Night Fall

by Nelson DeMille

  “I see . . . well, we did the best we could. They weren’t easy to deal with. No offense.”

  “No offense taken. So, they sort of took over the place.”

  “They did.”

  “Did they, for instance, ask you to kick out the news media who were staying here?”

  “Yes, now that you mention it, they did.” He added with a smile, “I don’t know who were worse guests—the FBI or the news media. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Mr. Rosenthal said to me, “The reporters made a big fuss, but since it was a matter of national security, they had to leave.”

  “Absolutely. Do you think you could retrieve the names of the FBI agents who stayed here from July 1996 to, let’s say, October?”

  “I don’t think so. An FBI person came in at the end and purged the computer. National security. That’s why I like paper records.”

  “Me, too.” That brick wall kept smashing me in the face. But I had discovered some interesting and strange occurrences that neither Kate, nor Dick Kearns, nor Marie Gubitosi had mentioned to me. Probably because they didn’t know. Well, at least Dick and Marie wouldn’t know about people, files, and computer data disappearing. But Ms. Mayfield might have known. In fact, she may have stayed here.

  I said to Mr. Rosenthal, “Let’s see Room 203.”

  He looked at me and asked, “Why? It’s been five years.”

  “Rooms speak to me.”

  He gave me a funny look, which was understandable after a statement like that. I think he was getting a little suspicious, and he said, “There may be guests in that room.” He added, hesitantly, “Would you mind telling me again the purpose of your visit?”

  When I work with a partner, I usually play bad cop, but when I work alone, I have to play both good cop and bad cop, which is sometimes confusing to the person I’m speaking to. I said to him, “The purpose of my visit is not the legal status of your employees. But it could become that. Meanwhile, this is my investigation, Mr. Rosenthal, not yours. Take me to Room 203.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  We stopped at the front desk, and Mr. Rosenthal asked Peter, “Is anyone checked into Room 203?”

  Peter played with his computer and said, “Yes, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz, two-night stay, arrived—”

  I cut him off and said, “See if they’re in.”

  “Yes, sir.” He dialed the room and someone answered.

  He looked at me, and I said, “Tell them to get out of the room. Tell them there’s a snake loose or something. They can return in twenty minutes.”

  Peter cleared his throat and said into the phone, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Schultz, you and Mr. Schultz will have to leave the room now for twenty minutes . . . there’s . . . an electrical problem. Yes. Thank you.”

  Mr. Rosenthal did not look happy with me, but he said to Peter, “Give Mr. Corey a key to Room 203.”

  Peter opened a drawer and produced a metal key, which he handed to me.

  Mr. Rosenthal said to me, “I assume you don’t need me. I’ll be in my office, if you require anything further.”

  I didn’t want this guy out of my sight and thinking about making a phone call to the FBI, so I said, “I’d like you to come along. Lead the way.”

  A little reluctantly, he led the way out the lobby door, then down a landscaped path to the Moneybogue Bay Pavilion.

  It was, as I said, a long, two-story structure without any particular charm, though the roof had a cupola stuck on it with a wind vane that told me the breeze was blowing from the bay.

  We climbed an exterior staircase to the second level and walked along the terrace, which was covered by a roof eave and was in shadow at this hour. An elderly couple was quickly evacuating a room, and I guessed that was Room 203 with the electrical snake.

  They fled past us, and I opened the door with the key and entered the room.

  The Schultzes were tidy people, and it looked like no one had been staying there.

  It was a good-sized room decorated in the crisp Martha Stewart style, which predominates out here.

  I checked out the bathroom, which had a stall shower big enough to hold two comfortably, or four close friends.

  I went back to the sitting room and looked at the wall unit, which held a television, and shelves on which were bar glasses, napkins, stirrers, and a corkscrew. Below was the cabinet for the mini-bar.

  I knew that the FBI had dusted this entire room, floor to ceiling, and vacuumed the rug, chairs, and bed. But Roxanne Scarangello had beat them to it, and assuming she did a good job, there probably wouldn’t be a stray print, fiber, or hair in the place, and no DNA-loaded condom floating in the toilet bowl. But you never know.

  I went back to the wall unit. The television set was on a swivel, and I turned it, exposing the rear of the set where there were jacks for audio and video, plus the cable hookup.

  If I let myself speculate beyond what I knew for sure, then I could imagine Don Juan and his lady rushing back to this room after their tryst on the beach.

  Possibly, during the ride back from the beach, whoever was not driving looked in the video viewfinder to see if they’d recorded what they’d seen happening in the sky. Assuming they saw this explosion in their viewfinder, they’d want to see it more clearly on the TV screen, to be certain.

  So, they plugged the AC power adaptor into the video camera, then into a wall outlet—which I saw to the right of the wall unit—then they took a long lead cable and connected the video camera to the television jacks, hit Play, and watched and listened to what they’d recorded on the beach.

  They would have the AC adaptor and the lead cable with them, assuming their original intention was to come back to this hotel room to play their naughty beach-blanket tape on the television while they had a few drinks and got all steamed up again.

  There was, of course, a possibility that this couple was not actually having sex on the beach—they had just wanted to take videos of the sunset to create a romantic mood for later, and they’d inadvertently filmed TWA 800’s final moments.

  It really didn’t matter what was in the foreground—them screwing, or them holding hands—what mattered was what was in the background.

  In any case, they were not married to each other, or that videotape would have been turned over to the FBI.

  Instead, they beat feet out of Westhampton so fast they left evidence on the beach, and a five-hundred-dollar deposit at the Bayview Hotel.

  The big question was, Did they destroy the videotape?

  I would. And then again, I wouldn’t. Once destroyed, it could never be retrieved, and people don’t often take that irretrievable step—they tend to hide evidence, as I can attest to. I know at least ten people in jail who wouldn’t be there if they’d destroyed, instead of hidden, evidence of their crime. The narcissistic personality does stupid things.

  Mr. Rosenthal stood silently, perhaps waiting for the room to speak to me, and I thought about cupping my hand to my ear, but he’d been cooperative until the last ten minutes or so, and I saw no reason to upset him any further.

  I asked him, “Was the key left in this room?”

  “Yes. I recall that because the FBI kept the key to try to get prints from it, or from the plastic tag. But Roxanne had handled it when she found it in the room, then it was handled by Christopher, and perhaps others. Still, they took it and gave me a receipt for it.”

  “Do you have the receipt?”

  “No. They returned the key a few days later, and I gave them their receipt.”

  “Okay.” I asked him to spell for me the name Roxanne Scarangello. He did, and he was fairly sure of the spelling. He obviously liked her. I asked, “How old was she?”

  “About twenty-one, twenty-two.”

  “Would you remember her birthday?”

  “Uh . . . I think it was June. Can’t remember the date, but I recall the staff had a little party for her in the cocktail lounge every June. Popular girl.”

  “Right.
And Brock is B-R-O-C-K?”

  “Yes.”

  “He use any other names?”

  “Not that I know of.” He said, “Excuse me, isn’t all this in your files?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to find the files for you. Remember?”

  “Oh, right. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I took a last look around, then walked back out to the terrace. Mr. Rosenthal followed.

  While standing somewhere along this terrace five years ago, Lucita saw this couple, with the guy carrying a hotel blanket, coming out of this room—just as I saw the Schultzes making a hasty exit. It didn’t matter if she recognized Don Juan from the sketch, or that she didn’t see the lady that well—it only mattered that she had seen them coming from Room 203 and that there had definitely been a lady and a blanket.

  I could see the parking lot about fifty yards away, and Lucita would have a clear view of this couple getting into their vehicle—a tan hatchback.

  I decided to leave Mr. Rosenthal with a positive and happy memory of my visit, and I said nicely, “I’m done here. Thank you for your cooperation, and I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time.”

  He replied, “I was happy to be of help again,” then added, “you won’t forget to send me copies of my missing files.”

  “I’ll get right on it. Meanwhile, please don’t mention this visit to anyone.”

  He asked me, “Are you any closer to finding out what happened to that plane?”

  “We know what happened to it. It was an accidental explosion of the fuel tank.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Yes, it was. The case is closed, Mr. Rosenthal. My visit here was to check on the procedures and reports of the agents who worked here. File reconciliation.”

  “If you say so.”

  He was getting a little testy, so I reminded him, “You need to make photocopies of green cards and get Social Security numbers on all your employees.”

  He didn’t reply.

  I handed him the key to Room 203 and said, “I like your tie.”

  I left Mr. Rosenthal standing on the terrace, descended the stairs, and walked to my Jeep in the guest registration parking.

  I started the engine and drove south toward the bay. I crossed the small bridge and turned onto Dune Road. Within ten minutes, I entered the parking lot of Cupsogue Beach County Park. There was a park person at a small booth, and I flashed my creds and said, “I need to drive on the nature trail.”

  “That’s not allowed.”

  “Thank you.”

  I drove through the parking lot, which was nearly full at this hour on a bright, sunny day. I put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and turned into the nature trail. People were walking on the trail, communing with nature, but they helpfully jumped to the side to let my Jeep through.

  The trail narrowed, and I turned off between two sand dunes, where Don Juan and his lady had driven down to the beach five years ago.

  I stopped about where Kate and I had stopped two nights before, and I got out of the Jeep. Total elapsed time from the Bayview Hotel to here was just under twenty minutes. That would place Don Juan and his lady here about 7:20 P.M., if Lucita’s time of seeing them was correct.

  Then they found a secluded spot between the dunes, laid out the blanket and ice chest, set up the video camera—or at least took the lens cap off—opened the wine, and so forth, which would bring it to about 7:45 P.M.

  Then, a little wine, a little of this and that on the blanket, and then a stroll down to the beach, clothed or naked.

  I took off my docksiders and walked across the beach where about a hundred people were lying on blankets, walking, jogging, playing Frisbee, and swimming in the gentle surf.

  I wondered if Don Juan and his lady would have gone down to the beach naked, even at night. Maybe. People having affairs are by nature reckless. I stopped at the water’s edge and looked back toward the sand dune.

  Assuming they went down to the beach, they might have wanted to record that romantic sunset moment, which meant the video camera would be pointing to where TWA 800 exploded.

  I stood watching the ocean and thought about all this.

  I turned on my cell phone and waited for a message beep, but there was none. There are not too many people who have my cell phone number, and I’m not very popular with the people who do. But usually I get two or three calls a day.

  I turned on my beeper. Many people have my beeper number, including informants, suspects, witnesses, colleagues, and my apartment house staff, just to name about a hundred. But there was no beep.

  This silence was either meaningless or it was portentous. In my experience, silence usually meant nothing, except for the times when it was ominous. Enough Zen for one day.

  I considered taking a chance and calling Kate’s cell phone, but I knew, firsthand, that too many men on the run had been tripped up by trying to contact a woman. I shut off the phone and beeper.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 4 P.M., and people were starting to straggle in from the beach.

  I began the trek back to my vehicle, thinking about my visit to the Bayview Hotel. I was sure I had done everything I needed to do there, but there’s always that nagging doubt that something was missed, some question wasn’t asked, some clue was overlooked.

  In fact, I knew I had missed something—something had popped in and out of my head before it registered.

  Time gaps are always important because things happen during those times. Four-thirty check-in, 7 P.M. to the beach. That’s two and a half hours for Don Juan and his lady in the room, or out of the room.

  If they were in the room, they may have had sex, but they didn’t record it because the video camera was in their vehicle. Then they went to the beach with the hotel blanket, presumably to have sex again, and to record it. What a guy. Then they intended to go back to their room with their X-rated video and have sex yet again with the video playing. Superman.

  Didn’t make sense. Therefore, they may not have had sex when they first checked in at 4:30. So, what did they do in those two and a half hours? They talked. They napped. They watched TV or they read. Or they left the room and did something that might have left a paper trail.

  But that was five years ago. Not only was the trail cold, but Ted Nash and Liam Griffith had obviously obliterated the footprints.

  This one was going to be a challenge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I got back to my apartment a little after 7 P.M., and Kate was in the kitchen wearing a tiny teddy while cooking my favorite meal of steak, real French fries, and garlic bread. My clothes, which I’d left on the living room floor, were put away, and there was a Budweiser waiting for me in an ice bucket.

  None of that is true, of course, except my arrival time and Kate being home. She was sitting in an armchair reading the Times.

  I said, “Hello.”

  She looked up at me and said, “Hello.”

  I threw my blazer on the couch, indicating I was staying, and asked, “So, how was your day?”

  “Fine.” She went back to her newspaper.

  I said, “I went to the doctor today. I have less than a month to live.”

  “Starting when?”

  “About noon.”

  “I’ll calendar it.”

  “Okay, let me say this—I won’t apologize for my behavior last night—”

  “You’d better.”

  “Okay, I apologize. But you have to apologize for lying to me.”

  “I did. About three times.”

  “I accept your apology. I understand why you did that. I also think this was a positive experience for us, a growing and affirming event, and a liberating episode in our relationship.”

  “You’re a total jerk.”

  “What’s your point?”

  She said, “Let’s just drop it.”

  “Okay. But I want you to know that I love you—that’s why I get upset about you and Ted Nash.”

  “John,
I think you hate Ted Nash more than you love me.”

  “That’s not true. Anyway, what’s new in the world of terrorism?”

  “Not much. What did you do today?”

  “I took a ride out east.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I said, “I wasn’t followed, and I left my cell phone and beeper off so I couldn’t be tracked, so that’s why you couldn’t reach me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to reach you. But I have a message for you.”

  “From who?”

  “From Captain Stein. He wants to see you at nine A.M. tomorrow in his office.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No.”

  Captain Stein, as I mentioned, is the senior NYPD guy on the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force. His command responsibility includes all the active-duty cops, while Jack Koenig, the FBI guy who runs the whole show, is responsible for the FBI agents, such as Kate. As a contract agent, I’m in a gray area, and sometimes I report to Stein, and sometimes to Koenig, and sometimes to both. I’m happiest when I don’t have to see either. I asked Kate, “Why is Stein sending me a message through my wife?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he tried to call you.”

  “He could e-mail me, fax me at home, or leave a message on my answering machine or my cell phone. Plus, I have a beeper.”

  “Well, maybe because your cell phone and beeper were turned off is why he wants to see you. As you may recall, it’s against department regulations to have both devices turned off at the same time.”

  “I do recall that. But I don’t think that’s why he wants to see me.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Do you think he’s on to me?”

  “They are on to us,” Kate replied. “Jack wants to see me tomorrow at nine A.M.”

  I didn’t want to overreact to this news, but it was not a coincidence that Kate and I were being called into the two bosses’ offices at the same time. I asked, “What’s for dinner?”

  “Bread and water. Get used to it.”

  “I’ll take you out to dinner.”

  “I’m too upset to eat.”

  “Maybe we should call out for dinner,” I suggested. “Chinese? Pizza?”