1
Maggie saw the policemen first, and asked Michael what he thought had happened. They were halfway down the ramp to the terminal, and the two officers had appeared in the lighted square where the jetway ended. “I don’t know,” Michael said. “Probably—” He looked over his shoulder and saw Tim Underhill just emerging through the door of the plane, half a dozen people back. Maggie took his elbow and stopped moving. Michael looked ahead again and saw the big homicide detective, Lieutenant Murphy, staring at him with a set, furious face beside the two uniformed men. “Take it easy,” Murphy said, and the policemen beside him braced themselves but did not draw their guns. “Keep on coming, people,” Murphy said. The people ahead of Maggie and Poole had stopped short, and now the jetway was crowded with passengers. Murphy motioned the passengers in front toward him, and everyone began shuffling toward the terminal. Maggie was holding tightly onto Poole’s hand.
“Everybody keep moving,” Murphy said. “Keep moving and keep calm.”
For a second there had been a shocked silence. Now a bubble of questioning, demanding voices filled the tunnel.
“Just proceed through the terminal normally,” Murphy said. Poole glanced back at Underhill, who had gone pale but was moving forward with the other passengers behind them. A woman somewhere in their midst shrieked at the sight of the policemen.
Murphy was watching Underhill, and when Poole and Maggie finally reached the terminal he spoke without looking at them. “Take them aside.”
One of the policemen took Michael by the arm Maggie was not holding, and pulled him off toward the window beside the gate. Another tried to separate Maggie, but she would not let go of Poole’s arm, and so Poole, Maggie, and the two policemen moved crabwise to an empty space in front of the window. The gate had been roped off, and a wall of people stood at the rope looking in at them. Two uniformed policemen with rifles stood off to the side behind Murphy, out of sight of the passengers in the jetway.
When Tim Underhill came through, Murphy stepped forward, charged him with the murder of Anthony Pumo, and read him his rights from a white card he had taken from his pocket. The policeman who had taken Maggie aside patted Underhill’s chest and sides, then patted down each leg. Underhill managed to smile.
“We were going to call you as soon as we got here,” Michael said. Murphy ignored him.
The other passengers on the flight moved slowly toward the ropes. Most of them were walking backward, not to miss anything. The flight crew had clustered at the end of the ramp and were whispering to each other. Nearly all the passengers stopped moving once they reached the rope, set down their luggage, and stared.
Murphy’s face flushed a dark red. He turned around and shouted, “Will you clear the area? Will you please get this area clear?” It was not clear if he was shouting at the policemen or the gaping passengers.
“Please move to the other side of the rope,” said a young detective, a police dandy in a dark blue coat and soft wide-brimmed hat that made an unintentional contrast to Underhill’s own big shabby coat and wide hat. Most of the passengers picked up their carry-on bags and moved toward the opening in the ropes. The entire terminal sounded like a cocktail party.
“Lieutenant,” Poole said. Maggie glanced up at him, and he nodded.
“Keep your mouth shut, Dr. Poole,” Murphy said. “I’m arresting you and the girl too. There’ll be plenty of time for you to say whatever you want to say.”
“What do you think we were doing in Milwaukee? Could you tell me that?”
“I hate to think what you people were doing, anywhere.”
“Do you think Maggie Lah would go anywhere or have anything to do with Tina Pumo’s murderer? Does that seem reasonable to you?”
Murphy nodded to the dandy, who stepped behind Underhill and handcuffed him.
“Tim Underhill was still in Bangkok when Tina Pumo was killed—check the flight records.”
Maggie was unable to stay quiet any longer. “I
“We had an anonymous tip.” Murphy’s face was still the same ugly purple it had turned just before his explosion.
“Harry Beevers,” Poole said, looking down at Maggie.
“Look at my passport, Lieutenant,” Underhill said in a quiet, reasonable voice. “I carry it with me. It’s in my coat pocket.”
“Get his passport,” Murphy said to the dandy, who reached down into the nearest pocket of Underhill’s long shapeless coat and found the small dark green booklet that was his passport.
“Open it up,” Murphy said.
The young detective moved closer to Underhill. He opened the passport and riffled through the pages. There appeared to be a great many entries in Underhill’s passport. The dandy found the last page of entries, examined it for a moment, then handed the passport to Murphy.
“I came back with Beevers and Dr. Poole,” Tim said. “Mass murder was one of the mistakes I managed to avoid.”
Murphy’s flush deepened as he stared at Underhill’s passport. He leafed backwards from the last entry, looking for an earlier arrival in America. At length he dropped his hands, moved his feet, and turned to look at the scene in the terminal. People were pressing against the rope, and the police marksmen stood among the empty plastic chairs. Murphy said nothing for a long time. A flash went off as a tourist took a picture.
“You people have a lot of explaining to do,” he finally said. He put the passport in his own coat pocket. “Cuff the other two.”
The two uniformed policemen snapped handcuffs on Poole and Maggie.
“Did this man Underhill come back from Bangkok on the same flight with you and Beevers and Linklater?”
Poole nodded.
“And you chose not to let me know that. You sat in my office and decided to let me chase after the wrong man.”
“I regret that,” Poole said.
“But still you people put up those posters all over Chinatown?”
“Koko had used Underhill’s name.”
“You wanted to find him yourself?” Murphy asked, seeming just now to have understood this point.
“Harry Beevers wanted to do something like that. The rest of us went along with him.”
“You went along with him,” Murphy said, shaking his head. “Where is Beevers now?”
“Mikey!” a voice called from behind the crowd at the ropes.
“Conor Linklater was going to meet us here.”
Murphy turned to one of the uniformed policemen and said, “Bring that man here.” The policeman trotted off toward the gap in the rope, and reached it at about the same time that Conor and Ellen Woyzak appeared at the front of the crowd.
“Bring them along,” Murphy said, walking off toward the crowd, which began moving away from him.
“We were in Milwaukee to see if we could learn where Koko is,” Poole called to him. “Instead we found out who he is. If you’ll let me get some stuff out of the trunk of my car, I could show you what I mean.”
Murphy turned around and glowered at Michael and Maggie, then, with even deeper distaste, at Tim Underhill.
“Hey, you can’t arrest these people,” Conor started to say. “You want a guy named Victor Spitalny—he’s the one they were checking up on—”
“No,” Poole said. “Conor, it’s not Spitalny.”
Conor stopped talking for a wide-eyed moment, and then stepped toward Murphy, holding his hands out. “Cuff me.” Ellen Woyzak uttered a noise that combined a screech and a growl. “Put ’em on,” Conor said. “I’m not
