Authors: Graham Masterton
He could hear Patrice swallowing in emotion. ‘You mean you’ll do it?’
‘Give me your word, Mr Latomba. And all of those gooks and pinheads you call your security force – make sure that they know you’ve given your word, too.’
‘You got my solemn oath, man.’
Ralph checked his wristwatch. ‘Give me twenty minutes, okay? I’ll be driving a tan Volkswagen.’
He put down the phone.
I
must be out of my mind,
he thought. But at the same time, he felt a ferocious kind of pleasure surging through his veins. This was going to be dangerous, and dramatic, and best of all, unauthorized. This was real Hemingway stuff. This was real man’s stuff. This was what he had joined the police force for, but rarely found. He had always craved action, but what had they given him? Paperwork and more paperwork, relieved only by hours of mind-numbing surveillance, or even more mind-numbing hours in court, waiting to give evidence.
He opened the drawer of his night-table and lifted out a nickel-plated .44. Then he went to the bureau, unlocked it, and took out two boxes of shells. He went back into the kitchen, and there was his bacon, lying in the frying-pan.
He picked up a rasher in his fingers and crammed it into his mouth, followed by a second rasher.
With his mouth full, sucking his fingers to get off the bacon-fat, he left his apartment and sallied forth to be a hero.
Ten
To Michael’s surprise, Joe Garboden’s metallic blue Cadillac was parked outside the house when they returned home from Hyannis. At first, there was no sign of Joe, but when Michael unlocked the front door and walked across to the window, he saw him standing on the beach, two or three hundred feet away, his coat slung over his shoulder, staring at the ocean.
Victor came up the steps with the shopping, and laid it on the kitchen table. ‘Who’s that?’ he wanted to know.
‘My immediate boss,’ said Michael. ‘I wonder what the hell he wants.’
He went back down to the yard and across the sand. Joe heard him coming, because he turned around and raised an arm in greeting.
‘Hi, Michael. Terrific day. How was your therapy?’
‘I don’t know. Strange. Revealing, in a way – but definitely strange.’
Joe didn’t really seem to be interested. ‘I thought I’d better come down here in person,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes? Beginning to get a taste for the seashore, are you?’
Joe looked around. The surf glittered white, the houses sparkled in the sunshine. Michael looked around, too, and saw Victor watching them from the living-room window, with a can of beer in his hand. When he saw that Michael was looking his way, he lifted it up in a silent toast.
Joe said: ‘We’ve just received the results of Dr Moorpath’s post-mortem examinations. I’ve brought an advance copy down with me, it’s in the car. The press get it at four o’clock this afternoon, in time for the evening news.’
‘Well, progress at last,’ said Michael.
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘What do you mean, you’re not so sure? There was only one conclusion that Moorpath could have come to.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Joe – those people were murdered. You saw the pictures, for Christ’s sake. John O’Brien was beheaded, his wife was gutted, Dean McAllister had his goddamned legs cut off. Maybe the pilot died accidentally, but I wouldn’t have thought so. His head was beaten into bolognese. It was homicide. It was assassination. What else could it have been? I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t
suicide,
was it?’
Joe shook his head. ‘You’re way off beam, I’m afraid. Dr Moorpath in his infinite wisdom has concluded that all of the occupants of the helicopter suffered fatal injuries as a result of the crash. Their bodies were burned in the subsequent fire but not so badly that Dr Moorpath wasn’t completely satisfied that “their varied and catastrophic injuries” were all caused by accident.’
Michael stared at him in disbelief. ‘John O’Brien was
beheaded).
His wife had her bowels dragged out onto her lap!’
‘John O’Brien was decapitated by a sheared bulkhead. Mrs O’Brien was eviscerated by a broken-off seat support.’
‘But I showed you the pictures! There was no sheared bulkhead anywhere near John O’Brien’s body! There was no broken seat support!’
Joe stared out to sea. Michael suddenly thought how much older he looked, how much more round-shouldered. He could remember times when he and Joe had been really hot – when they had solved case after case together, arson, automobile wrecks, yacht-scuttlings, you name it. In 1989 the two of them had saved Plymouth Insurance more than $78.5 million in fraudulent claims. The Golden Boys, the quickest, the most intuitive, the very-best paid. But now he was scared of falling through the sidewalk and Joe was all worn-down, like an old sofa that three generations of kids have been jumping on.
He laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder; but he felt the muscle stiffen, and he took it away again.
‘What do the police have to say?’
‘Commissioner Hudson will issue a statement later this evening to the effect that he has read Dr Moorpath’s postmortem report and accepts it.’
‘And the FAA?’
‘Jorge da Silva examined the turbines and the gear mechanisms with a horoscope. The direct cause of the crash was a gear failure. Worn gears, which led to a sharp decrease in backlash, and dramatic overheating.’
Michael felt as if he were drunk, or mad. ‘You mean the entire crash was completely accidental?’
‘Jorge da Silva is willing to let us examine the entire wreck. His exact words were, “You can go over it with Japanese chopsticks, if you want to.” ‘
Joe – if that crash was completely accidental, how come that pick-up was waiting for it on Sagamore Head? What about the statement that Neal Masky made to Artur Rolbein?’
Joe gave a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. ‘The pick-up was coincidental. The pick-up was there by chance. That’s if Masky didn’t invent it.’
‘Why the hell should he have invented it?’
‘Maybe he was rowing ashore to loot the helicopter himself.’
Michael raised his hands to the sky, in supplication for something that sounded like sense.
‘
Maybe he was rowing ashore to loot the helicopter himself1
Can I believe what I’m hearing? Joe, the emergency services were homing in from every direction. He had to row across three hundred feet of open bay in a stiff south-westerly wind in a dinghy the size of my bathtub. The chances of his reaching the helicopter before the police or the fire department were absolutely minimal. And he was thinking of
looting?’
‘It was one of the alternative theories that was put forward.’
‘By whom? Who put it forward?’
‘Mr Bedford suggested it, as a matter of fact.’
Michael stared at him. ‘Mr Bedford suggested it? Mr
Edgar
Bedford, our lord and master?’
Joe nodded. He seemed embarrassed, and he wouldn’t catch Michael’s eye. ‘It was a fresh way of looking at it, that’s all. You know yourself that when you’re dealing with a complex investigation, you can get too close. Can’t see the wood for the trees.’
Michael felt a sharp snap of fury. ‘Woods? Trees? What the hell are you talking about, Joe? Edgar Bedford is supposed to be the – what’s-it’s-damn-name? the guy in charge, the custodian of Plymouth’s assets. That’s the whole goddamned reason he employs you and that’s the whole goddamned reason
you
employed
me.
Our whole case depends on establishing that John O’Brien was killed deliberately. Yet here’s our own president, blithely putting forward a theory that undermines the integrity of our best and practically our only witness.’
Joe didn’t answer at first. He took out a crumpled white handkerchief, folded and refolded it, and then blew his nose. ‘There’s not a lot more I can say,’ he admitted. ‘Why don’t we walk on back to the house ... I can show you Dr Moorpath’s report, and the faxes I got from Jorge da Silva at the FAA?’
‘Joe ... ‘ Michael insisted. ‘What’s going down here? What’s wrong?’
They started to walk. A seagull hovered very close to them, and kept pace with them, and even when Joe flapped his hand at it, it refused to fly away.
Joe said, ‘Somebody’s applying some very heavy pressure.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly that. Somebody wants the O’Brien case closed and filed away. Somebody with the kind of influence that you and I can only dream about.’
‘Like, who?’
Joe made a face. ‘I don’t have any idea and I don’t think it pays to think about it too deeply. Use your brains, Michael. If Edgar Bedford is suddenly showing willing to cough up several hundreds of millions of dollars, without even a fight in court, then somebody is squeezing him with the kind of force that could turn a man’s gonads into pâté-de-foie.’
They circled around the house and began to climb the wooden steps.
‘Is this political?’ asked Michael.
‘I don’t know,’ said Joe. ‘I didn’t ask. There are times in a man’s career when he decides that it’s wiser to look the other way.’
He paused, and looked down at Michael with a very sad and serious face. ‘I’m not saying it’s honorable. I’m not saying it’s professional. But it’s wiser.’
‘What about Sissy O’Brien?’ Michael asked him. ‘Where does she fit into this “complete accident” scenario? How is Edgar Bedford going to explain away what happened to her?’
‘Sissy O’Brien’s case is still being investigated.’
‘I know it is. By me – and by Lieutenant Thomas Boyle of the Boston Police Department – and by Mr Victor Kurylowicz from the coroner’s office. As a matter of fact, Mr Kurylowicz is down here with me today.’
Victor appeared at the top of the steps, holding up his can of Bud.
‘Nasdravye,’
he said, and bowed his head.
‘Victor, this is Joe Garboden, of Plymouth Insurance. Joe’s brought down an advance copy of Dr Moorpath’s post-mortem on the O’Brien crash.’
Joe and Victor shook hands. Joe was looking uneasy, and checked his watch. ‘Listen, Michael – maybe this isn’t the time.’
‘Come on, Joe, Victor performed the post-mortem on Sissy O’Brien. I saw her myself, although I wish to God that I hadn’t. Everything the TV and the papers said was true. She was sexually assaulted and tortured, and she was sexually assaulted and tortured when she was still alive.’
Victor nodded, and took off his spectacles, and said, ‘This is true.’
Michael went on, ‘If she was tortured, then she must have survived the helicopter crash. You can commit sexual assault on a dead person, but there’s no point in torturing them, is there?’
‘That would be the logical conclusion,’ Joe agreed.
‘The logical conclusion? This is Michael talking to you, Joe. Michael, your old buddy Michael.
Of course
she
survived the helicopter crash. And this is where Raymond Moorpath’s post-mortem starts to look distinctly ramshackle. Although they didn’t find her body in the wreck, Sissy O’Brien would have been sitting right next to Dean McAllister – so it was pretty goddamned peculiar that
his
legs were cut off by a piece of sheared bulkhead that cut across both seats whereas
hers
weren’t.
‘The appearance of Sissy O’Brien’s body also makes a total nonsense out of Edgar Bedford’s theory that Neal Masky was trying to loot the helicopter, and that there was no pick-up truck.’
Very softly, his voice almost inaudible in the ocean wind, Victor told Joe, ‘She survived the wreck, but she was unable to leave her seat. The only way she could have got out of the helicopter was if somebody had prised her free and carried her.’
‘What?’ Joe demanded.
‘This is true, too,’ Victor told him. ‘Her feet and ankles had been crushed beneath the seat. I can only presume that somebody used a lever of some kind of prise her free, and then carried her away. She wouldn’t have been able to walk or even to crawl.’
Joe was looking very upset. His face was almost beige. ‘Michael ... ‘ he said, ‘I don’t really want any difficulty here. Whatever happened to Sissy O’Brien ... I’m sure that Commissioner Hudson can sort that out.’
‘There’s nothing to sort out,’ said Michael, and he had never sounded so cold before. He startled even himself. ‘All you have to do is go back to Edgar Bedford and tell him that we dispute Raymond Moorpath’s post-mortem, and that we dispute Jorge’s technical investigation, and that we’re intent on saving him more money in the next ten days than anybody saved him in ten years.’
Joe said, ‘I think Edgar’s already considered that option, and turned it down. Reluctantly, I might add. I mean,
real
reluctantly.’
‘All right. Tell him we’ll go the media.’