COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set Page 17

  She closed her eyes. “Goddamn it, it’s not fair!”

  “Emma, I want you to hire private security for your father.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “A bodyguard?”

  “I think it would be wise until we find out who is doing this.”

  “Why would anyone want to harm him? He’s already dead to the world.”

  “Sick people don’t think the way you and I do.”

  The first boarding call came from the overhead speakers.

  “How can I hire someone when I’m in California?”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “No. I’ll stay.”

  “That won’t do you any good. Get your business taken care of. I’ll make all the arrangements for your father. Please, trust me.”

  She leaned forward, squeezing his hand. “I do, Ray.”

  He smiled. “Okay, then let’s get you aboard that plane. Call your father’s house tomorrow morning. Tell the nurse someone will be there around four; he’ll have proper identification.”

  Emma frowned. “You’re sure he’ll be okay?”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “Come on.”

  When they reached the gate, he pulled her close. She seemed to flow against him. “Concentrate on business,” he advised. “Everything will be all right here.”

  Her eyes searched his face. Unexpectedly, her tense features relaxed. She smiled. “I know it will.” Then their mouths met.

  Hyte broke off the kiss. “Go,” he whispered.

  Emma went to the boarding gate. He watched until she was gone, aware of the two things he had failed to tell her. The first was that his team was investigating her. The second was that he loved her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “And now you know where I think this case began,” Hyte said. It was ten o’clock. He and his team had been in the conference room since eight that morning. He’d played two of the tapes of the hijacking for the members of his task force who hadn’t been involved last year. The three, Smith, Roberts, and O’Rourke, had been silent throughout.

  Coffee cups littered the conference table. Note pads were open before each cop. In the center of the table were the two pistol-grip crossbows Sally O’Rourke had provided.

  “At present,” Hyte continued, “the only common link between the three victims is that they were hostages on Flight 88. But unlike Flaxman and Samson, Barum Kaliel was released with the other coach class passengers.”

  “We also have a damned good idea as to what the weapon is,” Hyte added, pointing to the crossbows. “And we know they’re illegal within city limits.”

  “Which means nothing,” Tim Smith volunteered.

  “Anyone could get them—anywhere. How can we trace it?”

  “We can’t. We’ve asked distributors to supply us with a list of all stores they sell crossbows to in the Northeast. Then we’ll contact the stores and ask for the names of all purchasers. Roberts,” he said, turning to the detective first grade, “what did Michael Barnes have to say?”

  “Not much. He was reluctant to talk. He said all he wanted to do was forget the hijacking. When I told him about the victims, he said it had nothing to do with him.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It shook him up,” Roberts said. “But it was new news. It wasn’t a put on. I think he’s straight.” Roberts paused. “I don’t know if it makes any difference, but he said something odd. He said ‘I was a hostage once and I’ll be damned if I’ll be one again, especially to the thought that someone might want to kill me.’”

  Hyte didn’t think Barnes’s words peculiar. He’d been there. “What about the last three Friday nights?”

  “Says he was with his family. Want me to check with his wife?”

  “Not yet. O’Rourke?”

  “Neither of the two stews living in the city has noticed anyone following them. Nothing strange has happened to them. Both were on flights when Kaliel was killed.”

  “Sy?”

  “I’m still running backgrounds on the dead hostages.”

  “Okay.” He paused to look at everyone. “For the present, we’re going to concentrate on the full-term hostages. I want to know everything about them, from their current whereabouts to where they were on the past three Friday nights. “

  “Why just the full-term people?” Roberts asked.

  “A hunch,” Hyte admitted. “They were there from beginning to end.”

  “What about Kaliel?” Roberts asked. “He was in coach.”

  “It’s possible he’s tied into it in another way.”

  “Do we have anything on the killer?” Smith asked.

  “Nothing. The M.E.’s unofficial opinion is that the killer is a man. His guess is based on the weapon.”

  “Poison is a woman’s way,” Sally O’Rourke said. “It’s not messy.”

  “And a man’s way, too.” Hyte shook his head. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves; speculating on the killer’s sex won’t do anything for this investigation.”

  “Tonight’s Friday night,” Cohen said. “What’s the agenda?”

  Hyte motioned to the blackboard. “Joan Bidding and the little girl, Lea Desmond, are the only full-term hostages who live in our jurisdiction. There’ll be a blue and white sitting in front of their buildings all night.”

  “Do you really think someone could be sick enough to go after that little girl?” O’Rourke asked.

  “I don’t want to, but we can’t take a chance with her life.” Hyte paused, collecting his thoughts. “The coach passengers and crew—the short-term people, who live in the five boroughs—will have increased pass-byes of their residences by precinct squad cars. This will go from eight tonight until eight tomorrow morning.

  “Notification to the authorities, where the rest of the coach passengers and crew live, has been taken care of. A similar notification went out to Jersey, Rockland County, Westchester County and Long Island—for the full-term people. But, that’s all we can do at this time.”

  “He’s taken out two full-term and one coach hostage. What if he goes after another coach passenger to even the number?” Roberts pressed.

  “I don’t think he will.”

  “Shouldn’t we warn them to be on the safe side?” Sally O’Rourke asked.

  “And tell them what? That there’s a crazy out there with a crossbow and arrow who may have them on a hit list?” Hyte asked.

  “Don’t they have a right to know?”

  Hyte didn’t like the accusation he saw on Sally’s face.

  “Yes, they have that right—but the timing is wrong. The way I see it, the killer doesn’t know we’ve put it together already.” Hyte pointed to the newspaper headlines. “And the press will emphasize that, since they don’t know either.”

  “If I had been one of the passengers, I’d sure as hell like to know,” Cohen said. “I’d want some protection.”

  “We can’t assign cops to watch every passenger because we think the killer’s after them. We don’t have any evidence, only conjecture.”

  “We have to wait for another murder, don’t we, in order to know whether you’re right about who the victims are?” O’Rourke asked.

  Sally O’Rourke finally voiced the subject Hyte was reluctant to broach. “I’m afraid so.” Hyte waited a moment, and then said, “O’Rourke, Roberts, and Smith, you three are going out as a team. I want you to interview the first-class passengers living in the area—that’s Sylvia Mossberg and the Moffertys. I want your individual impressions on these people. You can suggest they hire private security. Sy, it’s time to talk to the volunteers.”

  Downstairs, in a small meeting room set aside for them, a dozen off-duty cops waited. When Hyte and Cohen entered the room, conversation died.

  Hyte gave each of the cops a list of coach passengers to check, with instructions to do a detailed written report of each interview and to log the subject’s whereabouts for each of the Friday nights in question.

  Then Hyte and Cohen went into the office
set up to handle the calls. Two women wearing telephone headsets sat at consoles. They nodded to him when he entered.

  “Anything?” Hyte asked.

  “We just sent up the first list,” replied a woman in her late forties. “They all seemed to be crank calls.”

  He’d expected that. The women knew that if any caller sounded legitimate, they were to transfer the call to his office. They would record every incoming call, which the task force would listen to, regardless of what the operators said or thought.

  They returned to Hyte’s office, where he called Steve MacLean, an old friend who had retired and opened up a private investigation agency. Hyte asked his friend to assign one of the agency’s detectives to Jonah Graham’s home in Westchester.

  Hanging up, Hyte turned to Cohen. “Have you started the check on Emma?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do it. This one goes by the numbers. Every piece of brass in the Department will be looking up our asses, waiting for us to fuck up. I can’t do that to Phil.” A knock on the door interrupted them. “Come in.”

  Randal Schwartz entered with a package and a manila file folder. He handed Hyte the package. “This just arrived. Dan Carson sent it over. A tape of passenger interviews taken during the hijacking.”

  Hyte scanned the penciled note Carson had scribbled on the envelope: You’ll find the ninth interview interesting. Call me when you have a chance.

  Then Schwartz gave Hyte the file folder. “This just came up from Records. It’s the check you requested on all the hostages.”

  “Thank you,” Hyte said.

  He opened the file as Schwartz left, read it quickly, and looked at Cohen. “Only one positive. Jack Mofferty has a rap sheet…for assault, twenty-five years ago. He waltzed—a suspended jail sentence and a five thousand dollar fine.”

  “It’s a starting point,” Cohen said.

  “Maybe. Let’s get some lunch before we look at Carson’s tape.”

  An hour later, sitting in the conference room with Cohen, Hyte ran the tape. The ninth interview was the one with Barum Kaliel.

  “You did not see the crew member shot?” the reporter asked.

  “No. We were all in the back.”

  “What about the man who attacked the hijacker?”

  “He was a fool. He could have gotten us all killed. I tried to reason with the hijacker. I know his mentality, for I am from that part of the world. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him that he had no quarrel with us. That we were like him—that we understood his cause. His fight was against the governments, and the capitalists who run those governments. He should release us. After all, he was holding the rich people up front wasn’t he?”

  Hyte turned off the VCR. “He was a cold-blooded son of a bitch.”

  “Nasty,” Cohen agreed.

  A cog fell into place. Kaliel’s death was forensically consistent. He was certain he could discount one of the theories about the killings. They weren’t terrorist reprisals against the hostages.

  “It’s revenge, Sy. What that fool kid said to the terrorists, about letting the coach passengers free because the terrorists had the rich ones up front, put him on the same level as the terrorists. That’s why he died. We never saw this interview. We were too busy that night.”

  “What he said could be taken a lot of ways.”

  “Not to someone unhinged by the hijacking. Listen to him! He even sounds like a junior grade terrorist.” He rewound the tape and played the interview again. He looked at Cohen. “Terrorists wouldn’t have touched him. Not after he played advocate to their cause.”

  “Who wouldn’t have touched who?” asked Sally O’Rourke, leading Roberts and Smith into the conference room.

  Hyte motioned to the chairs around the conference table and rewound the tape. “Watch.”

  When the interview ended, he looked at them. “First reaction?”

  “Stupid!” Roberts declared.

  “A schmuck,” the black detective agreed.

  “He killed himself,” O’Rourke said.

  Hyte allowed no sign of the pride he felt in O’Rourke to show. “Maybe. Okay, we concentrate on the full-term hostages. I’m going to ask for a plainclothes team to be put on Bidding and Desmond tonight, not just blue and whites. What have you three coame up with?”

  “Sylvia Mossberg is clean,” Roberts said. “She lives in a senior citizen complex—all condos. It’s self-contained, for the most part, and she only leaves to shop or go to temple.”

  O’Rourke added, “Her daughter and son-in-law usually take her shopping for food. After the hijacking, Mossberg’s daughter wanted her to move in with them, but Mrs. Mossberg refused. She said it meant leaving her friends and losing her independence.”

  “Friday nights?”

  “Every Friday night, her neighbor, Ethel Greenblatt drives her to Sabbath services. We suggested that she not go to temple tonight.”

  “The Moffertys?”

  “That one didn’t go as smoothly,” Roberts said. “Jack Mofferty is a very angry man. He wouldn’t discuss anything about the hijacking.”

  Tim Smith nodded. “When we brought up the three killings, reminding him that the dead people were hostages with him, he didn’t so much as blink.”

  “What about his wife?” Hyte asked.

  “Mofferty wouldn’t let us talk to her. He told us to leave him and his wife alone,” O’Rourke said. “And he refused to answer any questions about Friday nights.”

  “Without authority in Suffolk County,” Roberts said, “we couldn’t push him.”

  Hyte decided he would talk to the Moffertys himself. “So far, Jack Mofferty is the only hostage with an arrest record. But it’s nothing to get excited about.” He paused, his thoughts shifting gears. “All right, if we’ve picked up on a true pattern, the odds say the killer will hit again tonight. For now, all we can do is hope that we have a long and boring night of phone duty. I’ll be taking the eight-to-two phones. Who wants to join me? O’Rourke?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll take the second watch. It’s payback time for the crossbows,” O’Rourke laughed. “I traded a date for the weapons.”

  “That’s one way of getting information,” Hyte said with a smile. “Okay, Detective Smith, you’re the one with a family, you take the first shift with me. Roberts, you and Sally work the second. Sy, you come in at eight tomorrow. Now,” he added, returning to the table, “the early interview sheets are in, I want all of you to go over them tonight while you’re waiting for the phone to ring.”

  <><><>

  Hyte sat at his desk. Smith sat on the chair across from him. They were going over the hotline reports for the day. A half hour earlier, he’d spoken with Carrie. His daughter told him she had again asked her mother to allow her to start visiting him in New York. Susan had refused.

  The radio was on an all-news station. The announcer gave the time, the weather, and then said, “The police have made no further comments concerning the three deaths attributed to the Friday Night Killer.”

  “That’s just great.” Hyte had been wondering what the press would call this one.

  The phone rang. “I’ll take it,” Hyte told Smith when he realized it was his regular line and not the hotline.

  “Hyte,” he said.

  “Hi, Lou,” came Emma Graham’s voice.

  He exhaled. “Hi.”

  “Things weren’t as bad here as I thought. I have a few hours of work left, and I’m finished. I couldn’t get a seat on the red-eye, so I have a stopover in Chicago. Want to pick me up at LaGuardia?”

  It took him only a second to realize why she’d changed her plans. “You don’t have to rush back. Your father is being well protected.”

  He heard her laugh. “Men are supposed to have big egos. You’re supposed to think that I’m rushing back because I miss you.”

  “Do you?” he asked.

  “Too much. Ray—”

 
; “Your father’s all right. You can stay out there until you’ve got things under control.”

  “Actually, things are fine. The flight arrives in Chicago at six, and I’ll make the seven o’clock Chicago to New York flight. I’ll be at LaGuardia at ten—if my connecting flight is on time. Will you pick me up?”

  “I’d rather be in San Francisco with you,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re not.”

  He frowned. Before he could speak, Emma continued. “I keep thinking about you. I’m looking forward to seeing your face.”

  The hotline rang. “I’ve got to go,” he said. He hung up, started the tape, and answered the phone. Smith picked up the other receiver at the same time. “Lieutenant Hyte, may I help you?”

  “Yeah! This is the Friday Night Killer, and I’m going to get them all!”

  Smith jerked to attention, his eyes narrowing on Hyte.

  “Get who?”

  “The whole fucking world! I’m going to blow everyone away with my three-fifty-seven magnum! They’re all gonna make my day!”

  “Really,” Hyte said, his voice calm. “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Sure.”

  “Start with yourself.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The April night in New City, New York, was cool; the midnight sky was clear. The scent of early blossoming trees added a light and sweet fragrance.

  Michael Barnes pulled his Volvo into the driveway of his Tudor-style home, and put the automatic gearshift into park. “What happened to the light?” he asked his wife.

  “It must have blown,” she said.

  “Or the timer’s gone out again. Send Elyse out.”

  “I don’t mind driving her home,” Francine Barnes said.

  He winked. “While I’m taking her home, you can put on something sexy.”

  She unfastened her seatbelt and leaned toward him, sliding her hand along the inside of his thigh. “Don’t take too long.”

  He covered her hand. “We can always put the seats down.”

  “Not in this neighborhood we can’t,” she admonished, pulling her hand free and opening the door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Three minutes later, fourteen-year-old Elyse Lomen hopped into the car, and Michael Barnes backed out of the drive.