Nelson DeMille: Night Fall

I said to Kate, “I once had an eyewitness to a shooting who said he’d been standing ten feet from the assailant, who shot the victim once from a range of five feet. In fact, a security camera had recorded the whole scene, which showed the witness at about thirty feet from the assailant, the assailant twenty feet from the victim, and three shots being fired.” I added, unnecessarily, “In cases of extreme and traumatic situations, the brain does not always comprehend what the eyes see or the ears hear.”

“There were hundreds of eyewitnesses.”

“The power of suggestion,” I said, “or false-memory syndrome, or the desire to please the interrogator, or in this case, a night sky and an optical illusion. Take your pick.”

“I don’t have to. The official report picked them all, with emphasis on optical illusion.”

“Yeah. I remember that.” In fact, the CIA had made a speculative reconstruction animation of the explosion, which they’d shown on TV, and which seemed to explain the streak of light. In the animation, as I recalled, the streak of light, which over two hundred people had seen rising toward the aircraft, was, according to the animation, actually coming from the aircraft as a result of burning fuel dropping from the ruptured fuel tank. The way this was explained in the animation was that it was not the initial explosion that caught the attention of the witnesses-it was the sound of the explosion that would have reached them fifteen to thirty seconds afterward, depending on where they were located. Then, when they looked up toward the sound, what they saw was the burning stream of jet fuel, which could be mistaken for a rocket or missile streaking upward. Also, the main fuselage of the aircraft actually rose, according to radar sightings, a few thousand feet after the explosion, and this burning section of the plane may also have looked like an ascending missile.

Optical illusion, according to the CIA. Sounded like bullshit to me, but the animation looked better than it sounded. I needed to see that video animation again.

And I needed to ask myself again, as I did five years ago, why it was the CIA who made the animation, and not the FBI. What was that all about?

We reached the far side of the bridge and got onto the William Floyd Parkway. I looked at my dashboard clock and said, “We won’t get back to the city until about eleven.”

“Later than that, if you want.”

“Meaning?”

“One more stop. But only if you want to.”

“Are we talking about a quickie in a hot-sheet motel?”

“We are not.”

I seemed to recall Liam Griffith strongly advising me not to make this case my off-duty hobby. He didn’t actually say what would happen if I didn’t take his advice, but I guessed it wouldn’t be pleasant.

“John?”

I needed to consider Kate’s career more than my own-she makes more money than I do. Maybe I should tell her what Griffith said.

She said to me, “Okay, let’s go home.”

I said to her, “Okay, one more stop.”

CHAPTER FOUR

We got off the William Floyd Parkway and headed east on Montauk Highway. Kate directed me through the pleasant village of Westhampton Beach.

We crossed a bridge over Moriches Bay, which led to a thin barrier island where we turned onto the only road, Dune Road, and headed west. New houses lined the road-oceanfront houses to the left, ocean view houses to the right.

Kate said, “This was not very developed five years ago.”

An offhand observation, perhaps, but more likely she meant this was a more secluded area at the time of the accident, and therefore, what I was about to see and hear should be put into that context.

Within ten minutes a sign informed me that I was entering Cupsogue Beach County Park, officially closed at dusk, but I was officially on unofficial police business, so I drove into the big parking field.

We passed through the parking field, and Kate directed me to a sand road, which was actually a nature trail, according to the sign that also said NO VEHICLES. The trail was partially blocked by a roll-up fence, so I put the Jeep into four-wheel drive and drove around the fence, my headlights illuminating the narrowing trail, which was now the width of the Jeep, flanked by scrub brush and dunes.

At the end of the trail, Kate said, “Turn down here, toward the beach.”

I turned between two dunes and down a gradual slope, nailing a scrub oak on the way.

“Be careful of the vegetation, please. Turn right at this dune.”

I turned at the edge of the dune, and she said, “Stop here.”

I stopped, and she got out.

I shut off the ignition and the lights and followed her.

Kate stood near the front of the Jeep and stared out at the dark ocean. She said, “Okay, on the night of July 17, 1996, a vehicle, most likely a four-wheel drive like yours, left the road and stopped right about here.”

“How do you know that?”

“A Westhampton village police report. Right after the plane went down, a police car, an SUV, was dispatched here, and the officer was told to walk down to the beach and see if he could be of any help. He arrived at eight-forty-sixP.M. ”

“What kind of help?”

“The exact location of the crash wasn’t known at that point. There was a possibility of survivors-people with life vests or rafts. This officer had a handheld searchlight. He noticed tire marks in the sand, ending about here. He didn’t think anything of it and walked down to the beach.”

“You saw this report?”

“Yes. There were hundreds of written reports on every imaginable aspect of this crash, from dozens of local law enforcement agencies as well as the Coast Guard, commercial and private pilots, fishermen, and so forth. But this one caught my eye.”

“Why?”

“Because it was one of the earliest and one of the least important.”

“But you didn’t think so. Did you talk to this cop?”

“I did. He said he walked down to the beach.” She started down to the beach, and I followed.

She stopped at the water’s edge, pointed, and said, “Across that inlet is Fire Island and Smith Point County Park where the memorial service was just held. Far out on the horizon, this police officer could see the jet fuel burning on the water. He shined his light out on the water, but all he saw was a calm, glassy surface. He said in his report that he didn’t expect to see any survivors coming to shore, at least not that soon, and probably not that far from the crash. In any case, he decided to climb up a sand dune where he could get a better view.”

She turned and headed for the rising dune, which was near where I’d parked the Jeep. I followed.

We reached the base of the dune. “Okay,” she said, “he told me he saw recent signs that people had scrambled up or down-or up and down-this dune. This guy wasn’t actually following the footprints; he was just looking for a vantage point to scan the water. So, he climbed this dune.”

“Does that mean I have to climb it?”

“Follow me.”

We scrambled up the dune, and I got sand in my shoes. When I was a young detective, I was into re-enactments, which are sometimes strenuous and get your clothes dirty. I’m more cerebral now.

We stood at the top of the dune, and she said, “Down there in that small valley between this dune and the next, this policeman saw a blanket.” We walked down the shallow slope.

She said, “Just about here. A bed blanket. If you live around here, you probably own a good cotton beach blanket. This was a synthetic fiber blanket, maybe from a hotel or motel.”

“Did anyone check out local hotels and motels to get a match?”