Night Fall

“Sure. Smoke and mirrors. Isn’t that what you guys are all about?”

“Not in this case.” He continued his story. “All right, realizing that there would be people descending on the beach within minutes, they ran back to this dune, dressed quickly, and grabbed the camera and the tripod before ru

I thought about that, and I couldn’t find any holes in Nash’s story. In fact, it was what I, Kate, and everyone else surmised, with a few added details as a result of Ted actually speaking to this couple. I asked, “What was on the videotape?”

“Not what you’d like to be on the tape.”

“Look, Ted, I have no wants or needs about this either way. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and I’m not professionally locked into the official conclusion, as you are. I’m just an open-minded guy, looking for the truth. And for justice.”

His mouth formed that little sneer, which I hate, and he said, “I know you are, John. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I gave up my Saturday night for this.”

“Hey, you can miss one church bingo game now and then. What was on the tape?”

He replied, “The lady played the tape through the viewfinder on the ride back to the hotel. She couldn’t see much, but shedid see what they didn’t see while they were having sex-she actually saw the aircraft, captured on tape at the moment it exploded. She said to me that it was bizarre that the aircraft was exploding on the upper-right-hand side of the frame, while she and her companion were making love in the lower-left-hand side of the frame, and they didn’t even look up. Of course, the sound hadn’t reached them yet, and they continued to have sex as the aircraft was exploding into a huge fireball, then breaking up and begi

“Thank God for the laws of physics, or you guys would have had trouble making an animation that none of the eyewitnesses recognized as what they’d seen with their own eyes.”

He seemed a little a

“Right. Can I see their videotape?”

“Let me finish.”

“You’re finished. I want to see the tape and talk to the couple.”

“I’ll finish.” He continued, “The couple got back to the Bayview Hotel and hooked up the video camera to the VCR and watched the tape through the TV set. They both saw what she had seen through the viewfinder. It was a sound tape, and they could now clearly hear the explosion, about forty seconds after they saw it on the videotape.” He looked at me and said, “The entire accident was recorded, start to finish, in color, with sound, with good quality film, and with the video camera on a twilight setting. On the videotape, they could actually see the blinking lights of the 747before the explosion.” He stared at me intently and said, “There was no streak of light rising toward that aircraft before the explosion.”

Why did I know that was coming? I said, “That’s good news. I need to see the tape and talk to the couple.”

He didn’t reply directly and said, “Let me ask you a question: If you were this couple, and you were having an affair, and you videotaped yourself engaged in several sexually explicit acts, what would you do with that tape?”

“Put it on the Internet.”

“Youmight. They, obviously, destroyed it.”

“Yeah? When? How?”

“That night. As soon as they left their hotel room. They pulled off to the side of the road, the man ran over the cassette, then he burned the tape.”

“Where did he get the matches or the lighter?”

“I have no idea. Maybe one of them smoked.”

They didn’t, according to Roxa

I said, “Okay, so they burned the videotape. Then what?”

“They drove into Westhampton village where she had parked her car. By now, both their cell phones were ringing as people tried to contact them about the accident. They’d told their spouses they were out in the Hamptons-he was fishing, she was shopping in East Hampton, then having di

“His story wasn’t bad. Hers might make a husband suspicious.”

Mr. Nash informed me, “Most spouses trust each other. Didn’t you trust Kate in Tanzania?”

“Ted, if you mention Kate’s name one more time, I’m going to shove your gun up your ass, butt first.”

He smiled, but didn’t reply. Why does this guy get to me?

Getting back to the business at hand, he said, “They drove back to their respective homes in their cars, then spent the rest of the evening with their spouses, watching the news coverage of the crash on television.”

I commented, “That must have been an interesting evening at home.”

He looked at me and said, “That’s it. As many people suspected and surmised, therewas a couple on the beach, theywere having an affair, and theydid inadvertently videotape the accident. But there was no smoking gun, no smoking rocket on that tape.”

“That’s what you’re telling me that they told you.”

“Well, obviously I asked them both to take a polygraph test, and they both did perfectly.”

“Great. Then I need to also see the polygraph results plus their written or recorded statements before I speak to them.”

Ted of the CIA obviously didn’t like dealing with a police detective because detectives want to establish a chain of evidence, while the CIA deals with abstractions, conjectures, and analysis, which are the main ingredients of bullshit.

Ted explained patiently to me, “They both told the whole truth about their sexual activities on the beach, and this is where you’d expect to see some lies on the polygraph because people become embarrassed-but they told us exactly what they did on the beach. Then, when we asked about what they saw with their own eyes on the beach, then on the videotape, they were again truthful. No streak of light.” He added, “The polygraph sessions were almost as good as us having the actual videotape.”

I wasn’t quite buying that, but I said, “Okay. I guess that’s it.”

He knew me too well from when he was alive the first time, and said, “I don’t think you’re convinced.”

“I am. By the way, how did you find this couple?”

He replied, “I had an easier time than you’re having. The man had once been printed for a job, and we had his fingerprints on the wine bottle and the wineglass. We ran them through the FBI databank, and on Monday morning we called on him at his office. He, in turn, gave us the name of his married girlfriend.”

“That was easy. I hope you lifted his prints from the registration card at the Bayview so you could co

“Actually… no, we didn’t. But we weren’t trying to build a criminal case against him.”

“Destroying evidence is a crime, last time I checked.”

“There was nocrime committed against TWA 800, so the evidence was not… The point is, this couple was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They saw nothing that two hundred other people didn’t see, and their videotape showed nothing that would interest the CIA or the FBI. The polygraph confirms that.” He concluded, “I questioned them extensively, and others questioned them, including your FBI colleague Liam Griffith. Everyone agrees they are telling the truth.” He added, “You can speak to Liam Griffith, and he’ll confirm what I’m telling you.”