Plum Island

Mr. Ted Nash finally replied coolly, 'We are being cautious, Detective. We have no concrete evidence that this homicide is connected to matters of… well, to be blunt, matters of national security.'

I remarked, 'I never realized the Department of Agriculture was involved in national security. Do you have, like, undercover cows?'

Mr. Nash gave me a nice fuck-you smile and said, 'We have wolves in sheep's clothing.'

'Touche.' Prick.

Mr. Foster butted in before it got nasty and said, 'We're here as a precautionary measure, Detective. We'd be very remiss if we didn't check it out. We all hope it was just a murder with no Plum Island connection.'

I regarded George Foster a moment. He was thirtyish, typical clean-cut, bright-eyed FBI type, wearing the FBI dark suit, white shirt, muted tie, black sturdy shoes, and halo.

I shifted my attention to Ted Nash wearing the aforementioned denims; he was closer to my age, tanned, curly salt-and-pepper hair, blue-gray eyes, impressive build, and all in all what the ladies would call a hunk, which is one of the reasons I didn't like him, I guess. I mean, how many hunks do you need in one room?

I might have been more pleasant to him except that he was throwing glances at Elizabeth Penrose, who was catching them and pitching them back. I don't mean they were leering and drooling; just real quick eye-to-eye flashes and neutral expressions, but you'd have to be blind not to figure out what was going through their dirty minds. Jeez, the whole friggin' planet was about to get anthrax and die or something, and these two are like dogs in heat, eye-fucking each other when we had important business at hand. Really disgusting.

Max interrupted my thoughts and said to me, 'John, we have still not recovered the two bullets fired through their heads, but we can assume they went into the bay, and we'll be dredging and diving early tomorrow.' He added, 'There were no shell casings found.'

I nodded. An automatic pistol would spit out shell casings whereas a revolver would not. If the weapon was an automatic, then the murderer was cool enough to bend down and gather the two shell casings.

So far, we had basically nothing. Two head shots, no bullets, no casings, no noise heard next door.

I regarded Mr. Nash again. He looked like a worried man, and I was happy to see that between thoughts of popping Ms. Penrose, he was thinking about saving the planet. In fact, everyone in the kitchen seemed to be thinking about things, probably germs, and they were probably wondering if they were going to wake up with red blotches or something.

Ted Nash reached into the cardboard box and asked Detective Penrose, 'Another coffee, Beth?'

Beth What the hell…?

She smiled, 'No, thank you.'

My stomach had settled down so I went to the refrigerator for a beer. The shelves were nearly empty and I asked, 'Max, did you take things out of here?'

'The lab took everything that was not factory sealed.'

'Do you want a beer?' No one answered, so I took a Coors Light, popped the top, and took a swig.

I noticed eight eyes on me, like they were waiting for something to happen. People get weird when they think they're in an infected environment. I had a crazy urge to clutch my throat, fall on the floor, and go into convulsions. But I wasn't with my buds in Manhattan North, chicks and dicks who would get a kick out of sick humor, so I passed on the opportunity to add some comic relief to the grimness. I said to Max, 'Please continue.'

He said, 'We've searched the entire house and turned up nothing unusual or significant, except that half the drawers were intact, some closets didn't even look like they'd been searched, the books on the bookshelves weren't pulled out. A very amateur job of pretending it was a burglary.'

I said, 'It still could have been a junkie, strung out and not real focused.' I added, 'Or maybe the perp was interrupted, or the perp was looking for one thing and found it.'

'Maybe,' Max agreed.

Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.

The striking thing about this double homicide, I thought, was still the outdoor shooting, the bang, bang, right on the deck without much preamble. There was nothing the killer needed or wanted from the Gordons, except that they be dead. So, yes, the killer either had what he wanted from inside the house, and/or the Gordons were carrying what the killer wanted, in plain view, i.e., the ice chest. It came back to the missing ice chest.

And the killer knew the Gordons and they knew him. I was convinced of that. Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Bang, bang. They fall, the ice chest falls… no, it's got vials of deadly virus in it. Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Put that chest down. Bang, bang. They fall. The bullets sail through their skulls into the bay.

Also, he had to have a silencer. No pro would pop off two big boomers outdoors. And it was probably an automatic, because revolvers don't adapt well to a silencer.

I asked Max, 'Do the Murphys own a dog?'

'Nope.'

'Okay… Did you find any money, wallets, or anything on the victims?'

'Yes. They each had matching sports wallets; each had their Plum Island ID, driver's license, credit cards, and such. Tom had thirty-seven dollars in cash, Judy had fourteen.' He added, 'Each had a photo of the other.'

It's little things, sometimes, that bring it all home, that make it personal. Then you have to remember Rule One: don't get emotionally involved-it doesn't matter, Corey, if it's a little kid who got greased, or a nice old lady, or pretty Judy who winked at you once, and Tom who wanted you to love the wines he loved and who cooked your steak just so. For the homicide dick, it does not matter who the victim is, it only matters who the killer is.

Max said, 'I guess you figured out that we never found that ice chest. You're sure about the chest?'

I nodded.

Mr. Foster gave me his considered opinion. 'We think the Gordons were carrying the chest, and the killer or killers wanted what was inside, and what was inside was you-know-what.' He added, 'I think the Gordons were selling the stuff and the deal went bad.'

I looked around at the meeting of the kitchen cabinet. It's hard to read the faces of people whose job it is to read other people's faces. Still, I had the feeling that George Foster's statement represented the consensus.

So, if these people were right, that would presuppose two things-one, the Gordons were really stupid, never considering that anyone who would want enough virus and bacteria to kill a zilhon people might not hesitate to kill them, and two, it presupposed the Gordons were totally indifferent to the consequences of their selling death for gold. What I knew for sure about Tom and Judy was that they were neither stupid, nor heartless.

I would also assume that the killer was not stupid, and I wondered if he knew or could tell if what was in the chest was the real thing. How could he possibly know? Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Got the virus? Good. Bang, bang.

Yes? No? I tried different scenarios with and without the ice chest, with and without the person or persons whom the Gordons must have known, and so forth. Also, how did this person or these people get to the Gordons' house? Boat? Car? I asked Max, 'Strange vehicles?'

Max replied, 'There were no strange vehicles seen by anyone we've questioned. The Gordons' two cars are both in their garage.' He added, 'Forensics will take them to the lab tomorrow along with the boat.'

Ms. Penrose spoke to me directly for the first time and said, 'It's possible the killer or killers arrived by boat. That's my theory.'

I said to her, 'It's also possible, Elizabeth, that the killer or killers arrived in one of the Gordons' cars which the killer may have borrowed. I really think they knew each other.'

She stared at me, then said a bit curtly, 'I think it was a boat, Detective Corey.'

'Maybe the killer walked here, or bicycled, or motorcycled.' I continued, 'Maybe he swam here, or was dropped off. Maybe he windsurfed in or paraglided. Maybe the killers are Edgar Murphy and his wife.'

She stared hard at me, and I could tell she was pissed. I know that look. I was married.

Max interrupted our discussion and said, 'And here's something interesting, John-according to the security people on Plum, the Gordons signed out at noon, got into their boat, and headed out.'

You could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the silence.

Mr. Foster said to us, 'One possibility that comes to mind is that the Gordons had secreted whatever it was they were selling somewhere in a cove or inlet on Plum, and they took their boat there and recovered the stuff. Or maybe they just walked out of the lab with that ice chest, put it aboard, and took off. In either case, they then met