Night Fall

Marie stayed quiet awhile, and I could tell that despite her breezy ma

I asked her, “Who’d you work with?”

“I’m not giving up any names, John. I’ll talk to you, but no names.”

“Fair enough. Talk to me.”

“You need to ask me a leading question.”

“Bayview Hotel.”

“Yeah… I kinda figured. So I looked through my pad to refresh my memory, but there wasn’t too much there. I mean, we were told by the Feds to keep the note taking to a minimum because we’d never be asked to testify about any of this.” She explained, “What they were saying was this was their case, and we were just along to help out.”

I nodded and added, “They were also saying they didn’t want too much in writing.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. These guys play a different game.”

“That they do.” I asked, “So, you were at the Bayview Hotel?”

“Yeah. Two days after the crash, I got a call to go to the Bayview Hotel. The FBI is interviewing staff there about something, and they need some manpower to identify who might know something about what they’re interested in. So I get there and join three other NYPD task force cops, and the three Feds that are already there, they brief us and say-”

Junior started screaming about something, and Marie stood and went over to the playpen. She cooed, “What’s the matter with my sweetie?” and pushed the bottle back in his mouth.

Junior started screaming louder, and Marie picked him up and said, “Oh, poor baby did a poopie.”

Is that a reason to scream? I mean, if I crapped my pants, I’d be real quiet about it.

Marie snagged the Pampers and took the kid somewhere for de-pooping.

I used my cell phone to check my office voice mail, but there were no calls. I called my cube mate Harry Muller on his cell phone, and he answered. I asked him, “Are you in the office?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Is anyone looking for me?”

“No. Are you lost? I’ll send out a search party. What’s the last landmark you saw?”

Everyone’s a comedian. “Harry, has anyone asked about my whereabouts?”

“Yeah. Koenig came by about an hour ago and asked me if I knew where you were hiding. I told him you went to lunch.”

“Okay.” It was odd, I thought, that Koenig hadn’t called my cell phone if he wanted to talk to me, though maybe he just wanted to share a new joke with his favorite detective. In any case, I didn’t want to see or hear from Jack Koenig today. I asked Harry, “Is Kate around?”

“Yeah… I can see her at her desk. Why?”

“Do me a favor. Tell her to meet me…” I looked at my watch and the ferry schedule. I could make the five-thirty ferry if Joe Senior didn’t come home unexpectedly. I said to Harry, “Tell her I’ll meet her at Delmonico’s at six for a drink.”

“Why don’t you just call her?”

“Why don’t you just go tell her for me?”

“Am I allowed to go over there?”

“Yeah. Empty a few wastebaskets.”

He laughed. “Okay. Delmonico’s, six o’clock.”

“Keep that between you and her.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” I hung up.

Marie came back in the kitchen, dumped the kid in the playpen, and pushed a bottle in his mouth. She wound up a hanging mobile of smiling faces, which revolved and played “It’s a Small World.” I hate that song.

She freshened our coffees and sat down.

I said, “He’s really a cute kid.”

“You want him?”

I smiled, then said, “So, you got briefed.”

“Yeah. This FBI guy gets the four of us together in the hotel manager’s office, and the FBI guy says that we’re looking for two people who could be witnesses to the crash and who may have stayed at this hotel-the Bayview. And how do we know this? Because a blanket, maybe from this hotel, was found by the local cops on some beach where the accident could be seen. The beach blanket came to the attention of the FBI early that morning, and they got the idea to check out local hotels and motels to see if that’s where the blanket came from. They’ve narrowed it down to the Bayview. Follow?”

“So far.”

“Good. Now what’s wrong with this story that we’re getting from this FBI guy?”

I replied, “Anything you get from the FBI has something wrong with it.”

She smiled. “Come on, John. Work a little.”

“Okay, what’s wrong is why does anyone care about two more eyewitnesses?”

“Right. Like, why are we wasting time and resources on two people who maybe saw this accident from the beach, when we have witnesses lined up out the fucking door of the Coast Guard station, and the hotline number is ringing off the hook. What is special about these witnesses? Do you know?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.” She said, “But there was something else going on here.”

What was going on was the video camera lens cap on the beach blanket, but apparently this FBI guy who was doing the briefing did not mention that to his troops. Dick Kearns knew about it from the local cops, but apparently Marie hadn’t heard that rumor. As with any investigation, if you spoke to enough people and triangulated information, eventually things started to take shape. But Marie understood, because she was smart, that something else was going on. I asked her, “Who was this FBI guy who was briefing you?”

“I told you-no names.”

“Did you know this guy?”

“A little. Kind of a hard-on who thought he was a hard-ass.”

“Sounds like Liam Griffith.”

She smiled. “That’s a good name. Let’s call him Liam Griffith.”

“Who was with him?”

“Like I said, two other guys. Fed types, but I didn’t know them, and they were never formally introduced. They just sat there while Griffith briefed us.”

I described Mr. Ted Nash to Marie, reluctantly using the words “good-looking,” and she replied, “Yeah… I mean, it’s been five years, but that sounds like one of them. Who is he?”

Against my better judgment, but to keep Marie happy and intrigued, I said, “CIA.”

“No shit?” She looked at me and asked, “What are you on to?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“No, I don’t. But… maybe I’ve said enough.”

I looked at the kid in the playpen, then back at Marie. I said, “Are we afraid of them?”

She didn’t reply.

It was time for a little speech, and I said, “Look, this is the United States of America, and every citizen has the right and the obligation to-”

“Save it for your departmental hearing.”

“I will. How about this: Are you satisfied with the conclusion of this case?”

“I’m not answering that. But I’ll tell you what happened that day at the Bayview Hotel, if you level with me.”

“I am leveling with you. You do not want to know.”

She thought about that, then nodded. “Okay… so one of the four NYPD asks Griffith why this is so important, and Griffith is a

“Okay. So who was registered in Room 203? Or don’t we know?”

“Obviously we don’t know yet, or we wouldn’t be there. What we do know is that a guy came to the Bayview Hotel about four-fifteenP.M. on the day of the crash-Wednesday, July 17, 1996-with no reservation and asks for a room. The clerk says there are rooms available, and the guy fills out a registration card and pays two hundred bucks in cash for the room. The clerk asks for a credit card backup, in case of damages, mini-bar, and so forth-but the guy says he doesn’t believe in credit cards, and he offers the clerk five hundred bucks as a security deposit, which the clerk accepts. Then, according to Griffith’s briefing, the clerk asks to photocopy the guy’s driver’s license, but the guy says it’s in his other pants or something, and the guy gives the clerk his business card, which the clerk accepts. The clerk gives the guy a receipt for his five hundred bucks and hands the guy the key to Room 203, which is in the modern wing of this hotel, away from the main building, which is what this guy requested. So the clerk never actually saw this guy come back in the lobby, and the clerk never saw the guy’s car or if he’s with anyone. Follow?”