“Yeah. That is what you should do. Of course, it means they’ll definitely come after me next. To find out if I know even more.” He gave her a few moments to mull it over. “So
She didn’t answer. They both stayed quiet for a while. Her breathing was a little softer and less rapid. He took another long swig of water.
“So, Wanda,” he said finally. “Did you get the pilot’s name?”
“You’re an asshole, Jay,” she said. “I can’t tell you anything. Haven’t you been listening to me?”
“Yeah. But there’s something else I haven’t told you. Something that happened after I spoke to you.” He gave her all the details of his bizarre conversation with Cherry Flynn in Oklahoma City. “The guy’s fingerprints have been removed and his FAA file is gone. Right now, we’re the only two people who know he was murdered. Except for the people who killed him. Or ordered him killed. And whoever’s covering the damn thing up.”
“You think it’s this guy Heffernan?”
“I don’t know if he did the mechanical work. But he’s certainly involved. He knows what happened. But the guy’s too low-level to pull the other strings. He didn’t get the file pulled or the prints classified.”
“Jay, I don’t think we should talk about this on the phone anymore.”
“Okay. Fair enough. How about if I come up there tomorrow night. We can have dinner.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not getting sucked into this, Jay. I’m not getting involved in this one.”
“We could eat at my folks’ house. They’ll be happy to see you.”
“Jay. .”
“You like duck? Their chef makes a superb duck.”
“Goddammit, Jay. .”
“Let’s say seven-thirty tomorrow night.”
“Let’s not say anything!”
“Dress informal.”
“Make it eight, you asshole. Some of us work.”
Justin hung up the phone. Finished off the bottle of water. Decided he’d better gulp down about a dozen aspirin before he went to the station, so he swung his legs out of bed and went in search of the aspirin bottle. As he was fumbling to open the childproof top, the phone rang again. Justin swore, wondered how the hell he’d gotten so popular, and, through his fog, made his way back to the phone.
“Don’t yell at me again,” he said, expecting it to be Wanda. “I think my head’s going to fall off.”
“Then stay away from me,” a man’s voice answered. “I’ve seen enough headless bodies in the last twenty- four hours to last me a lifetime.”
It was Chuck Billings, the head of the Providence bomb squad. “And here I thought I’d be waking you up and you’d be docile as hell.”
Justin apologized for his unfriendly greeting, then told Chuck why he’d been trying to get in touch with him.
“They’re keeping me crazed busy,” Billings said. “It’s why it took me so long to get back to you. Genuinely nuts what’s going on. And today’s a really bad day. That’s why I’m calling so early. I think the president might even be showing up here. Major photo op.”
“Can you give me any time at all, Chuck?”
“How about we get together tomorrow? Right before lunch. I can probably even get you into the site, show you a few things.”
Justin agreed, thanked him, then went back to trying to open the aspirin bottle. When the top popped off with relative ease, he took it as a good omen. After slipping three aspirin into his mouth, followed by another half bottle of Fiji Water, he decided things were definitely improving.
His eleven o’clock meeting with Mayor Leona Krill went relatively smoothly. Justin showed up on time, he was extremely polite, and he didn’t have any particular problems with the specifics that she wanted to discuss. They agreed on the new salary. He listened quietly while she explained the parameters of his new job and the new responsibilities that came with it. They agreed to set up a bimonthly meeting, lunch if possible. Justin was ready to leave-he was already craving more aspirin, not just for his head but for his back, which was stiff and aching; he really had to start working out again-when she brought up the need for a new hire.
“We have room in the budget for another officer.” When he looked questioningly, she explained. “In essence, you’ve replaced Jimmy. Now we need to replace you.”
“Okay. That makes sense. Good. We can use it.”
“I’d like you to hire a woman, Jay.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. It wasn’t an off-the-wall request. He had nothing against women police officers. But he was curious about the reason-there was always a reason with politicians, even small-time local ones-so, when he spoke, all he said was, “Why?”
“Several reasons. One, it’s time we had a woman in the department. It’s the proper thing to do. Two, I think it’d be a good thing politically.”
“A lot of women voters in East End.”
“That’s right.”
“What if a woman’s not the best candidate?”
“Then I wouldn’t ask you to hire her. But that’s number three: someone’s come very highly recommended.”
He raised an eyebrow. “By whom?”
“Not one of my gay acquaintances, Jay, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t live in quite that circumscribed a world.”
That
“That’s all right. I have no idea what this woman’s sexual orientation is. But I’d like you to interview her. She has a superb reputation and it sounds like she’d be a good fit.”
“Okay.”
Mayor Leona Krill handed over a resume and stuck out her hand for Justin to shake.
“No more kissing?” he asked.
“I just like to keep you off guard,” she answered.
“You’re doing a good job so far,” he said. And headed back out to Main Street.
The rest of the day was spent on normal police department business. Justin was surprised how, after a day of talking on the phone to locals about various complaints, passing along instructions to the officers who now worked for him, paperwork, explaining to the head of the town council the pluses and minuses of a proposed roundabout near one end of town, and meeting with the head of the school board about the need for speed bumps on the road in front of the high school, when he looked up at the clock, it was nearly six-thirty in the evening.
At seven-thirty, he met Bruno Pecozzi at the restaurant in the Schooner Hotel on Main Street. Bruno was staying at the Schooner, probably the nicest place to stay, sit, eat, or drink on the entire east end of Long Island. The hotel was built in the late 1700s and it still reeked of colonial charm. The owner, who’d been married six times and, over the years, managed to lose just about everything but the hotel in his various divorce proceedings, kept one of the great wine lists in the country, maintained a superb humidor in the lobby, and always managed to lure top-notch chefs. He kept several tables for regulars and, by the front door, he always made sure there were three backgammon tables so anyone could come in, sit in a comfortable chair or sofa, have a relaxing drink, and play away for hours on end. During the summer, Justin thought the place was a hellhole of tourists and frantic singles. During the winter, it was one of the great places on the East Coast.
Justin shook his head when he saw where Bruno was sitting: the absolute, prime, A-number-one table in the front room. The so-called celebrity table. Bruno winked at him when Justin walked in, and motioned for him to come sit down.
Bruno said right up front that he was paying-it was on the movie studio-and he told Justin to pick the wine. Justin figured what the hell, and ordered an ’82 Cheval Blanc. For his dinner, he ordered a Caesar salad and a pepper steak, medium rare. Bruno had exactly the same-except he asked for two steaks.
“Skip the extra side dishes,” he told the astonished waiter, “but bring two slabs of meat.” When the waiter
