“Inez Guerrero! Are you Mrs. Guerrero?”
She looked up. It took several seconds to collect her thoughts, which had been vague and drifting, but she realized that it was a policeman who was standing over her.
He shook her again and repeated the question.
Inez managed to nod. She became aware that this was a different policeman from the earlier one. This one was white, and neither as gentle nor as softly spoken as the other.
“Let’s move it, lady!” The policeman tightened his grip on her shoulder in a way which hurt, and pulled her abruptly to her feet. “You hear me? — let’s go! They’re screamin’ for you upstairs, and every cop in the joint’s bin searchin’ for you.”
Ten minutes later, in Mel’s office, Inez was the pivot of attention. She occupied a chair in the room’s center to which she had been guided on arrival. Lieutenant Ordway faced her. The policeman who had escorted Inez in was gone.
The others who had been present earlier — Mel, Tanya, Customs Inspector Standish, Bunnie Vorobioff, the Trans America D.T.M., Weatherby, and the chief pilot, Captain Kettering, were ranged about the room. All had remained at Mel’s request.
“Mrs. Guerrero,” Ned Ordway said. “Why is your husband going to Rome?”
Inez stared back bleakly and didn’t answer. The policeman’s voice sharpened, though not unkindly. “Mrs. Guerrero, please listen to me carefully. There are some important questions which I have to ask. They concern your husband, and I need your help. Do you understand?”
“I … I’m not sure.”
“You don’t have to be sure about
The D.T.M. cut in urgently. “Lieutenant, we haven’t got all night. That airplane is moving away from us at six hundred miles an hour. If we have to, let’s get tough.”
“Leave this to me, Mr. Weatherby,” Ordway said sharply. “If we all start shouting, it’ll take a lot more time to get a great deal less.”
The D.T.M. continued to look impatient, but kept quiet.
“Inez,” Ordway said; “… is it okay if I call you Inez?”
She nodded.
“Inez,
“Yes … if I can.”
“Why is your husband going to Rome?”
Her voice was strained, barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know.”
“Do you have friends there; relatives?”
“No … There is a distant cousin in Milan, but we have never seen him.”
“Do your husband and the cousin correspond?”
“No.”
“Can you think of any reason why your husband would go to visit the cousin — suddenly?”
“There is no reason.”
Tanya interjected, “In any case, Lieutenant, if anyone was going to Milan they wouldn’t use our Rome flight. They’d fly Alitalia, which is direct and cheaper — and Alitalia has a flight tonight, too.”
Ordway nodded. “We can probably rule out the cousin.” He asked Inez, “Does your husband have business in Italy?”
She shook her head.
“What
“He is … was … a contractor.”
“What kind of contractor?”
Slowly but perceptibly, Inez’s grasp of things was coming back. “He built buildings, houses, developments.”
“You said ‘was.’ Why isn’t he a contractor now?”
“Things … went wrong.”
“You mean financially?”
“Yes, but … why are you asking?”
“Please believe me, Inez,” Ordway said, “I’ve a good reason. It concerns your husband’s safety, as well as others’. Will you take my word?”
She looked up. Her eyes met his. “All right.”
“Is your husband in financial trouble now?”
She hesitated only briefly. “Yes.”
“Bad trouble?”
Inez nodded slowly.
“Is he broke? In debt?”
Again a whisper. “Yes.”
“Then where did he get money for his fare to Rome?”
“I think …” Inez started to say something about her ring which D.O. had pawned, then remembered the Trans America Airlines time-payment contract. She took the now-creased yellow sheet from her purse and gave it to Ordway who glanced over it. The D.T.M. joined him.
“It’s made out to ‘Buerrero,’” the D.T.M. said. “Though the signature could be anything.”
Tanya pointed out, “Buerrero is the name we had at first on the flight manifest.”
Ned Ordway shook his head. “It isn’t important now, but it’s an old trick if anyone has a lousy credit rating. They use a wrong first letter so the bad rating won’t show up in inquiry — at least, not in a hurry. Later, if the mistake’s discovered, it can be blamed on whoever filled out the form.”
Ordway swung sternly back to Inez. He had the yellow printed sheet in hand. “Why did you agree to this when you knew your husband was defrauding?”
She protested, “I didn’t know.”
“Then how is it you have this paper now?”
Haltingly, she related how she had found it earlier this evening, and had come to the airport, hoping to intercept her husband before departure.
“So until tonight you had no idea that he was going?”
“No, sir.”
“Anywhere at all?”
Inez shook her head.
“Even now, can you think of any reason for him going?”
She looked bewildered. “No.”
“Does your husband ever do irrational things?”
Inez hesitated.
“Well,” Ordway said, “does he?”
“Sometimes, lately …”
“He
A whisper. “Yes.”
“Violent?”
Reluctantly, Inez nodded.
“Your husband was carrying a case tonight,” Ordway said quietly. “A small attache case, and he seemed specially cautious about it. Have you any idea what might be inside?”
“No, sir.”
“Inez, you said your husband was a contractor — a building contractor. In the course of his work did he ever use explosives?”
The question had been put so casually and without preamble, that those listening seemed scarcely aware it had been asked. But as its import dawned, there was a sudden tenseness in the room.
“Oh, yes,” Inez said. “Often.”
