“My lieutenant said I can’t tell you everything because it’s all part of the FBI’s investigation, especially now that he’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Died in the hospital a little while ago.” Hanson glanced out the window, the light accentuating his abrasions as he pondered the interstate stretching west to the horizon. “It’s a hell of a thing. It could’ve been me. A hell of a thing.”
38
Queens, New York
The employee lunchroom at the Good Buy Supermart was near the produce section and always smelled of lettuce, apples and earth.
It had a battered time clock for punching time cards, a kitchenette, six chrome-trimmed table-and-chair sets, a message board for schedules, union meetings and used items for sale. Judy was offering a baby stroller; Wanda, recently single, was selling a man’s watch that was “never worn.” Smoking in the lunchroom had been banned for years, but fresh-air zealots complained of a lingering stench.
Today, the usual cashiers yammered in the usual bitch-gossip sessions between the afternoon-evening shifts. None gave a second thought to the TV above the row of lockers. It was always on, usually tuned in to a talk show. But today, the Breaking News banner that crawled along the bottom of the screen seized Lisa Palmer’s attention.
…A suspect in the armored car heist that left three guards and an FBI agent dead in New York has died in Nebraska after struggling for the gun of the state trooper who’d stopped his car for speeding, the World Press Alliance is reporting…
Lisa caught her breath, covered her mouth with her hand and battled the noise to listen to the report, which offered few details.
“You all right, hon?” Pam Horowitz, the most senior cashier, asked.
Other than Rita, no one at work knew of Lisa’s role in the investigation.
“I’m fine. Something caught in my throat. Got any gum, Pam?”
Five minutes later, alone in the parking lot, chewing on bubblegum behind the wheel of her Ford Focus, Lisa let go.
Oh my God! Was this true? Did they really get one of them?
She fumbled through her bag for her new cell phone, called Frank Morrow’s number. It rang through to the FBI’s New York Division.
“Agent Morrow is out of the office,” an assistant said. “May I take a message?”
“This is Lisa Palmer. I really need to speak to him, or Vicky Chan, or Eve Watson. It’s about the Ramapo case.”
“I’m afraid no one is available at the moment.”
“It’s important I talk to somebody. I’m Lisa Palmer. I’ve been working with them on the investigation.”
“Yes, I’m aware of who you are,” the assistant said. “But they are all unreachable at the moment, so if you’ll just leave your number, Lisa—”
“They have it,” Lisa said. “They have everything. I just need to talk to someone about what happened in Nebraska. I have questions.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Can I speak to their boss? Or their boss’s boss?”
“I’m sorry, Lisa, that won’t be possible.”
Lisa’s breathing quickened with her rising frustration until she gave up, left a message and gathered her thoughts. She turned on her car radio, set it to scan, hoping to land on a news report that would tell her more about what had happened in Nebraska.
She left the parking lot bound for the school to pick up Ethan and Taylor. She drove through Queens, needing to believe that the Nebraska incident was good news. If they got one of the bastards, it meant they were making progress, getting closer to the others.
Which one was it?
Lisa stopped at a traffic light and a memory blurred in front of her.
The smell of lemon floor cleaner…her reflection in the black shield of the killer’s helmet…his anger boring into her through the blood splatters…his gun drilling into her skull…
Was it him? The one who murdered the agent? The one who wanted to kill her? Which one was it? How did they get him? Was it because of her telling them about his tattoo?
A horn sounded behind her. The light had turned green. But the questions wouldn’t stop, so Lisa pulled over, took out her phone and sent texts and emails to Morrow, Chan and Watson.
Please get back to me. I need to know what’s happening.
When she got the kids, she held off telling them. First, Lisa wanted to learn more directly from the FBI, but no one was responding. She hid her unease by singing along with rock songs on the radio. The last one was Queen, “Somebody To Love.”
It was not until they’d pulled into their driveway and Lisa killed the Ford’s engine that her phone rang. At last, she thought, unlocking her back door and deactivating her home security system with one hand, keeping the phone to her head with the other.
But it was not the FBI calling.
“My God,” Rita said. “Did you hear the news?”
“About Nebraska?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I saw it at work in the lunchroom.”
“It’s fantastic, Lisa. Did the FBI tell you what happened?”
“Not yet. I got messages in, but they’re not getting back to me and it’s starting to piss me off.”
“Well, it’s still all good news. I mean, they got him way out west, a billion miles from here. And the creep is freakin’ dead.”
“Yes, that’s good.”
Lisa made the kids spaghetti for supper but used every free moment to go online and to monitor news reports on TV for more on the case. It was futile. She was unable to find anything beyond the first report.
Rita was right.
Lisa had to accept that what happened was “all good.” The fact they got one, and got him so far away, and that he was dead made her feel safer, lightened the weight of her worry.
She smiled to herself when she glimpsed Ethan’s map on their corkboard near the fridge. He’d done a good job. It reminded her that they had important things to take care of. She had to get ready for their trip—the last one—up to the cabin.
She had to get ready for the rest of her life.
By early evening, after they’d finished supper, after Lisa had washed the dishes and put them away, she still hadn’t heard a response from the FBI. It ate at her—feeling shut out—and she resented it. She couldn’t understand and would never accept why Morrow and the others were ignoring her, especially after all she’d been through; after all she’d done to help them with the case.
Maybe something else was at work; something more going on?
If that was the case, she deserved to know.
Why won’t someone help me?
At that moment, it dawned on her that all the news reports had attributed the story to the World Press Alliance, the wire service where that reporter, Jack Gannon, worked. Lisa’s keyboard clattered as she searched his name and his story emerged online.
Life-and-Death Struggle with Murder Suspect on a Nebraska HighwayJack GannonWorld Press AllianceNORTH PLATTE, Neb.—Minutes after Trooper Duane Hanson pulled over a speeding car from Illinois cutting west along a windblown stretch of Interstate 80, he was locked into a battle for his life. It ended in the death of a fugitive suspect wanted for the cold-blooded murders of three armored car guards and an FBI agent in the recent 6.3-million-dollar heist out of Greater New York City…
Lisa read Gannon’s entire story.
It was compelling and it proved to her that he knew a great deal about the case, certainly more than she did. It brought her back to her questions and concerns over why the FBI had not responded to her calls. She contended with a growing fear that something was going on, something that the FBI agents were unwilling to share with her.