I went back into the living room, handed Kate her wine, and we clinked glasses. I said, “To us. We gave it a good shot.”
She sipped her wine thoughtfully and said, “We need to get our stories straight.”
“That’s easy. Tell the truth.” I sat in my La-Z-Boy and swiveled toward her. I said, “Screwing up is not a crime, but perjury is a felony. Federal prisons are full of people who lied about something that wasn’t even a crime, or was at most a misdemeanor. Remember the CIA motto-The truth shall set you free.”
“I could lose my job.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I was told five years ago not to do anything on this case, except what I was asked to do.”
“So, you forgot. Hey, Griffith told me forty-eight hours ago not to nose around this case.”
“He’s not your boss.”
“Good point. Look, the most that’s going to happen tomorrow is a chewing out, maybe an official reprimand, and a direct order to cease and desist. They don’t want to make a big deal of this because that draws attention to it. I know how these things work. Just don’t get caught in a lie, and you’ll be fine.”
She nodded. “You’re right… but it won’t do my career any good.”
“Well, that will be offset by the fact that you’re married to me.”
“This is not a joke. This is important to me. My father was FBI, I worked hard to-”
“Hold on. What happened to truth, justice, and patriotism? When you took that first step over the line, the slope got steep and slippery real fast. What did you think was going to happen?”
She finished her wine and said, “Sorry. Sorry I got you into this.”
“These last two days were fun. Look at me. Nothing bad is going to happen tomorrow. Do you know why? Because
Kate nodded slowly, then smiled for the first time. She said, “Older men have a good understanding of how the world works.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“I feel much better. Nothing bad is going to happen tomorrow.”
“In fact,” I said, “something good may happen.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But whatever happens, it’s time for us to put in for annual leave. We need to get away. Foreign travel will be good for us.”
“That’s a great idea. I’d like to go to Paris. Where are you going?”
Mrs. Corey was developing a sense of humor. I said, “I’d like to see where Dewar’s Scotch is made. I’ll send you a postcard.”
She stood, came over to me, and sat in my lap. She put her arms around me and her head on my shoulder and said, “No matter what happens tomorrow, we can handle it because we’re together. I don’t feel so alone anymore.”
“You’re not alone.” But as soon as I said that, I had an unsettling thought; if I was Jack Koenig, I knew how I would handle Mr. and Mrs. Corey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Captain David Stein did not keep me waiting, and at 9A.M. sharp, I walked into his corner office.
He didn’t stand, but he never does unless you’re the police commissioner or higher, and he motioned me to a chair across from his desk. He spoke first and said, in his gruff and gravelly voice, “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” I couldn’t read anything in his face. I mean, he looked pissed, but he always looks like that.
NYPD Captain David Stein, I should mention, has a difficult job because he has to play second fiddle to FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Jack Koenig. But Stein is a tough old Jew who doesn’t take much crap from anyone, me included, and Jack Koenig in particular.
Stein has a law degree hanging on his wall so he could talk to the FBI in their language when he needed to. He had come to the task force from the NYPD Intelligence Unit, formerly known as the Red Squad, but there weren’t too many Reds around these days so the NYPD IU has shifted its focus to Mideast terrorism. Stein once said to me, “I liked the fucking Communists better. They played the game with a few rules.”
Nostalgia’s not what it used to be.
Anyway, Stein, like me, probably missed the NYPD, but the police commissioner wanted him here, and here he was, about to get up my ass about something. Stein’s problem, like mine, was divided loyalty. We worked for the Feds, but we were cops. I was sure he wasn’t going to be hard on me.
He looked at me and said, “You’re in a world of shit, buddy.”
See?
He continued, “You fuck some boss’s wife or something?”
“Not recently.”
He ignored that and said, “Don’t you even know how you fucked up?”
“No, sir. Do you?”
He lit the stub of a cigar and said to me, “Jack Koenig wants your balls on his pool table. And you don’t know why?”
“Well… I mean, it could be anything. You know how they are.”
He didn’t and wouldn’t respond to that, but it did remind him that we were brothers.
He puffed on his cigar. There hasn’t been smoking allowed in Federal buildings for about five years, but this was not the time to bring this up. Actually, Stein’s ashtray was sitting on a NO SMOKING sign.
He looked at a note on his desk and said to me, “I have word that no one could reach you yesterday, by phone or beeper. Why’s that?”
“I turned off my cell phone and beeper.”
“You’re not supposed to ever turn off your beeper.
“Yes, I would.”
“So? Why’d you turn your phone and beeper off?”
“No excuse, sir.”
“Make one up.”
“I’ll do better than that. The truth is, I didn’t want to be tracked.”
“Why? You fucking somebody?”
“No.”
“What’d you do yesterday?”
“I went out to the Hamptons.”
“I thought you were sick.”
“I wasn’t sick. I took a day off.”
“Why?”
Remembering my own advice to Kate, I replied, “I’m doing some work on the TWA 800 case. On my own time.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then asked, “What do you mean on your own time?”
“The case interests me.”
“Yeah? What’s so interesting?”
“The bullshit. Bullshit interests me.”
“Yeah, me, too. So, you mean, no one told you to look into this case? It was your idea?”
“I went to the five-year anniversary memorial service on Tuesday. It got me thinking.”
“You go with your wife?”
“I did.”
“And that got you thinking about TWA 800?”
