Almost an hour later, Alan emerged from Henderson’s bedroom carrying three large coffee cans. “Check this out,” he said to his friend. Chet was sitting on the floor in front of the bookcase. He had a small book open on his lap and a large one lying next to him on the floor with newspaper clippings hanging out of it.
“What did you find?” Chet asked as he looked up from the books.
“Money.” Alan sat down on the couch and pulled the plastic lid off one of the coffee cans. “They’re stuffed full of it.”
“How much?” Chet asked, curiously.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll count it now.” Alan started pulling wads of money from the can and sorted it on the coffee table. He glanced at his friend who seemed to be mesmerized as he looked into the book in his lap. “What is that?”
“What? …Oh,” Chet replied, as if awaken from deep concentration. “It’s Henderson’s journal. It’s really tough to read. All of the words are like chicken scratch and some of the sentences are incomplete. It’s really strange. It appears that Henderson was a D.B. Cooper fanatic.”
“Why do you say that?” Alan counted the money and laid it in stacks side by side on the table.
Chet opened the book on the floor next to him. “See this scrapbook? It’s crammed full of newspaper and magazine articles about Cooper. That’s not all, this journal makes reference to Cooper as if they knew each other. Listen to this.” Chet lifted the book and began to read. “I felt terrible this morning. I haven’t seen or talked to anyone in a couple of weeks, until today when Cooper showed up to see how I was doing. We broke open a bottle of the good stuff and went fishing. We had a great time as always. I caught four and Cooper caught two. Good old Coop.”
“It sounds like he was a real loony,” Alan remarked as he finished stacking the money. “It looks like about twenty-seven thousand and change.”
“It’s a lot, but not exactly a pirate’s bounty.”
“No it’s not, but it’s something,” Alan replied, optimistically.
“Did you find any drugs?”
“No, not yet. This place is going to take more than two people to search it effectively.”
“So it’s time to call in the troops?”
“I sure don’t want to,” Alan said as he sank low into the couch. “The minute Cranston finds out about Henderson, I’ll be suspended for sure. Then O’Leary will take over and claim all the credit.”
“Do you think you’ll go to jail for this?”
“No, my father has too many political friends for that to happen,” Alan replied as he stood up, walked to the door, and looked out at Henderson’s body laying in the mud. “But I’ll probably lose my badge.” The last part saddened him tremendously.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Alan. If you could’ve only found some drugs you would have a case.” Chet commented, sympathetically. “But without it, all you have is an eccentric old man who sleeps with his money.”
“Henderson is dirty as sin.” Alan defended. “You can count on it. If I just had more time I could prove it. But the trail leading to the guy with the trailer is getting colder by the minute. I’m going to have to bring in help soon, or I may never find him. If I could’ve just been here a couple of hours earlier I would’ve nailed the guy.”
“That’s funny,” Chet commented offhandedly. “That’s exactly what Blake said.”
“What?” Alan asked curiously as he looked over towards his friend.
“When I interviewed Agent Blake he said that he was right on Cooper’s butt until he jumped into that storm. Blake said that he’s sure he would’ve caught Cooper red handed if he could’ve just been here a couple of hours sooner.”
Alan rested his forehead on the door jam. “Now it looks like I might be chasing a ghost as well,” he said softly.
“If you think about it, you and Blake have a lot in common. It’s just too bad that you can’t turn you problems into a gold mine like he did,” Chet remarked then returned to reading the journal.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Alan said softly then closed his eyes and rested his forehead back on the door jam. He began drumming his fingers against it.
Chet was right. There were similarities between Alan’s drug case and Blake’s Cooper case– neither one of them could find evidence to lead them to the guilty party, and time was both critical and running out.
But it was the differences that mattered. Blake had an Army of investigators to support him and he always remained in control of the investigation. Alan was alone and when he did bring in help, he would lose control of the case.
It was for those reasons Blake was able to close the Cooper case so successfully. He had investigated the case thoroughly and found no evidence to prove whether Cooper survived the jump or ended up in a watery grave. The lack of evidence made it work—Blake could deny that Cooper survived the jump. That claim had held up because there was no evidence to the contrary and the authority of Blake’s position as an FBI Agent gave it weight. Nobody questioned it.
Alan’s drug case was different. There was evidence and, other than the brick of opium, it all incriminated Alan. Henderson’s death was like a huge anchor around Alan’s neck keeping him from proceeding. What would my father do? he wondered.
At times when Alan didn’t know what to do, he always asked himself to consider what his father would do in this situation. Alan’s father’s experiences are what helped him develop many of the tactics he used to get things done, and Alan learned quickly what those tactics were. Bribery, intimidation, discreditation, blackmail and denial.
Alan recalled the long discussions he and his father had about the Watergate scandal. When allegations were raised, Alan’s father denied everything and it would’ve worked if he could’ve destroyed the evidence in time. Denial worked for Blake because there was no evidence and it was evidence that kept Alan’s father, and now Alan from using denial effectively.
He remembered what his father had told him. “If only he could’ve stopped time, or turned the hands of the clock backwards just a few hours,” his father had said. “I could’ve destroyed all the evidence and denied everything successfully.” It was too bad he couldn’t turn the hands of time back a few hours to before he killed Henderson and before the drugs had left the premises…too bad.
A moment later Alan’s head snapped up. “It just might work,” he said then turned toward his friend.
Chet looked up at him. “What might work?” he asked curiously. Chet then saw the look on Alan’s face. “I hate it when you get that look, Alan. It always means trouble,” he said scornfully. “What are you thinking?”
“A plan that will allow me to remain in control of the investigation and still get the help I need.”
“What are you talking about?” Chet asked as he put the journal down, then stood up.
Alan ignored him as he, again, looked out the window. The tire tracks, the crushed straw and the coffee cup, he thought to himself. He then looked around the room. One clue leading to another, he reminded himself as he looked at the gun cabinet, to the money, then next to the journal.
Chet’s eyes looked at Alan suspiciously as if he could see the gears turning in his friends head. “What plan?” he begged Alan to speak.
“Just a minute.” Alan walked hurriedly past Chet to the door, where he slipped on his shoes and ran out to the body.
Chet watched from the doorway as Alan rolled the body to one side and examined its back. Alan then put the body in its original position and stared out towards the lake. He then walked back to the house, slipped off his shoes, and looked at Chet in an excited yet serious fashion.
“I think I have a solution to my problem,” Alan said as he stepped past his friend and into the living room. “But in order to do it, I’m going to have to lie.”
“That’s it, count me out!” Chet protested, shaking his head. “I don’t even want to hear it.”
Alan turned around and looked at hi
s friend. “I wish I could, Chet, but I’m going to need your help in order to generate the publicity required to make it work,” Alan pleaded.
Chet turned around and stared out the window. “I can’t report lies, Alan, its unethical,” he said firmly.
“Don’t act so pious. The news is full of misinformation, of which you’ve added your share. What’s wrong with a little more,” Alan pleaded again.
That was true, Chet admitted to himself. In the past, he had bent things just enough when necessary, but he always believed that he never actually crossed the line into lying—no matter how thin that line really was. Still, he shouldn’t judge Alan’s plan until he heard it through. What was the harm in that? “What’s your plan?” Chet asked after a moment.
“We’re a little pressed for time, right now. I’ll explain it to you on the way back to town.”
“At least tell me why you have to lie!” Chet demanded.
“Nobody can find out that I shot Henderson. There’s no way that I can conduct an effective investigation if I’m under suspicion.” Chet didn’t say anything. He just stared out the window in silence. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, when this is all over you can print a retraction on page forty but right now I need headlines,” Alan said in a calm voice.
After a moment of silence, Chet turned around. “All right,” he said quietly. “What do you want me to do?”
Alan stepped toward him, placed both hands on each of Chet’s shoulders, and looked him squarely in the eye. “You have to burn the video tape.”
Chet’s eyes widened. “No! That’s going too far,” he said, decisively. “You didn’t say anything about destroying evidence!” Chet pulled away and walked toward the book case.
“Listen, Chet. You and I are the only two people who know what really happened. The video tape is a loose end. It doesn’t matter how well we pull this off. If it accidentally falls into the wrong hands we’re sunk!”
Again Chet didn’t answer as if the words had fallen on deaf ears. He just stared down at his video camera which lay on the floor next to the bookshelf.
“You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Chet,” Alan said calmly as he looked for a reaction.
Chet wanted desperately to trust his friend. But lying to the public with the intent to misleading and destroying evidence went beyond ethics, it was downright criminal. He then thought about his career, and the effect losing Alan would have on it. That thought concerned him more than the first.
To save his career, he had to protect Alan, and that meant complete solidarity. The idea scared him to death, but Alan was right. For it to work, there could be no loose ends. “I guess you’re right,” he said after a moment.
Alan quickly walked to the fireplace and tossed some more kindling on the fire. As the flames rose he looked over at his friend. Chet leaned over and removed the video tape from the camera and walked it over to Alan. Alan stood as Chet lifted the cassette in order to hand it to his friend, but Alan didn’t take it.
“You’re going to have to do it, Chet. That way we’ll both know you’re dedicated enough to make this work.”
Chet looked at the fire, then slowly knelt on one knee in front of it. He didn’t know if he could do it. He didn’t know if his loyalty to Alan went that far. From that moment on, he would be forever locked into whatever Alan wanted to do.
Alan saw that last questioning look and tried again to be reassuring. “What I have planned, Chet, could be the biggest story of your life. Don’t let a little question of ethics screw it up for you.” Still, Chet didn’t move. “Don’t worry, everything will work out fine. I promise.”
A second later, Chet tossed the cassette on the fire then stood up. Both men watched as black smoke went up the chimney. The cassette warped and buckled, and within moments it was reduced to an unrecognizable bubbling black blob. Alan leaned over and tossed a log on top of it. “By the time we get back, it should be long gone.”
“What’s next?” Chet asked.
Alan walked to the front porch and started slipping his shoes on. “Put everything back the way you found it. I’ll be right back.”
Chet watched as Alan hurried up the road. Chet turned and walked across the room. He picked up each book that lay on the floor and replaced it back into the bookcase, exactly where he had found it. He then placed the rifles in the gun cabinet, and closed it up. After that, he stuffed the money back into the coffee cans. Chet paced nervously as he waited.
Alan stepped onto the porch, slipped off his shoes, and walked into the cabin carrying a small package wrapped in plastic. “What’s that?” Chet asked as he watched his friend place it into one of the coffee cans and close it up.
“Its some of the opium from the brick I got yesterday.”
“Damn it, Alan! I knew you would pull something like this,” Chet said angrily. “Why do you need to plant drugs?”
“I’m not planting anything. This opium came from here and belongs here. I’m just turning back the clock to a time when it was in this room. I’m just making it as if it had never left,” Alan explained. “And besides, think about it, Chet. As a Drug Enforcement Agent, I can’t exactly control an investigation if there aren’t any drugs now can I?”
Chet didn’t answer. He just stood there, fuming nervously, hoping his friend knew what he was doing. Chet watched Alan pick up the cans and disappear into the bedroom. A few moments later, he returned. “All right, we can go now.”
Chet picked up his camera and followed Alan to the door where they both began to put on their shoes.
Ding!
Both men looked over at the water clock. “Nine o’clock!” Chet exclaimed, surprised at the time lost.
“It can’t be that late,” Alan looked at his watch questioningly. “No, its only seven. That thing is two hours fast.”
“Good.” Chet was relieved to hear it.
“Let’s go.” The two men walked off the porch, hurried up the road, and disappeared over the hill.