thing. But it’s what happened afterward that made me realize he was…”

  “A wimp.”

  She laughed. “Yes, a wimp. And a coward-and not a gentleman.”

  “Why?”

  “Well… for instance, I wanted to come forward and contact the FBI about what we’d seen and videotaped. He didn’t. Then he told the FBI, after they’d found him, that it wasme who didn’t want to come forward. It was just awful… he wasn’t exactly comforting, and he was thinking only of himself.”

  “He must be a lawyer.”

  Again, she laughed, a soft, throaty sound. I think I was establishing a rapport, which might be the right way to go. The other way is intimidation, but Jill Winslow had undoubtedly been the subject of that five years ago and had probably built up some resentment.

  I touched the scab on my chin, and Jill Winslow said, “That looks raw. Do you want something for that?”

  “No, thanks, I soaked it in salt water.”

  “Oh… how did that happen?”

  “I was jumped by assassins in the casbah in Aden. That’s in Yemen.” I added, “Just kidding. Actually, do you have a Band-Aid?”

  “Yes. Just a moment.” She stood and went to a cupboard, removed a first-aid kit, and came back to the table with a Band-Aid and some antibiotic ointment, which she gave me.

  I said “Thank you” and smeared some of the ointment on the scab, then took the Band-Aid out of its wrapper. She stood there, as though she was considering helping me place it, but I got it on.

  She sat down and said, “You need to keep that clean.”

  She was a nice woman, and I liked her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to like me in about ten minutes. I put the Band-Aid wrapper on the table, and she glanced at it.

  I stayed silent for a while, and finally she asked me, “Why do you want to know about Bud, and my relationship with him?”

  “There are some apparent inconsistencies between your story and what he said at the time. For instance, tell me what happened to the videotape after you watched it in your room at the Bayview Hotel.”

  “What didhe say?”

  “You tell me.”

  “All right… after we watched the tape,he insisted that we erase it. Not me. So, we erased the tape, and left the hotel.”

  This was not consistent with what good old Ted had told me. But it was all coming together now. I said to her, “I’d like you to take me through this in some detail. Okay? You left the beach, and on the way back to the hotel-what?”

  “Well… I looked through the viewfinder on the video camera, and I saw what we’d recorded… the aircraft exploding…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It was just awful. Awful. I never want to see anything like that again.”

  I nodded and looked at her as she stared down into her coffee cup. I had the feeling that she might have been a different woman five years ago. Probably a little happier and maybe more spirited. What had happened on July 17, 1996, had traumatized her, and what happened afterward had disappointed her and made her resentful, and perhaps fearful. And then there was Mark Winslow, whose face I could see behind the windshield of his Mercedes. And she was still here, five years later, and she knew she’d be here for a long time. Life was a continuing series of compromises, disappointments, betrayals, and what-ifs. Now and then, you get it right the first time, and more rarely, you get a chance to do it over and get it right the second time. I was going to give Jill Winslow a do-over, and I hoped she took it.

  She seemed composed again, and I said to her, “So you saw the explosion through the viewfinder.”

  She nodded.

  “And Bud was driving.”

  “Yes. I said to him, ‘Pull over. You have to see this,’ or something like that.”

  “And he said?”

  “Nothing. I said to him, ‘We have the whole thing on tape.’”

  I sat there for a while, wanting to ask. And not wanting to ask. But I was here to ask, so I asked, “Did you see the streak of light on the tape?”

  She looked at me and replied, “Of course.”

  I looked out her bay window, which faced the backyard. There was a big slate patio, then a swimming pool, then about an acre of landscaped gardens. The roses still looked good.Of course.

  I poured myself another cup of coffee, cleared m
y throat, then asked her, “And this streak of light was not a reflection of a stream of burning fuel on the water?”

  “No.” She added, “I saw the… whatever it was rise from the ocean… I mean, I saw it inperson, before I saw it again on the videotape.”

  “You were standing on the beach?”

  She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I was sitting on the beach, and… I saw this streak of light rising into the sky… I said something to Bud, and he sat up and turned toward it. We both watched it as it rose, then a few seconds later, there was this huge explosion in the sky… and pieces of burning debris or something started falling… then this huge fireball started to fall… then, maybe a minute later, we actuallyheard the explosion…”

  This was not quite what Mr. Bullshit Artist had told me about what this couple had seen. But I wasn’t exactly shocked to discover a major discrepancy. I said to her, “The report I read said you were still making love on the beachwhile the plane was exploding, and it was thesound of the explosion, about forty seconds later, that caught your attention.”

  She shook her head and said, “We’d finished making love. I was sitting”-her face flushed-“on top of him, looking out to sea.”

  “Thank you. I know this must be uncomfortable for you, and I’ll only ask those kinds of details if I need to.”

  She nodded, then said, “It was very embarrassing five years ago answering these questions, and describing it all, but I’m over it now… It’s almost as though it didn’t happen, or happened to someone else.”

  “I understand. Okay, so after the aircraft exploded, you did what?”

  “We ran back to the sand dunes where our things were.”

  “Because?”

  “Because we knew the explosion would bring people to the beach, or to Dune Road… we were naked, so we ran to the dunes, got dressed, grabbed the camera and tripod, and ran to the car.”

  “Bud’s Ford Explorer.”

  “Yes.” She thought a moment, then said, “In retrospect, if we’d taken just a few more minutes to gather up the blanket, ice chest, and all of that… and we didn’t realize we’d left the lens cap on the blanket… we really weren’t thinking about anything except getting out of there.”

  I replied, “I’m sure Bud has thought about that many times since then.”

  She smiled and nodded.

  Apparently me making uncomplimentary remarks about Bud made Jill happy, so I added, “He might as well have left his business card.”

  She laughed.

  And more important, I didn’t have to divide and conquer; Jill and Bud were already divided, and there were no issues of loyalty to worry about, which made my job easier. I asked her, “What were your thoughts when you looked in the viewfinder and realized you’d videotaped everything you’d seen?”

  She stayed quiet a moment, then replied, “Well, I was stunned to see… to see it all on tape. Then… I know this sounds self-serving, but I wanted to go back and see if we could help…”

  “You were fairly sure you’d seen an aircraft exploding?”

  “Yes… not positive, but I wanted to go back, but Bud said no. Then, when I was watching the tape through the viewfinder, I said that this was evidence, and that someone, meaning the authorities, needed to see this. And he said no. No one has to see us having sex on videotape. He wanted me to erase it, but we decided to play it on the TV in the hotel room, then decide.”

  “Okay. So you got back to the room.”

  “Yes. And we played the tape-”

  “From the video camera through the VCR?”

  “Yes. We’d brought the cable with us to do this… for later, when we got back to the room after the beach… so, we played the tape, and we could see it all very clearly on the TV screen, with the sound…”

  “And you saw this streak of light again?”

  “Yes. And we saw ourselves on the beach, watching the streak of light as it rose in the air… then the explosion… and we jumped to our feet and watched this huge fireball as it rose higher, then the fireball and pieces started to fall… then we heard the explosion, and we turned toward the camera and began running back to the sand dune. On the TV, in the background, we could see what we hadn’t seen when we were running… the flames spreading on the water…” She again closed her eyes and sat motionless. With her eyes still closed, she said, “You can see Bud running right up to the camera, then the image shifted all over the place…” She opened her eyes and forced a smile and said, “He was so panicky, he never shut off the camera as he ran to the car and threw the camera and tripod in the rear seat. You can hear us on the tape, and we sound pretty scared.”

  “So, the camera was running in the backseat of the Explorer.”

  “Yes.”

  “And recorded your conversation?”

  “Yes. This is when I was trying to convince him that we should go back to see if we could help.” She added, “Sometimes I wish we hadn’t erased that tape.”

  “Me, too.”

  I played with the Band-Aid wrapper, and we looked at each other for a few seconds. I said, “So, you watched the tape on the TV screen, then erased it.”

  She nodded and said, “Bud convinced me… and he was right… that dozens of other people had seen this… had seen the rocket, and the explosion… and that our tape wasn’t needed as evidence… so why should we give the videotape to the authorities…?” She paused. “It’s very explicit. I mean, even if we weren’t married and having an affair… even if we were single, or married to each other… why should anyone see this tape?” She asked me, “What would you have done?”

  I knew that question was coming, and I said, “I’d have held off on erasing it that night. I’d have waited, I’d have discussed it with my partner, I’d have examined my own marriage and asked myself why I was involved in an affair, and I’d have followed the investigation, to see if my tape was a critical piece of evidence in a horrendous crime. Then I’d have made my decision.”

  Jill Winslow sat staring out the window, then brought a tissue out of the pocket of her robe and dabbed her eyes. She took a deep breath and said, “That’s what I wanted to do.” She looked at me and said, “I really did… all those people… my God… and I did follow the investigation, and hundreds of people came forward saying they’d seen that streak of light, and everyone thought it was a missile attack… then… it started to change.”

  I said, “At that point, when it was declared an accident, a mechanical failure, would you have turned over the tape if you had it?”

  She looked down at her hands, which were shredding the tissue, and said, “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “Ithink you would have.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I let a few seconds pass, then asked her, “Whose video camera was it?”

  She replied, “It was mine. Why?”

  “Were you familiar with videotape technology at that time?”

  “I understood the basics.”

  “How about Bud?”

  “I taught him how to use my camera. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, the report I have says that Bud physically destroyed the mini-cassette. Is that true?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you left the Bayview Hotel, you pulled over to the side of the road, and Bud destroyed the tape by running over it, then burning the tape.”

  She shook her head. “No. He erased it back in the hotel room.” She added, “That’s what I told the FBI, and that’s what Bud told them. No one said anything about destroying the tape.”

  Well, someone did. Mr. Nash, to be more specific. I asked her, “Did the FBI ask you or Bud for this erased tape?”

  “Yes. They asked me, and I gave it to them.” She looked at me and said, “I learned afterward that a magnetic videotape that has been erased can be… the images can be retrieved in some way… I don’t know if they were able to do that… I mean, they probably didn’t, because if they did, they’d be able to see what B
ud and I saw… and they would have come to another conclusion…” She looked at me. “Do you know if they were able to restore the tape?”

  “No, I don’t.” In fact, I did know. There was no doubt that the FBI lab could pull up the images on a magnetic tape that someone thought was erased for all time, assuming nothing else had been recorded over it. I asked her, “Was the tape blank when you gave it to them?”

  She nodded. “It was still in the video camera. When they came here, it was one of the first things they asked me about. I went into the family room, got the video camera, and brought it out to them. They were sitting at this table.”

  “I see. And they questioned you, and you told them what?”

  “I told them the truth. About what Bud and I had seen. They’d already spoken to Bud, but I didn’t know what he’d said to them because they told him not to contact me and not to take my calls.” She added with a rueful smile, “And he didn’t, the wimp. The FBI showed up here on the Monday after the crash and said they wanted to question me, and my story had better not be different from his. Well, it turns out he lied about a few things, including the fact that we’d had sex on the beach-he said we were just walking and talking-but I told the truth, from beginning to end.”

  “And they promised you that if you told the truth, your husband would never know?”

  “They did.”

  I asked, “And did they return for another visit?”

  “Yes. They asked more questions, as though they knew more about what was on the tape. In fact, I asked them if the tape had been totally erased, and they said yes, it had been, and that I had committed a crime by destroying evidence.” She added, “I was terrified… I was crying… I didn’t know who to turn to. Bud wasn’t taking my calls, I couldn’t talk to my husband… I thought about calling my lawyer, but they had warned me not to call my lawyer if I wanted to keep this quiet. I was totally at their mercy.”

  I said to her, “The truth shall set you free.”

  She sobbed and laughed at the same time and said, “The truth will get me divorced with the worst prenuptial agreement ever signed in New York State.” She looked at me and said, “And I have two sons who were eight and ten at that time.” She asked me, “Are you married?”