Hard Fall (16 page)

“I need proof of criminal intent. I need some good, solid linkage in order to keep my investigation alive.” He took a deep swallow and balanced the glass on the edge of the tub. Lynn supported the doorjamb with a shoulder. “I've spent nearly two years on this case. I don't come up with something and I'm history. They want my report on this other thing—this bombing out at National. Can you believe that? They would pull me from a case like this to have me write a goddamned report on a dead man?” He looked to her for sympathy, but found none.

“We don't call it ‘criminal intent,'” she said, correcting him. “We call it
suspicious causes
. But so far there's nothing like that. Nothing at all.” She added, “Besides, maybe a new assignment would do you some good. You don't look so good.”

He pretended to ignore her last comment. “The NTSB press guy is already talking it up like it was an accident. CNN, all the papers—everyone is calling it an
accident
, for God's sake. The NTSB is selling a line of bullshit. That news conference was way off.”

“It was accurate. We all pride ourselves on accuracy, don't we? It's the NTSB's show. It remains their investigation until evidence allows you guys to take over. Listen, if it were up to me, I'd give you anything you want. But you know that—and you don't seem to want.” She took a sip of her drink. She wasn't talking investigation. He hid himself in his drink. “And the fact is we've seen
nothing
on site to indicate suspicious causes. We have the air traffic controller reporting that one of the flight crew called out a cockpit fire. The plane went down within seconds. Not one eyewitness has described anything like an explosion. Nothing in the wreckage yet to indicate explosives. The NTSB doesn't have a lot of choice here.”

“A Duhning 959–600 at LAX—maybe loaded with chemicals? I have a dead body coming out of a 959 simulator set to an LAX runway. I've got a known terrorist building altimeter detonators in his Los Angeles hotel room. Los Angeles, LAX … get it? You're going to tell me it's coincidence?” He continued before she could interrupt. She had a penchant for interrupting, for getting her own way. “Don't go soft on me, damn it all. Someone has to maintain their objectivity.”

“Objectivity? Is that what you're preaching?”

“Am I preaching?” he asked, reaching for the drink and draining a fair amount of it.

“Yes, you are.”

He looked at her distorted image through the irregularity of the glass. She stretched as he spun it. “You're the air accident investigator,” he said. “The explosives expert. You're leading the FAA's investigation on this thing.”

“Damn right,” she agreed, tilting her drink up in a way that stretched her long neck. “And don't get so personal. You're not making this any easier.”

“It
is
personal. You should be helping me on this.”

“I'm trying.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

He watched her in profile as her throat tightened as she swallowed, and he found it provocative. It had probably been a bad idea to invite her up here.

“These go down too easy,” she said, studying the small glass, “but why don't I make us another?”

He finished his and handed it to her.

“How are they doing?” she asked, nodding toward his feet.

“I'll tell you after the second drink.”

She left him alone to his thoughts. Like his voice, they tended to bounce around in the small room. As she seemed to be taking too long, he called to her, “It has got to be the work of the same guy. There are far too many overlaps. Doesn't that count for anything?”

“No,” she said, joining him again. “Not to Lynn Greene the investigator. I shouldn't even be aware of that side of your investigation. I'm paid for my objectivity—something I lost the minute I saw you on site.” She sat on the closed toilet. They were close to each other. She lifted her glass; the rims chimed. “Here's to working together,” she said. “At last.”

“I need your support on this.”

“Even though I'd rather be playing, than working.”

“Please help me.”

“One step at a time. There's a system in place here. Give it a chance to work.”

“I can't. What if Bernard made more than one trigger?”

“Who's Bernard?”

He didn't answer. He tried the drink. It was stronger and he wondered: by design? She was right, they did go down easy. His feet looked bigger because of the magnifying powers of the water. Big, pale, wrinkled feet with crooked toes. Very romantic.

She said, “I'm supposed to be objective. Don't worry: no one is going to whitewash this. I won't allow that. What would be the point? Between the lot of us, we'll be looking at every conceivable explanation for that crash. Believe it.”

“I can't wait six months,” he said. “These things always take six months.”

“I understand that.” She adjusted herself and it brought her closer to him. She ran her fingers through his hair and he felt it down to his toes. “I'll do what I can. Promise.” She was at his back where he couldn't see her and he found it disarming.

“Lynn,” he said so deliberately, it was like a referee blowing a whistle. He heard her ice rattle, and then the gentle pump of her swallowing.

“Okay,” she said without any hurt in her voice. “But unless you fill that thing with ice water and dunk me in it, I had better be going. I have other ideas about how this night should be spent.” She kissed him on his neck below his ear. It ran a few thousand volts down his left side. His body hair stood at attention.

“How's Duncan doing?” she asked. That cooled him down. When he failed to answer she added, “That phone call you just made sounded more like a business call than a man calling his son.”

“Sometimes that's how it is between us.”

“It shouldn't be.”

“I know that.”

“You're mad.”

“Yes.”

“At me?”

“No. At myself. The truth hurts.”

“He has a sitter?” she inquired. “Or is it
her?
”

“A sitter tonight. Old enough to be his grandmother. She's become sort of part of the family.”

“The sitter or Carrie?” Lynn asked. “Strike that from the record,” she added. “I'm not a very good loser.”

“Who says you've lost?” he asked as she handed him her empty drink. At the moment he knew everything there was to know about emptiness.

“You're with her, aren't you? I had hoped my dazzling personality and bathing suit silhouette might change that arrangement. Some things you learn to accept. Some things you don't,” she warned.

More tempted than ever to stop her, he ran an arm out and she dragged her fingers along it until their hands swept over one another and the very tips of their fingers kissed.

She found her purse, stopped in the narrow passageway to look in on him. She smiled at him long enough to convey a message. She wanted to stay; she wanted him to ask her. He smiled back. She nodded and shrugged. The door closed behind her, and a second later Daggett was standing where she had been standing, his wet feet on the carpet, hand gripping the doorknob. But he didn't turn it.

The next morning the phone rang him awake in the middle of a room service breakfast. His morning run had been hampered by his vodka of the night before.

The voice of Phil Huff said, “We're in the clear here, so I'm going to keep it brief. There's something going down that you'll want to be part of. I'll pick you up outside the lobby in about ten, twelve minutes.” He paused. “Any problems with that?”

“I'll be there,” Daggett said.

Huff wore the same poplin suit, his shoulders square with arrogance. Daggett caught himself staring at the scars on the man's nose, wondering if women were attracted to scars. Huff had plenty of both. He drove the same mud-brown Chrysler Daggett had seen him in at the crash site. The front seat had a ratty slipcover, and Huff's heel had worn a hole in the floor mat in front of the accelerator pedal. The radio was crusted with dust and spilled coffee. The vinyl of the sun visor was split open from the years, like a piece of fruit left too long on the windowsill. Huff steered them into traffic, slipped the police light onto the dash, turned it on, and, as traffic parted slowly, said, “Our boys got a call from the LAPD substation out here at the airport, telling us about a call one of their downtown squads got. A mechanic for AmAirXpress claims he was jumped and drugged yesterday by a man and woman at his home. Says his airport ID and overalls were stolen. They rolled a detective on it a minute ago. We hurry, we may catch most of the show.”

Daggett considered all of this briefly. “If it holds, this could give us authority over the crash investigation,” he said anxiously.

“Something better than that,” Huff said, teasing Daggett with the long pause that followed. “You're gonna fuckin' love this.”

Daggett wouldn't beg. He waited him out.

“The chemicals on board this airplane?” he stated as a question, forcing Daggett to reply, “Yeah?” “Made by a company called ChemTronics with refineries—or whatever the fuck you call them—in twenty-some states.” Huff left another long pause, pretending to be busy with the car, though the car seemed to be driving itself on a road completely straight. “ChemTronics, come to find out, is a defense contractor—wink, wink; nudge, nudge—and is in bed with none other than EisherWorks Chemicals.”

Daggett's pulse doubled and he tried not to give Huff the pleasure of seeing or hearing his enthusiasm, which required a substantial effort. “In bed?” he asked.

“EisherWorks owns controlling interest in ChemTronics. It amounts to an American subsidiary.”

“So this
could
be
Der Grund
.”

“I thought you'd like it.”

Daggett mulled over the possibilities. Would a financial connection between the two be enough to convince Pullman or his superior, Richard Mumford, of
Der Grund
's suspected involvement? He doubted it. It wasn't hard enough evidence. And even if they had received a threat, ChemTronics was unlikely to share it with the FBI. Ignoring terrorist threats angered stockholders and drew unfavorable publicity; both affected share price. Major corporations received threats all the time, and for the most part, they used their own security departments to handle them. But even without a “hard” connection, it boosted Daggett's confidence that he was still on the trail of Bernard's detonators. And where the hell did it lead from here? What was next?

Phil Huff said, “Thermos at your feet is black with sugar. You look like you could use a cup.”

They drove for nearly twenty minutes, at which point he had lost track of where they were. The curbs, sidewalks, planting, even the houses, all looked the same. “I'm a real estate bigot,” he said. “To me this all looks the same. Where the hell are we?”

“Dougherty's place is right up here,” Huff said, obviously amused.

Daggett spotted the detective's unmarked car. Four-door, black-walls. “Stop!” he demanded, and the driver responded immediately by hitting the brakes. They both rocked forward toward the dash and settled back.

“What?” Huff asked angrily, eyes searching. “Christ, the way you said that, I thought I was about to hit something.”

“You were,” Daggett said, indicating the street in front of them. “Take a look.” Pointing.

“Yeah?” Huff asked, not seeing.

“The tire tracks,” Daggett explained. “The mud … the tire tracks there by the curb, see? But none behind the wheels of the unmarked.” He glanced over his shoulder and sipped the coffee. “Fresh ditches. Sewer work, right? But what about the mud?”

Huff looked too. “Kids musta had the hydrant on yesterday.”

“Yeah. Exactly. A lot of tracks down the middle of the street, but only this pair over here by the curb.”

“Son of a bitch,” Huff said excitedly. He backed up the car to stay out of the tracks. He parked it. “I'll get the dick's keys. I got a Polaroid under the seat.” He reached down and located it, and handed it to Daggett. “You leave it in the trunk and the film bakes.”

“Measuring tape?” Daggett asked.

“Should be in the kit in the trunk.” He handed Daggett the keys. He said, “This dick wasn't thinking about the crime scene.”

“No, he wasn't. So why don't you ask him politely to cool his heels a minute.” He made it a statement. “Talk to him. See if we can have this guy to ourselves for a while. There's nothing in this for LAPD. Nothing but paperwork for this badge. Tell him we'll take it off his hands.”

“He won't like it,” Huff cautioned. “Just us being here means there's something to it.”

“That's why we do this alone. Right, Phil?” Daggett said. “We don't need any tongues wagging.”

“No shit.”

“And while you're in there call your lab boys. Tell them to bring stuff to cast these ditches … vacuums for inside the house … the whole nine yards.” He added, “We treat it like a major crime scene.”

“The lab? I can't do that. We don't even know for sure your guy was here,” Huff protested. “Right? Let's not get ahead of ourselves.”

“A mechanic's ID stolen the afternoon of a crash?” Daggett asked, incredulous. “Make the call, Phil. I'll take my chances on this one.”

By the time Daggett and Huff returned from the nearly three-hour interrogation of Kevin Dougherty, the crash site at Hollywood Park looked completely different than the night before. The strewn packages and overnight mail envelopes of various colors, shapes, and sizes were gone, carted off to a nearby high school gym for inspection by FBI and FAA explosives experts. With the fires now extinguished, the ominous, other-planet quality of the previous night gave way to the feeling of a battlefield on the morning after: every object spread over five acres was either carbon black or mud brown. The disemboweled tail section of the fallen aircraft stuck out of the ground like a piece of modern sculpture. It was near this tail section that Daggett spotted a small group of investigators that included Lynn Greene. There were forty to fifty investigators roaming the debris, stooped like shell seekers on a Florida beach, many carrying clipboards, cameras, or clear plastic bags containing grotesquely unrecognizable items. One crew, near the detached nose, was running debris and mud over a sifter; others searched the screen like archaeologists after pieces of history.