Coffee, Tea, or Murder?

by Jessica Fletcher

  “All right,” George said, “but only ten minutes—and no more.” He turned to Jed: “I know these cockpit doors have been strengthened since Nine Eleven, but surely they can be battered open if enough force is applied.”

  “We can try,” Jed said.

  “Mrs. F.,” Mort said, “I’ve got an idea. Maybe after you go in you can close the door, but not tight.”

  “I can try,” I said.

  “Chances are he won’t notice,” Mort added. “Will it stay closed that way, Jed, or will it swing open?”

  “It’ll stay where you leave it,” Jed replied.

  “Good,” I said. To Gina: “Betsy has the key, can you signal them inside to open the door?”

  She nodded, and rapped out a code on the door with her knuckles.

  I pushed open the door and saw Betsy Scherer standing behind her husband, her hands on his shoulders.

  “He’s asked for me,” I told her.

  She replied by walking past me to where the others waited in the passenger cabin.

  I took a final look at George before stepping onto the flight deck. I waited a moment, then slowly closed the door behind me, careful not to go so far as to cause it to latch.

  Scherer didn’t look back at me.

  “Mr. Scherer?” I said. “May I call you Captain Scherer?”

  He turned his head slightly. “Call me what you want. Go on, take the left seat.”

  “I’m comfortable standing,” I said.

  He turned the control yoke to the right, causing the right wing to dip, and the left wing to come up, sending us into a hard right turn and sending me up against a control panel. “Sit down,” he said after he’d leveled off.

  I slid into the seat reserved for a flight’s captain and peered into the night through the windshield. My eyes located the compass. It read ninety degrees. Jed was right; we were heading east again, back over the Atlantic.

  “You said you wanted to explain what happened to Wayne Silverton,” I said in a soft voice, not wanting to arouse him, but also aware that I was on a ten-minute leash.

  “Silverton deserved to die,” he said, his eyes never leaving the console in front of him, his hands gripping the yoke. The handgun he’d used to shoot Bill Caine rested on his lap.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Ask his wife.”

  “I’m asking you, Captain.”

  “The way he treated Betsy. The way he treated everybody.”

  “What did he do to Betsy?”

  “He treated her like one of his whores.”

  What ran through my mind at the moment was not especially kind. Evidently, Betsy had provided Wayne sexual favors in return for something tangible, in this case a job for her and her husband. That’s as good a definition of prostitution as any.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “It must have been hurtful for you to watch that happening to the woman you love. But why did you agree to come to work for Wayne and SilverAir?”

  It was the first time he looked directly at me. “Do you know what it’s like to be a junior pilot in the airline business these days, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “It stinks. I flew regional jets from one Podunk town to another. Know how much I was paid for putting in fourteen-hour days, making a dozen tough landings and takeoffs every day? Twenty-eight thousand. That was it.”

  “But you knew you could eventually advance to bigger and better things.”

  “Bigger and better things? In this aviation climate? Pilots with tons more seniority and experience than me are being laid off right and left. Silverton offered me a dream job, right seat in a 767, with the possibility of the left seat pretty soon. I grabbed it, only I figured once Betsy and I were working for him, he’d lay off her. He was a slimeball. He was all over her, always reminding her that he could fire us as fast as he’d hired us.”

  He’d been sitting straight while condemning Wayne. Now, as though the air had left him, he slumped back in the seat and began to weep, softly at first, then with more passion.

  I eyed the weapon on his lap. Did I dare reach for it? He’d showed me the fuel gauges during my previous trip to the flight deck. I didn’t know exactly what the digital numbers represented, but they appeared to indicate we didn’t have much left.

  “We’re not heading for Boston any longer, are we?” I said.

  He stared through the windshield at the black void outside.

  My ten minutes were ticking away.

  “Will you give me the gun, Carl?” I said.

  He placed his hand on it, and for a terrible moment I thought he might slip his finger onto the trigger and use it on me. Instead, he handed it across the divide between our seats.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I struggled out of the confined seat, went to the door, and pulled it open. George, Mort, Christine, Jed, Jim Shevlin, Gina Molnari, and John Slater stood waiting. I handed the gun to George.

  “Better take him out of there, Inspector,” Jed said, “before he decides to do something really crazy.”

  There was no need to enter the cockpit and forcibly remove him. He’d put the aircraft on autopilot again, had risen from his seat, and walked into our midst.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Wayne Silverton,” George said.

  “I’ll take him,” Mort said, leading Scherer to a pair of seats not far away, his weapon trained at the pilot’s head. Once there, Mort pulled Scherer’s arms behind him and secured them with duct tape provided by Slater from the aircraft’s supply of emergency repair items.

  “I’d better climb in that left seat,” Jed said, “and get this bird headed in the right direction. Come help me out, Jess.”

  “Me?”

  “Yup. Get in the right seat. I’ll be plenty busy and may need you to lend a hand at times.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Before accompanying Jed to the flight deck, I asked if George could take the jump seat, and Jed agreed.

  “Let’s get this sucker back on course,” Jed said once he was settled and had familiarized himself with where everything was located. “Why don’t you two put on your headsets and hear what’s going on.”

  He turned the 767 back to a westerly heading, in the direction of Boston, and made radio contact with the appropriate air traffic centers, informing them of our situation, and requesting that an ambulance be there when we arrived, as well as law enforcement officers to take an alleged murderer into custody. The controller assured Jed that we would be given priority landing rights.

  “How’s our fuel?” I asked.

  “I’d like to have more of a cushion,” he said, “but we should be all right as long as we don’t have delays at Logan.”

  As we bore through the night sky toward Boston, it became obvious that my presence wasn’t needed. I suppose Jed wanted company, which I was happy to provide. I looked back often at George, who seemed enthralled at the experience of being on the flight deck of a sophisticated jet airliner. No matter how worldly someone might be, the experience was bound to impress.

  After some back-and-forth over the radio between Jed and the air traffic control people in the Boston area, we settled into the approach procedure for Logan International Airport. Jed’s professionalism was obvious. He flew the plane as though he’d been doing it every day of his life. He hadn’t flown commercial jets in a number of years, but I suppose it’s like falling off a bicycle, as the saying goes. He was supremely confident and very much in command.

  We eventually entered the traffic pattern and Jed lowered the landing gear. “Uh oh,” he said.

  George and I leaned closer to him.

  “See that light?” he said, pointing to the console.

  “Which one?” I asked.

  He touched it with his finger.

  “It’s off,” I said.

  “Should be on,” he said.

  “That’s the light that malfunctioned when we were leaving Boston,” I commented.


  “The gear is down,” Jed said, “but that light is supposed to come on to indicate it’s locked in place.”

  “Maybe the bulb is burnt-out,” George offered, hopefully.

  “And maybe it’s not,” Jed growled. He got back on the radio and reported the problem to Boston Approach Control. The controller asked Jed how much fuel he was carrying.

  “We’re light,” Jed responded.

  “Want to do a pass for a visual?” asked the controller.

  “Roger,” Jed said crisply. “Shall do.”

  Jed told us, “I’m going to do a flyby of the tower. They’ll visually confirm whether the gear looks like it’s down all the way.”

  “That sounds sensible,” George said.

  “Doesn’t mean it’s locked, though,” Jed warned. “If it’s not, it’ll collapse when we land.”

  The controller on the ground informed Jed that other traffic had been cleared from airspace surrounding the airport, and we were okay to make the tower pass. The airport and all its lights came into view as we broke through a layer of low clouds. The closer we got to the ground, the faster the aircraft seemed to be flying. Jed kept dropping our altitude until we were headed directly at the control tower. I doubted whether we were more than five hundred feet from the ground. A powerful searchlight on the tower sprung to life, and its operator trained it on our plane. I wondered for a moment whether we were too low and would crash into the tower. But Jed maneuvered the 767 so that it passed a few hundred feet above, and to the south of it.

  “Gear is down, Captain,” the controller’s voice barked into our headsets.

  “Roger,” Jed replied. “Clear us for landing.”

  “You’re cleared, SilverAir.”

  We climbed to the right altitude for a straight-in approach to Runway Four-Right, one of Logan’s longest runways. As Jed coaxed the aircraft into the prescribed landing configuration and attitude, he got on the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a minor problem with the aircraft. Nothing to worry about, but better safe than sorry. Please see that your seat belts are securely fastened and that any loose objects are stowed. Please remove your glasses, if you wear them. Women should remove shoes with high heels. The flight attendants will show you the proper position to assume for landing.”

  Gina Molnari called the flight deck, and Jed informed her of the situation. “Keep everybody calm back there,” he instructed.

  “Shall do, Captain,” she responded crisply.

  The runway was clearly visible, and we could see emergency vehicles racing down the runway, creating a kaleidoscopic, flashing light show.

  “All set?” Jed asked us.

  “Yes, sir,” George said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Then let’s do it!”

  Jed drained off altitude and airspeed as we approached the runway’s threshold. Soon, we were over it, and the moment of truth had arrived. Would the gear hold up? Or would we end up on the 767’s belly, sliding crazily down the runway until inertia brought us to a natural stop, hopefully without serious injury to the plane and passengers? That many of the emergency vehicles standing at the ready were fire engines reminded everyone that fire was the most serious of possible outcomes.

  The wheels touched, came back up off the runway, touched again, and this time stayed down, solid and sure. The faint sound of applause from the passenger cabin drifted through the flight deck door.

  I breathed a deep, prolonged sigh of relief. I looked back at George, who gave me a warm smile and a sharp nod of his head. “Well done, Captain,” he said as Jed taxied the jet to its assigned spot on the airport. Because we’d landed in emergency status, we weren’t allowed to park at the terminal. Instead, we were directed to a relatively secluded area and were told that a set of mobile stairs would be brought for deplaning. Buses would transport everyone to the terminal.

  Once inside, we were herded into a large room and instructed by uniformed officers that we’d have to stay there until further notice. We weren’t the usual group of arriving passengers. Ours was not a scheduled flight; customs clearances had to be arranged outside normal channels. Also, our captain had been shot by the first officer and required swift medical attention. An ambulance had whisked him off to an area hospital, and Seth reported that he was confident Captain Caine would survive. His assailant, First Officer Carl Scherer, was taken to a holding cell at the airport and would remain there until the complex questions of jurisdiction were sorted out.

  “Quite a ride,” George said to me when he returned from a meeting with local and state law enforcement authorities.

  “Thank goodness Jed was along. What would we have done without him?”

  “I have the feeling you could have landed us safely, Jessica.”

  I laughed. “Your faith is grossly misplaced, George. But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  I thought of those motion pictures in which an untrained pilot is forced to fly a commercial jetliner after a catastrophe has felled the regular pilots. Usually, those screen heroines were flight attendants. The notion that I might have been forced to sit in the 767’s left-hand seat and get us safely on the ground in Boston was ludicrous. But I would have tried if called upon. I shuddered at the thought.

  “Well, George,” I said, “you got your man.”

  “Through no effort on my part.”

  I looked out over the assembled passengers and spotted the three flight attendants, Gina, Betsy, and John, standing apart from the rest.

  “I wonder—”

  George turned. “Wonder what, Jessica?”

  “I wonder whether the plane had a cockpit voice recorder.”

  “Ask our pilot over there,” George said, pointing to Jed Richardson, who was surrounded by passengers thanking him for having saved us.

  I went to Jed and waited for a break in the congratulations being heaped upon him. “Jed,” I said, “I assume the plane has a cockpit voice recorder.”

  “Sure it does,” he said. “Federal regulations. One of two black boxes on every flight.”

  “Was it turned on?”

  “You bet it was, from the minute the engines were started at Stansted. It can’t be turned off by the crew. That would defeat the whole purpose of it.”

  “When can we hear it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Carl Scherer and his wife spent considerable time together alone on the flight deck. I’d like to know what they talked about.”

  “I doubt if the authorities would release the tape to you, Jess. Cockpit conversations are confidential unless they’re used in an accident investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.”

  “Even in a murder investigation?”

  “Hmmm. Let me ask the right people.”

  George returned from his latest meeting as Jed left in search of an aviation authority.

  “We’re still squabbling over what to do with Mr. Scherer,” George said. “The FBI was called in, so we have your city and airport police, the FBI, and of course, Scotland Yard represented by yours truly.”

  I told him what I’d asked Jed to do regarding the cockpit voice recorder.

  “Interesting idea, Jessica. That tape will undoubtedly prove useful to the prosecution during Scherer’s trial.”

  “Or the defense,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “I’m not sure, George. I just know I’d like to hear what they said to each other.”

  A few minutes later, Jed came back. “They’ll do it, Jess,” he said, “provided the request comes from an official law enforcement source.” He smiled. “I asked them if Scotland Yard qualifies. They said they thought so. Come with me, Inspector. They want to talk to you. In the meantime, they’re removing the black boxes from the aircraft. NTSB has a lab unit here at Logan. They can run the tape for us in there.”

  By this time, the rest of the passengers were on edge, and that’s being kind. Some had become downright surly at being detained, and no matter how
many times officers assigned to keep us in a group explained the necessity of it, tempers weren’t salved. Churlson Vicks and Sal Casale were especially vocal. “We own this bloody airline,” Vicks commanded in a loud voice. “I demand that we be allowed to go.”

  Christine Silverton made similar protestations but in a more subdued manner. Her stepson, Jason, sat brooding on a folding chair in a corner of the room. A few members of the press threatened an exposé if they weren’t allowed to leave immediately. The look on the officers’ faces said plainly that they’d heard it all before and didn’t care one iota about exposes.

  It took a half hour for the tape from the flight deck to be removed from the black box, which was actually red, and to have it ready to roll on NTSB playback equipment. I joined George and a contingent of other law enforcement officers in the small room, and we took chairs arranged in a semicircle around the table on which the playback unit sat.

  “Ready?” a technician asked.

  “Let her roll,” an FBI agent said.

  “I’ve fast-forwarded to the section you said you were interested in,” said the tech. “It begins with, ‘Betsy, I need you.’ ”

  “Good.”

  The speakers erupted with sound, and the technician adjusted the volume to a more reasonable level. “Betsy, I need you,” was heard, along with muffled voices recorded from a distance, obviously belonging to us as we stood outside the cockpit and pleaded with Scherer to put down his weapon.

  The sound of the flight deck door closing was unmistakable.

  “Carl, what are you doing?” It was Betsy’s voice.

  “I’m going to take us down,” Carl said.

  “Are you crazy?” she said, panic in her voice. “Why did you shoot Bill?”

  “He knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “About Wayne. He accused me of taking his knife from his case and—” His next words were garbled.

  “And you shot him?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I pulled out the gun to scare him off, but he jumped on me. It just went off. I swear. I know it’s over, Betsy.”

  “Carl, we can get through this. Bill’s not dead. Tell everybody it was a mistake, an accident; they’ll let you fly the plane to Boston. After that, we can—” We couldn’t make out the rest of what she said.