Night Fall (17 page)

He shrugged. “How the hell do I know? Ask Janet Reno.”

I didn’t reply.

He said, “There were a few public hearings. Lots of press conferences.”

“But nothing judicial or congressional.”

He smirked. “You mean, like the Warren Commission? Shit, I still don’t know who killed JFK.”

“My ex-wife did. She talks in her sleep.”

“Yeah. I know.”

We shared a half-assed chuckle.

Dick chain-lit another cigarette and remarked, “I had to go to L.A. on business. You can’t smoke in restaurants or bars out there. You believe that? I mean, what the fuck is this country coming to? Assholes make laws, and people obey them. We’re all becoming sheep. Next is an anti-farting law. You know, like, ‘This is a fart-free establishment. Farting causes serious nose and throat ailments.’ I can see this warning sign with a guy in a circle bending over and a slash going through him. What’s next?”

I let him go on awhile, then asked, “Were you ever called to testify at one of these public hearings?”

“No. But-”

“Was any other interviewer or any eyewitness ever called to testify at a public hearing?”

“No, but-”

“Did the CIA interview any witnesses when they were making that tape?”

“No… but they said they did. Then a lot of eyewitnesses called them out on that, and the CIA then admitted that they used only written statements given by the eyewitnesses to make that animation.”

“Does that bother you?”

“From a professional standpoint… look, a lot of mistakes were made, which is why people like you are still nosing around and causing problems. Here’s my conclusion, which I really believe-it was a fucking accident. And here’s my advice to you-drop it.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not part of a cover-up or conspiracy, John. I ask you to drop it for two very good reasons. One, there was no crime, no conspiracy, no cover-up, and nothing for you to discover, except stupidity. Two, we’re old buds, and I don’t want to see you in trouble for no good reason. You want to get yourself into trouble? Do something worth the trouble. Kick Koenig in the balls.”

“I already did that this morning.”

Dick laughed, then looked at his watch again, and said, “Gotta go. Say hello to Kate.”

“Yeah. And hello to Mo.”

He started to slide out of the booth, and I said, “Oh, one more thing. Bayview Hotel. Beach blanket bimbo. Ring any bells?”

He looked at me and said, “I heard something. But I gotta tell you-there were more fucking rumors going around than even the press could handle. You probably heard the same rumor I did.”

“Tell me the rumor.”

“About this couple banging on the beach with a videotape going, and maybe they filmed the explosion. Some local cops passed it on to some of our guys. That’s all I heard.”

“Did you hear that this couple might have stayed at the Bayview Hotel?”

“Sounds familiar. I gotta go.”

He stood, and I said, “I need a name.”

“What name?”

“Any name. Someone like you who worked the case and is out of the clutches of the Feds. Someone who you think has some information I can use. Like maybe about that rumor. You remember how this works. You give me a name, I talk to the guy, and he gives me another name. And so on.”

He stayed silent awhile, then said, “You never did listen to good advice. Okay, here’s a name. Marie Gubitosi. You know her?”

“Yeah… she used to work out of Manhattan South.”

“That’s her. She was on and off the task force before you got there. She’s happily married, two kids, and off the job. She’s got nothing to lose by talking to you, but nothing to gain either.”

“Where can I find her?”

“I don’t know. You’re a detective. You find her.”

“I will. Thanks for the name.”

“Don’t use my name.”

“Goes without saying.”

He started for the door, then came back to me. He said, “We talked about your interest in doing background checks. I’m going to make some calls for you, for the record. Send me your resume or something. You may get a call for an interview.”

“What if they offer me your job?”

“Take it.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I walked to Ecco on Chambers Street. The maitre d’ recognized me, and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Mayfield. Your wife has arrived.”

“Which one?”

“This way, sir.” He escorted me to a table where Kate was sitting, sipping a sparkling water, and reading the
Times
.

I gave Kate a kiss and took a seat opposite her. She said, “I ordered you a Budweiser.”

“Good.” It’s actually not bad being married. It’s comfortable.

My Bud arrived, and I clinked glasses with Kate.

Ecco is a pleasant older establishment, frequented by people who work for the city or the courts, including jurors, and also including, unfortunately, defense attorneys, such as my ex-wife. I hadn’t run into her or her insignificant other here yet, but I would someday.

The waiter came with menus, but we ordered without looking at them. Salad and grilled tuna for Kate, and fried calamari and penne alla vodka for me.

I’m on the Dr. Atkinson diet. Harvey Atkinson is a fat dentist in Brooklyn whose philosophy is, “Eat what tastes good, and clean your plate.”

Kate said, “You’re putting on a little weight.”

“It’s the horizontal stripes on my tie.” What did I say about marriage?

“You need to eat right and get more exercise.” She changed the subject and asked me, “How did your meeting go?”

“Good.”

“Did it have to do with yesterday?”

“Maybe.” I asked her, “Do you know who interviewed Leslie Rosenthal, the manager of the Bayview Hotel?”

“I asked Mr. Rosenthal the same question five years ago. He was first interviewed by an NYPD task force detective, a man whose name he didn’t get. The detective, realizing he may have found the source of the blanket on the beach, then called in the FBI. Three guys showed up who identified themselves as FBI. One guy did all the talking, but Rosenthal didn’t catch his name.”

“No cards?”

“That’s what he said. According to Mr. Rosenthal, these three and some others questioned the staff and looked through the hotel’s written and computer records, making a copy of all the recent guest registrations and checkouts. I assume they tried to determine if two of these guests were the ones who’d taken the blanket to the beach that night, and who may have videotaped themselves, and inadvertently videotaped TWA Flight 800.”

I replied, “And what we don’t know is whether or not these three guys were successful in locating this couple. My instincts say they were. So, even if we found this couple, they’ve already been sanitized or vaporized.”

Kate did not reply.

I continued, “And so has this videotape, if it ever existed.”

“Well… if that’s the case, then we should at least find that out. Look, John, I never thought we were going to solve the mystery of TWA 800. I just want to… find this couple, and talk to them…”

“Why?”

“I don’t know until I talk to them.”

“That sounds like one of my lines.”

She smiled. “You’ve had a great influence on my thinking.”

“Same here,” I said.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

The appetizers came, and I asked her, “Do you think Mr. Rosenthal is still at the Bayview Hotel?”

“I know he is. I check every year. I did a background on him, and I know where he lives and all that.” She looked at me and said, “I’m not
working
the case. But I
am
keeping the files up-to-date.”

“What files?”

She tapped her head. “Up here.”

“Tell me what else is up there.”

“I did that yesterday. Now it’s better that you ask when you need something.” She added, “You need to arrive at questions before you arrive at answers.”

“Okay, I understand you want me to work this case the way a detective would work it who just caught the squeal-meaning, who just got notified of the crime. But this is an old case, and I never worked on the Cold Case Squad. I used to get my cases before the blood even congealed on the corpse.”

“Please, I’m eating.” She pushed a forkful of salad at me. “Eat this.”

I opened wide, and she shoved this stuff in my mouth.

She said, “Ask me another question.”

“Okay. Have you ever discussed this with Ted Nash?”

“Not once.”

“Not even over dinner or drinks?”

“I wouldn’t have discussed this even if I was in bed with him.”

I didn’t respond to that, but said, “I’m going to call him.”

“He’s dead, John.”

“I know. I just like to keep hearing it.”

She scolded me, “John, that’s not funny. You may not have liked him, but he was a good and dedicated agent. Very smart and very effective.”

“Good. I’ll call him.”

The main course came, and I ordered another beer, and dug into my pasta. Kate said, “Have some of my vegetables.”

“So, Jeffrey Dahmer asks his mother over for lunch, and she’s eating and says, ‘Jeffrey, I don’t like your friends.’ And he says, ‘Well, then, just eat the vegetables.’”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Usually gets a laugh.” I got serious and said, “So I assume you also did not speak to Liam Griffith about this.”

“I spoke to no one. Except the guys on the twenty-eighth floor, who told me it was none of my business.”

“Right. So you made it my business.”

“If you want it to be. It all comes down to finding this couple. If they were found, and if it turned out that it was a dead end-that they didn’t see or tape anything-then that’s the end of it. The rest of the case-the eyewitnesses and the forensic evidence-have been gone over a million times. But this couple… whoever it was on the beach that night who left a lens cap to a video camera on that blanket…” She looked at me and asked, “Do
you
think there was a videotape being recorded, and do you think it captured on film what the eyewitnesses said they saw?”

I replied, “It depends, obviously, on which way that video camera was pointing, and if it was even turned on. And then you have the problem of film quality and so forth. But let’s say everything came together by chance and that the last seconds of that TWA flight were recorded. Let’s even say the film still exists. So what?”

“What do you mean, ‘So what?’ Two hundred eyewitnesses would be looking at that film and-”

“And so would the FBI and CIA and their film experts. Someone needs to interpret the film.”

“It wouldn’t need interpretation. It would speak for itself.”

“Would it?” I said to her, “An amateur video, shot at dusk into a night sky, probably from a fixed tripod-assuming the couple were engaged in other activities-may not show all you think it would show. Look, Kate, you’ve been searching for the Holy Grail for five years, and it may actually exist, but you may never find it, and if you do, it may not hold any magical powers.”

She didn’t reply.

I continued, “You’ve heard of the Zapruder film.”

She nodded.

“Guy named Zapruder was filming John Kennedy’s motorcade as it passed by the Texas Book Depository. He was using an eight-millimeter handheld Bell amp; Howell movie camera. The film lasted twenty-six seconds. You ever see it?”

She nodded.

“Me, too. I saw the digitalized version, and I saw it in slow motion. So how many shots were fired? And what direction did they come from? Depends on who you ask.”

She stayed quiet for a while, then said, “Still, we can’t interpret the tape unless we find it. First things first.”

The waiter cleared the table before I could get the last penne in my mouth. I finished my beer, and Kate sipped her sparkling water. I could tell she was deep in thought.

My hunch was that she hadn’t shared much of this stuff with many people, and those she had shared it with were inclined to agree with her that if a videotape was found, it would break open the whole case.

Enter John Corey-skeptic, cynic, realist, and bubble-burster. I’d been around fourteen years longer than Kate Mayfield, and I’d seen a lot-maybe too much-and I’d been disappointed too many times as a cop and as a man. I’ve seen murderers go free and a hundred other crimes go unsolved or unpunished. I’ve seen witnesses lying under oath, sloppy police work, inept prosecutors, incompetent forensic work, outrageous defense attorneys, imbecilic judges, and brainless juries.

I’ve seen good stuff, too-bright shining moments when the system worked like an oiled clock, when truth and justice had their day in court. But there weren’t many days like that.

We had coffee, and Kate asked me, “Is it really true about the blue wall of silence?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Can a cop absolutely trust another cop, anytime, about anything?”

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, though it drops to fifty percent when it has to do with women, but rises to a hundred percent when it has to do with the FBI.”

She smiled, then leaned across the table and said to me, “There were over a hundred task force cops out on Long Island after that plane went down, and at least as many working back here. Among those cops, somebody knows something.”

“I get it.”

She took my hand and said, “But if it gets hot, drop it. And if you get into trouble, I’ll take the blame.”