Plum Island (8 page)

I was tired of the scientific crap, and I addressed my next question to Mr. Foster. “Are you people doing anything to keep
this bottled? Airports, highways, and all that?”

Mr. Foster replied, “We’ve got
everyone
out there looking for … whatever. We have all area airports, seaports, and train stations being watched by our people, local
police, and Customs people, and we have the Coast Guard stopping and searching vessels, and we’ve even got the Drug Enforcement
Agency using their boats and planes. The problem is, the perpetrators would have had about a three-hour head start because
quite frankly we weren’t notified in a timely fashion….” Mr. Foster looked at Chief Maxwell, who had his arms crossed and
was making a face.

A word here on Sylvester Maxwell. He’s an honest cop, not the brightest bulb in the room, but not stupid either. He can be
stubborn at times, though that seems to be a North Fork trait and not peculiar to the chief. Being in charge of a small rural
police force that has to work with the much larger county police force and on occasion the state police, he’s learned when
to protect his turf and when to retreat.

Another point: the geographical realities of a maritime jurisdiction in the era of drug running have put Max in close proximity
to the DEA and the Coast Guard. The DEA always assumes the local gendarmes may be in on the drug trade; the locals, like Max,
are positive the DEA is in on it. The Coast Guard and FBI are considered clean, but they suspect the DEA and the local police.
The Customs Service is mostly clean, but there have to be some bad guys who take bucks to look the other way. In short, drugs
are the worst thing that has happened to American law enforcement since Prohibition.

And this led me from thinking about Max to thinking about drugs, about the Gordons’ thirty-foot Formula with big, powerful
engines. Since the facts didn’t seem to fit the Gordons selling end-of-the-world plague for money, maybe the facts
did
fit drug running. Maybe I was on to something. Maybe I’d share this with everyone as soon as I worked it out in my mind.
Maybe I wouldn’t.

Mr. Foster threw a few more zingers at Chief Maxwell for his tardiness in contacting the FBI, making sure he was on the record
about that. Sort of like, “Oh, Max, if only you’d come to me sooner. Now, all is lost, and it’s your fault.”

Max pointed out to Foster, “I called county homicide within ten minutes of learning of the murder. It was out of my hands
at that point. My ass is covered.”

Ms. Penrose felt eight eyes on her ass and said, “I had no idea the victims were Plum Island people.”

Max said, gently but firmly, “I reported that to the guy who answered the phone, Beth. Sergeant … something. Check the tape.”

“I will,” replied Detective Penrose. She added, “You may be right, Max, but let’s not get into this now.” She said to Foster,
“Let’s stick to solving the crime.”

Mr. Foster replied, “Good advice.” He looked around the room and offered, “Another possibility is that whoever took this stuff
is not trying to take it out of the country. They could have a lab set up locally, an inconspicuous kind of operation that
wouldn’t attract attention, wouldn’t require unusual materials or chemicals that could be traced. Worst-case scenario is that
the organisms, whatever they are, are cultured, then introduced or delivered to the population in various ways. Some of these
organisms are easy to deliver in the water supply, some can be airborne, some can be spread by people and animals. I’m no
expert, but I phoned some people in Washington earlier, and I understand that the potential for infection and contagion is
very high.” He added, “A TV documentary once suggested that a coffee can full of anthrax, vaporized into the air by a single
terrorist riding around Manhattan in a boat, would kill a minimum of two hundred thousand people.”

The room got silent again.

Mr. Foster, enjoying the attention it seemed, continued, “It could be worse. It’s hard to gauge. Anthrax is bacterial. Viruses
could be worse.”

I asked, “Do I understand that we’re not talking about the possible theft of a single type of virus or bacteria?”

George Foster replied, “If you’re going to steal anthrax, you might as well steal Ebola, too, and anything else you can get.
This would pose a multifaceted threat, the type of threat that would never be found in nature, and would be impossible to
contain or control.”

The mantel clock in the living room struck twelve chimes, and Mr. Ted Nash, with a sense for the dramatic and wanting to impress
us with his education, undoubtedly Ivy League, quoted the Bard, thus: “ ’Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards
yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.”

On that cheery note, I said, “I’m going out for some air.”

I
didn’t go directly outside for air, but detoured to the west wing of the house where Tom and Judy had set up their office
in what used to be a bedroom.

A compu-nerd sat at the PC where I had intended to sit. I introduced myself to the gent, who identified himself as Detective
Mike Resnick, computer crime specialist with the county police department.

The printer was humming away and stacks of paper lay all over the desktop.

I asked Mike, “Did you find the killer yet?”

“Yeah, now I’m playing Jeopardy.”

Mike was a real card. I asked him, “What do we have so far?”

“Oh … mostly … hold on, what’s this? Nothing there … what do we … what … ?”

“Have so far.” I just love talking to butt holes at the computer.
“Have so far.”

“Oh … mostly letters … personal letters to friends and relatives, some business letters … some … what’s this? Nothing….”

“Anything mentioning Plum Island?”

“No.”

“Anything that looks interesting or suspicious?”

“No.”

“Scientific papers—”

“No. I’ll stop what I’m doing and let homicide know the minute I think I have something.”

Mike sounded a little testy, like he’d been at this a few hours and it was past his bedtime. I asked him, “How about financial
stuff? Investments, checkbook, household budget—?”

He glanced up from the monitor. “Yeah. That’s the first thing I downloaded. They wrote their checks on the computer. There’s
the printout of all their checkbook activity for the past twenty-five months—since they opened the account.” He pointed to
a stack of paper near the printer.

I took the stack and said, “Do you mind if I look through this?”

“No, but don’t go far with it. I have to attach all that to my report.”

“I’ll just take it into the living room where the light is better.”

“Yeah …” He was playing with the computer again, which he found more interesting than me. I left.

Out in the living room, the latent fingerprint lady was still dusting and lifting prints. She glanced at me and asked, “Did
you touch anything?”

“No, ma’am.”

I walked over to the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. To the left was fiction, mostly paperbacks, a nice mixture
of trash and treasures. To the right was nonfiction, and I studied the titles, which ranged from technical biology stuff to
standard health and fitness crap. There was also a whole shelf of locally published books about Long Island, flora, fauna,
history, and so forth.

On the bottom shelf was a row of sailing books, navigational charts, and such. As I said, for land-locked Midwesterners, the
Gordons had really gotten into boating. On the other hand, I’d been out with them a few times, and even I could tell they
weren’t great sailors. Also, they didn’t fish, clam, crab, or even swim. They just liked to open up the throttles now and
then. Which brought me back to the thought that this was a drug thing.

With that thought in mind, I put the computer printouts down and using my handkerchief took an oversized book of navigational
charts from the shelf and propped it up on the mantelpiece. I flipped through the pages, my finger wrapped in the handkerchief.
I was looking for radio frequencies, cellular phone numbers, or whatever else a drug runner might mark in his chart book.

Each page of the navigational charts showed an area of about four miles by four miles. The land that appeared on the charts
was basically featureless except for landmarks that could be seen from the water. The seas, however, were marked with reefs,
rocks, depths, lighthouses, sunken wrecks, buoys, and all sorts of aids and hazards to navigation.

I scanned page after page looking for “X’s,” I guess, rendezvous points, or grid coordinates, or names like Juan and Pedro
or whatever, but the charts seemed clean except for a yellow highlighter line that connected the Gordons’ dock with the Plum
Island dock. This was the route they took to work, passing between the southern shore of the North Fork and Shelter Island,
keeping to the deep and safe part of the channel. That wasn’t much of a clue to anything.

I noticed that on Plum Island, printed in red, were the words, “Restricted Access—U.S. Government Property— Closed to the
Public.”

I was about to shut the large book when I saw something nearly hidden by my handkerchief—toward the bottom of the page, in
the water south of Plum Island, was written in pencil, “44106818.” Following this was a question mark, similar to the one
that just popped out of my head like a little cartoon balloon—
44106818?
Make that two question marks and an exclamation point.

So, was this a standard eight-digit grid coordinate? A radio frequency? A disguised Dial-A-Joke? Drugs? Bugs? What?

There is a point in homicide investigations when you start to assemble more clues than you know what to do with. Clues are
like ingredients in a recipe with no instructions—if you put them together in the right way, you have dinner. If you don’t
know what to do with them, you’ll be in the kitchen a long time, confused and hungry.

Anyway, I held the chart book with my handkerchief and took it to the latent fingerprint lady. I asked her, “Could you do
a real thorough job on this book for me?” I smiled nicely.

She gave me a tough look, then took the book in her latex-gloved hand and examined it. “This map paper’s hard to do … but
the cover is good glossy stock…. I’ll do what I can.” She added, “Silver nitrate or ninhydrin. It’s got to be done in the
lab.”

“Thank you, professionally competent woman.”

She cracked a smile and asked, “Who has the most fingerprints? FBI, CIA, or EPA?”

“What’s EPA? You mean Environmental Protection Agency?”

“No. Elizabeth Penrose’s ass.” She laughed. “That’s going around headquarters. You haven’t heard that one?”

“Don’t think so.”

She put out her hand. “I’m Sally Hines.”

“I’m John Corey.” I shook her gloved hand and remarked, “I love the feel of latex against my bare skin. How about you?”

“No comment.” She paused, then asked, “Are you the NYPD guy working with county homicide on this thing?”

“Right.”

“Forget that crack about Penrose.”

“Sure will.” I asked her, “What are we seeing here, Sally?”

“Well, the house was cleaned recently so we have nice fresh surfaces. I’m not studying the prints closely, but I’m seeing
mostly the same two sets, probably the Mr. and Mrs. Only a few other sets now and then, and if you want my opinion, Detective,
the killer was wearing gloves. This was no druggie leaving perfect fives on the liquor cabinet.”

I nodded, then said, “Do the best job you can with that book.”

“I only do perfect work. How about you?” She found a plastic bag in her kit and slipped the chart book inside. She said, “I
need a set of elimination prints from you.”

“Try Elizabeth Penrose’s ass later.”

She laughed and said, “Just put your hands on this glass coffee table for me.”

I did as she asked, and inquired, “Did you take prints from the two guys with Chief Maxwell?”

“I was told that would be taken care of later.”

“Yeah. Look, Sally, a lot of people, like the guys in the kitchen, are going to flash a lot of big-time ID at you. You report
only to county homicide, preferably only to Penrose.”

“I hear you.” She looked around, then asked me, “Hey, what’s with the germs?”

“This has nothing to do with germs. The victims happened to work on Plum Island, but that’s only a coincidence.”

“Yeah, right.”

I retrieved the stack of computer printouts and walked toward the sliding glass door.

Sally called out, “I don’t like how this crime scene is being handled.”

I didn’t reply.

I walked down to the bay where a nice bench faced the water. I threw the purloined papers on the bench and stared out at the
bay.

It was breezy enough to keep the gnats and mosquitoes busy treading air and away from me. Little ripples rode the bay and
rocked the Gordons’ boat down at the dock. White clouds sailed past the big, bright moon, and the air smelled more of the
land than the sea as the light wind shifted around and blew from the north.