He opened his eyes-a big mistake-then rolled over in his bed. He waited for sunlight to come streaking through the window and put an end to his hazy darkness, but no light came. He realized it was still dark outside. And that damn noise kept hammering away at him.
It took another moment or two to realize the sound wasn’t vibrating inside his head. It was coming from the end table next to his bed. From the general direction of the telephone. No, it was actually coming from the telephone. An evil invention, Justin decided. The world would be a lot better off with nice quiet tin cans and some string.
Justin sighed, regretted every shot and every beer he’d downed the night before, then picked up the phone and heard:
“What the hell are you trying to do to me?!”
“Hello?” he croaked.
“You told me there was no trouble! You said it was just a favor! You almost got me goddamn fired a year ago and what, now you’re trying to finish me off?! And you don’t even return my calls?!”
“Wanda?”
“Of course it’s Wanda. Who the hell else do you think it is? I left five goddamn messages for you!”
“I never check my machine. What time is it?”
“Well start checking! And it’s six.”
“In the morning?”
“Wake up, Jay! I’m not kidding around here! Why the hell didn’t you tell me what I was getting into?!”
He sat up-another mistake-and tried to rub his eyes to full awake position. He had a plastic bottle of Fiji Water next to his bed, which he grabbed and swigged down half the water in two gulps.
“Wanda, I swear to God, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I spent half the night being interrogated about your goddamn fingerprints!”
Now he was awake. “Tell me.”
“I am telling you, you asshole. I want you to tell me!”
“I get you’re angry. But what happened?”
“You set me up, is what happened. I put through the prints and found the same thing-no clearance. So I called in a favor, trying to bypass the clearance. You got me curious, too, you bastard. And within five fucking minutes, I got a call.”
“From who?”
“It doesn’t matter. But I spent the whole day and night in D.C. I didn’t get home till after midnight.”
“You had to go to Washington?”
“Will you pay attention, please? You sent me to get you absolutely top-secret, classified information, you bastard! And I almost got my ass fried.”
“Wanda, I swear, what I told you is everything I know. I don’t have a clue what’s going on, I don’t have any idea who this guy is. All I know is that somebody’s getting away with murder.”
“Murder?”
He sighed. And told her about the airplane manifold and the conversation he’d had with Ray Lockhardt.
“Thanks for telling me before.”
“Look, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t tell you.”
“And why is that?”
“The people you were conversing with last night, did you tell them why you were looking for the info?”
“Of course I did.”
“Did you tell them about me?”
Her voice softened for the first time in the conversation. “Yes. You didn’t tell me there was anything to hide here.”
“It’s not a problem. I didn’t know there was anything to hide. But clearly there is. So it’s better you didn’t know the plane was sabotaged. Less for you to have told them.”
“What I should do is go tell them now.”
“Yeah. That is what you should do. Of course, it means they’ll definitely come after me next. To find out if I know even more.” He gave her a few moments to mull it over. “So is that what you’re going to do?”
She didn’t answer. They both stayed quiet for a while. Her breathing was a little softer and less rapid. He took another long swig of water.
“So, Wanda,” he said finally. “Did you get the pilot’s name?”
“You’re an asshole, Jay,” she said. “I can’t tell you anything. Haven’t you been listening to me?”
“Yeah. But there’s something else I haven’t told you. Something that happened after I spoke to you.” He gave her all the details of his bizarre conversation with Cherry Flynn in Oklahoma City. “The guy’s fingerprints have been removed and his FAA file is gone. Right now, we’re the only two people who know he was murdered. Except for the people who killed him. Or ordered him killed. And whoever’s covering the damn thing up.”
“You think it’s this guy Heffernan?”
“I don’t know if he did the mechanical work. But he’s certainly involved. He knows what happened. But the guy’s too low-level to pull the other strings. He didn’t get the file pulled or the prints classified.”
“Jay, I don’t think we should talk about this on the phone anymore.”
“Okay. Fair enough. How about if I come up there tomorrow night. We can have dinner.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not getting sucked into this, Jay. I’m not getting involved in this one.”
“We could eat at my folks’ house. They’ll be happy to see you.”
“Jay. .”
“You like duck? Their chef makes a superb duck.”
“Goddammit, Jay. .”
“Let’s say seven-thirty tomorrow night.”
“Let’s not say anything!”
“Dress informal.”
“Make it eight, you asshole. Some of us work.”
Justin hung up the phone. Finished off the bottle of water. Decided he’d better gulp down about a dozen aspirin before he went to the station, so he swung his legs out of bed and went in search of the aspirin bottle. As he was fumbling to open the childproof top, the phone rang again. Justin swore, wondered how the hell he’d gotten so popular, and, through his fog, made his way back to the phone.
“Don’t yell at me again,” he said, expecting it to be Wanda. “I think my head’s going to fall off.”
“Then stay away from me,” a man’s voice answered. “I’ve seen enough headless bodies in the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime.”
It was Chuck Billings, the head of the Providence bomb squad. “And here I thought I’d be waking you up and you’d be docile as hell.”
Justin apologized for his unfriendly greeting, then told Chuck why he’d been trying to get in touch with him.
“They’re keeping me crazed busy,” Billings said. “It’s why it took me so long to get back to you. Genuinely nuts what’s going on. And today’s a really bad day. That’s why I’m calling so early. I think the president might even be showing up here. Major photo op.”
“Can you give me any time at all, Chuck?”
“How about we get together tomorrow? Right before lunch. I can probably even get you into the site, show you a few things.”
Justin agreed, thanked him, then went back to trying to open the aspirin bottle. When the top popped off with relative ease, he took it as a good omen. After slipping three aspirin into his mouth, followed by another half bottle of Fiji Water, he decided things were definitely improving.
His eleven o’clock meeting with Mayor Leona Krill went relatively smoothly. Justin showed up on time, he was extremely polite, and he didn’t have any particular problems with the specifics that she wanted to discuss. They agreed on the new salary. He listened quietly while she explained the parameters of his new job and the new responsibilities that came with it. They agreed to set up a bimonthly meeting, lunch if possible. Justin was ready to leave-he was already craving more aspirin, not just for his head but for his back, which was stiff and aching; he really had to start working out again-when she brought up the need for a new hire.
“We have room in the budget for another officer.” When he looked questioningly, she explained. “In essence, you’ve replaced Jimmy. Now we need to replace you.”
“Okay. That makes sense. Good. We can use it.”
“I’d like you to hire a woman, Jay.”