Coffee, Tea, or Murder? (16 page)

“He’s done quite well in your courts.”

“Not always. These final two charges didn’t pan out quite as nicely for him. See there? Six months for burglary, and—”

“And a year and a half for impersonation for the purpose of fraud,” I said.

We looked at each other.

I shook my head. “No, George, he must be Wayne Silverton’s son. Christine didn’t question it for a moment.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Jessica. But that doesn’t mean he’s above forging documents to back up his claim about the airline. You haven’t seen those papers?”

“No, I haven’t.” I told him of my conversation with Churlson Vicks about Jason’s presence in the meeting. “Just an old letter from his father.”

“If he’s trying to pull wool over the eyes of those sharks, he’ll find himself in rather dangerous waters,” George said.

“I’m sure the attorneys involved will vet that letter thoroughly to ascertain its legitimacy,” I said.

“For his sake, let’s hope so.” George looked at his watch. “Time to see the good Captain Caine. You’ve met him a few times now. What’s your evaluation of the man?”

“Our encounters have been relatively short,” I said. “I sat in the cockpit on takeoff from Boston. It was a thrill. As for Captain Caine, he seemed to me to be a no-nonsense sort of fellow, very much the professional airline pilot. He wasn’t especially happy to have me in the cockpit, but Wayne arranged it. And the captain took it in his stride. That reminds me. I haven’t told you about the confrontation that occurred between Wayne and the captain.”

“About what?”

“About Caine’s decision to leave the lineup of planes waiting to take off, and return to the terminal to have a possible malfunction checked.”

“What was the problem?”

“A lightbulb, it turned out, but of course he didn’t know that at the time. Captain Caine made a decision to return to the gate. Wayne wanted Caine to ignore the problem and take off. In the end, there was nothing seriously wrong, but I admired the captain’s stand. Wayne was out of line to try to override Caine’s decision by throwing around his weight as the airline owner.”

“Sounds like Silverton was adept at making enemies. What do you say about Ms. Molnari taking the pills in Caine’s room? Any significance?”

“Only the obvious. We should ask him if they’ve ever been romantically involved. I happened to speak with someone this morning who has a room across the hall from Caine. Jed Richardson. He’s Cabot Cove’s resident pilot. In fact, he taught me to fly. He told me he’d heard an argument between Captain Caine and another man. He’s pretty sure it was the first officer, Carl Scherer.”

“And?”

“Nothing beyond that. But I asked him if he could check on the captain’s and first officer’s professional backgrounds. Jed used to be a commercial pilot. He knows whom to ask.”

George smiled. “You’ve had a busy morning, I see. By the way, I managed to spend an unplanned fifteen minutes with the first officer, Mr. Scherer. Pleasant enough young chap.”

“Did anything come of it?”

“No, nor did I expect anything. Just an informal chat. He offered to sit down for a longer interview with me at my convenience. He rode the limousine into London with the rest of the flight crew.”

“Did he have anything to offer regarding the murder?”

“No. He spoke highly of Mr. Silverton, called him an aviation visionary.”

“Which I suppose he was.”

“At any rate, Jessica, Mr. Scherer strikes me as a forthright fellow. I’ll find the time to follow up with him as soon as possible.”

George stood and put out his hand to help me up. “Shall we?”

As we headed for the elevators, George nodded at a man in the lobby—a plain clothes officer, I suspected. “It should be interesting,” he said in a low voice, “to see how the captain responds to the news that his fingerprints are all over the knife used in the murder.”

My wonderful British friend is a master of understatement.

C
aptain Caine answered George’s knock.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning.” Caine looked past George to me, and his eyes widened. “How are you, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

“May we come in?” George asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

We entered his suite where Gina Molnari sat stiffly in a chair by the window. She turned at our entrance but said nothing.

“Ms. Molnari,” George said, cocking his head, “I trust you’re feeling better.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

She didn’t look fine to me. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face was puffy and pale.

George said to Caine, “I’d prefer that we speak alone, Captain.”

“Anything I have to say, she already knows,” Caine replied.

“That may be,” George said, “but I insist that this interview be conducted without anyone else present.”

“What about her?” Caine asked, indicating me.

“I’ve asked Mrs. Fletcher to accompany me on some of my interviews. She’s been involved from the beginning, and I find her insights to be useful.”

“Her imagination, you mean,” Caine said.

“I beg your pardon?” George’s voice was cold.

Caine hesitated, looking unsure that he wanted to challenge George. “She’s a novelist,” he said after a moment. “She makes up stories. That’s what I meant.”

“Be that as it may,” George said, “Ms. Molnari will have to leave and Mrs. Fletcher stays.”

Caine started to protest again, but Gina stood. “I’ll be in my room,” she said, and left without another word.

“Have a seat,” George said to Caine. The pilot was dressed in a gray sweatshirt, tan cargo shorts, and sneakers sans socks. George and I took the couch, Caine a chair across a coffee table from us. George took out his notebook and placed it carefully on the table.

“Let me save you some time,” Caine said. “I don’t know why that knife is missing from my carry-on bag. Chances are I left it at home, forgot to pack it.”

George had been bent over the tabletop, his eyes on his notebook. Without moving his head, he looked up from beneath his thick eyebrows. “I believe you said it stays in your bag all the time,” he said.

“It usually does. This time it didn’t,” Caine said. He tapped his heel on the floor, causing his knee to bounce up and down. “If you’re trying to link up my missing knife with Silverton’s murder, you’re wasting your time.”

George reached out a hand and rested it on top of his notebook. “I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple, Captain. You see, the knife that killed Mr. Silverton has your fingerprints on it. Now, if the murder weapon is not your knife, how did it get your fingerprints all over it? That would point to you as the murderer, would it not?”

“I don’t believe this,” said Caine, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m telling you I didn’t kill him. But what does it matter? Somebody took the knife from my bag and stabbed Silverton. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” George said. “Who had access to your bag aside from you?”

Caine snorted, “Hell, anyone and everyone. The crew—Carl Scherer, the flight attendants—and dozens of people in Ops at Logan and Stansted, the world.” He looked at me. “You spent time up front with us, Mrs. Fletcher. The bag was right there at your feet, just off to the left of the jump seat you used.”

“Yes, I remember seeing it,” I said, “but I wouldn’t have had any reason to open it and rummage through its contents.”

“I’m not saying you did,” Caine said, “but it makes my point. Everybody on the flight had an opportunity to grab the knife from it. Scherer and I left the cockpit after we’d landed and shut down. The door was open. This wasn’t like a normal flight where security was tight. Hell, there wasn’t any security. Silverton saw to that. He didn’t want to ‘offend’ anyone.” He delivered that last line scornfully.

George’s index finger tapped the notebook. “Thank you for sharing that information with us,” he said. “Would you mind accounting for your movements from the time you landed the plane at Stansted until later that night?” He drew a pen from his breast pocket, opened the notebook, and looked at Caine expectantly.

“Let’s see,” Caine said, his expression announcing that he was thinking, his knee keeping time to some internal music. “I did the postflight rundown, went to Ops, and closed out the flight plan. There’s always a lot of paperwork. And then—then I came into town along with everyone else.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said.

His face turned angry. “What?”

“I said you didn’t come into town with the others. I saw you at the airport when Inspector Sutherland and I went there after being notified about Mr. Silverton’s death.”

George deliberately flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “And I have several witnesses who say you didn’t take the crew limo into London,” he added.

The captain squirmed a bit, readjusting his position in the chair so he was leaning forward, his elbow on his now-still knee. He shrugged. “I didn’t say I came into London right away. Truth is, I did, um, I did stay out at the airport for a while.”

“Why?” I asked, not sure if I should have injected myself into the questioning. I glanced at George, whose face said I was on solid ground.

Caine sat back. “You’re too nosey for my taste, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I said. “Are you trying to avoid my question?”

He glared at George. “I don’t see why I have to answer questions from her. She’s not a cop.”

George’s expression remained neutral. “Answer the question, please.”

“I don’t even remember it.”

“Why didn’t you come into London with the rest of the crew?” I asked.

His laugh wasn’t genuine. “All right,” he said, “let me satisfy that nose of yours.” His knee started to bounce again. “I was about to take the limo when I bumped into an old pal. We used to fly for the same airline. He’d just arrived at Stansted, too, so we decided to grab a beer together. Simple as that.”

“At the airport?” George asked.

“A local pub.”

“Name of the pub?”

Caine rolled his shoulders. “Let me see. I think it was called the Rose and Crown. Nice place, friendly people, and the beer on tap was good,” he said with a tight smile.

“Do you think people would remember you there?” George asked.

“Do you mean did I make a scene, spill my beer on somebody, get into a brawl? No. We sat at a quiet table far from the crowd and were perfect gentlemen. Unless, of course, the sizable tip I left the barmaid is remembered. Hell, it should be.”

“Captain Caine,” I said, “At the risk of offending you again, I’d like to ask if that was a wise decision.”

“Huh? Leaving a big tip? What’s wrong with that?”

“You mistake my meaning. I thought there were restrictions on pilots drinking.”

“Oh, very good, Mrs. Fletcher. You’re right. The regs against consuming alcoholic beverages before a flight are strict. Fact is, I knew I had this layover in London. The rules say no drinking for twenty-four hours before flying. I had more time than that before we were scheduled to fly back to Boston. So I had a beer.”

“What about your friend?” George asked.

“Lemonade, if I remember correctly. No alcohol in that. They also have what’s called a shandy here in the UK, Mrs. Fletcher, half beer, half lemonade. There’s always plenty of lemonade at pubs.” He looked at George. “But you must know that.”

“I’ve enjoyed a shandy or two,” George said.

“I don’t know how anyone drinks it,” Caine said. “They say it lets you stay longer at the bar without getting drunk. I’d rather get drunk than drink that stuff.”

George ignored Caine’s review of local customs and said, “I’m sure you don’t mind giving us your chum’s name.” His pen was poised over the small notebook.

Caine obliged. “He’s based in San Francisco,” he added.

“Why did you return to the airport?” I asked.

“Nothing nefarious. My buddy left his keys at Ops. I went back with him to collect them. I saw this whole commotion, and I didn’t stick around to see what it was about. That good enough for you?”

“Thank you,” George said. “Now, back to the business of your knife being the one used to kill Mr. Silverton, the one with your prints on it. I assume you could identify the knife as belonging to you.”

“Don’t count on it,” Caine said. “I know what my knife looked like. It’s a plain and simple folding knife, nothing special. There must be a million like it. I’d never be able to swear it was mine.”

“No identifying marks on it, no nicks in the blade that you’re aware of?” George asked.

“Who knows? I haven’t looked at it in months.”

A lull in the conversation descended on the room. I broke it with, “Was Ms. Molnari with you when you met your friend for a drink at the pub?”

“Gina? No. Why?”

“She didn’t come into London in the crew limo, either,” I explained.

“That’s news to me,” Caine said. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“I’m sure Inspector Sutherland intends to do just that,” I said.

As I spoke, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky outside the window, so vivid and electrifying that it seemed aimed directly at us. It was followed by a resounding clap of thunder that caused everyone in the room to flinch.

“There’s a series of fronts coming through over the next twenty-four hours,” Caine said. “Severe thunderstorms, hail, the works. Supposed to arrive tonight. Looks like it’s getting here a little early.”

“Will it change our flight plans?” I asked.

Caine relaxed at the easy question. “Incoming flights will be affected, but we should be okay. Anything else you want to ask?”

George shook his head, and looked to me.

“I do have one other question,” I said.

“Shoot,” Caine said.