Plum Island (27 page)

Detective Elizabeth Penrose of the Suffolk County PD replied, “Well, it looks like I’m it. I thank you all for your help.”

We were ready to part, but Ted and I had to get in a few last friendly licks. He went first, and said to me, “I truly hope
we meet again, Detective Corey.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will, Ted. Next time try to impersonate a woman. That should be easier for you than an agriculture guy.”

He stared at me and said, “By the way, I forgot to mention that I know your boss, Detective Lieutenant Wolfe.”

“Small world. He’s an asshole, too. But put in a good word for me, will you, pal?”

“I’ll be sure to report that you send him your regards and that you’re looking very fit to return to duty.”

Foster interrupted as usual and said, “It’s been an interesting and intense twenty-four hours. I think this task force can
be proud of its accomplishments, and I have no doubt the local police will bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion.”

I said, “In summation, long day, good job, good luck.”

Everyone was shaking hands now, even me, though I didn’t know if I was out of a job, or if I ever had a job to be out of.
Anyway, brief goodbyes were said, and no one got smarmy or promised to write or meet again, and no one kissed and hugged or
anything. Within a minute, Max, Beth, Nash, and Foster were in their own cars and were gone, and I was standing alone in the
parking field with my finger up my nose.
Weird.
Last night everyone thought the Apocalypse had arrived, the Pale Horseman had begun his terrible ride. And now, no one gave
a rat’s ass about two dead vaccine thieves in the morgue. Right?

I began walking to my car. Who was in on the cover-up? Obviously, Ted Nash and his people, and George Foster, since he’d also
been on the earlier ferry with Nash and the four guys in suits who’d disappeared in the black Caprice. Probably Paul Stevens
was in on it, too, and so was Dr. Zollner.

I was sure that certain agencies of the federal government had put together a cover, and it was good enough for the media,
the nation, and the world. But it wasn’t good enough for Detectives John Corey and Elizabeth Penrose. No sir, it was not.
I wondered if Max was buying it. People generally want to believe good news, and Max was so paranoid about germs that he’d
really
love to believe Plum Island was spewing antibiotics and vaccine into the air. I should talk to Max later. Maybe.

The other question was this—if they were covering up,
what
were they covering up? It occurred to me that maybe they didn’t know what they were covering up. They needed to change this
case from high-profile horror to common thievery, and they had to do it quickly to get the heat off. Now they could start
trying to figure out what the hell this was all about. Maybe Nash and Foster were as clueless as I was about why the Gordons
were murdered.

Theory Two—they knew why and who murdered the Gordons, and maybe it was Nash and Foster themselves. I really had no idea who
these clowns were.

With all this conspiracy stuff in mind, I remembered what Beth said regarding Nash …
I wouldn’t cross a man like that.

I stopped about twenty yards from my Jeep and looked around.

There were about a hundred Plum Island employee vehicles in the ferry parking field now, but there weren’t any people around,
so I positioned myself behind a van and held out my keypad. Another feature that I got for my forty thousand bucks was a remote
ignition. I pressed the ignition button in a sequence, two longs and one short, and waited for the explosion. There was no
explosion. The vehicle started. I let it run for a minute, then walked toward it, and got inside.

I wondered if I was being a little overly cautious. I guess if my vehicle had exploded, the answer is no. Better safe than
sorry, I say. Until I knew who the killer or killers were, paranoia was my middle name.

I
drove west on Main Road, my engine humming, my radio tuned to easy listening, rural scenes sliding by, blue skies, gulls,
the whole nine yards, the best that the third planet from the sun has to offer.

The car phone rang, and I answered, “Dial-a-stud. May I help you?”

“Meet me at the Murphy residence,” said Detective Penrose.

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“I think I’m fired. If not, I quit.”

“You were hired by the week. You have to finish out the week.”

“Says who?”

“Murphy house.” She hung up.

I hate bossy women. Nevertheless, I drove the twenty minutes to the Murphy house and spotted Detective Penrose parked out
front, sitting in her unmarked black Ford LTD.

I parked my Jeep a few houses away, killed the engine, and got out. To the right of the Murphys’ house, the crime scene was
still taped off, and there was one Southold PD out front. The county mobile headquarters van was still on the lawn.

Beth was on the cell phone as I approached, and she hung up and got out. She said, “I just finished a long verbal to my boss.
Everyone seems happy with the Ebola vaccine angle.”

I asked, “Did you indicate to your boss that you think it’s a crock of crap?”

“No … let’s leave that thought alone. Let’s solve a double murder.”

We went to the Murphys’ front door and rang the bell. The house was a 1960s ranch, original condition, as they say, pretty
ugly, but decently maintained.

A woman of about seventy answered the door, and we introduced ourselves. She stared at my shorts, probably remarking to herself
about how freshly laundered they looked and smelled. She smiled at Beth and showed us inside. She disappeared toward the back
of the house and called out, “Ed! Police again!”

She came back into the living room and indicated a love seat. I found myself cheek to cheek with Beth.

Mrs. Agnes Murphy asked us, “Would you like some Kool-Aid?”

I replied, “No, thank you, ma’am. I’m on duty.”

Beth, too, declined.

Mrs. Murphy sat in a rocker facing us.

I looked around. The decorating style was what I call classical old fart: dark, musty, overstuffed furniture, six hundred
ugly knickknacks, incredibly tacky souvenirs, photos of grandchildren, and so on. The walls were chalky green, like an after-dinner
mint, and the carpet was … well, who cares?

Mrs. Murphy was dressed in a pink pants suit made of a synthetic material that would last three thousand years.

I asked Mrs. Murphy, “Did you like the Gordons?”

The question threw her, as it was supposed to. She got her thoughts together and replied, “We didn’t know them very well,
but they were mostly quiet.”

“Why do you think they were murdered?”

“Well … how would I know?” We looked at one another awhile, then she said, “Maybe it had something to do with their work.”

Edgar Murphy entered, wiping his hands on a rag. He had been in the garage, he explained, working on his power mower. He looked
closer to eighty, and if I were Beth Penrose preparing a future trial in my mind, I wouldn’t give odds that Edgar would make
it to the stand.

He wore green overalls and work shoes and looked as pale as his wife. Anyway, I stood and shook hands with Mr. Murphy. I sat
again, and Edgar sat in a recliner which he actually reclined so he was looking up at the ceiling. I tried to make eye contact
with him, but it was hard to do given our relative positions. Now I remember why I don’t visit my parents.

Edgar Murphy said, “I already spoke to Chief Maxwell.”

Beth replied, “Yes, sir. I’m with homicide.”

“Who’s
he
with?”

I replied, “I’m with Chief Maxwell.”

“No, you ain’t. I know every cop on the force.”

This was about to become a triple homicide. I looked up at the ceiling to about where his eyes were focused, and spoke, sort
of like beaming up to a satellite and bouncing the signal down to the receiver. I said, “I’m a consultant. Look, Mr. Murphy—”

Mrs. Murphy interrupted, “Ed, can’t you sit up? That’s very rude to sit like that.”

“The hell it is. It’s my house. He can hear me okay. You can hear me okay, can’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Beth did some prelim, but related some of the details and times wrong, on purpose, and Mr. Murphy corrected her, demonstrating
that he had good short-term memory. Mrs. Murphy also did some fine-tuning of the events of the prior day. They seemed like
reliable witnesses, and I was ashamed of myself for showing impatience with the elderly—I felt awful about wanting to squash
Edgar in his recliner.

Anyway, as Beth and I spoke to Edgar and Agnes, it was obvious that there was little new to be learned regarding the bare
facts: the Murphys were both in their sun room at 5:30
P.M.
, having finished dinner—the elderly eat dinner about 4
P.M.
Anyway, they were watching TV when they heard the Gordons’ boat—they recognized the big engines, and Mrs. Murphy editorialized,
“My, they’re loud engines. Why would people need such big, loud engines?”

To annoy their neighbors, Mrs. Murphy. I asked both of them, “Did you
see
the boat?”

“No,” Mrs. Murphy replied. “We didn’t bother to look.”

“But you
could
see the boat from your sun room?”

“We can see the water, yes. But we were watching TV.”

“Better than watching the silly bay.”

Beth said, “John.”

Truly, I am a man of many prejudices, and I hate myself for all of them, but I’m a product of my age, my sex, my era, my culture.
I smiled at Mrs. Murphy. “You have a beautiful house.”

“Thank you.”

Beth took over the questioning awhile. She asked Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, “And you’re sure you didn’t hear any noise that could
be a gunshot?”

“Nope,” Edgar Murphy replied. “My hearing’s pretty good. Heard Agnes calling me, didn’t I?”

Beth said, “Sometimes gunshots don’t sound like what we think they sound like. You know, on TV, they sound one way, but in
real life sometimes they sound like firecrackers or a sharp crack, or a car backfiring. Did you hear
any
sound after the engines stopped?”

“Nope.”

My turn. I said, “Okay, you heard the engines stop. Were you still watching TV?”

“Yup. But we don’t play it loud. We sit real close to it.”

“Backs to the windows?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, you watched TV for ten more minutes—what made you get up?”

“It was one of Agnes’ shows. Some damn stupid talk show. Montel Williams.”

“So you headed next door to chat with Tom Gordon.”

“I needed to borrow an extension cord.” Edgar explained that he went through a gap in the hedges, stepped onto the Gordons’
wooden deck, and lo and behold, there were Tom and Judy, dead as doornails.

Beth asked, “How far were you from the bodies?”

“Not twenty feet.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yup. I was at the edge of the deck, and they was like opposite their sliding glass door. Twenty feet.”

“Okay. How did you know it was the Gordons?”

“Didn’t, at first. I just sort of froze and stared, then it hit me.”

“How did you know they were dead?”

“Didn’t really know at first. But I could see the … well, what looked like a third eye on his forehead. You know? They didn’t
move an inch. And their eyes was open, but no breathing, no moaning. Nothing.”

Beth nodded. “Then what did you do?”

“I got the hell out of there.”

My turn. I asked Edgar, “How long do you think you actually stood there on the deck?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Half an hour?”

“Hell, no. About fifteen seconds.”

Probably closer to five, I suspected. I walked Edgar through these few seconds a couple of times, trying to make him remember
if he heard or saw anything unusual at that moment, anything he’d forgotten to mention, but to no avail. I even asked if he
recalled smelling gunpowder, but he was adamant; his first report to Chief Maxwell was all of it, and that was that. Mrs.
Murphy agreed.

I wondered what would have happened if Edgar had gone through the hedges about ten minutes earlier. Probably he wouldn’t have
been sitting here now. I wondered if that had crossed his mind. I asked him, “How do you think the murderer got away if you
didn’t hear or see a car or boat?”

“Well, I thought about that.”

“And?”

“Well, there’s a lot of people around here that walk, bicycle, jog and all. You know? I don’t think anybody would take notice
of anybody doin’ any of that.”

“Right.” But a jogger with an ice chest on his head might attract attention. There was a good chance the murderer was still
somewhere in the area when Edgar came upon the bodies.

I left the time and scene of the murder and began another line of questions. I asked Mrs. Murphy, “Did the Gordons have much
company?”

She replied, “A fair amount. They did a lot of cooking outside. Always had a few people over.”

Beth asked Edgar, “Did they take the boat out late?”

“Sometimes. Hard to miss them engines. Sometimes they’d come in real late.”