He said, “We’ve searched the entire house and turned up nothing unusual or significant, except that half the drawers were intact, some closets didn’t even look like they’d been searched, the books on the bookshelves weren’t pulled out. A very amateur job of pretending it was a burglary.”
I said, “It still could have been a junkie, strung out and not real focused.” I added, “Or maybe the perp was interrupted, or the perp was looking for one thing and found it.”
“Maybe,” Max agreed.
Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.
The striking thing about this double homicide, I thought, was still the outdoor shooting, the bang, bang, right on the deck without much preamble. There was nothing the killer needed or wanted from the Gordons, except that they be dead. So, yes, the killer either had what he wanted from inside the house, and/or the Gordons were carrying what the killer wanted, in plain view, i.e., the ice chest. It came back to the missing ice chest.
And the killer knew the Gordons and they knew him. I was convinced of that. Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Bang, bang. They fall, the ice chest falls … no, it’s got vials of deadly virus in it. Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Put that chest down. Bang, bang.They fall. The bullets sail through their skulls into the bay.
Also, he had to have a silencer. No pro would pop off two big boomers outdoors. And it was probably an automatic, because revolvers don’t adapt well to a silencer.
I asked Max, “Do the Murphys own a dog?”
“Nope.”
“Okay…. Did you find any money, wallets, or anything on the victims?”
“Yes. They each had matching sports wallets; each had their Plum Island ID, driver’s license, credit cards, and such. Tom had thirty-seven dollars in cash, Judy had fourteen.” He added, “Each had a photo of the other.”
It’s little things, sometimes, that bring it all home, that make it personal. Then you have to remember Rule One: don’t get emotionally involved—it doesn’t matter, Corey, if it’s a little kid who got greased, or a nice old lady, or pretty Judy who winked at you once, and Tom who wanted you to love the wines he loved and who cooked your steak just so. For the homicide dick, it does not matter who the victim is, it only matters who the killer is.
Max said, “I guess you figured out that we never found that ice chest. You’re sure about the chest?”
I nodded.
Mr. Foster gave me his considered opinion. “We think the Gordons were carrying the chest, and the killer or killers wanted what was inside, and what was inside was you-know-what.” He added, “I think the Gordons were selling the stuff and the deal went bad.”
I looked around at the meeting of the kitchen cabinet. It’s hard to read the faces of people whose job it is to read other people’s faces. Still, I had the feeling that George Foster’s statement represented the consensus.
So, if these people were right, that would presuppose two things—one, the Gordons were really stupid, never considering that anyone who would want enough virus and bacteria to kill a zillion people might not hesitate to kill them, and two, it presupposed the Gordons were totally indifferent to the consequences of their selling death for gold. What I knew for sure about Tom and Judy was that they were neither stupid, nor heartless.
I would also assume that the killer was not stupid, and I wondered if he knew or could tell if what was in the chest was the real thing. How could he possibly know? Hi Tom, Hi Judy. Got the virus? Good. Bang, bang.
Yes? No? I tried different scenarios with and without the ice chest, with and without the person or persons whom the Gordons must have known, and so forth. Also, how did this person or these people get to the Gordons’ house? Boat? Car? I asked Max, “Strange vehicles?”
Max replied, “There were no strange vehicles seen by anyone we’ve questioned. The Gordons’ two cars are both in their garage.” He added, “Forensics will take them to the lab tomorrow along with the boat.”
Ms. Penrose spoke to me directly for the first time and said, “It’s possible the killer or killers arrived by boat. That’s my theory.”
I said to her, “It’s also possible, Elizabeth, that the killer or killers arrived in one of the Gordons’ cars which the killer may have borrowed. I really think they knew each other.”
She stared at me, then said a bit curtly, “I think it was a boat, Detective Corey.”
“Maybe the killer walked here, or bicycled, or motorcycled.” I continued, “Maybe he swam here, or was dropped off. Maybe he windsurfed in or paraglided. Maybe the killers are Edgar Murphy and his wife.”
She stared hard at me, and I could tell she was pissed. I know that look. I was married.
Max interrupted our discussion and said, “And here’s something interesting, John—according to the security people on Plum, the Gordons signed out at noon, got into their boat, and headed out.”
You could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the silence.
Mr. Foster said to us, “One possibility that comes to mind is that the Gordons had secreted whatever it was they were selling somewhere in a cove or inlet on Plum, and they took their boat there and recovered the stuff. Or maybe they just walked out of the lab with that ice chest, put it aboard, and took off. In either case, they then met their customers out in the bay and transferred the chestful of vials at sea, so when they returned here, they didn’t have the chest, but they had the money. They ran into their killer here, and after he shot them, he took the money back.”
We all considered that scenario. Of course you have to wonder, if the transfer had taken place at sea, why wasn’t the murder also done at sea? When homicide guys talk about the perfect murder, they talk about murder on the high seas—little or no forensic evidence, usually no noise, no witnesses, and most times no body. And if it’s done right, it looks like an accident.
It stands to reason that pros who just copped a lethal bug are not going to draw attention to it by killing two Plum Island people on their back deck. Still, it was supposed to look like the Gordons surprised a burglar. But whoever staged that wasn’t very convincing. This whole thing looked amateurish, or maybe it was done by foreigners who didn’t watch enough American cop shows on TV. Or, something else.
And what about those five and a half hours between the time the Gordons left Plum Island at noon, and the time Mr. Murphy said he heard the Gordons’ boat at 5:30? Where were they?
Max said, “That’s about all we have at the moment, John. We’ll have the lab reports tomorrow, and there are people we have to speak to tomorrow. Can you suggest anyone we ought to see? Friends of the Gordons?”
“I don’t know who the Gordons were friends with, and to the best of my knowledge, they had no enemies.” I said to Mr. Nash, “Meanwhile, I want to speak to the people on Plum Island.”
Mr. Nash replied, “It may be possible for you to speak to some people who work on Plum Island.” He added, “But in the interest of national security, I must be present at all interviews.”
I replied in my best New York obnoxious tone, “This is a murder investigation, remember? Don’t pull that crap on me.”
It got a little frosty in the kitchen. I mean, I work with FBI and Drug Enforcement types now and then, and they’re okay people—they’re cops. However, these spooks, like Nash, are real pains in the ass. The guy wasn’t even saying if he was CIA, Defense Intelligence, Military Intelligence, or some other weird outfit. What I knew for sure was that he wasn’t from the Department of Agriculture.
Max, feeling I suppose like the host at this gathering of egos, said, “I don’t have any problem with Ted Nash being present at any interviews or interrogations.” He looked at Penrose.
My buddy Beth gave me a curt glance and said to Nash, the eye-fucker, “I have no problem with that either.”
George Foster pointed out, “Any meeting, interview, interrogation, or working session at which Ted is present, the FBI will also be present.”
I was really getting the crap kicked out of me, and I was wondering
if Max was going to pull the plug on me.
The reasonable Mr. Foster went on, “My area of concern is domestic terrorism. Ted Nash is concerned with international espionage.” He looked at me, Max, and Penrose, and said, “You are investigating a homicide under New York State law. If we all keep out of one another’s way, we’ll be fine. I won’t play homicide detective if you won’t play defenders of the free world. Fair? Logical? Workable? Absolutely.”
I looked at Nash and asked him bluntly, “Who do you work for?”
“I’m not at liberty to say at this time.” He added, “Not the Department of Agriculture.”
“Fooled me,” I said sarcastically. “You guys are sharp.”
Penrose suggested, “Detective Corey, can we have a word outside?”
I ignored her and pressed on with Mr. Nash. I needed to get seven points on the board, and I knew how to do it. I said to Nash, “We’d like to go to Plum Island tonight.”
He looked surprised. “Tonight? There aren’t any ferries running—”
“I don’t need a government ferry. We’ll take Max’s police boat.”
“Out of the question,” said Nash.
“Why?”
“The island is off-limits,” he said.
“This is a murder investigation,” I reminded him. “Didn’t we just agree that Chief Maxwell, Detective Penrose, and I are investigating a murder?”
“Not on Plum Island you’re not.”
“We sure are.” I love this stuff. I really do. I hoped Penrose was seeing what a putz this guy was.
Mr. Nash said, “There is no one on Plum now.”
I replied, “There are security people on Plum now, and I want to speak to them. Now.”
“In the morning and not on the island.”
“Now, and on the island, or I’ll get a judge out of bed and get a search warrant.”
Mr. Nash stared at me and said, “It is unlikely that a local judge would issue a search warrant for U.S. government property. You would need to involve an assistant United States attorney and a federal judge. I assume you know that if you’re a homicide detective, and what you may also know is that neither a U.S. attorney nor a federal judge will be enthusiastic about issuing such a warrant if it involves national security.” He added, “So don’t bluff and bluster.”
“How about if I threaten?”
Finally, Max had had enough of Mr. Nash, whose sheep’s clothing was slipping. Max said to Nash, “Plum Island may be federal land, but it’s part of the Township of Southold, the County of Suffolk, and the State of New York. I want you to get us authorization to go to the island tomorrow, or we’ll get a court order.”
Mr. Nash now tried to sound pleasant. “There’s really no need to go to the island, Chief.”
Detective Penrose found herself on my side, of course, and said to her new friend, “We have to insist, Ted.”
Ted? Wow, I really missed some stuff in the lousy hour I was late.
Ted and Beth looked at each other, tortured souls, torn between rivalry and ribaldry. Finally, Mr. Ted Nash, of the Bug Security Agency or whatever, said, “Well… I’ll make a call about that.”
“Tomorrow, A.M., ” I said. “No later.”
Mr. Foster didn’t let the opportunity pass to tweak Mr. Nash and said, “I think we’re all in agreement that we’re going out there tomorrow morning, Ted.”
Mr. Nash nodded. By now he’d stopped batting his eyelids at Beth Penrose and was concentrating his passions on me. He looked at me and said, “At some point, Detective Corey, if we determine that a federal crime has taken place, we probably won’t need your services any longer.”
I had reduced Teddy-boy to pettiness, and I knew when to leave well enough alone. I’d come back from a verbal drubbing, slain the slick Ted, and reclaimed the love of Lady Penrose. I’m terrific. I was really feeling better, feeling like my old unpleasant self again. Also, these characters needed a little fire under their asses. Rivalry is good. Competition is American. What if Dallas and New York were pals?
The other four characters were now making small talk, rummaging around the cardboard box and doing coffee stuff, trying to re-establish the amity and equilibrium that they’d established before Corey showed up. I got another beer from the fridge, then addressed Mr. Nash in a professional tone. I asked him, “What kind of bugs do they play around with on Plum? I mean, why would anyone, any foreign power, want bugs that cause hoof-and-mouth disease or Mad Cow Disease? Tell me, Mr. Nash, what I’m supposed to worry about so when I can’t get to sleep tonight, I have a name for it.”
Mr. Nash didn’t reply for a good while, then cleared his throat and said, “I suppose you should know how high the stakes are here….” He looked at me, Max, and Penrose, then said, “Regardless of your security clearance, or lack of, you are sworn police officers, so—”
I said amiably, “Nothing you say will leave this room.” Unless it suits me to blab it to someone else.
Nash and Foster looked at each other, and Foster nodded. Nash said to us, “You all know, or may have read, that the United States no longer engages in biological warfare research or development. We’ve signed a treaty to that effect.”
“That’s why I love this country, Mr. Nash. No bug bombs here.”
“Right. However … there are certain diseases that make the transition between legitimate biological study and potential biological weapons. Anthrax is one such disease. As you know”—he looked at Max, Penrose, and me—“there have always been rumors that Plum Island is not only an animal disease research facility, but something else.”
No one responded to that.
He continued, “In fact, it is not a biological warfare center. There is no such thing in the United States. However, I’d be less than truthful if I didn’t say that biological warfare specialists sometimes visit the island to be briefed and to read reports on some of these experiments. In other words, there is a crossover between animal and human disease, between offensive biological warfare and defensive biological warfare.”
Convenient crossovers, I thought.
Mr. Nash sipped his java, considered, then continued, “African swine fever, for instance, has been associated with HIV. We study African swine fever on Plum, and the news media makes up this junk about … whatever. Same with Rift Valley fever, the Hanta virus, and other retroviruses, and the filoviruses such as Ebola Zaire and Ebola Marburg….”
The kitchen was really quiet, like everyone knew this was the scariest topic in the universe. I mean, when it was nuclear weapons, people were either fatalistic or never believed it was going to happen. With biological warfare or biological terrorism, it was imaginable. And if the right plague got loose, it was lights out world, and not in a quick incandescent flash, but slowly, as it spread from the sick to the healthy, and the dead lay rotting where they fell, a Grade B movie coming to your neighborhood soon.
Mr. Nash continued in that sort of half-reluctant, half-hey-look-what-I-know-that-you-don’t kind of voice. He said, “So … these diseases can and do infect animals, and therefore their legitimate study would fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture … The department is trying to find a cure for these diseases, to protect American livestock and by extension to protect the American public, because even though there is usually a species barrier in regard to animal diseases infecting humans, we’re discovering that some of these diseases can jump species…. With the recent Mad Cow Disease in Britain, for instance, there is some evidence that people were infected by this disease….”
Maybe my ex-wife was right about meat. I tried to picture a life of soybean cheeseburgers, chile no carne, and hot dogs made out of seaweed. I’d rather die. All of a sudden I felt love and warmth for the Department of Agriculture.
I realized, too, that what Mr. Nash was putting out was the official crap—stuff about animal diseases crossing species barriers and all that. In fact, if the rumors were correct, Plum Island was also a place where human infectious diseases were
specifically and purposely studied as part of a biological warfare program that no longer officially existed. On the other hand, maybe it was rumor, and maybe, too, what they were doing on Plum Island was defensive and not offensive.
It struck me that there was a very thin line between all of this stuff. Bugs are bugs. They don’t know cows from pigs from people. They don’t know defensive research from offensive research. They don’t know preventive vaccines from air-burst bombs. Hell, they don’t even know if they’re good or bad. And if I listened to Nash’s crap long enough, I would start to believe that Plum Island was developing exciting new yogurt cultures.
Mr. Nash was staring into his Styrofoam coffee cup as if realizing that the coffee and the water could have already been infected with Mad Cow Disease. Mr. Nash continued, “The problem is, of course, that these bacteria and virus cultures can be … I mean, if someone got his hands on these micro-organisms, and has the knowledge to propagate more from the samples, then, well, you’d have a great deal of it reproducing, and if it got into the population somehow … then you may have a potential public health problem.”
I asked, “You mean like an end-of-the-world plague with the dead piling up in the streets?”
“Yes, that kind of public health problem.”
Silence.
“So,” Mr. Nash said in a grave tone, “while we are all anxious to discover the identity of the murderer or murderers of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, we’re more anxious to discover if the Gordons took something off that island and transferred it to an unauthorized person or persons.”
No one spoke for a time, then Beth asked, “Can you … can anyone on the island determine if anything is actually missing from the laboratories?”
Ted Nash looked at Beth Penrose the way a professor looks at a favorite student who has asked a brilliant question. Actually, it wasn’t that good a question—but anything to get those panties off, right, Ted?