Midas

“I don’t know if everything in life can be made that simple,” Justin said.

“Life is simple,” his father told him, finishing his last sip of wine. “It’s what happens while you’re living it that some people make so damn hard.” And then he said it again: “Find the money.”

Wanda Chinkle arrived at eight o’clock and Justin was amused to see that she’d dressed for the occasion. It was usually hard to get Wanda into anything but a pair of pants and an open-neck shirt, but tonight she was wearing a dress and a short-sleeved cashmere sweater. With pearls. And stockings. Justin had never seen her in a pair of stockings before-in fact, he thought, he might never have actually seen her legs before-and she scowled when she saw him staring and grinning.

Wanda passed on the superb red wine, had a Diet Coke instead, much to Jonathan Westwood’s horror, and then they sat down to a delicious dinner of rare roast beef, broiled new potatoes, and string beans, prepared by the Westwoods’ longtime chef, Sidney. The dinner table talk veered between professional and personal, but nothing substantive was broached between Justin and Wanda until, after coffee and a dessert of key lime pie, they settled into the den, alone, and closed the door behind them.

“You don’t seem quite as angry as you were over the phone,” Justin said.

“Don’t let appearances deceive you,” Wanda responded. “Just because I want to pistol-whip you doesn’t mean I can’t be polite in front of your parents.”

“Okay, as long as I know the affection’s still there.”

“Let’s skip the wiseass stuff, okay?” she said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“A lot more stuff than the other day,” he said. And first he ran down everything he’d put together about the plane crash. He told her the circumstances of the crash and about Martin Heffernan’s behavior at the crash site. He said he was fairly certain that the FAA representative stole the pilot’s ID. He told her about the fake ambulance spiriting the body away and he told her, again, how he’d been denied access to the fingerprint identification. He recounted his session with the airport manager Ray Lockhardt, told her Ray’s take on how the plane was tampered with and the pressure Ray was getting from Heffernan about the accident report, clearly an attempt to circumvent any investigation. Justin gave a blow-by-blow account of his conversation on the phone with the ditzy Cherry Flynn, trying to trace the ownership of the plane through the tail number. And then he told her he was convinced that someone at the FAA knew in advance that the plane would be sabotaged, because the files were pulled prior to the crash.

When he paused to take a deep breath, Wanda said, “Are you done?”

“I’m done with the crash,” he told her.

“What else is there?” she asked.

“You have a meeting scheduled with Chuck Billings.”

She didn’t exactly do a double take. But it was close. “Jesus, does everybody know everything that goes on in my office?”

Thinking of Bruno Pecozzi, but deciding to keep Bruno’s awareness of FBI activities quiet for the moment, Justin said, “More than you might think.”

Wanda shook her head. “I’m meeting with Chuck tomorrow morning.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

She stared at him, undecided about how to answer. Finally she decided to go with the truth. “No. I mean, I assume it has something to do with the Harper’s bombing. He was very mysterious, didn’t want to talk on the phone. Just said it was urgent.”

“It is.”

“You know, it’s starting to piss me off, Jay, that you know everything before I do.”

“I’m happy to share my info, Wanda. Although Chuck’s going to have a lot more details than I have.”

“Let’s hear what you got.”

So he told her about his disturbing conversation with Billings that morning. How Chuck felt that the FBI was not just hiding something, they were actively preventing any attempts to get to the truth behind the attack.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said when he was finished.

“I know. But he’s very convincing.”

“What possible reason would we have for hurting the investigation?” When Justin shook his head, she furrowed her brow and rested her chin on the palm of her left hand and said, “You think the two events are connected?”

“The plane crash and the bombing?” Justin threw his hands up. “I don’t see any connection. Nothing logical jumps out at me. But suddenly we have two. . events. . and we’re not talkin’ New York City here, East End Harbor is not exactly the center of international intrigue. . and the FBI, along with God knows who else, seems to be doing their damnedest to make sure neither of them gets investigated properly.”

“Look, your crash is one thing. Who knows why they want this hushed up, but I could come up with reasons. Maybe the pilot’s an ex-agent, maybe the guy’s wife is best friends with the director’s wife. Who knows? But Harper’s. . I don’t believe it. It’s fucking terrorists, for Christ’s sake, Jay. This is what we live for. It doesn’t jibe. I think Chuck’s being paranoid.”

“Maybe. You’re probably right.”

“Don’t condescend to me, you asshole. I want to know what you really think.”

“I think,” Justin said, “that I came up here to get some specific information to help me along in what I think is a murder investigation. And I think that’s as involved as I want to be with anything. Why don’t I just let you and Chuck handle this other matter. But I do think you should hear him out, although I’ll be surprised if he shows up in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Because he was supposed to fly up with me and he stood me up. My guess is he’s entangled in a whole lot of shit with your pals back in New York.”

“As long as you remember that they are my pals,” she said. “That’s who I work with. That’s who I work for. I’m not here for the sole purpose of giving you or Chuck Billings inside information.”

“I know you’re not,” Justin said. And then he said, “So do you have the pilot’s name?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

After another long silence, Justin just said, “Wanda?”

She sighed. “I don’t know why the information’s being blocked. But keeping it secret has been labeled top priority. Something nasty is going on here and I can’t figure out what it is.”

“It’s not your job to figure it out, is it?”

“No,” she said. “But it is yours.”

He nodded.

“The pilot’s name is. . was. . Hutchinson Cooke. People called him Hutch.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“No, no, please don’t thank me for risking my job to give this to you.”

“Thank you. Is there anything else I should know?”

“He was an Air Force pilot.”

“When he died? He was in the Air Force?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was definitely Air Force. And there’s no record that he was discharged.”

“So he was still in.”

“There’s also no record that he served anywhere. At least for the past eighteen months.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because we have access to records of all military personnel and where they’re stationed. And he hasn’t been stationed anywhere for the last year and a half. He just seems to have disappeared.”

“Was he still drawing a salary?”

“Air Force? Yes.”

“Okay, what aren’t you telling me here?”

“Christ, Jay, don’t you believe in doing any work on your own?”