Two uniformed officers standing outside Caine’s door snapped to attention upon seeing George, who led me into the room where the flight attendant was on a couch in the sitting room portion of a small suite, a blanket covering her up to her neck. Seth Hazlitt, and another man I assumed was the British physician Mort had mentioned, hovered over her.
“How is she?” George asked.
The British doctor turned and frowned at this question from someone he didn’t know.
“He’s from Scotland Yard,” Seth said.
George spared Seth an explanation by introducing himself and me.
“She’ll be fine,” the British doctor said, returning his attention to Molnari.
Seth took George and me aside and whispered, “An overdose, although not much of one. Made her sick but wasn’t enough to kill her. The bottle’s over there on that table.”
“Seeking attention?” George asked.
“Possibly,” Seth replied, “but that doesn’t mean taking it less seriously.”
“Who reported it?” George asked.
“The fellow in the bedroom,” Seth said, “the airline pilot. This is his room.”
I moved away from them to gain a view of the bedroom where Captain Bill Caine sat in a flowered wing chair by the window, his attention directed outside. I returned to Seth and George.
“Did he say what prompted her to come here to his room and attempt to take her life?” I asked.
“He hasn’t said much since the doc over there and I arrived,” Seth said. “Those two officers out in the hallway were here before that.”
“She needn’t be taken to hospital?” George asked.
“Might not be a bad idea to have her spend a night there,” Seth offered, “and have a psychiatrist look in on her. Even if she was only calling out for attention, there’s got to be something pretty heavy weighing on her.”
“I think I’ll have a word with Captain Caine,” George said. “Jessica?”
I’d been looking around the room, my focus not on their conversation. “What?” I said. “Oh, yes, I’ll come with you.”
We entered the bedroom and George quietly closed the door behind us. Caine never looked up to acknowledge our presence. He continued to sit stoically, his eyes trained on something through the window—or perhaps on nothing.
“Excuse us,” George said. “I’m Inspector George Sutherland, and you know Mrs. Fletcher, I believe. We didn’t have the pleasure of meeting this morning at breakfast, although we did speak by phone earlier today.”
“Researching a plot for your next book?” Caine asked me.
George saved me from having to answer. “We’d arranged to meet tomorrow,” he told Caine, “but since we’re here, I wonder if I might have a word with you now.”
Caine, who wore a silky, dark blue warm-up suit with white stripes down the legs, and sneakers, shrugged. “Hell of a time for a talk, isn’t it?” he said. “Gina’s in there hanging on to life, and you want to talk.”
“According to the doctors with her,” George said, “she’ll be fine. However, if you prefer to wait until tomorrow to discuss Mr. Silverton’s murder, I’m willing to do that. But I do have a few immediate questions about this episode tonight. I understand it was you who called to report the young lady’s attempt to take her life.”
“That’s right. It’s a good thing I did or she might not have made it.”
“I don’t doubt that,” George said, not reiterating that whatever pills she’d taken would not have killed her. “This is your room, I believe.”
“That’s right.”
“What prompted her to come to your room intending to commit suicide?”
Caine managed a smile. He needed a shave, and his hair wasn’t as neatly combed as when he’d been in uniform and in command of our aircraft across the Atlantic.
“We’re crew,” Caine said. “Airline crews become close, like family. We’re always in and out of each other’s rooms.”
That was contrary to what Christine Silverton had told me not long ago. She’d said that in her early days as an airline stewardess—those days that were the basis for the mildly racy book, Coffee, Tea or Me?—there was a great deal of fraternizing between members of a flight crew. Christine had also said that the myriad changes in the airline industry had developed a wall between cockpit and cabin crews. Captains and first officers tended to avoid spending layover time with flight attendants, unless—unless there was a romantic interest between them, a relatively rare occurrence these days, according to her.
“How long had she been here with you before she took the pills?” I asked.
Caine fixed me in a stony stare and said, “I knew you were a novelist and private pilot, Mrs. Fletcher, but I didn’t know you were a cop, too.”
“Oh, I’m not,” I said, “but—”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable question,” George told Caine.
The pilot exhaled noisily, stood, and paced in front of the closed door. “Look,” he said, “I had no idea when Gina came here that she intended to pull some dumb trick like this. I took a shower, and when I came out she was there on the couch, a mess.”
“She seemed fine when she arrived?” George asked.
“Perfectly fine.”
“What happened to change things?” I asked, injecting as much concern as possible into my voice to take the edge off sounding like, well, a cop.
For a moment, it appeared that he wouldn’t answer me. But he sat in his chair again, shook his head, and gave forth a small smile. “We had an argument,” he said.
“About?” George asked with elevated eyebrows.
“It’s personal,” Caine said.
“Very well,” George said. “Tell me about the pills, Captain. You had them here, in your room?”
“No. She must have brought them with her.”
I believe George was thinking what I was thinking, that it would be highly unusual for a person contemplating suicide to bring her own pills to someone else’s room. People intent on taking their life generally prefer to do it alone.
George put that thought into words.
Another shrug from Caine. “How the hell am I supposed to answer that?” he growled. “It’s nuts enough trying to kill yourself. Why did she bring the pills here? I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Has she been depressed lately?” I asked after a lull in the conversation.
“She’s a woman,” Caine replied. “Always up and down, happy one minute, unhappy the next. I don’t think she was any more depressed than the average person, whatever that is.”
I held my tongue.
“Well,” George said, “I appreciate your time, Captain. I would like to have our talk tomorrow concerning the murder.”
“Sure. You’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything about Silverton being killed, but ask all the questions you want.”
“May I use your bathroom?” I asked.
“Help yourself.”
When I came out of the bathroom, George was ready to leave. He opened the door and we started into the sitting room. But he stopped, turned, and said, “I understand most commercial airline pilots carry a knife among their possessions.”
Caine cocked his head and frowned. “A knife?”
“Yes. I’m sure it comes in handy now and then. I carry one myself.” George reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small knife, its handle no longer than a few inches. He pulled the blade from the handle, the same length. He laughed and secured the blade in the handle again. “I believe the last time I used this was to sharpen the point on a pencil.”
Caine smiled. “Ah, yes, I see where this is going, Inspector. Do I carry a knife? Of course I do. But for your information, it wasn’t the one used to kill Silverton.”
“I didn’t suggest that it was,” George said.
I’d stepped back into the bedroom.
“You ever have anyone knifed to death in your novels, Mrs. Fletcher, or do you prefer less violent murders?”
Caine asked.
“Some of my characters have used knives,” I said. “It depends upon the circumstances, doesn’t it?”
The pilot went to the closet, opened the door, and pulled out a square black leather case on wheels. He pulled it to the chair, sat, sprung two metal latches on its top, and reached down inside. “Here’s my knife,” he said while still rummaging through the case, “and not a drop of blood on it.”
George and I waited for him to produce the weapon. His digging through the case’s contents became more hurried and intense. Finally, he withdrew his hand, looked at us, and said, “It’s not here.”
“Perhaps you forgot to pack it this trip,” George suggested.
“It’s not here,” Caine repeated. “And I did pack it. I know I did. It’s always in this case, has been for years. I can’t imagine what—”
“I’m sure there’s a good reason for it being missing,” George said. “We won’t take any more of your time, Captain. Until tomorrow.”
George shut the door behind us. Gina Molnari was now sitting up on the couch, the blanket covering her lap. “No, I’ll be fine,” she said to Seth and the British doctor. “It was a mistake, that’s all. I hadn’t been sleeping well and thought a couple of pills would help me. I must have taken too many.”
“Why here, in this room?” I whispered to George.
He said nothing.
“I still think it would be wise for you to check into a hospital overnight,” Seth said. The British physician nodded his agreement.
“No,” Gina said, standing. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get some sleep.”
“Can’t force her,” Seth said to me.
Seth and his British counterpart escorted her to her room, which was next door to Captain Caine’s.
“We might as well leave,” George said.
I agreed, and we started for the door. But I retraced my steps to the small table next to the couch on which the bottle of pills rested. I picked it up. It was a prescription for sleeping tablets. At least Gina hadn’t taken them with her, I thought, and joined George in the hallway where he’d dismissed the uniformed officers.
“Sorry our pleasant time together was interrupted,” he said as we entered an elevator.
“Life is unpredictable,” I said.
“Which can be good and bad,” he said.
We reached the lobby.
“Care to continue our quiet drink together?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, George. I’m suddenly exhausted, as though a plug has been opened on my energy tank. Why did you raise the question of the knife? I thought you’d decided to wait until tomorrow to mention the prints found on it.”
“Oh, I thought I’d give him something to think about tonight.”
“I’m sure he’ll give it plenty of thought. He said he’d taken a shower when Ms. Molnari took the pills. I don’t think he did. Every towel in his bathroom is bone dry.”
George smiled. “You should come to work for the Yard,” he said.
“Where do I apply?”
“I understand your fatigue, Jessica. I’ll leave you to enjoy a good night’s sleep.”
I looked past him to see Seth, the Metzgers, and the Shevlins come up a stairway and head in our direction. “Good night,” I said fondly to George.
George started for the main entrance, and I took a couple steps toward my friends. But I stopped and called after George, who came back to me.
“I should have mentioned,” I said, “that the sleeping pills Ms. Molnari took were a prescription.”
“Yes. I would think as much.”
“But the prescription wasn’t written for her. They were for Christine Silverton, Wayne Silverton’s wife.”
Chapter Eleven
Sleep?
As tired as I was, sleep was out of the question. I’d been embroiled in murders before. But as I got ready for bed and tried to fall asleep, my eyes remained wide-open, my mind in overdrive, my body rejecting my attempts to keep it in a prone position.
I finally gave up, slipped into my robe and slippers, and called room service: “A pot of tea, please, and a plate of cookies.” Everyone has their individual ways of coping with stress and brain overload. Mine is a cup of tea and cookies. Yes, cookies of any sort, chocolate, vanilla, crunchy, or soft. It doesn’t matter. Cookies soothe me. Fortunately for my waistline, the need for a cookie prescription doesn’t happen that often.
Those who know me are aware that besides finding an occasional batch of cookies to be calming, I’m also obsessive-compulsive about the power of writing things down to help clear the mind. I’m an inveterate list maker. Seeing things in black-and-white on a sheet of paper brings clarity to my thinking. And so I sat at the ornate desk and wrote down everything I could remember from the moment I arrived at Logan Airport in Boston, up through this moment in my suite. The list of thoughts and observations was long, and I tried to create a pattern into which various items could be placed, one possibly having something to do with another. I ended with a long series of questions to be answered; answer those questions and I’d conceivably know who’d murdered Wayne Silverton.
I pulled out the schedule for the rest of our time in London. There were a few planned activities that had to be signed up for, some of which had interested me earlier. But I decided not to tie myself down.
The flight back to Boston would leave Stansted at ten the next night. That gave me a full day and part of the evening to seek answers to those questions. In a sense, time would work in my favor. Unlike other murder investigations with which I’d become involved, albeit reluctantly, this one would find all the possible suspects still gathered together, in this instance in the confines of a modern jet airliner. Unless, of course, someone decided to bolt and not take the return flight. I considered that unlikely. Anyone who opted out of getting on the plane would immediately focus a spotlight on himself as the most likely of suspects. No, I was confident that everyone who’d flown with us to London would be on SilverAir’s 767 back to Boston.
Of course, the mood on the return flight was bound to be less festive than the atmosphere on the flight to London. George would be aboard asking questions and, unlike other venues in which suspects are grilled, while streaking through the dark sky at thirty-five thousand feet above the cold Atlantic, there would be nowhere to go to avoid having to answer.
At times like this I found myself wishing sleep wasn’t necessary. I felt the pressure of having less than twenty-four hours left in London and was eager to make optimum use of the time. But I also knew that if I didn’t get some sleep, the next day would be painful. I climbed into bed and tried to will myself to sleep. That didn’t work, of course, so I practiced some self-hypnosis techniques that Seth had taught me—eyes rolled up into their sockets, relaxing every part of my body, beginning with my toes and gradually working up to my head. It worked. I was asleep.
When I awoke, I was certain I’d slept for no more than an hour, but the clock said differently. I’d had five hours of solid rest, and I got out of bed feeling rejuvenated and ready to tackle the day. There was no formal breakfast gathering scheduled, which pleased me. I showered, dressed casually and comfortably, and headed downstairs for some breakfast. Seth, the Metzgers, and the Shevlins were already in the dining room.
“You look surprisingly chipper,” Seth said.
“I used your hypnosis tips, Seth. They worked.”
“Of course they did. I wouldn’t have bothered teaching them to you if they didn’t.”
“So, what’s new with the murder?” Maureen asked.
“Or the suicide,” Susan Shevlin added.
“Not much on either front,” I said. “I assume Seth has filled you in on what happened with Ms. Molnari.”
“Not much,” Maureen said, sounding unhappy about it.
“Doctor-patient privilege,” Seth said.
“Oh, come on, Doc,” Mort said, “you’re with friends. Besides, I’m a law enforcement officer.”
�
�I told you everything of importance,” Seth said as a waiter arrived and took our orders.
Seth had brought that morning’s edition of the paper with him to breakfast, and he unfolded it. “Well, now, look at this,” he said, pointing to an article below the fold on the front page.
The headline read: THE SOPRANOS INVADE LONDON.
“What’s it about?” Jim Shevlin asked.
Seth read the piece, his brow furrowed, an occasional grunt coming from him. Finished reading, he passed the paper to me.
“The plot thickens,” I said after reading it and handed the paper to Maureen.
The article reported how local police, in concert with Scotland Yard, had intercepted and detained two men at Heathrow Airport. According to the piece, an international all-points bulletin had been issued for these men, reputedly members of an organized crime family back in the United States. They were accused of being hit men for the mob, with a long string of alleged murders of other mob figures as part of their dossier. While this made for interesting reading, it was the final paragraph that really captured my attention:In a related matter, the two individuals who were taken into custody are also reputed to be involved with Salvatore Casale, a partner in the new airline SilverAir, which only recently made its inaugural flight to London. As reported in this paper, Mr. Casale’s partner and founder of the start-up airline, Wayne Silverton, was found brutally murdered in the cockpit of his 767 aircraft at Stansted Airport. Mr. Casale’s business base of operations is reported to be in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is involved in real estate transactions. The murder victim, Mr. Silverton, is reported to have been involved with Mr. Casale in many of these real estate deals. Scotland Yard, which is investigating the Silverton slaying, declined to comment on this ongoing case.
“I knew it the minute I met him,” Maureen said.
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That he was a mobster.”
Coffee, Tea, or Murder? Page 9