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Plum Island (John Corey Book 1) Kindle Edition
CELEBRATING THE 20th ANNIVERSARY WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR
Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide detective John Corey convalesces in the Long Island township of Southold, home to farmers, fishermen -- and at least one killer. Tom and Judy Gordon, a young, attractive couple Corey knows, have been found on their patio, each with a bullet in the head. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, wants Corey's big-city expertise, but Maxwell gets more than he bargained for.
John Corey doesn't like mysteries, which is why he likes to solve them. His investigations lead him into the lore, legends, and ancient secrets of northern Long Island -- more deadly and more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. During his journey of discovery, he meets two remarkable women, Detective Beth Penrose and Mayflower descendant Emma Whitestone, both of whom change his life irrevocably. Ultimately, through his understanding of the murders, John Corey comes to understand himself.
Fast-paced and atmospheric, marked by entrancing characters, incandescent storytelling, and brilliant comic touches, Plum Island is Nelson DeMille at his thrill-inducing best.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherGrand Central Publishing
- Publication dateJune 1, 2003
- File size2921 KB
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From the Inside Flap
Read by David Dukes
AudioBook includes a personal interview with Nelson DeMille
Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide detective John Corey is laid up in the Long Island town of Southold, home to farmers, fishermen -- and at least one killer.
Fast-paced and atmospheric, marked by entrancing characters, incandescent storytelling, and brilliant comic touches, Plum Island is DeMille at his thrill-inducing best.
From the Back Cover
About the Author
About the Reader
David Dukes appeared on Broadway in Arthur Miller's Broken Glass. His film work includes The Men's Club and Without a Trace. On television he has starred in The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and Sisters. He has previously read The Gold Coast, The Terminal Man, and Without Remorse for Random House AudioBooks.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Plum Island
By DeMille, NelsonGrand Central Publishing
Copyright © 2011 DeMille, NelsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9781455502622
CHAPTER ONE
Through my binoculars, I could see this nice forty-something-foot cabin cruiser anchored a few hundred yards offshore. There were two thirtyish couples aboard, having a merry old time, sunbathing, banging down brews and whatever. The women had on teensey-weensey little bottoms and no tops, and one of the guys was standing on the bow, and he slipped off his trunks and stood there a minute hanging hog, then jumped in the bay and swam around the boat. What a great country. I put down my binoculars and popped a Budweiser.
It was late summer, not meaning late August, but meaning September, before the autumnal equinox. Labor Day weekend had gone, and Indian summer was coming, whatever that is.
I, John Corey by name, convalescing cop by profession, was sitting on my uncle’s back porch, deep in a wicker chair with shallow thoughts running through my mind. It occurred to me that the problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished.
The porch is an old-fashioned wraparound, circling three sides of an 1890s Victorian farmhouse, all shingle and gingerbread, turrets, gables, the whole nine yards. From where I sat, I could see south across a sloping green lawn to the Great Peconic Bay. The sun was low on the western horizon, which was where it belonged at 6:45 P.M. I’m a city boy, but I was really getting into the country stuff, the sky and all that, and I finally found the Big Dipper a few weeks ago.
I was wearing a plain white T-shirt and cutoff jeans that used to fit before I lost too much weight. My bare feet were propped on the rail, and between my left and right big toes was framed the aforementioned cabin cruiser.
About this time of day you can start to hear crickets, locusts, and who knows what, but I’m not a big fan of nature noises so I had a portable tape player beside me on the end table with The Big Chill cranking, and the Bud in my left hand, the binocs in my lap, and lying on the floor near my right hand was my off-duty piece, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver with a two-inch barrel which fit nicely in my purse. Just kidding.
Somewhere in the two seconds of silence between “When a Man Loves a Woman” and “Dancing in the Street,” I could hear or feel on the creaky old floorboards that someone was walking around the porch. Since I live alone and was expecting no one, I took the .38 in my right hand and rested it on my lap. So you don’t think I’m a paranoid citizen, I should mention that I was convalescing, not from the mumps, but from three bullet wounds, two 9mm and one .44 caliber Magnum, not that the size of the holes matters. As with real estate, what matters with bullet holes is location, location, location. Obviously these holes were in the right locations, because I was convalescing, not decomposing.
I looked to my right where the porch turned around the west side of the house. A man appeared around the corner, then stopped about fifteen feet from me, searching the long shadows cast by the setting sun. In fact, the man cast a long shadow himself which passed over me, so he didn’t seem to see me. But with the sun at his back, it was also difficult for me to see his face or to guess his intentions. I said, “Help you?”
He turned his head toward me. “Oh… hey, John. Didn’t see you there.”
“Have a seat, Chief.” I slipped my revolver into my waistband under my T-shirt, then lowered the volume on “Dancing in the Street.”
Sylvester Maxwell, aka Max, who is the law in these here parts, sauntered toward me and plopped his butt on the rail, facing me. He was wearing a blue blazer, white button-down shirt, tan cotton slacks, boating shoes, and no socks. I couldn’t tell if he was on or off duty. I said, “There’re some soft drinks in that cooler.”
“Thanks.” He reached down and rescued a Budweiser from the ice. Max likes to call beer a soft drink.
He sipped awhile, contemplating a point in space about two feet from his nose. I directed my attention back toward the bay and listened to “Too Many Fish in the Sea”—The Marvelettes. It was Monday, so the weekenders were gone, thank God, and it was as I said after Labor Day when most of the summer rentals terminate, and you could feel the solitude returning again. Max is a local boy and he doesn’t get right down to business, so you just wait it out. He finally asked me, “You own this place?”
“My uncle does. He wants me to buy it.”
“Don’t buy anything. My philosophy is, if it flies, floats, or fucks, rent it.”
“Thank you.”
“You going to be staying here awhile?”
“Until the wind stops whistling through my chest.”
He smiled, but then got contemplative again. Max is a big man, about my age, which is to say mid-forties, wavy blond hair, ruddy skin, and blue eyes. Women seem to find him good-looking, which works for Chief Maxwell, who is single and hetero.
He said, “So, how’re you feeling?”
“Not bad.”
“Do you feel like some mental exercise?”
I didn’t reply. I’ve known Max about ten years, but since I don’t live around here, I only see him now and then. I should say at this point that I’m a New York City homicide detective, formerly working out of Manhattan North until I went down. That was on April twelfth. A homicide detective hadn’t gone down in New York in about two decades so it made big news. The NYPD Public Information Office kept it going because it’s contract time again, and with me being so personable, good-looking, and so forth, they milked it a little and the media cooperated, and round and round we go. Meanwhile, the two perps who plugged me are still out there. So, I spent a month in Columbia Presbyterian, then a few weeks in my Manhattan condo, then Uncle Harry suggested that his summer house was a fitting place for a hero. Why not? I arrived here in late May, right after Memorial Day.
Max said, “I think you knew Tom and Judy Gordon.”
I looked at him. Our eyes met. I understood. I asked, “Both of them?”
He nodded. “Both.” After a moment of respectful silence, he said, “I’d like you to take a look at the scene.”
“Why?”
“Why not? As a favor to me. Before everyone else gets a piece of it. I’m short on homicide detectives.”
In fact, the Southold Town Police Department has no homicide detectives, which usually works out okay because very few people get iced out here. When someone does, the Suffolk County police respond with a homicide detail to take over, and Max steps aside. Max does not like this.
A bit of locale here—this is the North Fork of Long Island, State of New York, the Township of Southold, founded, according to a plaque out on the highway, in sixteen-forty-something by some people from New Haven, Connecticut, who, for all anybody knows, were on the lam from the king. The South Fork of Long Island, which is on the other side of Peconic Bay, is the trendy Hamptons: writers, artists, actors, publishing types, and other assorted anals. Here, on the North Fork, the folks are farmers, fishermen, and such. And perhaps one murderer.
Anyway, Uncle Harry’s house is specifically located in the hamlet of Mattituck, which is about a hundred road miles from West 102nd Street where two Hispanic-looking gentlemen had pumped fourteen or fifteen shots at yours truly, accomplishing three hits on a moving target at twenty to thirty feet. Not an impressive showing, but I’m not criticizing or complaining.
Anyway, the Township of Southold comprises most of the North Fork, and contains eight hamlets and one village, named Greenport, and one police force of maybe forty sworn officers, and Sylvester Maxwell is the chief, so there it is.
Max said, “It doesn’t hurt to look.”
“Sure it does. What if I get subpoenaed to testify out here at some inconvenient time? I’m not getting paid for this.”
“Actually, I called the town supervisor and got an okay to hire you, officially, as a consultant. A hundred bucks a day.”
“Wow. Sounds like the kind of job I have to save up for.”
Max allowed himself a smile. “Hey, it covers your gas and phone. You’re not doing anything anyway.”
“I’m trying to get the hole in my right lung to close.”
“This won’t be strenuous.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s your chance to be a good Southold citizen.”
“I’m a New Yorker. I’m not supposed to be a good citizen.”
“Hey, did you know the Gordons well? Were they friends?”
“Sort of.”
“So? There’s your motivation. Come on, John. Get up. Let’s go. I’ll owe you a favor. Fix a ticket.”
In truth, I was bored, and the Gordons were good people…. I stood and put down my beer. “I’ll take the job at a buck a week to make me official.”
“Good. You won’t regret it.”
“Of course I will.” I turned off “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” and asked Max, “Is there a lot of blood?”
“A little. Head wounds.”
“You think I need my flip-flops?”
“Well… some brains and skull blew out the back….”
“Okay.” I slipped into my flip-flops, and Max and I walked around the porch to the circular driveway in the front of the house. I got into his unmarked PD, a white Jeep Cherokee with a squawky police radio.
We drove down the long driveway, which was covered with about a hundred years’ worth of raw oyster and clam shells because Uncle Harry and everyone before him threw shells on the driveway along with the ash and cinders from the coal furnace to keep the mud and dust down. Anyway, this used to be what’s called a bay farm estate, and it’s still bayfront, but most of the farm acreage has been sold. The landscape is a little overgrown, and the flora is mostly the kind of stuff they don’t use much anymore, such as forsythia, pussy willow, and privet hedges. The house itself is painted cream with green trim and a green roof. It’s all pretty charming, really, and maybe I will buy it if the cop docs say I’m through. I should practice coughing up blood.
On the subject of my disability, I have a good shot at a three-quarter, tax-free pension for life. This is the NYPD equivalent of going to Atlantic City, tripping over a tear in the rug at Trump’s Castle, and hitting your head on a slot machine in full view of a liability lawyer. Jackpot!
“Did you hear me?”
“What?”
“I said, they were found at 5:45 P.M. by a neighbor—”
“Am I on retainer now?”
“Sure. They were both shot once in the head, and the neighbor found them lying on their patio deck—”
“Max, I’m going to see all this. Tell me about the neighbor.”
“Right. His name is Edgar Murphy, an old gent. He heard the Gordons’ boat come in about 5:30, and about fifteen minutes later he walks over and finds them murdered. Never heard a shot.”
“Hearing aid?”
“No. I asked him. His wife’s got okay hearing, too, according to Edgar. So maybe it was a silencer. Maybe they’re deafer than they think.”
“But they heard the boat. Edgar is sure about the time?”
“Pretty sure. He called us at 5:51 P.M., so that’s close.”
“Right.” I looked at my watch. It was now 7:10 P.M. Max must have had the bright idea to come collect me very soon after he got on the scene. I assumed the Suffolk County homicide guys were there by now. They would have come in from a little town called Yaphank where the county police are headquartered and which is about an hour drive to where the Gordons lived.
Max was going on about this and that, and I tried to get my mind into gear, but it had been about five months since I had to think about things like this. I was tempted to snap, “Just the facts, Max!” but I let him drone on. Also, “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” kept playing in my head, and it’s really annoying, as you know, when you can’t get a tune out of your head. Especially that one.
I looked out the open side window. We were driving along the main east-west road, which is conveniently called Main Road, toward a place called Nassau Point where the Gordons live—or lived. The North Fork is sort of like Cape Cod, a windswept jut of land surrounded on three sides by water and covered with history.
The full-time population is a little thin, about twenty thousand folks, but there are a lot of summer and weekend types, and the new wineries have attracted day-trippers. Put up a winery and you get ten thousand wine-sipping yuppie slime from the nearest urban center. Never fails.
Anyway, we turned south onto Nassau Point, which is a two-mile-long, cleaver-shaped point of land that cuts into the Great Peconic Bay. From my dock to the Gordons’ dock is about four miles.
Nassau Point has been a summer place since about the 1920s, and the homes range from simple bungalows to substantial establishments. Albert Einstein summered here, and it was from here in nineteen-thirty-whatever that he wrote his famous “Nassau Point Letter” to Roosevelt urging the president to get moving on the atomic bomb. The rest, as they say, is history.
Interestingly, Nassau Point is still home to a number of scientists; some work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a secret nuclear something or other about thirty-five miles west of here, and some scientists work on Plum Island, a very top secret biological research site which is so scary it has to be housed on an island. Plum Island is about two miles off the tip of Orient Point, which is the last piece of land on the North Fork—next stop Europe.
Not incidental to all this, Tom and Judy Gordon were biologists who worked on Plum Island, and you can bet that both Sylvester Maxwell and John Corey were thinking about that. I asked Max, “Did you call the Feds?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Murder is not a federal offense.”
“You know what I’m talking about, Max.”
Chief Maxwell didn’t respond.
CHAPTER TWO
We approached the Gordon house nestled on a small lane on the west shore of the point. The house was a 1960s ranch type that had been made over into a 1990s contemporary. The Gordons, from somewhere out in the Midwest, and uncertain about their career paths, were leasing the house with an option to buy, as they once mentioned to me. I think if I worked with the stuff they worked with, I, too, wouldn’t make any long-range plans. Hell, I wouldn’t even buy green bananas.
I turned my attention to the scene outside the windows of the Jeep. On this pleasant, shady lane, little knots of neighbors and kids on bicycles stood around in the long purple shadows, talking, and looking at the Gordon house. Three Southold police cars were parked in front of the house, as were two unmarked cars. A county forensic van blocked the driveway. It’s a good policy not to drive onto or park at a crime scene so as not to destroy evidence, and I was encouraged to see that Max’s little rural police force was up to snuff so far.
Also on the street were two TV vans, one from a local Long Island news station, the other an NBC News van.
I noticed, too, a bunch of reporter types chatting up the neighbors, whipping microphones in front of anyone who opened his mouth. It wasn’t quite a media circus yet, but it would be when the rest of the news sharks got on to the Plum Island connection.
Yellow crime scene tape was wrapped from tree to tree, cordoning off the house and grounds. Max pulled up behind the forensic van and we got out. A few cameras flashed, then a bunch of big video lights went on, and we were being taped for the eleven o’clock news. I hoped the disability board wasn’t watching, not to mention the perps who’d tried to ice moi, and who would now know where I was.
Standing in the driveway was a uniformed officer with a pad—the crime scene recorder—and Max gave him my name, title, and so forth, so I was officially logged in, now subject to subpoenas from the DA and potential defense attorneys. This was exactly what I didn’t want, but I had been home when fate called.
We walked up the gravel driveway and passed through a moongate into the backyard, which was mostly cedar deck, multileveled as it cascaded from the house down to the bay and ended at the long dock where the Gordons’ boat was tied. It was really a beautiful evening, and I wished Tom and Judy were alive to see it.
I observed the usual contingent of forensic lab people, plus three uniformed Southold town cops and a woman overdressed in a light tan suit jacket and matching skirt, white blouse, and sensible shoes. At first I thought she might be family, called in to ID the bodies and so forth, but then I saw she was holding a notebook and pen and looking official.
Lying on the nice silver-gray cedar deck, side by side on their backs, were Tom and Judy, their feet toward the house and their heads toward the bay, arms and legs askew as though they were making snow angels. A police photographer was taking pictures of the bodies, and the flash lit up the deck and did a weird thing to the corpses, making them look sort of ghoulish for a microsecond, à la Night of the Living Dead.
I stared at the bodies. Tom and Judy Gordon were in their mid-thirties, in very good shape, and even in death a uniquely handsome couple—so much so that they were sometimes mistaken for celebrities when they dined out in the more fashionable spots.
They both wore blue jeans, running shoes, and polo shirts. Tom’s shirt was black with some marine supply logo on the front, and Judy’s was a more chic hunter green with a little yellow sailboat on the left breast.
Max, I suspected, didn’t see many murdered people in the course of a year, but he probably saw enough natural deaths, suicides, car wrecks, and such so that he wasn’t going to go green. He looked grim, concerned, pensive, and professional, but kept glancing at the bodies as if he couldn’t believe there were murdered people lying right there on the nice deck.
Yours truly, on the other hand, working as I do in a city that counts about 1,500 murders a year, am no stranger to death, as they say. I don’t see all 1,500 corpses, but I see enough so that I’m no longer surprised, sickened, shocked, or saddened. Yet, when it’s someone you knew and liked, it makes a difference.
I walked across the deck and stopped near Tom Gordon. Tom had a bullet hole at the bridge of his nose. Judy had a hole in the side of her left temple.
Assuming there was only one shooter, then Tom, being a strapping guy, had probably gotten it first, a single shot to the head; then Judy, turning in disbelief toward her husband, had taken the second bullet in the side of her temple. The two bullets had probably gone through their skulls and dropped into the bay. Bad luck for ballistics.
I’ve never been to a homicide scene that didn’t have a smell—unbelievably foul, if the victims had been dead awhile. If there was blood, I could always smell it, and if a body cavity had been penetrated, there was usually a peculiar smell of innards. This is something I’d like not to smell again; the last time I smelled blood, it was my own. Anyway, the fact that this was an outdoor killing helped.
I looked around and couldn’t see any place close by where the shooter could hide. The sliding glass door of the house was open and maybe the shooter had been in there, but that was twenty feet from the bodies, and not many people can get a good head shot from that distance with a pistol. I was living proof of that. At twenty feet you go for a body shot first, then get in close and finish up with a head shot. So there were two possibilities: the shooter was using a rifle, not a pistol, or, the shooter was able to walk right up to them without causing them any alarm. Someone normal-looking, nonthreatening, maybe even someone they knew. The Gordons had gotten out of their boat, walked up the deck, they saw this person at some point and kept walking toward him or her. The person raised a pistol from no more than five feet away and drilled both of them.
I looked beyond the bodies and saw little colored pin flags stuck in the cedar planking here and there. “Red is for blood?”
Max nodded. “White is skull, gray is—”
“Got it.” Glad I wore the flip-flops.
Max informed me, “The exit wounds are big, like the whole back of their skulls are gone. And, as you can see, the entry wounds are big. I’m guessing a .45 caliber. We haven’t found the two bullets yet. They probably went into the bay.”
I didn’t reply.
Max motioned toward the sliding glass doors. He informed me, “The sliding door was forced and the house is ransacked. No big items missing—TV, computer, CD player, and all that stuff is there. But there may be jewelry and small stuff missing.”
I contemplated this a moment. The Gordons, like most egghead types on a government salary, didn’t own much jewelry, art, or anything like that. A druggie would grab the pricey electronics and such, and beat feet.
Max said, “Here’s what I think—a burglar or burglars were doing their thing, he, she, or they see the Gordons approaching through the glass door; he, she, or they step out onto the deck, fire, and flee.” He looked at me. “Right?”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“Got it.” Sounded better than Home of Top Secret Germ Warfare Scientists Ransacked and Scientists Found Murdered.
Max moved closer to me and said softly, “What do you think, John?”
“Was that a hundred an hour?”
“Come on, guy, don’t jerk me around. We got maybe a world-class double murder on our hands.”
I replied, “But you just said it could be a simple homeowner-comes-on-the-scene-and-gets-iced kind of thing.”
“Yeah, but it turns out that the homeowners are… whatever they are.” He looked at me and said, “Reconstruct.”
“Okay. You understand that the perp did not fire from that sliding glass door. He was standing right in front of them. The door you found open was closed then so that the Gordons saw nothing unusual as they approached the house. The gunman was possibly sitting here in one of these chairs, and he may have arrived by boat since he wasn’t going to park his car out front where the world could see it. Or maybe he was dropped off. In either case, the Gordons either knew him or were not unduly troubled by his presence on their back deck, and maybe it’s a woman, nice and sweet-looking, and the Gordons walk toward her and she toward them. They may have exchanged a word or two, but very soon after, the murderer produced a pistol and blew them away.”
Chief Maxwell nodded.
“If the perp was looking for anything inside, it wasn’t jewelry or cash, it was papers. You know—bug stuff. He didn’t kill the Gordons because they stumbled onto him; he killed them because he wanted them dead. He was waiting for them. You know all this.”
He nodded.
I said, “Then again, Max, I’ve seen a lot of bungled and screwed-up burglaries where the homeowner got killed, and the burglar got nothing. When it’s a druggie thing, nothing makes sense.”
Chief Maxwell rubbed his chin as he contemplated a hop-head with a gun on one hand, a cool assassin on the other, and whatever might fall in between.
While he did that, I knelt beside the bodies, closest to Judy. Her eyes were open, really wide open, and she looked surprised. Tom’s eyes were open, too, but he looked more peaceful than his wife. The flies had found the blood around the wounds, and I was tempted to shoo them away, but it didn’t matter.
I examined the bodies more closely without touching anything that would get the forensic types all bent up. I looked at hair, nails, skin, clothing, shoes, and so on. When I was done, I patted Judy’s cheek and stood.
Maxwell asked me, “How long did you know them?”
“Since about June.”
“Have you been to this house before?”
“Yes. You get to ask me one more question.”
“Well… I have to ask…. Where were you about 5:30 P.M.?”
“With your girlfriend.”
He smiled, but he was not amused.
I asked Max, “How well did you know them?”
He hesitated a moment, then replied, “Just socially. My girlfriend drags me to wine tastings and crap like that.”
“Does she? And how did you know I knew them?”
“They mentioned they met a New York cop who was convalescing. I said I knew you.”
“Small world,” I said.
He didn’t reply.
I looked around the backyard. To the east was the house, and to the south was a thick line of tall hedges, and beyond the hedges was the home of Edgar Murphy, the neighbor who found the bodies. To the north was an open marsh area that stretched a few hundred yards to the next house, which was barely visible. To the west, the deck dropped in three levels toward the bay where the dock ran out about a hundred feet to the deeper water. At the end of the dock was the Gordons’ boat, a sleek white fiberglass speedboat—a Formula three-something, about thirty feet long. It was named the Spirochete, which as we know from Bio 101 is the nasty bug that causes syphilis. The Gordons had a sense of humor.
Max said, “Edgar Murphy stated that the Gordons sometimes used their own boat to commute to Plum Island. They took the government ferry when the weather was bad and in the winter.”
I nodded. I knew that.
He continued, “I’m going to call Plum Island and see if I can find out what time they left. The sea is calm, the tide is coming in, and the wind is from the east, so they could make maximum time between Plum and here.”
“I’m not a sailor.”
“Well, I am. It could have taken them as little as one hour to get here from Plum, but usually it’s an hour and a half, two at the outside. The Murphys heard the Gordon boat come in about 5:30, so now we see if we can find out the time they left Plum, then we know with a little more certainty that it was the Gordon boat that the Murphys heard at 5:30.”
“Right.” I looked around the deck. There was the usual patio and deck furniture—table, chairs, outdoor bar, sun umbrellas, and such. Small bushes and plants grew through cutouts in the deck, but basically there was no place a person could conceal him- or herself and ambush two people out in the open.
“What are you thinking about?” Max asked.
“Well, I’m thinking about the great American deck. Big, maintenance-free wood, multileveled, landscaped, and all that. Not like my old-fashioned narrow porch that always needs painting. If I bought my uncle’s house, I could build a deck down to the bay like this one. But then I wouldn’t have as much lawn.”
Max let a few seconds pass, then asked, “That’s what you’re thinking about?”
“Yeah. What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about a double murder.”
“Good. Tell me what else you’ve learned here.”
“Okay. I felt the engines—” He jerked his thumb toward the boat. “They were still warm when I arrived, like the bodies.”
I nodded. The sun was starting to dip into the bay, and it was getting noticeably darker and cooler, and I was getting chilly in my T-shirt and shorts, sans underwear.
September is a truly golden month up and down the Atlantic coast, from the Outer Banks to Newfoundland. The days are mild, the nights pleasant for sleeping; it is summer without the heat and humidity, autumn without the cold rains. The summer birds haven’t left yet, and the first migratory birds from up north are taking a break on their way south. I suppose if I left Manhattan and wound up here, I’d get into this nature thing, boating, fishing, and all that.
Max was saying, “And something else—the line is clove-hitched around the piling.”
“Well, there’s a major break in the case. What the hell’s a line?”
“The rope. The boat’s rope isn’t tied to the cleats on the dock. The rope is just temporarily hitched to the pilings—the big poles that come out of the water. I deduce that they intended to go out in the boat again, soon.”
“Good observation.”
“Right. So, any ideas?”
“Nope.”
“Any observations of your own?”
“I think you beat me to them, Chief.”
“Theories, thoughts, hunches? Anything?”
“Nope.”
Chief Maxwell seemed to want to say something else, like, “You’re fired,” but instead he said, “I’ve got to make a phone call.” He went off into the house.
I glanced back at the bodies. The woman with the light tan suit was now outlining Judy in chalk. It’s SOP in New York City that the investigating officer do the outline, and I guessed that it was the same out here. The idea is that the detective who is going to follow the case to its conclusion and who is going to work with the DA should know and work the entire case to the extent possible. I concluded, therefore, that the lady in tan was a homicide detective and that she was the officer assigned to investigate this case. I further concluded that I’d wind up dealing with her if I decided to help Max with this.
The scene of a homicide is one of the most interesting places in the world if you know what you’re looking for and looking at. Consider people like Tom and Judy who look at little bugs under a microscope, and they can tell you the names of the bugs, what the bugs are up to at the moment, what the bugs are capable of doing to the person who’s watching them, and so forth. But if I looked at the bugs, all I’d see is little squigglies. I don’t have a trained eye or a trained mind for bugs.
Yet, when I look at a dead body and at the scene around the body, I see things that most people don’t see. Max touched the engines and the bodies and noticed they were warm, he noticed how the boat was tied, and he registered a dozen other small details that the average citizen wouldn’t notice. But Max isn’t really a detective, and he was operating on about level two, whereas to solve a murder like this one, you needed to operate on a much higher plane. He knew that, which is why he called on me.
I happened to know the victims, and for the homicide detective on the case, this is a big plus. I knew, for instance, that the Gordons usually wore shorts, T-shirts, and docksiders in the boat on their way to Plum Island, and at work they slipped on their lab duds or their biohazard gear or whatever. Also, Tom didn’t look like Tom in a black shirt, and Judy was more of a pastel person as I recall. My guess was that they were dressed for camouflage, and the running shoes were for speed. Then again, maybe I was making up clues. You have to be careful not to do that.
But then there was the red soil in the treads of their running shoes. Where did it come from? Not from the laboratory, probably not from the walkway to the Plum Island ferry dock, not their boat, and not the dock or deck here. It appeared they were somewhere else today, and they were dressed differently for the day, and for sure the day had ended differently. There was something else going on here, and I had no idea what it was, but it was definitely something else.
Yet, it was still possible that they just stumbled onto a burglary. I mean, this might have nothing to do with their jobs. The thing was, Max was nervous about that and sensitive to it, and it had infected me, too, pardon the pun. And before midnight, this place would be visited by the FBI, Defense Intelligence people, and the CIA. Unless Max could catch a hophead burglar before then.
“Excuse me.”
I turned toward the voice. It was the lady in the tan suit. I said, “You’re excused.”
“Excuse me, are you supposed to be here?”
“I’m here with the band.”
“Are you a police officer?”
Obviously my T-shirt and shorts didn’t project an authority image. I replied, “I’m with Chief Maxwell.”
“I could see that. Have you logged in?”
“Why don’t you go check?” I turned and walked down to the next level of the deck, avoiding the little colored flags. I headed toward the dock. She followed.
“I’m Detective Penrose from Suffolk County homicide, and I’m in charge of this investigation.”
“Congratulations.”
“And unless you have official business here—”
“You’ll have to speak to the chief.” I got down to the dock and walked out to where the Gordons’ boat was tied. It was very breezy out on the long dock and the sun had set. I didn’t see any sailboats on the bay now, but a few powerboats went by with their running lights on. A three-quarter moon had risen in the southeast, and it sparkled across the water.
The tide was in and the thirty-foot boat was nearly at dock level. I jumped down onto the boat’s deck.
“What are you doing? You can’t do that.”
She was very good-looking, of course; if she’d been ugly, I’d have been much nicer. She was dressed, as I indicated, rather severely, but the body beneath the tailored clothes was a symphony of curves, a melody of flesh looking to break free. In fact, she looked like she was smuggling balloons. The second thing I noticed was that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Filling out the rest of the form: age, early thirties; hair, medium length, coppery color; eyes, blue-green; skin, fair, not much sun for this time of year, light makeup; pouty lips; no visible marks or scars; no earrings; no nail polish; pissed-off expression on her face.
“Are you listening to me?”
She also had a nice voice despite the present tone. I suspected that because of the pretty face, great body, and soft voice, Detective Penrose had trouble being taken seriously, and thus she overcompensated with butchy attire. She probably owned a book titled Dress to Bust Balls.
“Are you listening to me?”
“I’m listening to you. Are you listening to me? I told you to talk to the chief.”
“I am in charge here. In matters of homicide, the county police—”
“Okay, we’ll go see the chief together. Just a minute.”
I took a quick look around the boat, but it was dark now, and I couldn’t see much. I tried to find a flashlight. I said to Detective Penrose, “You should post an officer here all night.”
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Please come out of the boat.”
“Do you have a flashlight on you?”
“Out of the boat. Now.”
“Okay.” I stepped onto the gunwale, and to my surprise she extended her hand, which I took. Her skin was cool. She pulled me up onto the dock and at the same time, quick as a cat, her right hand went under my T-shirt and snatched the revolver from my waistband. Wow.
She stepped back, my piece in her hand. “Stand where you are.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who are you?”
“Detective John Corey, NYPD, homicide, ma’am.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Same as you.”
“No, I caught this case. Not you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you have any official status here?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was hired as a consultant.”
“Consultant? On a murder case? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Me neither.”
“Who hired you?”
“The town.”
“Idiotic.”
“Right.” She seemed undecided about what to do next, so to be helpful I suggested, “Do you want to strip-search me?”
I thought I saw a smile pass over her lips in the moonlight. My heart was aching for her, or it might have been the hole in my lung acting up.
She asked me, “What did you say your name was?”
“John Corey.”
She searched her memory. “Oh… you’re the guy—”
“That’s me. Lucky me.”
She seemed to soften, then gave my .38 a twirl and handed it to me, butt first. She turned and walked away.
I followed her along the dock, up the three-leveled deck to the house where the outdoor lights lit up the area around the glass doors and moths circled around the globes.
Max was talking to one of the forensic people. Then he turned to me and Detective Penrose and asked us, “You two met yet?”
Detective Penrose responded, “Why is this man involved in this case?”
Chief Maxwell replied, “Because I want him to be involved.”
“That’s not your decision, Chief.”
“And neither is it yours.”
They kept bouncing the ball back and forth and my neck was getting tired, so I said, “She’s right, Chief. I’m out of here. Get me a ride home.” I turned and walked toward the moongate, then with a little practiced dramatics, I turned back to Maxwell and Penrose and said, “By the way, did anyone take the aluminum chest in the stern of the boat?”
Max asked, “What aluminum chest?”
“The Gordons had a big aluminum chest that they used to stow odds and ends, and sometimes they used it for an ice chest to hold beer and bait.”
“Where is it?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“I’ll look for it.”
“Good idea.” I turned and walked through the gate and went out to the front lawn away from the parked police cars. The neighbors had been joined by the morbidly curious as word of the double homicide spread through the small community.
A few cameras popped in my direction, then video lights came on, illuminating me and the front of the house. Video cameras rolled, reporters called out to me. Just like old times. I coughed into my hand in case the disability board was watching, not to mention my ex-wife.
A uniformed cop from the backyard caught up to me, and we got into a marked Southold Township PD, and off we went. He said his name was Bob Johnson, and he asked me, “What do you think, Detective?”
“They were murdered.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” He hesitated, then inquired, “Hey, do you think it has to do with Plum Island or not?”
“Not.”
“Tell you what—I’ve seen burglaries, and this wasn’t burglary. It was supposed to look like a burglary, but it was a search—you know? They were looking for something.”
“I didn’t look inside.”
“Germs.” He glanced at me. “Germs. Biological warfare germs. That’s what I think. Right?”
I made no reply.
Johnson continued, “That’s what happened to the ice chest. I heard you say that.”
Again, I made no reply.
“There were vials or something in the chest. Right? I mean, Jesus Christ, there could be enough stuff out there to wipe out Long Island… New York City.”
Probably the planet, Bob, depending on which kind of bug it was and how much could be grown from the original stuff.
I leaned toward Officer Johnson and held his arm to get his attention. I said, “Do not breathe one fucking word of this to anyone. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
We drove in silence back to my place.
CHAPTER THREE
Everyone needs a hangout, at least guys do. When I’m in the city, I hang out at the National Arts Club and sip sherry with people of culture and refinement. My ex-wife had trouble believing that, too.
When I’m out here, I frequent a place called the Olde Towne Taverne, though I usually avoid places with that many silent “e’s.” I think the government should allocate one thousand silent “e’s” to New England and Long Island, and when they’re used up, no one can have any more. Anyway, the Olde Towne Taverne is in downtown (or downetowne) Mattituck, which is about a block long, and really charming. The OTT is okay, the motif is sort of early ship, despite the fact that it’s a town tavern and a mile from the water. The wood is very dark and the floor is oak planking, and the thing that I love is the amber glass lanterns that cast this really mellow, mood-altering glow over the whole place.
So there I was in the OTT, and it was getting on to 10 P.M., and the Monday night crowd was watching The Game—Dallas vs. New York at the Meadowlands. My mind was hopping between the game, the double murder, my food, and the waitress with the NordicTrack ass.
I was more nattily dressed than earlier, having changed into evening attire of tan Levi’s jeans, blue polo by Ralph, genuine Sperry Top-Siders, and Hanes all-cotton briefs. I looked like an ad for something.
I was sitting on a stool at one of those chest-high tables near the bar, and I had a good view of the TV, and I had my favorite meal in front of me—cheeseburger, french fries, stuffed potato skins, nachos, buffalo wings, and a Budweiser; a good balance of brown and yellow things.
Detective Penrose of the county police department sort of snuck up on me from behind, and the next thing I knew she was sitting on the stool facing me, a beer in her hand, and her head blocking the screen. She regarded my dinner, and I saw her eyebrows arch.
She turned her attention back to me and said, “Max thought I might find you here.”
“Would you like some french fries?”
“No, thank you.” She hesitated, then said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot back there.”
“Nonsense. I don’t mind having my own gun pulled on me.”
“Look, I’ve been speaking to Max, and I’ve been thinking… if the town wants you as a consultant, that’s okay with me, and if you wanted to pass on to me anything that you think is useful, feel free to call.” She handed me her card, and I read, “Detective Elizabeth Penrose.” Beneath that it said, “Homicide,” then her office address, fax, telephone number, and so forth. On the left was the Suffolk County seal with the words “Free and Independent” around a fearsome-looking bull. I commented, “Not a very good likeness of you.”
She stared at me, her jaw sort of clenched and her nostrils flared as she took a long breath. She kept her cool, which is admirable. I can be annoying.
I leaned across the table until our noses were about a football apart. She smelled good, sort of soapy and healthy. I said, “Look, Elizabeth, cut the crap. You know that I knew the Gordons and that I’ve been to their house and I went out in their boat, and maybe I’ve met their friends and their coworkers, and maybe they opened up to me about their work a little because I’m a cop, and maybe I know more than you or Max put together, and maybe you’re right about that. So, you realize you pissed me off, and Max is pissed at you, and you came here to apologize, and you give me permission to call you and tell you what I know. Wow! What a terrific opportunity for me. However, if I don’t call you in a day or two, you’ll have me down in your office for a formal interrogation. So let’s not pretend I’m a consultant, your partner, your bud, or a willing informant. Just tell me where and when you want to take a statement from me.” I sat back and turned my attention to the potato skins.
Detective Penrose stayed quiet awhile, then said, “Tomorrow, my office”—she tapped her card—“nine A.M. Don’t be late.” She stood, put her beer down, and left.
New York had the ball on their own thirty with third and six, and this idiot of a quarterback throws La Bomba fifty yards into the friggin’ wind, and the ball hangs there like the Goodyear blimp, and the three pass receivers and three Dallas guys are all under it with their arms flapping, hopping around like they’re praying for rain or something.
“Excuse me.”
“Sit down.”
She sat, but it was too late, and I missed the interception. The crowd at the stadium and in the OTT were going nuts, and the guys at the bar were yelling, “Pass interference!” though there were no yellow flags out there, and the Dallas guy ran it back to the fifty. I watched the replay in slow motion. No pass interference. Sometimes I wish I could replay parts of my life in slow motion like that. Like my marriage, which was a series of bad calls.
She said, “I’m going back to the scene now. Someone from the Department of Agriculture is going to meet me at about eleven. He’s coming in from Manhattan. Would you like to be there?”
“Don’t you have a partner you can annoy?”
“He’s on vacation. Come on, Detective, let’s start all over.” She put her hand out.
I reminded her, “Last time I took your hand, I lost my gun and my manhood.”
She smiled. “Come on, shake.”
I shook hands with her. Her skin was warm. My heart was on fire. Or maybe the nachos were causing reflux. It’s hard to tell after forty.
I held her hand a moment and looked at her perfect face. Our eyes met, and the same piggy thought passed through both our minds. She broke eye contact first. Someone has to or it gets geeky.
The cute waitress came over, and I ordered two beers. The waitress asked me, “Do you still want that bowl of chili?”
“More than ever.”
She cleared some of the dishes and went to get beer and chili. I love this country.
Detective Penrose commented, “You must have a cast-iron stomach.”
“Actually, my whole stomach was taken out after I was shot. My esophagus is attached to my intestine.”
“Do you mean your mouth is connected directly to your asshole?”
I raised my eyebrows.
She said, “I’m sorry—that was crude. Shall we start yet again?”
“It wouldn’t do any good. Turn around and watch the game.”
She turned around, and we watched the game and had a beer. At halftime with a 7–7 tie, she looked at her watch and said, “I have to go meet this Department of Agriculture guy.”
If you’re wondering about this Department of Agriculture thing, Plum Island is officially a Department of Agriculture installation, and they do things with animal diseases, anthrax, and all that. But rumor has it that it goes beyond that. Way beyond. I said, “Don’t keep the Department of Agriculture waiting.”
“Do you want to come along?”
I contemplated this invitation. If I went along, I’d get deeper into this thing, whatever it was. On the pro side, I like solving murders, and I liked the Gordons. In the ten years I’ve been with homicide, I’ve put twenty-six murderers behind bars, and the last two guys are eligible to take advantage of the new death penalty law, which adds another whole dimension to homicide cases now. On the con side, this was something different, and I was way off my turf. Also, a Department of Agriculture guy, like most government bureaucrats, wouldn’t be caught dead working at night, so this guy was most probably CIA or FBI or Defense Intelligence or something like that. It didn’t matter, and there’d be more of them later tonight or tomorrow. No, I didn’t need this case at a buck a week, or a thousand bucks a day, or at any price.
“Detective? Hello?”
I looked at her. How do you say no to a perfect 10? I said, “I’ll meet you there.”
“All right. What do I owe you for the beers?”
“On me.”
“Thanks. See you later.” She walked toward the door and, with the game at halftime, the fifty or so guys in the OTT finally noticed that there was an incredible babe on the premises. There were a few whistles and invitations to stick around.
I watched a little of the halftime stuff. I wished they had taken my stomach out, because it was pumping acid into my ulcers now. The chili came, and I could hardly finish the bowl. I popped two Zantac, then a Maalox even though the gastro-doc said not to mix.
In truth, my health, once robust, had taken a decided dip since the April 12 incident. My eating, drinking, and sleeping habits were never good, and the divorce and the job had taken their toll. I was starting to feel forty-something, starting to feel my mortality. Sometimes in my sleep, I remember lying in the gutter in my own blood, lying on a storm drain and thinking, “I’m circling around the drain, I’m going down the drain.”
On the upside, I was starting to notice things like the waitress with the NordicTrack ass, and when Elizabeth Penrose walked into the bar, my little meat puppet sat up and stretched. Truly, I was on the road to recovery, and for sure I was in better shape than the Gordons.
I thought a moment about Tom and Judy. Tom was a Ph.D. who didn’t mind killing his brain cells with beer and wine, and he cooked a good steak on the grill. He was a down-to-earth guy from Indiana or Illinois or someplace out there where they have this sort of twang. He was low-key about his work and joked about the danger, like last week when a hurricane was headed our way, he said, “If it hits Plum, you can call it Hurricane Anthrax, and we can kiss our asses goodbye.” Ha. Ha. Ha.
Judy, like her husband, was a Ph.D., a Midwesterner, unpretentious, good-natured, spirited, funny, and beautiful. John Corey, like every guy who met her, was in love with her.
Judy and Tom seemed to have taken well to this maritime province in the two years since they’d been here, and they seemed to enjoy powerboating and had gotten involved with the Peconic Historical Society. In addition, they were enchanted by the wineries and had become connoisseurs of Long Island wine. In fact, they had befriended some of the local vintners, including Fredric Tobin, who threw lavish soirees at his chateau, one of which I attended as the Gordons’ guest.
As a couple, the Gordons seemed happy, loving, caring, sharing, and all that 1990s stuff, and I really never noticed anything amiss between them. But that’s not to say they were perfect people or a perfect couple.
I searched my memory for something like a fatal flaw, the kind of thing that sometimes gets people murdered. Drugs? Not likely. Infidelity? Possible, but not probable. Money? They didn’t have much to steal. So it came down to the job again.
I thought about that. It would appear on the face of things that the Gordons were selling superbugs and something went wrong, and they were terminated. Along the same lines, I recalled that Tom once confided to me that his biggest fear, aside from catching a disease, was that he and Judy would be kidnapped right off their boat one day, that an Iranian submarine or something would come up and snatch them away, and they’d never be seen or heard from again. This seemed a little far-fetched to me, but I remember thinking that the Gordons must have a lot of stuff in their heads that some people wanted. So maybe what happened was that the murder started out as a snatch job and went wrong. I thought about this. If the murders were related to the job, were the Gordons innocent victims, or were they traitors who sold death for gold? Were they killed by a foreign power or were they killed by someone closer to home?
I mulled this over as best I could in the OTT with the noise, the halftime crap, the beer in my brain, and the acid in my tummy. I had another beer and another Maalox. Gastro-doc never said why I wasn’t supposed to mix.
I tried to think of the unthinkable, of handsome, happy Tom and beautiful, bouncy Judy selling plague to some nut cases, of water reservoirs filled with disease, or maybe aerial crop sprayers over New York or Washington, of millions of sick, dying, and dead….
I couldn’t imagine the Gordons doing that. On the other hand, everyone has a price. I used to wonder how they could afford to rent that house on the water and buy that expensive boat. Now maybe I knew how and also why they needed a high-speed boat and a house with a private dock. It all made sense, and yet my instincts were telling me not to believe the obvious.
I overtipped Ms. NordicTrack and returned to the scene of the crime.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was after eleven as I drove along the lane that led to the Gordons’ house. The night was lit by a nice three-quarter moon, and a pleasant breeze brought the smell of the sea through the open windows of my new moss green Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, a $40,000 indulgence that the nearly deceased John Corey thought he owed himself.
I stopped fifty yards from the house, put the vehicle into “park,” and listened to a few more minutes of Giants-Dallas, then I shut off the engine. A voice said, “Your headlights are on.”
“Shut up,” I replied, “just shut up.” I switched off the headlights.
There are many options in life, but one option you should never choose is the “Voice Warning and Advisory Option.”
I opened the door. “Your key is in the ignition. Your emergency brake is not engaged.” It was a female voice, and I swear to God it sounded like my ex-wife. “Thank you, dear.” I took my keys, climbed down, and slammed the door.
The vehicles and crowds on the small street had thinned considerably, and I figured that the bodies had been removed, it being a fact of life that the arrival of the meat wagon usually satisfies most of the spectators and signals the end of Act One. Also, they all wanted to see themselves on the eleven o’clock news.
There was a new addition to the police presence since my earlier visit: a Suffolk County police mobile van was parked in front of the house near the forensic van. This new van was the command post that could accommodate investigators, radios, fax machines, cell phones, video equipment, and the other high-tech doodads that make up the arsenal in the never-ending battle against crime and all that.
I noticed a helicopter overhead, and I could see by the light of the moon that it was from one of the networks. Though I couldn’t hear the reporter’s voice, he or she was probably saying something like, “Tragedy struck this exclusive Long Island community earlier this evening.” Then some stuff about Plum Island and so on.
I made my way through the last of the stragglers, avoiding anyone who looked like the working press. I stepped over the yellow tape, and this immediately attracted a Southold cop. I tinned the guy and got a half-assed salute.
The uniformed crime scene recorder approached me with a clipboard and time sheet, and again I gave him my name, my business, and so forth, as he requested. This is SOP and is done throughout the investigation of the crime, beginning with the first officer at the scene and continuing until the last officer leaves and the scene is returned to the owner of the property. In any case, they had me twice now and the hook was in deeper.
I asked the uniformed officer, “Do you have a guy from the Department of Agriculture logged in?”
He replied without even looking at the sheet, “No.”
“But there is a man from the Department of Agriculture here. Correct?”
“You’ll have to ask Chief Maxwell.”
“I’m asking you why you haven’t logged this guy in.”
“You’ll have to ask Chief Maxwell.”
“I will.” Actually, I already knew the answer. They don’t call these guys spooks for nothing.
I walked around to the backyard and onto the deck. In the places where the Gordons had lain were now two chalk outlines, looking very ghostly in the moonlight. A big sheet of clear plastic covered the splatter behind them where their mortality had exited.
Regarding this, as I said, I was glad this was an open-air shooting, and there was no lingering smell of death. I hate it when I go back to the scene of an indoor murder and that smell is still there. Why is it that I can’t get that smell out of my mind? Out of my nostrils? Out of the back of my throat? Why is that?
Two uniformed Southold guys sat at the round patio table drinking from steaming Styrofoam cups. I recognized one of them as Officer Johnson, whose kindness in driving me home I had repaid by getting a little rough with him. It’s a tough world, you know, and I’m one of the people who make it that way. Officer Johnson gave me an unpleasant glance.
Down by the dock, I could make out the silhouette of another uniformed man, and I was glad someone had taken my advice to post a guard by the boat.
There was no one else around so I went into the house through the sliding screen door, which opened into a big living room and dining room combo. I’d been here before, of course, and recalled that Judy said most of the furnishings came with the rental, Scandinavian from Taiwan, as she described it.
A few forensic types were still messing around, and I asked one of them, a cute latent fingerprint lady, “Chief Maxwell?”
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and said, “Kitchen. Don’t touch anything on the way there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I floated across the Berber carpet and alighted in the kitchen, where a conference seemed to be in progress. Present were Max, representing the sovereign Township of Southold, Elizabeth Penrose, representing the free and independent County of Suffolk, a gentleman in a dark suit who didn’t need a sign that said FBI, and another gentleman, more casually dressed in denim jacket and jeans, a bloodred shirt, and hiking boots, a sort of parody of what a Department of Agriculture bureaucrat might look like if he ever left the office and had to visit a farm.
Everyone was standing, like they were giving the impression of literally thinking on their feet. There was a cardboard box filled with Styrofoam coffee cups, and everyone had a cup in his or her hand. It was interesting and significant, I thought, that this group wasn’t assembled in the mobile command post, but was sort of out of sight in the kitchen.
Max, incidentally, had spiffed himself up for the Feds and/or the press by putting on a tie, a silly one decorated with nautical flags. Elizabeth was still wearing her tan suit, but had removed her jacket, revealing one holstered .38 and two holstered 36Ds.
A small black-and-white TV sat on the counter, tuned to one of the networks, the volume low. The lead story was about a presidential visit to some strange place where everyone was short.
Max said to the two guys, “This is Detective John Corey, homicide,” and let it go at that without mentioning that my jurisdiction began and ended about a hundred miles west of here. Max indicated the dark suit and said, “John, this is George Foster, FBI…” He looked at Mr. Bluejeans and said, “… and this is Ted Nash, Department of Agriculture.”
We shook hands all around. I informed Penrose, “Giants scored in the first minute of the third quarter.”
She didn’t reply.
Max motioned toward the box of cups and asked, “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
Ms. Penrose, who was closest to the TV, heard something on the news and raised the volume. We all focused on the screen.
A female reporter was standing in front of the Gordon house. We missed her lead-in and caught, “The victims of the double murder have been identified as scientists who worked at the top-secret government animal disease laboratory on Plum Island, a few miles from here.”
An aerial shot now showed Plum Island from about two thousand feet. It was bright daylight, so it must have been stock footage. From the air, the island looked almost exactly like a pork chop, and I guess if you wanted to stretch an irony about swine fever…. Anyway, Plum is about three miles at its longest, and about a mile at its widest. The reporter, in voice-over, was saying, “This is Plum Island as it appeared last summer when this station did a report about persistent rumors that the island is home to biological warfare research.”
Aside from the hackneyed phrases, the lady was right about the rumors. I recalled a cartoon I’d once seen in The Wall Street Journal where a school guidance counselor says to two parents, “Your son is vicious, mean-spirited, dishonest, and likes to spread rumors. I suggest a career in journalism.” Right. And rumors could lead to panic. It occurred to me that this case had to be wrapped up quickly.
The reporter was now back in front of the Gordons’ house, and she informed us, “No one is saying if the Gordons’ murders were related to their work on Plum Island, but police are investigating.”
Back to the studio.
Ms. Penrose turned off the volume and asked Mr. Foster, “Does the FBI want to be publicly connected with this case?”
“Not at this time.” Mr. Foster added, “It makes people think there’s a real problem.”
Mr. Nash said, “The Department of Agriculture has no official interest in this case since there is no connection between the Gordons’ work and their deaths. The department will issue no public statements, except an expression of sorrow over the murders of two well-liked and dedicated employees.”
Amen. I mentioned to Mr. Nash, “By the way, you forgot to sign in.”
He looked at me, a little surprised and a lot annoyed, and replied, “I’ll… thank you for reminding me.”
“Anytime. Every time.”
After a minute of public relations chitchat, Max said to Messrs. Foster and Nash, “Detective Corey knew the deceased.”
Mr. FBI immediately got interested and asked me, “How did you know them?”
It’s not a good idea to start answering questions—it gives people the idea that you’re a cooperative fellow, which I’m not. I didn’t reply.
Max answered for me, “Detective Corey knew the Gordons socially, only about three months. I’ve known John on and off about ten years.”
Foster nodded. Clearly he had more questions and while he was hesitating about asking, Detective Penrose said, “Detective Corey is writing a full report on what he knew of the Gordons which I will share with all concerned agencies.”
That was news to me.
Mr. Nash was leaning against a kitchen counter looking at me. We stared at each other, the two dominant males in the room, if you will, and we decided without a word that we didn’t like each other, and that one of us had to go. I mean, the air was so thick with testosterone that the wallpaper was getting soggy.
I turned my attention to Max and Penrose and asked, “Have we determined that this is more than a homicide? Is that why the federal government is here?”
No one replied.
I continued, “Or are we just assuming that it is more? Did I miss a meeting or something?”
Mr. Ted Nash finally replied coolly, “We are being cautious, Detective. We have no concrete evidence that this homicide is connected to matters of… well, to be blunt, matters of national security.”
I remarked, “I never realized the Department of Agriculture was involved in national security. Do you have, like, undercover cows?”
Mr. Nash gave me a nice fuck-you smile and said, “We have wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
“Touche.” Prick.
Mr. Foster butted in before it got nasty and said, “We’re here as a precautionary measure, Detective. We’d be very remiss if we didn’t check it out. We all hope it was just a murder with no Plum Island connection.”
I regarded George Foster a moment. He was thirtyish, typical clean-cut, bright-eyed FBI type, wearing the FBI dark suit, white shirt, muted tie, black sturdy shoes, and halo.
I shifted my attention to Ted Nash wearing the aforementioned denims; he was closer to my age, tanned, curly salt-and-pepper hair, blue-gray eyes, impressive build, and all in all what the ladies would call a hunk, which is one of the reasons I didn’t like him, I guess. I mean, how many hunks do you need in one room?
I might have been more pleasant to him except that he was throwing glances at Elizabeth Penrose, who was catching them and pitching them back. I don’t mean they were leering and drooling; just real quick eye-to-eye flashes and neutral expressions, but you’d have to be blind not to figure out what was going through their dirty minds. Jeez, the whole friggin’ planet was about to get anthrax and die or something, and these two are like dogs in heat, eye-fucking each other when we had important business at hand. Really disgusting.
Max interrupted my thoughts and said to me, “John, we have still not recovered the two bullets fired through their heads, but we can assume they went into the bay, and we’ll be dredging and diving early tomorrow.” He added, “There were no shell casings found.”
I nodded. An automatic pistol would spit out shell casings whereas a revolver would not. If the weapon was an automatic, then the murderer was cool enough to bend down and gather the two shell casings.
So far, we had basically nothing. Two head shots, no bullets, no casings, no noise heard next door.
I regarded Mr. Nash again. He looked like a worried man, and I was happy to see that between thoughts of popping Ms. Penrose, he was thinking about saving the planet. In fact, everyone in the kitchen seemed to be thinking about things, probably germs, and they were probably wondering if they were going to wake up with red blotches or something.
Ted Nash reached into the cardboard box and asked Detective Penrose, “Another coffee, Beth?”
Beth? What the hell…?
She smiled. “No, thank you.”
My stomach had settled down so I went to the refrigerator for a beer. The shelves were nearly empty and I asked, “Max, did you take things out of here?”
“The lab took everything that was not factory sealed.”
“Do you want a beer?” No one answered, so I took a Coors Light, popped the top, and took a swig.
I noticed eight eyes on me, like they were waiting for something to happen. People get weird when they think they’re in an infected environment. I had a crazy urge to clutch my throat, fall on the floor, and go into convulsions. But I wasn’t with my buds in Manhattan North, chicks and dicks who would get a kick out of sick humor, so I passed on the opportunity to add some comic relief to the grimness. I said to Max, “Please continue.”
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?
Mr. Cool replied to his new protégée, “As you probably suspect, Beth, it may not be possible to discover if anything is missing. The problem is, the micro-organisms can be propagated secretly in some part of the Plum Island laboratory or in other places on the island, then taken off the island, and no one would ever know. It’s not like chemical or nuclear agents, where every gram is accounted for. Bacteria and virus like to reproduce.”
Scary, if you think about it… microbugs are lowtech compared to nuclear fission or manufacturing nerve gas. This is home lab stuff, cheap to produce, and it replicates itself in—what did we use in bio lab? Beef bouillon? No more cheeseburgers for me.
Ms. Penrose, proud of her last question, asked Mr.-Know-It-All, “Can we assume the organisms studied on Plum Island are particularly deadly? What I mean is, do they genetically engineer these organisms to make them more lethal than they are in their natural state?”
Mr. Nash did not like that question and replied, “No.” Then added, “Well, the laboratory at Plum Island does have genetic engineering capabilities, but what they do is take viruses and genetically alter them so they can’t cause disease, but can stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies in the event the real virus ever infects the organism. This is sort of a vaccine, made not by weakening the infectious organism and injecting it, which can be dangerous, but by genetically changing the organism. To answer your question in short, any genetic engineering done on Plum Island is to weaken a virus or bacteria, not to increase its power to cause disease.”
I said, “Of course not. But that’s also possible with genetic engineering.”
“Possible. But not on Plum Island.”
It occurred to me that Nash was genetically altering information—taking the germ of the truth, if you will, and weakening it so we got a mild dose of the bad news. Clever fellow.
I was tired of the scientific crap, and I addressed my next question to Mr. Foster. “Are you people doing anything to keep this bottled? Airports, highways, and all that?”
Mr. Foster replied, “We’ve got everyone out there looking for… whatever. We have all area airports, seaports, and train stations being watched by our people, local police, and Customs people, and we have the Coast Guard stopping and searching vessels, and we’ve even got the Drug Enforcement Agency using their boats and planes. The problem is, the perpetrators would have had about a three-hour head start because quite frankly we weren’t notified in a timely fashion….” Mr. Foster looked at Chief Maxwell, who had his arms crossed and was making a face.
A word here on Sylvester Maxwell. He’s an honest cop, not the brightest bulb in the room, but not stupid either. He can be stubborn at times, though that seems to be a North Fork trait and not peculiar to the chief. Being in charge of a small rural police force that has to work with the much larger county police force and on occasion the state police, he’s learned when to protect his turf and when to retreat.
Another point: the geographical realities of a maritime jurisdiction in the era of drug running have put Max in close proximity to the DEA and the Coast Guard. The DEA always assumes the local gendarmes may be in on the drug trade; the locals, like Max, are positive the DEA is in on it. The Coast Guard and FBI are considered clean, but they suspect the DEA and the local police. The Customs Service is mostly clean, but there have to be some bad guys who take bucks to look the other way. In short, drugs are the worst thing that has happened to American law enforcement since Prohibition.
And this led me from thinking about Max to thinking about drugs, about the Gordons’ thirty-foot Formula with big, powerful engines. Since the facts didn’t seem to fit the Gordons selling end-of-the-world plague for money, maybe the facts did fit drug running. Maybe I was onto something. Maybe I’d share this with everyone as soon as I worked it out in my mind. Maybe I wouldn’t.
Mr. Foster threw a few more zingers at Chief Maxwell for his tardiness in contacting the FBI, making sure he was on the record about that. Sort of like, “Oh, Max, if only you’d come to me sooner. Now, all is lost, and it’s your fault.”
Max pointed out to Foster, “I called county homicide within ten minutes of learning of the murder. It was out of my hands at that point. My ass is covered.”
Ms. Penrose felt eight eyes on her ass and said, “I had no idea the victims were Plum Island people.”
Max said, gently but firmly, “I reported that to the guy who answered the phone, Beth. Sergeant… something. Check the tape.”
“I will,” replied Detective Penrose. She added, “You may be right, Max, but let’s not get into this now.” She said to Foster, “Let’s stick to solving the crime.”
Mr. Foster replied, “Good advice.” He looked around the room and offered, “Another possibility is that whoever took this stuff is not trying to take it out of the country. They could have a lab set up locally, an inconspicuous kind of operation that wouldn’t attract attention, wouldn’t require unusual materials or chemicals that could be traced. Worst-case scenario is that the organisms, whatever they are, are cultured, then introduced or delivered to the population in various ways. Some of these organisms are easy to deliver in the water supply, some can be airborne, some can be spread by people and animals. I’m no expert, but I phoned some people in Washington earlier, and I understand that the potential for infection and contagion is very high.” He added, “A TV documentary once suggested that a coffee can full of anthrax, vaporized into the air by a single terrorist riding around Manhattan in a boat, would kill a minimum of two hundred thousand people.”
The room got silent again.
Mr. Foster, enjoying the attention, it seemed, continued, “It could be worse. It’s hard to gauge. Anthrax is bacterial. Viruses could be worse.”
I asked, “Do I understand that we’re not talking about the possible theft of a single type of virus or bacteria?”
George Foster replied, “If you’re going to steal anthrax, you might as well steal Ebola, too, and anything else you can get. This would pose a multifaceted threat, the type of threat that would never be found in nature, and would be impossible to contain or control.”
The mantel clock in the living room struck twelve chimes, and Mr. Ted Nash, with a sense for the dramatic and wanting to impress us with his education, undoubtedly Ivy League, quoted the Bard, thus: “ ’Ties now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.”
On that cheery note, I said, “I’m going out for some air.”
Continues...
Excerpted from Plum Island by DeMille, Nelson Copyright © 2011 by DeMille, Nelson. Excerpted by permission.
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Product details
- ASIN : B000FA5SMK
- Publisher : Grand Central Publishing; 1st edition (June 1, 2003)
- Publication date : June 1, 2003
- Language : English
- File size : 2921 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 608 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 1455593877
- Best Sellers Rank: #43,361 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #143 in Suspense Action Fiction
- #326 in Mystery Action Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #577 in Action Thriller Fiction
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About the author
Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille, then moved with his parents to Long Island. He graduated from Elmont Memorial High School, where he played football and ran track.
DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army where he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69). He saw action in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
After his discharge, DeMille returned to Hofstra University where he received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History. He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and resides on Long Island.
DeMille's first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978, and is still in print as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of American Mensa, The Authors Guild, and is past president of the Mystery Writers of America. He is also a member of International Thriller Writers and was chosen as ThrillerMaster of the Year 2015. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College.
Nelson DeMille is the author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, The Gate House, The Lion, The Panther, The Quest, Radiant Angel, The Cuban Affair and The Deserter. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block and has contributed short stories to anthologies, and book reviews and articles to magazines and newspapers.
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Customers enjoyed the book and found it an easy read with a good plot twist. They appreciated the humor, witty characters, and character development. The writing style was described as crisp and brilliantly constructed. Readers also mentioned that the pacing was fast-paced.
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Customers enjoy the book's readability. They find the story entertaining and interesting, with a clever plot that leads to an exciting ending. The book is recommended as a great read for all ages with a nice day trip feel.
"...Southold—a place of fishing, farming, antiques, vineyards, and rich New World history. His friends, Tom and Judy Gordon, are murdered in cold blood...." Read more
"...This earlier book is a good read, but slightly lengthy and the plot is a bit unbelievable so I gave it 4 stars...." Read more
"...and facts that DeMille uses about real places, events and people help sell the story to me as it rarely gets too fantastical..." Read more
"Taut, suspenseful and very entertaining. Demille creates a clever storyline that rings of a modern day Agatha Christie who-dunnit...." Read more
Customers find the plot twists engaging. They say the story is well-crafted with logical clues and motives that lead to a satisfying conclusion. The book holds their attention with its unexpected turns and surprises, making it an enjoyable mystery novel.
"...The story is driven by logical clues and motives that lead to a satisfying conclusion...." Read more
"...The characters are well crafted, and the plot moves around and around, finishing with an exciting but somewhat unbelievable boat chase...." Read more
"...a good mystery and melds together a lot of what appears to be well researched material surrounding medical mystery, contagious germs, police..." Read more
"...The ending to one character is pretty brutal and will stick with me for a while. The overall mystery is great with some clever twists and turns." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find the witty and sarcastic writing style entertaining. The reveal is described as laugh-out-loud funny. The author's writing style is enjoyable, and the plotting and character development are also praiseworthy.
"...Add to that Corey’s sharp wit and relentless pursuit of the truth, and you’ll want to read all seven hundred pages in one sitting!" Read more
"...Dry witted, sarcastic and yet boyishly charming, he quickly ingratiates himself with the FBI, the CIA, the State Police and the local sheriff who..." Read more
"...original but the way it is told, in the DeMille manner, makes it very entertaining as it builds to a thrilling climax...." Read more
"...The writing, the story, how fast it reads and the very rare humor for a mystery genre! My new favorite mystery writer!" Read more
Customers enjoy the character development in the book. They find the hero humorous, tough, and gentle, with a dry sense of humor. The characters are described as colorful and the suspects as well. Readers appreciate the book's balance between mystery and detailed personalities.
"...Add to that Corey’s sharp wit and relentless pursuit of the truth, and you’ll want to read all seven hundred pages in one sitting!" Read more
"...The characters are well crafted, and the plot moves around and around, finishing with an exciting but somewhat unbelievable boat chase...." Read more
"..." language of the book is a turn off to some, as our hero is more straightforward descriptive and less prone to using the phrases that have become..." Read more
"...Crossing paths with several possible suspects, all of whom are colorful characters, Corey find himself second guessing everyone while juggling..." Read more
Customers enjoy the author's writing style. They find the stories engaging and well-crafted. The dialogue flows smoothly and the characters seem believable. Overall, readers praise the book as an enjoyable read.
"...with a "summer read" for most people, but the easy read style and flowing dialog made it hard for me (an admitted non finisher of many books), to..." Read more
"...Demille artfully crafts a good mystery and melds together a lot of what appears to be well researched material surrounding medical mystery,..." Read more
"I absolutely loved this book. The writing, the story, how fast it reads and the very rare humor for a mystery genre! My new favorite mystery writer!" Read more
"...there are plenty of story elements to keep it interesting, and DeMille writes well and it is an easy read with enough suspense to keep the reader..." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's pacing. They find it fast-paced with interesting characters and engaging plot twists. The final chapters are described as swift and captivating, with good suspense and quick wit. Overall, readers describe it as an easy read with a strong sense of humor throughout.
"...fits more in line with a "summer read" for most people, but the easy read style and flowing dialog made it hard for me..." Read more
"...setting the scene so the audience will know everything, the second half moves very fast and leads to a very exciting ending...." Read more
"The plot moved too slowly in its development. I was finally hooked on the story by the half way mark of the story." Read more
"I absolutely loved this book. The writing, the story, how fast it reads and the very rare humor for a mystery genre! My new favorite mystery writer!" Read more
Customers have different views on the book's detail. Some find it informative and engaging, with accurate reasoning and meticulous research. Others feel the details are excessive, repetitive, and overly dramatic.
"...He is relentless in finding clues and very meticulous...." Read more
"The information about the North Fork is great. Some of the characters, too. The book is a bit too long." Read more
"...It is too long. Too many explanations about things that are not at all interesting. We just don't read. We skip them cus it is boring;..." Read more
"...It wins a few points for a good setting which is easy to envision, and frankly a good hook that dominates the first 100 pages or so -- the story..." Read more
Customers have differing views on the book's interest. Some find it engaging and exciting, while others feel it lacks depth and is too self-absorbed. The hero seems overly egotistical and the writing style is crude for some readers' tastes.
"...Corey did know the victims before but the novel does a good job of catching the reader up...." Read more
"Holds your attention and throws in some surprises. Great character development. Needs a follow-up. Great reading for all ages. Enjoy." Read more
"...Here, it was over the top. I found John Corey to be obnoxious at times and simply not funny...." Read more
"...Connecticut and Rhode Island. This was fun and held my interest...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2024PLUM ISLAND, by Nelson DeMille, is a mystery thriller set on Long Island’s North Fork. NYPD Detective John Corey is convalescing in the township of Southold—a place of fishing, farming, antiques, vineyards, and rich New World history. His friends, Tom and Judy Gordon, are murdered in cold blood. Was it a burglary gone bad or bio terrorism? It turns out that the Gordons were scientists working in Plum Island—a federal research facility studying deadly animal pathogens like Foot-and-mouth disease, Anthrax, and Ebola. Corey is pulled into the case by the local police chief and soon finds himself in a web of deception and murder. As the bodies pile up, the clues point Corey to dark secrets, some going back more than three-hundred years.
The story is driven by logical clues and motives that lead to a satisfying conclusion. Add to that Corey’s sharp wit and relentless pursuit of the truth, and you’ll want to read all seven hundred pages in one sitting!
- Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2013From time to time I revisit an early book in some of my favourite series to see how they have stood the test of time. Plum Island is an early book in Nelson Demille's John Corey series and when it was released it knocked John Grisham off the top of the US bestseller lists and held the no.1 spot for five weeks. I have just read and enjoyed "The Panther", the latest John Corey adventure and wanted to see how the character had evolved over time.
In "Plum Island" Corey is still a NYPD homicide detective and is staying at his Uncle's beachside house on Long Island recovering from three, almost fatal, gunshots in the course of duty. His neighbours, Tom and Judy Gordon, biologists who worked on Plum Island, the site of animal disease research for the Department of Agriculture, are murdered and Corey is hired by the local police to consult on the murder investigation. A smart and attractive detective Beth Penrose leads the team.
Inevitably the investigations focus first on the possibility that the Gordon's were involved in selling viruses or vaccines to terrorists. The investigation team gets packed with FBI and CIA agents tripping over themselves to prevent a life-threatening tragedy.
Corey quickly dismisses the Plum Island disease connection and works on his own to look at unusual things in the Gordon's lifestyle which is well overspent. They have a rarely used but very expensive speed boat with a missing ice-chest, and recently purchased an isolated block of land on the beach-side that can't be developed. He also looks at their membership of a local historical society and meets and is instantly attracted to the president of the society, Emma Whitestone.
Corey is still full of smart alec wisecracks, but IMHO they are better in "The Panther" as he matures. Most people are disarmed and annoyed by his attitude which makes him look a bit idiotic - but it really is a technique to keep people off balance so they don't realise how smart he really is.
I enjoyed revisiting this early Demille which has an interesting and somewhat unusual plot. The characters are well crafted, and the plot moves around and around, finishing with an exciting but somewhat unbelievable boat chase.
On balance I enjoyed "The Panther" slightly better which I gave 5 stars. This earlier book is a good read, but slightly lengthy and the plot is a bit unbelievable so I gave it 4 stars.
My favourite Demille book is still "Word of Honor", which IMHO is one of the best novels about the Vietnam war.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2011A sort of modern day version of Film Noir meets Action Movie. Blend together the smarmy talk of an old Bogart mystery (only with more modern chauvinism)with bordering on unbelievable action of a Willis in Die Hard and you get the sort of story and suspense that DeMille has put together.
The "more modern" language of the book is a turn off to some, as our hero is more straightforward descriptive and less prone to using the phrases that have become running jokes of Noir (i.e. "She was no longer wearing her blazer, so I could see the .38 caliber she had holstered on her back, and the pair of 38D she had holstered up front" rather than the "She was as smooth as butter and sizzled like butter melting in a frying pan"). John Corey is a chauvinist and full of himself to a degree that may offend those of delicate senses (see most of the low 1 star reviews here and that is the major whine... so if you are one of those types, then this is probably not for you), but is quite realistic to anybody that knows a person like a Cory.
This is in no way what you may consider a "literary classic" and probably fits more in line with a "summer read" for most people, but the easy read style and flowing dialog made it hard for me (an admitted non finisher of many books), to put it down and I could not wait for my next opportunity to grab it and see what was happening next.
The research and facts that DeMille uses about real places, events and people help sell the story to me as it rarely gets too fantastical (though there are some points that like any action book border on the implausible) and helps make it almost seem like more of a dramatization of real events rather than outright fiction.
Thoughout my life I have had favorite sleuths, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew (hey I was a kid), Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, and now John Corey.
Top reviews from other countries
- JFReviewed in Canada on November 15, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
John Corey is so politically incorrect and annoying he becomes very entertaining. His remarks makes.you laugh all Tru the book.
- Riccardo BottiReviewed in Italy on December 13, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Enticing book
Always funny, Nelson Demille writes in a way few other writers do. Very sarcastic and at the same time a true action book!
- willreadReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific book
I give this author five stars for a story that was an absolute pleasure to read. It was interesting, gripping in parts, funny and I felt totally invested in the story. The main characters were superbly created and I loved and hated them as was appropriate, as I'm sure was intended by the author.
A great book that I would readily recommend.
- C. McCarthyReviewed in France on September 25, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
The book is quite interesting ansd since I lived on Long Island for 12 years, it's especially intriguing. Thank you.
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bergueniaReviewed in Spain on March 11, 2013
4.0 out of 5 stars John Corey nunca decepciona
He escuchado las demás novelas de la serie de John Corey y siempre le identifico con la voz de Scott Brick. Leerlo yo misma ha sido una experiencia un poco extraña pero como esta es la primera novela de la serie ya no la encontré en audio. Aun así, siempre es un personaje divertido .