John J Nance - The Last Hostage

by The Last Hostage(lit)

  "I have the picture in front of me, Kat. There is no reflection on any flash, and no hand. I've got a window and trees, and you don't.

  My God, Kat! There was only one picture found in Bradley Lumin's possession. You've just described a second picture. Are you certain that's Melinda Wolfe?"

  A hand reached across her lap before she could respond and swiveled the computer around. Ken looked closely at the horrid image of his battered daughter, and quietly turned it back toward Kat as he punched his transmit button.

  "Roger, this is Ken Wolfe. I checked. It is Melinda. There is no doubt.

  What are you saying?"

  There was a long silence before Matson's voice returned, preceded by a long sigh. "Okay. What am I saying? I'm stunned, but there are a couple of basic realities here. One, the picture I have was the only one Bradley Lumin possessed. Two, the picture you're looking at is a different picture, also taken while she was a kidnap victim. Three, the picture you're looking at could not have been taken by Lumin. The conclusion? Ken, unless we're missing something, Bradley Lumin can't be the killer."

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 4:54

  That's not possible. Ken muttered. Wait a minute.

  He checked the distance remaining figure on the screen of the flight computer, then pressed the transmit button again, his mind in a wild quandary, Roger Matson's words ricocheting around his mind.

  "Roger, I can't accept that! Lumin is the only suspect. All the evidence was there! You found it yourself on Lumin's computer. I know there were no other pictures of Melinda found on that machine or in his damn house, but he could have easily made other pictures and... and uploaded them to someone before his arrest, then fully erased them and thrown the hard copies away."

  Matson's voice came back cautious and metered. "I don't think, Ken, that there's any logic in that. We know Lumin got rid of the hard copy of the picture that I'm looking at, because we found nothing but an empty Polaroid camera in his trailer. You know that. There were no photographs in his place. We know he scanned that one into his computer on his scanner because the record is in the scanner program.

  But no other pictures were scanned in, unless he spent many hours carefully erasing all the evidence with one of those programs the military uses, and we found no evidence of that. Ken, we looked for erased files, too. I had a world-class expert examine every byte of information on his hard drive. Everything, even the fragments. There was nothing resembling an erased picture, and it's very hard to obliterate all record of an erased picture file. My conclusion from that is that Lumin never loaded in more than one picture of Melinda."

  Ken massaged his forehead, his mind in a whirl.

  "Roger, how, then, if Lumin wasn't the killer.., how does it make any sense that a picture of Melinda obviously taken by the killer is found on his computer? I mean, you said there was evidence he had scanned it in himself. Doesn't that prove he had to be the one who took the picture, or at least possessed the original photograph?"

  "Not necessarily," Roger Matson replied. "Ken, any computer can have stuff planted on it. Someone could have sneaked into his house there in Stamford and put all that we found on his hard drive. That's not impossible. Improbable, maybe, but not impossible."

  Kat's voice interrupted them. "Roger, do you have a picture or detailed description of Lumin's hands?"

  The reply was rapid. "Yes. His hands are very large, and he has the same large, ugly tattoo on the back of both of them. Dragons, I think.

  If you can see the back of his hand in that shot you've got, you should see it. The thing covered even his thumb."

  Kat studied the picture, looked over at Ken, and shook her head as she pressed the transmit button.

  "Roger, in this picture the entire back of the hand is visible. It's murky, but when you look closely, it's visible, and there are no tattoos."

  "Then," Matson replied, "it is definitely not Lumin in the picture.

  And, since pedophile murderers almost always act alone, I can't see how Lumin could be the murderer. It doesn't add up."

  Ken stared at Kat for a moment, unwilling to let go of the hatred he'd felt toward Lumin for so many agonizing months, knowing every night that Lumin was still alive, and Melinda wasn't.

  But Roger's words kept echoing through his mind, reinforcing the same answer from all directions at once: Lumin did not kill Melinda.

  "Then I," Ken said quietly, "almost killed an innocent man last night."

  "But you didn't," Kat said quickly. "That's the important point.

  You're not a killer, Ken. That's why we need to get these people safely on the ground."

  "Bostich still lied!"

  She nodded. "Yes. He did, but it's immaterial now, isn't it?"

  "No, it's not immaterial! Destroying a murder prosecution for your own purposes isn't immaterial, Kat, it's criminal, even if the suspect wasn't guilty. Right?" He was shaking his head as if in a trance. "I... I'm thoroughly confused now. Bostich ruined evidence that would have convicted an innocent man, but where did the evidence come from to begin with?"

  Ken pressed the transmit button. "Roger? Are you still there?"

  "Yeah." There was a long sigh. "I feel like I just got swept out to sea here. Lumin is a convicted pedophile and a scumbag of the first order, but you remember my telling you, Ken, that I couldn't figure out how he could have put this together and almost gotten away with it? He's just not sophisticated enough. So the rational answer is, he didn't put it all together. Someone else did. And that someone must have loaded all that information into Lumin's computer specifically to frame him.

  That's our killer. He must have had both pictures, and Lumin must have been the perfect patsy for him. Stupid, loathsome, a convict with a long history of luring children and molesting them, Lumin's also someone who uses a computer to get his jollies from looking at kiddie porn."

  "If it hadn't have been for that tip from Bostich..." Ken began, then paused and let up on the transmit button.

  "Which was false," Roger added. "But why would Bostich finger Lumin? How did he even know about Lumin?"

  Kat pressed her button. "There's a shocking possibility we'd better get on the table, gentlemen. The person with the greatest incentive to create a diversion is the guilty one."

  "What are you saying, Kat?" Roger asked.

  She took a very deep breath and looked at Ken, worried about Ken's reaction to what she was going to say, as she punched the button again.

  "Roger, we have to consider Rudolph Bostich a suspect in Me-linda's death."

  Ken whirled around, his eyes huge with shock, his expression incredulous.

  "What? Bostich? But he sabotaged the case against Lumin.

  If... if Bostich killed Melinda, he would have supported the warrant and the evidence, because he would have planted that evidence. He would have been happy to let Lumin go to the chair in his place."

  Kat shook her head. "Consider this. Bostich sets up Lumin perfectly, plants the evidence, then tips you, Roger, knowing you'll find the evidence and arrest him. Indicting Lumin based on that evidence is a slam dunk, but then Bostich purposefully lies to destroy the warrant because if Lumin never gets a trial, he'll stand even more convicted in the eyes of the public. Bostich knew that letting Lumin go free on a technicality would spark such public outrage that no one would ever question whether Lumin was the killer. No one, in other words, would ever think about the possibility that someone like Bostich might have done it. It was the perfect smokescreen. How incredibly cunning!"

  "You're right, Kat," Roger Matson said. "I never seriously considered the possibility that someone else might have killed Melinda because I was too upset over losing the warrant and the evidence. It never occurred to me. Never."

  "And we now know that Bostich has a sick interest in kiddie porn,"

  Kat continued. "And Bostich has a picture only the killer would have, and one that Lumin doesn't have, and if we're right, the picture that was on Lumin's computer--the one you have, Roger--is
also in Bos- tich's home or office."

  "Kat," Roger added, "if this is all true, the SHRDLU2 e-mail address will belong to Bostich, and the fingerprint will be his."

  She looked at Ken, who was deep in thought. "How far are we from Phoenix now?"

  He didn't respond, and she had to repeat the question and place her hand on his arm before he heard her and checked the computer. "A... ah... little over a hundred twenty nautical miles. I'm just getting ready to start our descent." He still sounded dazed.

  "Are we going to land?"

  He nodded. "You are, yes."

  She hesitated, studying him. "What does that mean, 'you are'?"

  "I'm already dead, remember?" he said.

  "No, I don't remember. What are you talking about?"

  Roger's voice came over the radio before Ken could answer.

  She punched the transmit button again.

  "Roger," Kat said, her attention divided by Ken's statement. "Please call us back when you've got the fingerprint ID. We're approaching Phoenix."

  Roger Matson acknowledged the request and they broke the connection precisely as the cockpit call chime rang, with Annette on the other end relaying a message from Bostich.

  "Go ahead, Annette," Ken said.

  "Bostich says he's ready to talk to the judge in Connecticut."

  "That's amazing," Kat said, shaking her head. "As soon as we don't need him, he cracks. Apparently he listened."

  Ken thanked Annette and replaced the handset. Kat located the tiny tape recorder and a piece of paper.

  "Do you have a book or something I can use for backing? Oh, wait.

  The computer top will do." Kat closed the lid and began writing as Ken watched.

  "What is that?" he asked, when she stopped.

  "Bostich's statement, admitting that he purposefully misled the court, and that he did, in fact, make the telephone call to Roger Map son that night, and that he further relied on the knowledge that Map son would recognize him instantly and would not need to ask his name."

  She finished checking the confession, unsnapped her seatbelt, and swung her leg over the console.

  "I'll be back. I assume you approve?"

  He nodded.

  The cockpit door closed behind her, and he found himself suddenly alone and missing her presence.

  He checked the distance remaining again and calculated when to begin a descent, and what to do when he got there. The gun was back in his map case, and Ken pulled it out and methodically checked the chambers, all of which were loaded. He examined the ammunition, relieved to find a type of bullet that would expand on impact with anything. There would be a lower risk of even penetrating the skin of the aircraft.

  He cocked and uncocked the hammer twice, then placed it back by his side.

  I should talk to air traffic control, he decided, dialing in the appropriate frequency to tell them he would be ready to descend in ten miles.

  "Whatever you want, AirBridge Ninety," the controller at Albuquerque Center replied. "Just let us know, and maintain a squawk of seventy- five hundred."

  He reached up and punched the aft galley call button and lifted the handset. Annette answered rapidly.

  "You recall that FAA inspector, Annette?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you been talking to him?"

  "No, Ken. Why?"

  "I just wondered what kind of jets he was qualified in."

  "He's not a pilot inspector, Ken. He's a maintenance inspector.

  Why?"

  Ken swallowed and shook his head before replying. It had been the perfect solution. He hadn't intended to leave a pilot on board in Du- tango, but since an FAA inspector had slipped through, he had just assumed the inspector could fly a 737. Now he was going to need a Plan B to get everyone down safely without him.

  "Thanks anyway, Annette. You can tell the people we'll be landing in Phoenix in approximately twenty minutes."

  Eighteen feet behind the cockpit, Rudolph Bostich held a pen in his hand and hesitated over the crudely written confession Kat had prepared, reexamining his conclusions. His initial instinct had been to deny everything. It was, after all, up to the state to prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and who knew better than a prosecutor how hard it was to convict someone who refused to crack unless the evidence was solid as a brick?

  He glanced up at Kat, realizing the futility of trying to protest that child pornography held no interest for him, or that he had been equally horrified to find that the bastard who had tipped him about Lumin had loaded such pictures on his computer--pictures he had tried ham- handedly to erase.

  But there was no way he could tell her what really happened.

  She was right about one thing. Possession of even erased pornographic pictures of children would create a firestorm that even an eventual acquittal couldn't quench.

  Rudy Bostich closed his eyes and ran over the options one last time.

  If he refused to satisfy Ken Wolfe's demands for a confession and someone got hurt, he would bear a double stigma. Yet, if he signed that paper, he'd be admitting to something he didn't do. He had gleefully accepted what he thought were files of young women in hardcore X-rated activities, but would the distinction save him from public condemnation?

  No, the President would have to drop him in a nanosecond regardless.

  Bostich looked at the words Kat had written. "I acknowledge that I am in possession of partially erased computer files depicting..."

  That much was true.

  Rudy Bostich sighed and pressed the pen to the paper, watching his name flow in sickeningly clear letters. He could still say it was obtained under duress, of course, so maybe this was the best method.

  He'd already made the same statement verbally into his own tape recorder as Kat held it in front of him.

  Kat realized there was one more duty, and she felt her stomach knotting again as she folded the paper and looked at Bostich carefully, the tape recorder still held in her hand where he could see it. A small wave of loathing washed over her as she looked at him, imagining that same right hand tying a rope around a tortured little girl's neck.

  "One more question, Mr. Bostich. The picture of Melinda Wolfe on your computer was taken by her kidnapper and killer, but that person was not Bradley Lumin."

  "WHAT?" Bostich almost came out of his seat with shock.

  She nodded. "That's right, Mr. Bostich. I'm glad you decided to do the right thing and admit you lied to that Connecticut court, but as far as the murder of Melinda Wolfe is concerned, it's immaterial.

  There's no need to reinstate evidence, because the evidence was planted."

  "What do you mean, 'planted'?"

  She looked at him carefully, trying to read his reaction, wishing she had Frank's years of experience in sizing up human reaction under stress of criminal investigation.

  "Whoever killed Melinda tried to name Lumin, but the attempt has failed."

  Bostich looked dazed. "You mean, this was unnecessary? I've sat back here trying to balance what I should do, dammit, and you were right, I thought. I should give Wolfe whatever he wants, whether it's the truth or not. Now... now I find out after falsely incriminating myself to end a hijacking, that it's unnecessary?" He started to say more, but stopped suddenly, his mind racing through the possibilities.

  If not Lumin, who?

  "Give it up, Bostich. You lied, you've confessed to it, and that's that."

  "Who is the killer?"

  "Hold out your right hand, Mr. Bostich. Hold it palm down."

  He complied, reluctantly, and she looked hard at it, comparing the hand with the one in her memory from the picture.

  I can't tell for sure, but they could be the same! Kat concluded.

  "Put your hand down."

  He complied.

  "Rudolph Bostich, did you kidnap Melinda Wolfe?"

  "Wha--what?"

  "Yes or no, please."

  "Good God, NO!"

  "Rudolph Bostich, did you murder Melinda Wolfe?"
<
br />   The look that crossed Bostich's face was a combination of utter horror and panic. He began to sputter an answer, but sat back hard, his breathing rapid, as he managed to croak out a reply. "Are you crazy? NO! I... I... could never do anything like that! Why would you think--"

  "Because, Mr. Bostich, you possessed a picture that only the killer could have taken. Either Lumin was the killer, or you were. Since we now know Lumin is not the murderer, there's only one explanation left."