“Yeah. Contract agent.”
“You said this was not official business. So why are you here?”
“Well, I’m getting to that.” I continued, “So, this bozo somehow got the idea that I was interested in the case, and he tells me to back off. I mean, this guy pissed me off, so-”
“Who’s the guy?”
“Can’t say.”
“Okay, so because some Fed chewed on your ass, you got pissed and… what?”
“And got nosy.”
“Are things slow at the ATTF?”
“Actually, they are. Look, Marie, there’s more to this, but the less you know, the better. I just need to know what you know, and I don’t even know what questions to ask you.”
She stayed silent awhile, then said, “Don’t get pissed, but how do I know you’re not with Internal Affairs?”
“Would you ever take me to be an Internal Affairs guy?”
“Not when I knew you. But you married two lawyers since then.”
I smiled, then said, “I’m trusting thatyou’re not going to report this. So trust me.”
She stayed silent a moment, then said, “Okay. I worked this case for two months. I mostly worked the marinas asking people about strange boats and strange people around the marinas. You know? The theory was that some terrorist or some nut job took a boat out and fired a rocket at that plane. So I spent the summer at public marinas and private yacht clubs. Christ, do you know how many marinas and boats are out there? But it wasn’t a bad gig. I did a little fishing on my days off…” She paused a moment, then continued, “But no crabbing… nobody wanted to eat the crabs because… you know.”
Marie stayed quiet awhile, and I could tell that despite her breezy manner, she wasn’t enjoying thinking about this again.
I asked her, “Who’d you work with?”
“I’m not giving up any names, John. I’ll talk to you, but no names.”
“Fair enough. Talk to me.”
“You need to ask me a leading question.”
“Bayview Hotel.”
“Yeah… I kinda figured. So I looked through my pad to refresh my memory, but there wasn’t too much there. I mean, we were told by the Feds to keep the note taking to a minimum because we’d never be asked to testify about any of this.” She explained, “What they were saying was this was their case, and we were just along to help out.”
I nodded and added, “They were also saying they didn’t want too much in writing.”
She shrugged. “Whatever. These guys play a different game.”
“That they do.” I asked, “So, you were at the Bayview Hotel?”
“Yeah. Two days after the crash, I got a call to go to the Bayview Hotel. The FBI is interviewing staff there about something, and they need some manpower to identify who might know something about what they’re interested in. So I get there and join three other NYPD task force cops, and the three Feds that are already there, they brief us and say-”
Junior started screaming about something, and Marie stood and went over to the playpen. She cooed, “What’s the matter with my sweetie?” and pushed the bottle back in his mouth.
Junior started screaming louder, and Marie picked him up and said, “Oh, poor baby did a poopie.”
Is that a reason to scream? I mean, if I crapped my pants, I’d be real quiet about it.
Marie snagged the Pampers and took the kid somewhere for de-pooping.
I used my cell phone to check my office voice mail, but there were no calls. I called my cube mate Harry Muller on his cell phone, and he answered. I asked him, “Are you in the office?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Is anyone looking for me?”
“No. Are you lost? I’ll send out a search party. What’s the last landmark you saw?”
Everyone’s a comedian. “Harry, has anyone asked about my whereabouts?”
“Yeah. Koenig came by about an hour ago and asked me if I knew where you were hiding. I told him you went to lunch.”
“Okay.” It was odd, I thought, that Koenig hadn’t called my cell phone if he wanted to talk to me, though maybe he just wanted to share a new joke with his favorite detective. In any case, I didn’t want to see or hear from Jack Koenig today. I asked Harry, “Is Kate around?”
“Yeah… I can see her at her desk. Why?”
“Do me a favor. Tell her to meet me…” I looked at my watch and the ferry schedule. I could make the five-thirty ferry if Joe Senior didn’t come home unexpectedly. I said to Harry, “Tell her I’ll meet her at Delmonico’s at six for a drink.”
“Why don’t you just call her?”
“Why don’t you just go tell her for me?”
“Am I allowed to go over there?”
“Yeah. Empty a few wastebaskets.”
He laughed. “Okay. Delmonico’s, six o’clock.”
“Keep that between you and her.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
Marie came back in the kitchen, dumped the kid in the playpen, and pushed a bottle in his mouth. She wound up a hanging mobile of smiling faces, which revolved and played “It’s a Small World.” I hate that song.
She freshened our coffees and sat down.
I said, “He’s really a cute kid.”
“You want him?”
I smiled, then said, “So, you got briefed.”
“Yeah. This FBI guy gets the four of us together in the hotel manager’s office, and the FBI guy says that we’re looking for two people who could be witnesses to the crash and who may have stayed at this hotel-the Bayview. And how do we know this? Because a blanket, maybe from this hotel, was found by the local cops on some beach where the accident could be seen. The beach blanket came to the attention of the FBI early that morning, and they got the idea to check out local hotels and motels to see if that’s where the blanket came from. They’ve narrowed it down to the Bayview. Follow?”
“So far.”
“Good. Now what’s wrong with this story that we’re getting from this FBI guy?”
I replied, “Anything you get from the FBI has something wrong with it.”
She smiled. “Come on, John. Work a little.”
“Okay, what’s wrong is why does anyone care about two more eyewitnesses?”
“Right. Like, why are we wasting time and resources on two people who maybe saw this accident from the beach, when we have witnesses lined up out the fucking door of the Coast Guard station, and the hotline number is ringing off the hook. What is special about these witnesses? Do you know?”
“No. Do you?”
“No.” She said, “But there was something else going on here.”
What was going on was the video camera lens cap on the beach blanket, but apparently this FBI guy who was doing the briefing did not mention that to his troops. Dick Kearns knew about it from the local cops, but apparently Marie hadn’t heard that rumor. As with any investigation, if you spoke to enough people and triangulated information, eventually things started to take shape. But Marie understood, because she was smart, that something else was going on. I asked her, “Who was this FBI guy who was briefing you?”
“I told you-no names.”
“Did you know this guy?”
“A little. Kind of a hard-on who thought he was a hard-ass.”
“Sounds like Liam Griffith.”
She smiled. “That’s a good name. Let’s call him Liam Griffith.”
“Who was with him?”
“Like I said, two other guys. Fed types, but I didn’t know them, and they were never formally introduced. They just sat there while Griffith briefed us.”
I described Mr. Ted Nash to Marie, reluctantly using the words “good-looking,” and she replied, “Yeah… I mean, it’s been five years, but that sounds like one of them. Who is he?”
Against my better judgment, but to keep Marie happy and intrigued, I said, “CIA.”
“No shit?” She looked at me and asked, “What are you on to?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“No, I don’t. But… maybe I’ve said enough.”
I looked at the kid in the playpen, then back at Marie. I said, “Are we afraid of them?”
She didn’t reply.