Rest for the Wicked

by Ellen Hart

  “I know. I just got busted. The super told me to get rid of the dog today—or else. He told me to take it to the humane society and have it put down. I’ll never do that. Never. I thought … maybe you’d keep her until I can find her a good home. Unless you know someone who’d take her.”

  Avi shook her head. “Nobody.”

  “The super will never know she’s moved in here. Just put her inside your coat when she needs to go out.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Georgia. “That’s a whole lot to ask. I mean, how many times a day do you have to take her outside?”

  “A few. She’s completely house trained. She scratches at the door when she needs to go out.”

  By the pained look in his eyes, Avi could tell that giving up the dog was hard for him.

  “I’ll keep her. Just until we can find her a home.”

  Georgia was about to object when Avi said, “I’d think you’d understand what it’s like to be in a fix and need a place to stay.” That shut her up.

  “What’s her name?” asked Avi, lifting her off Dorsey’s lap.

  “Gimlet.” Glancing up at Georgia, he said, “Well, I am a bartender, after all.”

  “I like it,” said Avi. “Gimlet, welcome to my home.”

  “I’ll run back and get her food, her toys, her bed and blanket.”

  “You cut quite the father figure,” said Georgia, biting the nail on her pinky.

  “Bag it,” said Dorsey. “Avi, you’re a saint.”

  “So I’m told,” she said, holding the dog up and kissing her muzzle.

  When she’d signed up for sainthood, she hadn’t realized that it came with such a heavy price. Always wanting to be Joan of Arc was another reason her life was such a disaster.

  30

  When Emmett entered the AirNorth offices on Saturday afternoon, he’d expected his supervisor and friend, Jerry Kingston, to be in the room when he talked to the senior management honcho from Detroit. He trusted Jerry and hoped he’d be an advocate for his many years as an airline pilot. Instead, he was ushered into a meeting room with only one man present. The man rose stiffly, introduced himself as Dan Coulter, shook Emmett’s hand, and then nodded to a chair on the other side of the table. His cold manner immediately put Emmett off.

  You can do it, Emmett told himself. You have to. This is your one shot at redemption—at meeting a challenge head-on, not cowering or selling your soul just to be one of the guys. This time you can’t just drift with the herd because it’s easier. The herd was wrong then and it’s wrong now. For once in your life, you have to stand up for what you believe is right.

  Coulter adjusted his glasses before removing a copy of Emmett’s report from the file folder in front of him. Sliding it across the table, he said, “Is this the report you submitted?”

  Emmett glanced at it. Nodded. He’d brought a stack of supporting materials with him, data he’d been unable to submit with the official report but something he wanted this man—and all of senior management—to see.

  “I wonder if you could summarize your report for me, just so that we’re both on the same page. I don’t need all the details, just the … relevant information.”

  Emmett straightened his tie. Cleared his throat. “I was piloting flight 2091 from LAX to MSP last Monday night. We were about three hundred miles out when an unidentified aircraft came straight at us out of a thick bank of clouds. I was able to make an evasive maneuver, an emergency descent to avoid a collision. After regaining control of the aircraft, the UAF—unidentified aerial phenomenon—reappeared in front of us at approximately eleven o’clock and stayed there for the next few minutes. I got a good look at it during that time. So did my first officer. I asked my FO to radio the control tower at MSP and see if they could identify the craft on radar. Unfortunately, our radio had gone dead—as had much of our instrumentation.”

  “Describe this so-called UAF.”

  “It was huge, the size of a football field in length, triangular, with red lights at each of the three tips, and underneath, a white light directly in the center of the craft. All of these lights were pulsing. About a hundred miles from the airport, the craft pulled away from us and accelerated. It was gone in an instant.”

  “You say your first officer saw this, too?”

  “There’s no way he could have missed it.”

  “Passengers?”

  “I doubt it. It was out ahead of us. I don’t think passengers would have had the correct angle.”

  “And what do you think this so-called craft was?”

  Coulter couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t believe the report.

  “Do you want me to say it was a hallucination?”

  “Do you think it was?”

  “Can two men hallucinate the same thing?”

  Making a bridge out of his fingers, Coulter leaned back. “I had your first officer in here earlier today. He said he didn’t see anything. He thought you might have had a little too much to drink, which was why you put the plane into an unexpected dive.”

  With as much gravity as he could muster, Emmett said, “I have never flown a plane drunk in my life. Never.”

  “That term can mean many things to many people.”

  “I had not been drinking before the flight. What I’m telling you is the truth.”

  “So your senior officer is lying.”

  Emmett wasn’t given to making brash statements, but Coulter had left no choice. “Yes.”

  Tapping two fingers together, Coulter gave himself a couple of seconds. “Okay,” he said. “We’d like you to talk to one of our psychologists.”

  “You think I’m crazy. Or that I’m making it up.”

  “Those thoughts had occurred to us.”

  “Because UFOs don’t exist.”

  “Oh, I think they exist—in people’s imagination. The plane lost altitude unexpectedly, that much we know. You simply picked an illogical way to cover it up.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “I’m afraid that we’re looking at possible termination, Mr. Washington, if you won’t agree to see one of our doctors.”

  “Before I submit to this witch hunt, I want to make a couple of statements.”

  Coulter made a go-ahead gesture with his hand.

  “First of all, airlines and the FAA need to stop covering up incidents like this, stop sweeping them under the rug and then blacklisting the pilots who have the guts to tell the truth. We almost collided with that aircraft, Mr. Coulter. We managed to avert a disaster, but it was close. Someday there will be a huge, catastrophic collision that nobody can deny. This is a safety issue.”

  Tapping his fingers on the table, Coulter said, “Do you have a second point?”

  “I want you to include this in my file.” He shoved across a fairly thick report.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a PDF of a paper written in 2001. ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.’”

  “Forgive my bluntness, but I don’t know why we should be interested in some crackpot’s ideas about flying saucers. I can see that you believe in what you’re saying, but belief isn’t proof.”

  “This is a catalog of military, airline, and private pilot sightings compiled by the French NARCAP international technical adviser, Dominique Weinstein. He’s not a crackpot. He believes, as I do, that a culture of airline bias causes pilots to underreport safety-related encounters with UAPs. I’m talking about near misses, like we had, disrupted avionics, close pacing by unidentified aircrafts, even collisions. You people have to start taking this seriously.”

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Washington—”

  “Look,” said Emmett. He pulled out another page. “I could have been sitting on your side of the table last week, just like you, mocking me for what I’m saying. Or pitying me because I’d gone off my rocker. UFO believers are all freaks. Nutcases. But all that changed when I witnessed an unknown object nearly collide with my aircraft.”

  “As I said, I understand that.”


  “Just listen a minute. You have to hear this. ‘All Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin—flying saucers, or UFOs if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence.’ That was reported by Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA communications systems. Is he crazy?”

  “You made that up.”

  “Check it out for yourself. I hope you do. Now this: ‘At no time when the astronauts were in space were they alone. There was a constant surveillance by UFOs.’ That was NASA astronaut Scott Carpenter,” said Emmett. “Wouldn’t he be in a position to know? Why would he lie?

  “And another. ‘Unknown objects are operating under intelligent control … It is imperative that we learn where UFOs come from and what their purpose is. I can tell you, behind the scenes, high-ranking military officers are deeply concerned about UFOs.’ That was Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, former director of the CIA.

  “And finally: ‘Extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon. The Vatican is receiving much information about extraterrestrials … from nuncios in various countries such as Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela.’ The man who said that was a Vatican theologian, Monsignor Corrado Balducci. The pope ordered him to establish a commission on the subject because he believes it’s something the Catholic church is going to have to address in the near future. If the pope thinks these sightings have some validity—”

  “I’m not a religious man,” said Coulter. “What the pope thinks or doesn’t think has no bearing on my life.”

  “I have other quotes, too. Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan. Mikhail Gorbachev. Barry Goldwater. Senior military officials in France, England, Iran, Chile. The prime minister of Japan. Men on our National Security Council. Why do American citizens always start snickering like teenagers when you bring up the subject of UFOs?”

  “Of course, this is all very interesting,” said Coulter, pushing away from the table. “However, the reason I’m here is to tell you that the board has already made its decision.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me.”

  “You have two choices. Your supervisor will make an appointment for you with one of our staff psychologists. After we have a chance to talk with him, we’ll make our final decision. In the meantime, you will be assigned to a desk.”

  “Or?”

  “Or, you and AirNorth part company.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Nothing I’ve said makes any difference.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  On the way to the door, Emmett dropped the page of quotes in front of him. “Will you pass this on to the board of directors?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  Like hell, thought Emmett. This meeting was for one purpose only—to get the ball rolling toward his eventual termination. He couldn’t say it was a surprise, and yet now that it was over, the unfairness of it made him feel like putting his fist through a wall.

  31

  Jane woke in the late afternoon to the sound of Mouse’s barking. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she sat up, noticing that the light outside was beginning to fade. Between the ringing doorbell and the pounding, Jane was fairly sure she knew who was outside.

  “Just a minute,” she called, pushing aside the quilt and swinging her legs off the couch. “Good boy,” she said, giving Mouse a quick back rub.

  “I left you about six billion messages,” said Cordelia, steaming into the front foyer. She handed Jane the mail she’d obviously pulled out of Jane’s mailbox, then removed her leather gloves and slapped them into her hand. “I called your restaurants. They hadn’t seen you. I called your brother. As usual, he wasn’t home. I finally phoned your dad.”

  “Come in,” said Jane.

  “Don’t change the subject.” She marched into the living room and stood over the couch, glaring at the pillow and the quilt. “You’ve been sleeping. I woke you.” Clasping Jane in a nearly bone-crushing bear hug, she said, “Your dad told me about the arrest. I know all. Understand all. I’m here for you, Janey. Whatever you need.”

  “If you understand all, maybe you can explain it to me.”

  After one final squeeze, Cordelia backed up and sat down. “You’ll never guess what I heard on the radio as I was driving over.”

  “Don’t make me guess,” said Jane. Lowering herself onto the rocking chair by the fireplace, she ran her hands through her long, disordered hair, feeling a headache coming on.

  Cordelia looked as if she were about to burst. “There’s been another murder at GaudyLights. Well, not at GaudyLights, per se, but connected.”

  “Who?”

  “Vince Bessetti.”

  Jane got up to turn on a lamp. She was still groggy and needed a moment to make what Cordelia had just said real in her mind. She also wanted to be able to see Cordelia, wreathed as she was in turquoise jewelry and a heavy dose of turquoise eye shadow. “How did it happen?” she asked, resuming her chair.

  “All they said on the radio was that he was outside by his grill when the shooting occurred. His wife was inside the house and heard the gunshot. By the time she came outside, he was dead.”

  Jane remembered the Greek word she’d seen on his desk last night. “It was Sabrina. It had to be.”

  “That’s my guess. You’re likely one of her victims, too, because you’re getting too close.”

  Jane tried to push away the crushed feeling in her stomach. “In what universe am I getting too close? Certainly not in this one. I have no idea who she is.”

  “You must know more than you realize.”

  Jane looked down at the pile of mail in her lap.

  “Let’s regroup,” said Cordelia. “Jeez, I should have brought my bulletin board.”

  “I think we can regroup without it.”

  “Sure. We’re all professionals here. Now. Here’s what I was thinking on the way over.” She counted the points on her fingers. “DeAndre Moore came to Minneapolis to find his sister—and to get an answer to an important question, whatever that means. He found her working at GaudyLights. Her real name is Sabrina. She admitted to him that she’d murdered a man, most likely Burt Tatum, in St. Louis, and that she wasn’t done. The murders may have something to do with her childhood. DeAndre was knifed by Elvio Ramos. We’re not sure why, though he’s admitted to the crime and is in jail. The day after DeAndre died, we think, his sister cornered Royal Rudmann in a motel room in Brooklyn Center and shot him to death. Vince Bessetti is her third victim. Will there be others?”

  “Oh, God,” said Jane, looking everywhere but at Cordelia. “What if nobody can stop her? What if she keeps killing?”

  “Maybe Bessetti’s death is the end of it. Let’s hope so. Now, we have one significant clue—a thin piece of copper with the Greek word for moral impurity stamped into it. Something she leaves behind at the scene of the crime. Her calling card. I’ve been giving this some serious thought.” She folded her arms protectively over her stomach. “What if she was gang-raped?”

  If Jane had to guess, she’d bet it was something like that, too.

  “We already know she plays nasty, which means she’s probably the one who planted the coke in your car as a way to get you to back off.”

  “You might be right.”

  “No maybe about it.”

  Jane had taken off her watch before she showered and had forgotten to put it back on. “What time is it?”

  “Quarter after five.”

  “We missed the local news.”

  “I called Bolger and told him to DVR the news at five and six.”

  “Good woman.” Flipping through her mail, Jane found a letter from the Restaurant Group, Barry Tune’s company. “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  Removing several sheets of paper, Jane read through them quickly. “It’s the job application Shanice Williams filled o
ut last fall when she applied to work at the Xanadu. I asked for it to be faxed to me. Barry’s secretary must have dropped it in the mail instead. Says here she’s thirty-eight.”

  “You think she might be—”

  “It’s possible.” Jane had figured that Shanice’s thinly veiled animosity toward her was all about being fired. Now she was wondering if it wasn’t something else.

  Eying Jane curiously, Cordelia barked, “What?”

  “What what?”

  “You’re acting all antsy. Do you need to be somewhere and don’t have the guts to tell me to shove off simply because I spent my perfectly good afternoon trying to track you down and then came over here with nothing but love and concern in my heart?”

  “I need to make a phone call.”

  “To whom, may I ask?”

  “Avi.”

  “Ah.”

  “I need to see if she’s working tonight.”

  “You’re not going back to that hellhole, Janey. Your father would have me drawn and quartered if I let you get anywhere near that place.”

  “Avi left early last night because she got sick. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Good. Because you’re coming with me tonight.”

  “I am?”

  “My real estate agent was finally able to contact the owner of the old Criterion Opera House. We’re being given an official tour. I want you there to protect me.”

  “From your sister?”

  “From myself.”

  “What time?”

  “Nine. On the dot.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  When Jane got off the elevator on Five West shortly after six, she immediately spied Nolan’s favorite nurse, Carla Stanhope, standing in the nurse’s station. Jane approached and waited until Carla was done on the phone, then asked, “How’s he doing tonight?”

  Carla’s serious expression didn’t alter. “Not much change.”

  “When was his last pain med?”

  “About an hour ago. He’s probably asleep. You know, Jane, he called you his daughter this afternoon. I thought—”