A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror (36 page)

“You been up around Bear Mountain?” It came out fast and clean.

“Bear Mountain?”

“You heard me. You in that crowd that was fooling around up on the bridge?” Strachan was fishing.

Lou kept looking straight at him. If he diverted his eyes, he was dead.

“State Police up there are looking around for some people.”

“You know I didn’t do anything like that,” Lou said, his hand against the side of his face and the elbow still on the table.

“I don’t know shit,” Strachan said, pacing around behind him.

“Look, I’m tired. It’s nothing more than that. A guy tried to mug me. That’s it.”

The door opened. Another cop stuck his head in and asked Strachan to come out.

Lou was alone in the room again. They were getting close now. All they had to do was check around at a few other precincts to find out that Titus had called in with something that very morning. For sure, there would be some kind of personal description making the rounds of all the police units in the area. Maybe they were just playing games with him. Maybe they already had a composite of his face. Maybe they were running witnesses in to look at him through a two-way mirror. There was nothing that looked like a two-way mirror.

But who had seen his face besides Copeland, Stanfield, and Sydney? No one. The weariness of the last two, sleepless nights was dulling all his normal alertness.

“You’re going in the tank for a while, Mr. Christopher. There’s no charge, but we need to do some checking of facts.”

It was the cop who had stuck his head in to get Strachan. He came over, grasped Lou’s upper arm and held him in custody like that until Lou stepped into the small cell. It was dimly lit. There were no others in any of the cells, not even the big drunk tank across the corridor. Lou sank down onto the bare mattress and lay still.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Grandpa’s just giving a speech, darling. Are you hungry? How about some animal crackers?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, you can do it by yourself. Go ahead.”

Jory bounded away to the downstairs bathroom.

Maggie didn’t bother to rewind. She ejected the tape and clutched it to her chest as she peered out the window at the van. She walked quickly to the basement door, descended the stairs. She stood in the middle of the dark space for a full minute before she walked quickly to the water heater and bent down to open the little door at the bottom. The light from the gas pilot flickered against a steel support post, and she quickly closed the door. She marched to Lou’s workbench, opened his toolbox, dropped in the tape, and closed the lid again. She started for the stairs, stopped, and retrieved the tape.

She turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, scanning the space up and down. She balanced the tape against a cross piece in the floor joists above her head, but it dropped into her hand as soon as she let go of it. Then she pushed it into a dark space above the doorway to the stairs but immediately took it out.

She heard the doorbell. Not just one ring—several rapid, insistent rings. Both Jory and Kirk ran for the door, Trude on their heels yapping like thunder. Mag eyed two pairs of panties, some panty hose, and a bra dangling from the wooden drying rack in the corner. The tape nestled securely into the left cup of the bra, nicely hidden from view.

She started up the stairs. Turned and went back. Snatched the tape from the bra. Up the stairs. To the cupboard. Ripped open a box of dry soup mix; onion broth. Flipped the contents into the garbage. Slid the tape neatly in. Sealed it with scotch tape.

The doorbell.

Maggie ripped the tape from the soup box and tucked it into a re-sealable plastic bag from the pantry. Then she snatched the
Grasshopper Pie
ice cream container from the freezer and pried a huge chunk from the middle with her flat ice cream scoop (snagged at last Tuesday’s auction at the Elks). She dunked the tape in, covered it over, and smoothed the fracture on the surface like a master cake froster.

“Mrs. Christopher, my name is Ross Kilmartin. I’m from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He was a rotund man with a deep, commanding voice. His forehead rose in two peaks separated by a tuft of red hair. He carried a thick legal-type briefcase and held his identification in front of his chest.

“I have a search warrant here that basically says that I’m authorized to search your residence. May I come in, please?”

“You boys go on upstairs,” she said to Jory and Kirk. “The Federal Bureau... Of course. Come in. By all means, Mr. Kilmartin. What’s this all about?”

“May I call you Margaret?”

“Call me Mrs. Christopher. What are you searching for?” Mag asked, leading him into the living room.

“Where is your husband today? At work?”

“He’s in the city attending a training conference on global securities something or other.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Well, Mrs. Christopher, we don’t have a lot of time for discussion but we’re convinced that your husband has violated some federal statutes restricting interstate transportation of explosive devices.”

“Oh, come now!”

“We also believe that he is not alone in this. That others are involved. And that’s the purpose of the search; to try to find anything that might lead us to these others.”

“This is absolute nonsense. Why would Lou get involved in anything like that?”

Kilmartin snapped open his briefcase, reached in, and produced a dark green, waist-length jacket. “Is this your husband’s jacket, missus?”

“Well, he has one like that. Where did you get it?”

“We’d rather not disclose that right now, but we did check out the laundry mark. It’s his, all right.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Your lawyer would probably advise saying nothing, but he’s not here right now.”

Maggie dropped her forehead into the palm of her hand and rested it there.

“I’m not your enemy, Margaret. I’m your friend, believe it or not. Your husband is in the custody of the NYPD in Manhattan. We’re gathering evidence and tracking leads as fast as we can. A little cooperation on both his part and yours could go a long way.”

“I can’t help you with that. If you’re going to search, get on with it,” Mag said, turning and striding out of the room.

* * *

Kilmartin let in two other FBI men, and the three of them began to search. They started upstairs. Mag could hear them as they opened every drawer, every door. She waited in the living room with the boys playing at her feet. She wanted to run to the freezer, to the
Grasshopper Pie
, but she didn’t.

What exactly did she know so far? All the stuff on the tape. Buck. Stanfield. Copeland. The election connection. She knew that Lou didn’t want her involved. That he was wise enough to have provided an escape hatch in the form of the tape. Who knew about the tape? Where had he produced it? Who had a copy? Who would send it to Severence? Under what conditions?

He didn’t want her involved; had lied to her to that end. But he had called. Twice. Well, the first call was different, wasn’t it? More apologetic? More… what? The second was longer. He’d seemed drained. He’d rambled. His lies were sticking out like neon signs all over the place; rental cars; movement to the city from Arden House without any real explanation. The second call came long after the bridge operation. After what must have been an exhausting escape. How did he get to the city? Was he really there? Of course he was. She could hear the train station noise in the background.

To have called her, he must have been reaching out for help. Oh, come now, girl. Get real. He never asked for help. That’s wishful thinking, Nurse Margaret. Well, if it wasn’t a plea for help, what was it? Information? Who’s giving it? Who’s getting it? She gave nothing to him in the way of news, did she? Everything new was on his side.

What news did he give? That he was in the city now. He’d be home soon. That they’d move away from here someday. That he needed a suit. What would he use it for? To simply present a more legitimate presence on the street? Possibly. No. Assume you’re a fugitive. In hiding. Why would you pin yourself down to a time and a place for contact… unless it benefitted you?

She heard the men in the kitchen and in the basement. Doors opening and closing. Contents rattling as they searched. She went upstairs, saw that they’d been up in the attic. Clothes streamed out of drawers. Shoes littered the floor. Every door ajar.

Downstairs, the couch was pulled away from the wall. Same with the china cabinet, the TV console. Closets open. Shoes piled into the center hallway. The kitchen: freezer door ajar, cold contents from the refrigerator on the countertops. Silverware drawer open. Oven, cabinets, garbage can—askew. A stack of dry soup mix boxes on the oven burner, onion broth from the garbage can up on the counter.

She opened the freezer; grabbed the
Grasshopper Pie.

“Missus?”

“Would you care for some ice cream, officer? The boys are begging for it.”

“Thanks, but no. We’ve done enough here for now. We’ll be going. But I’ll be back in touch.”

“You know where the door is.”

“Are you doing something with the suit upstairs?”

“The suit. What suit? Oh, Lou’s. Yes, I’m going to take it to the cleaners.”

“The shirt too? The tie?”

“Yes. All that and more, as soon as I get it gathered together. You say my husband is at some police station? Which one? I want to talk to him.”

“He can make telephone calls if he wants to. I’d wait for him to call if I were you. I’m not your enemy, missus.”

“You’re acting like my enemy.”

“Don’t hide anything from me. I need to know everything as quickly as possible.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m your friend.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Mr. Christopher, wake up.” It was Strachan. He was sitting on a metal chair against the wall looking straight into Lou’s face. For a moment, Lou wondered if he was dreaming. “I want you to meet somebody, Mr. Christopher,” he said.

“I fell asleep, for chrissake.”

“This is Ross Kilmartin, Lou. Ross works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“How do you do, Mr. Christopher. I’d like to ask you a few questions, but before I do, I’d like to give you a few facts as we know them right now, okay?”

“Be my guest,” Lou mumbled.

“Early this morning two men were picked up in the vicinity of Stony Point, New York. They have confessed to having taken part in the bombing of the Bear Mountain Bridge. They have identified all of the other participants in the crime except two: a man called Cook and a woman called Tasha. They gave us descriptions of both. We lifted fingerprints from all the weapons we recovered: seven US Army M-2 Carbines.

“We’re comparing your prints with these right now. We found a jacket at the scene that was purchased at MacFees Clothing Store in Paramus. A laundry mark identifies the jacket as belonging to someone living in or around the town of Glen Rock, New Jersey. Later this morning, a man named Titus Moore called the Ft. Montgomery Police Department and reported that he had been kidnapped from his home at Hillcrest Trailer Park near Ft. Montgomery, New York, and forced to drive a man to New York City where he was then released, at Thirty-Fourth Street.

“The description of the man closely resembles you, all the way down to the limp. Mr. Moore also reported the theft of some items of clothing, including a pair of khaki trousers, size forty-six, and a green wool sweater—clothes that closely resemble what you’re wearing. Blood samples from a pair of torn and bloody trousers found outside of Moore’s trailer are presently being processed for blood type ID. We lifted fingerprints from several items in Moore’s kitchen. We also recovered a knapsack from the wooded area a mile or so from the trailer park that contained smashed candy bars and, among other things, a pocketknife. We’ve dusted that for prints. At the same location, we recovered a bullet-riddled, white U-Haul van with handguns in it, which we are also dusting.”