by David Wind
“Can’t you protect the rest of the passengers?”
“Only those living in the city. We can’t do anything for those who live outside our jurisdiction, other than to notify the local authorities—which we’ve done for the first-class hostages. Our only other option is to speak with the passengers and advise them to hire bodyguards.”
“Like you did for me.”
He nodded.
“You said Michael Barnes was killed at home. Why was the body brought to the city?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“Everyone who was on that plane, and all the victims’ relatives.”
Emma moistened her lips with her tongue. “I’m a relative. Am I a suspect?”
“Barnes wasn’t killed with a guided missile,” he stated dryly. “Which is what you’d need to kill someone when you’re three thousand miles away.”
“I don’t sell missiles. Just executive toys. Nevertheless, I’m still a relative of a victim. I...I have to assume I’m being investigated.”
“Sy is doing a check on you.”
Her eyes went distant. A funny, crooked smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Yes, that’s logical. Like you. What are you going to do now?”
He was relieved she’d taken it in stride. “Look for clues. Maybe find a witness. Go over everything, and then do it again. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the killer.”
“Is luck what it takes?”
“To a degree, but it’s usually the kind of luck we make for ourselves. I just wish there was more. Something to tell us a little about the killer.”
Emma cocked her head to the side. “Like what?”
“Anything! We have very little to go on. There are no witnesses, no notes. There’s usually notes in a serial case. Pleas from the killer to stop him, threats from the killer, stating that he’s invincible. This one gives us nothing. He’s good, he’s smooth, and he’s so damned careful.”
“But you must have something.”
Hyte shrugged. “If you want to call a guess something, then yes. It’s my guess that there are nine victims left.”
“Nine? How do you—”
“Enough,” he said abruptly. “Let’s talk about something nice.”
“Such as?” she asked, leaning toward him.
“You. Us.”
Emma smiled. “Did you really mean what you said before?”
“That I love you? Yes.”
“Who would have ever thought I’d fall in love with a cop?” she asked.
“Not me.” He drew her closer. “It won’t be easy.”
Emma reached up and stroked his cheek. Her eyes roamed his face. “I’m not looking for easy; I’m looking for real.”
<><><>
Hyte woke at seven. Emma slept soundly next to him. He watched the even rise and fall of her breasts.
With elation, he realized that although he had never really believed Emma was a suspect, there had been that faint possibility.
The logistics proved the impossibility. Harry Lester believed Barnes died sometime between midnight and four. According to his wife’s story, Barnes drove the babysitter home at a quarter after twelve. He should have returned home around twelve-thirty.
If he was killed in his driveway, and driven to the city immediately, it would have taken the killer thirty to forty minutes, which brought the time to a one-fifteen A.M.
Emma couldn’t be the killer, not if she’d been on the twelve-thirty A.M. flight to Chicago.
Her arrival in New York, on the seven A.M. flight from Chicago, confirmed her inability to have been in New City. When he’d checked with the airport to make sure Emma’s flight was on time, he’d gotten a recording that had given all flight times from Chicago to LaGuardia, and vice versa: every hour on the hour, starting at seven A.M., and ending at nine P.M. There were no flights in either direction between the time of Michael Barnes’s death and seven in the morning. Emma could not have left New York at the same time she’d left Chicago.
She had called from the coast, Friday night. That call put her there at eleven, Eastern time. Nothing short of a time machine would have allowed her to kill Michael Barnes.
He slipped from the bed. He showered, made a pot of coffee and then got the Sunday Times from the hallway.
One look at a headline describing the death of the fourth victim was enough to sour his morning. He threw the paper aside and called Phil Mason at home.
“Where the hell were you yesterday? I expected a call,” Mason said.
“I had nothing to tell you yesterday. Today I do.”
“Give me a couple of hours to get myself together. I’ll meet you at the office at noon.”
Feeling better, Hyte poured two cups of coffee and brought them into the bedroom. He had a few hours before he had to leave, and intended to make the most of them.
<><><>
Hyte arrived at One Police Plaza at a quarter to twelve to find Randal Schwartz at the desk.
“What are you doing here?”
“They had no one for the hotline. I volunteered. The calls are being rerouted up here so I can catch up on my paperwork.”
“Where are Roberts and Smith?”
“In the conference room.”
Hyte walked to the conference room. “Anything?” he asked.
“One of the uniforms from the Two-Zero found a woman who remembers seeing the car drive up and the driver get out,” Roberts said. “She was sitting on the deck of her houseboat. She thought it was strange that the man went to another car and drove away.”
“She was positive it was a man?” Hyte asked.
“I spoke to her this morning,” Smith cut in. “She believed it was a man.”
“Time?”
“Somewhere between one and one-thirty.”
“What about crime scene, they come up with anything?”
“Nothing we didn’t have yesterday.”
“What about the coach passenger interviews?”
Roberts pointed to the stack of reports. “So far nothing. The interviews of the eighteen people living in the area are here; and they called the twenty-three out-of-state passengers. Everyone has an alibi for the last three Friday nights. The off-duty boys have confirmed at least half the alibis.”
“I’ll be up with the chief if you need me,” Hyte said.
The witness’s description was worthless. All she could have seen was a shadow in the streetlights.
“Damn it!” he snapped, feeling helpless. He had nothing. No, he had something—he had the names of the next victims.
“Coffee?” Mason asked when Hyte entered.
“Something stronger.”
Mason set out two glasses and a bottle of Pinch. He poured three fingers into each glass.
“I spent most of last night on the phone with the PC and the mayor,” Mason said. “They’re foaming at the mouth. Ray, I need something.”
“Give them this,” Hyte replied, handing Mason the list of the living full-term hostages. “Among those nine names is the next victim.”
“You know that for sure?”
“I feel it.”
“Don’t shit around with me. I can’t give the PC a hunch.”
“It’s not a hunch anymore. It’s coming together like a crossword puzzle.”
“Then fill in the blanks for me.”
Slowly, patiently, Hyte gave Mason all the details he had, including his theory about Kaliel’s death. The only thing he didn’t tell Mason about was where Barnes had died. He wanted the crime scene report on the bolt and remote control device first.
“Nothing you have is concrete,” Mason said. “It could be anyone, including terrorists, coach passengers, or just a fucking psycho.”
“No!” Hyte snapped. “This is revenge. A psychopath doesn’t spend weeks or months following his victims. This is different. There’s a plan, a method, and a purpose. But we’ve got an edge. We know when the next attempt will be, and we know on whom.”
>
“According to you, there are nine possible victims.”
“Exactly. We need to cover them all.”
“We can’t. Except for Joan Bidding and Lea Desmond, we have no jurisdiction. We’ll have to ask the local authorities to watch the others.”
“Fuck jurisdiction!”
Phil Mason stayed calm in the face of Hyte’s anger. “We can’t send cops to watch someone outside our jurisdiction. You know that.”
“We’ll notify the locals that we’re there. They’ll go along with it, if the request comes from the chief of detectives, NYPD.”
“I’ll call them, but the victims have to be notified and given the choice. There’s to be no covert surveillance—I won’t break the law to catch a criminal.”
“Why don’t we just call the news media and tell them what we have? That would make things a lot simpler. The victims will be on the lookout, and the killer will know everything we do. He’ll draw back until things quiet down. Then, when everyone forgets about him, he’ll start again. No Phil,” Hyte said angrily, “it’s got to be covert.”
“Ray, you’re an attorney as well as a cop. You know damned well that asking me to put these people under surveillance is a violation of their civil rights. This department can’t afford a civil rights action. And that’s exactly where your idea will get us.”
“If we don’t violate their civil rights, we may be condemning them to death.”
“You’ll have to find another way. I’ll talk to the commissioner about it. Keep yourself available tomorrow. Anything else?”
Hyte pointed to the list. “Right now I’m going to see Jack Mofferty.”
<><><>
In his office, Hyte wrote three names and handed Schwartz the paper. “See if you can find their current whereabouts and get me the phone numbers.” The three names were Estella and Cristobal Helenez, and J. Milton Prestone.
Then he picked up the file on Jack Mofferty. Under it was Hyte’s monthly calendar. He was supposed to go to Boston to visit his daughter next weekend.
For the first time since his ex-wife had stopped Carrie from coming to New York, Hyte was going to have to cancel his visit to his daughter. “Damn it,” he said, picking up the phone.
<><><>
The Mofferty home was set back from the road. Surrounded by an old stone wall, Hyte could see the three-story stone colonial through the tall oaks and maples lining the circular drive.
Hyte went up the five wide steps and rang the bell at the side of the double-hung mahogany doors. A butler opened the door.
“Yes?”
Hyte produced his I.D. “Lieutenant Raymond Hyte to see Mr. and Mrs. Mofferty. My office called earlier.”
“I’ve been instructed to tell you that your presence here is unwanted, Lieutenant.”
“You tell Mr. Mofferty that if he won’t see me now, I’ll have a warrant issued for his arrest and extradition proceedings begun with the Suffolk County police. You can tell him the charge will be four counts of suspicion of murder.”
He watched the servant’s face pale. “Excuse me a moment.” The butler closed the door.
Hyte looked at the front lawn. The smell of grass cuttings was fresh, the precise and even lines of the recent mowing still visible.
The door opened.
Smiling to himself, Hyte followed the butler into the house. They went through the entrance hallway, lined by frosted glass French doors, and into a room at the end of the hallway. The servant opened the doors with a flourish. “Mr. Mofferty will be with you shortly.”
Hyte stepped inside. The book-lined walls, the leather couch and wing chairs, and the large stone fireplace were ample evidence of the room’s intent.
He went to a bookcase and studied the titles. The books were leather bound and gilt imprinted. He took down War and Peace. The spine was stiff, the pages crackled when he opened the book. The library, like the house, was a showpiece.
Was Sonja Mofferty a showpiece as well?
“What do you want, Lieutenant?” came a coarse voice edged with a slight Brooklyn accent.
Hyte turned to Jack Mofferty. In the ten months since the hijacking, Mofferty had lost twenty pounds and a quarter of his hair. He had heavy dark bags under his eyes; his skin was sallow and drawn.
“What the hell is this bullshit about a murder charge?” Mofferty challenged.
Hyte slid the book back into its space. “You’ve heard about the Friday night killings?”
“It’s impossible not to.”
“You’re making yourself a suspect.”
“I’m what?”
“Why did you refuse to speak with the detectives who came to see you?”
“Because I had no reason to speak to them! I don’t see anyone I don’t know personally. No one!”
“Are you aware the four dead people were on the plane with you that night?”
“Very aware, Lieutenant.”
“Where were you on Friday night?”
“None of your business!”
Hyte kept his voice low, sympathetic. “I know what you’ve been through. I was there.”
“Not the way I was.”
“No, not that way. What I told your man wasn’t an idle threat. If you won’t cooperate with me, I’ll have no other choice but to ask for a subpoena.”
“You can’t seriously believe I killed those people?”
“You’re giving me no choice! Goddamn it, Mofferty, I have a killer to stop. And you’re the only passenger on that plane with an arrest record.”
“That’s twenty-five-year-old garbage! I got in a fight with someone who made a pass at my first wife. The only reason I was convicted was because he had a friend in court.”
“That doesn’t matter. I still have to find a killer. Where were you on Friday night?”
“We were seeing our psychiatrist. We go there three times a week,” said Sonja Mofferty from behind him.
Caught off guard, Hyte turned in the direction of her voice. While Jack Mofferty was showing signs of stress and deterioration, Sonja Mofferty was calm. She carried her model’s beauty like a shield. It was only when she came closer, and Hyte could see her eyes, that he was able to discern the changes.
“Go upstairs, Sonja,” Mofferty said.
Sonja Mofferty glared at her husband.
Hyte’s eyes flicked between them, waiting.
“No,” Sonja said. Her voice was firm. “Are you forgetting that it was the lieutenant who saved our lives?”
“For whatever it’s worth,” Mofferty said. “We see Dr. Franklin Masters three nights a week. We have since the hijacking.”
“Where is his office?”
“New York City. But we see him at his home, out here,” Sonja said.
“What time are your sessions over?”
“Usually at nine, sometimes later.”
“And afterwards?”
“We come home. Dr. Masters’ house is nearby. We don’t go out very often,” Sonja said. “We live a secluded life. However, this past Friday night my brother and his wife were here.”
“They’re here for the weekend?”
“They left yesterday.”
“And where does your brother live?”
“In Bethesda, Maryland. Why?”
“I’ll need to speak with him to confirm what you’ve said.”
“This is ridiculous!” Mofferty snapped.
Hyte turned on him. “Tell Michael Barnes how ridiculous this is! Do you remember him? The redheaded man on the plane. He was killed Friday night, the day after a detective told him to be on his guard.”
“Lieutenant, I’ve just dialed my brother’s number,” Sonja said, handing him the phone. “His name is Robert Cole.”
When Sonja’s brother came on the line, Hyte introduced himself and asked about Friday night.
When Hyte hung up Mofferty glared at him. “Are you satisfied?”
Hyte wished he could see into the man’s mind. “For now, pending corroboration by your psychiat
rist.” He paused. “Where were you on the three Friday nights previous to Michael Barnes’s death?”
“Right here,” Sonja said quickly. “We’re always here. We don’t go out.”
“You had no company? No one saw either of you?”
“If you’re looking for an alibi, you can speak with our butler and housekeeper. Both work Friday nights.”
“That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
“I’ll get them for you,” Sonja offered.
Hyte stopped her. “What time do they usually go to bed?”
“Unless we’re entertaining, they finish their day at ten and go to their quarters.”
“Don’t bother disturbing them,” Hyte said, certain the servants would verify them being at home. At least up until they’d gone to bed. “If it becomes necessary, I’ll be back to speak with them.”
Mofferty’s expression didn’t change. Sonja stepped closer to Hyte. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Let me show you out.”
He followed her to the front door, where she turned to face him. “Lieutenant,” she began hesitantly, “my husband is...he has been suffering a great deal since the hijacking. Please forgive his manners.”
“What about yourself?”
She smiled sadly. “I was a model. I guess I got used to…being used. That’s long over with, or at least I thought it was. “
Hyte watched her for several seconds, wondering if she was as good an actress as she had been a model. “So did I.”
He went to his car, but paused to look back at Sonja Mofferty.
He noted how expressionless her face was. He remembered the point in the hijacking, when Sonja offered Mohamad her body in exchange for her husband’s life. The woman who now stood by the front door seemed a different one from the one who had been on Flight 88.
He thought about the scene he’d witnessed in the library—the open hostility between Sonja and Jack. Then Hyte thought about Sally O’Rourke’s hunch.
Poison is a woman’s weapon.
Chapter Twenty-eight
