Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

He looked down at the address on the Post-it stuck to his dash, the address for Hennicot’s attorney, whose offices contained the security video, who had probably viewed it.

Dance had already spoken to her. He had already gained the trust of Nicholas Quinn’s wife.

NICK DROVE DOWN Route 22. As he headed onto the overpass of Interstate 684, he saw the uninterrupted flow of traffic below. It was like another world, cars filling the roads, people chatting within their vehicles, unaware of the disaster just a mile off the highway. It was as if Byram Hills were a dead town, under quarantine, the disaster already pushed from the minds of the world beyond.

Nick continued into the vacant town and pulled into the empty parking lot of Valhalla, his friend’s restaurant.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Nick asked, as put the car in park.

“I’m fine,” Dreyfus said. “I’ve gotten more banged up from hits in a flag football game.”

“Well, where do you want me to take you?” Nick asked as he looked at his car’s clock. “I have to be somewhere at three.”

“I can’t go back to the airfield, yet.” Dreyfus said.

“Tell you what,” Nick said. “You drop me at my house, take my car.”

“I can’t do that.” Dreyfus shook his head.

“Yeah, you can. It’s not like you’re going to keep it. Just call me when you’re done with it. With the loss of your brother and everything else going on, you need it more than me.”

Dreyfus nodded in thanks.

“Besides, I’ll have another car just like this one at my house in ten minutes,” Nick said, with an irony no one could ever understand.

“I appreciate it.”

“But you need to help me in return.” Nick looked at Dreyfus. “One of Dance’s men is going to try to kill my wife, I just don’t know who.”

“You know, I didn’t realize… I didn’t make the connection between you and your wife, Julia. I met her, Nick, on more than one occasion. She’s terrific. Hennicot really cares for her, thinks the world of her, and in my book, nobody is a better judge of character than that old man.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t start getting some help,” Nick said, “she’s not going to live through the day.”

Dreyfus pulled his briefcase up on his lap, opened it, and pulled out three sheets of paper.

“I only figured out what my brother was doing this morning. I tore through his files and found this.” Dreyfus handed the paper to Nick.

Nick read quickly. It was a haphazard checklist and hastily typed notes on the planned robbery.

“It’s not much, just his notes, but it gives the names.”

Nick skimmed the details of the mechanics of the break-in but paid close attention to the bullet-note bios Sam had compiled:

DROP DEAD-7/28

Dance-Ethan Dance. 38. Detective. Dirty. Two-faced.

His three:

Randall-Cop. 58. Fat

Brinehart-Cop. New guy. Kid. Punk.

Arilio-Cop. 30s.

Fence-Confirmed-Chinese national, five million cash for weapons.

diamond price t/b/d upon inspection.

Rukaj-Not a cop. Who is this? Called Dance at lunch, unnerved him,

scared him. Dance in debt? Owes him?

“If someone’s after your wife,” Dreyfus said, pointing at the names. “It’s got to be one of these.”

“Drop dead?” Nick said, looking at the top note.

“That’s today’s date.”

“Who’s this Rukaj?”

“Not completely sure, but I believe it may be Ghestov Rukaj, an Albanian who has been staking claim to organized crime in New York. But I’ll tell you this, if he scared Dance, he can’t be all bad.”

“Or maybe,” Nick said ominously, “he’s far worse.”

“I’d keep my focus on Dance,” Dreyfus said.

“As insane as he is,” Nick said, “I don’t think it was him.”

“Did you say, was…?” Dreyfus asked in confusion.

“Is.” Nick quickly corrected himself. As much as he agreed with Dreyfus, he held the evidence in his pocket. Without doubt, the St. Christopher medal hung on the neck of Julia’s killer, and Nick had seen Dance’s neck, his exposed chest: There was nothing hanging there. Randall, the fifty-eight-year-old fat cop on Sam’s list, wasn’t the trigger man, Nick was sure of this, as he had seen him getting in the blue Chevy Impala at the moment Julia was shot. It had to be one of the other three who pulled the trigger: Brinehart, Arilio, or Rukaj.

“After the robbery this morning, Dance came after my brother. If he hadn’t died in the plane crash, they were going to kill him. Dance was relentless looking for this box, thinking it was worth a fortune. I’m sure he is just as relentless in making sure that he covers his tracks, that he never gets caught,” Dreyfus said, confirming the danger to Julia.

“How do you know so much about what happened during the robbery?” Suspicion leaked into Nick’s voice.

Dreyfus paused as if he were about to reveal a death.

“After the robbery, I tracked down my brother, I saw the box he took from Hennicot’s safe. I tried to convince him to let me help him, that the box didn’t contain what he thought, that it couldn’t fill whatever hole he had in his life. He said it was too late, that Dance was after him and would kill him on sight.”

“Where did you see him last?” Nick asked.

“At the airport.”

“My God, I’m sorry.”

Dreyfus looked at Nick. There was a look in his eye, something he was not saying.

“Nick, my brother died in that plane crash, but he wasn’t on Flight 502.”

“What do you mean?”

“He showed up at the airport in a stolen police car, the wooden box under his arm. I tried to tell him…”

“Tell him what?”

“I tried to stop him.” Dreyfus’s voice filled with a painful regret.

“I had no idea,” Nick said.

“He stole my plane,” Dreyfus continued, looking out the window, unable to meet Nick’s eye. “He held a gun to my head, took the keys, and stole my plane. If I had any idea, I would have stopped him, I would have killed him to prevent what happened.”

Nick stared at Dreyfus as he struggled to speak, confused about where the conversation was going.

“I watched him fly my plane right into that jet, into Flight 502. I watched them fall from the sky to their deaths.”

Nick sat there in stunned silence, never having imagined that the two horrible events in Byram Hills were related.

“I’m sorry,” Nick finally said. He realized the look in Dreyfus’s eyes was not a feeling of betrayal but one of anguish and sorrow, of overwhelming guilt, for his brother was responsible for the deaths of 212 innocent people.

Not another word was spoken as Nick pulled out of the parking lot and drove the mile and half home.

Nick pulled in front of his house. He and Dreyfus got out of the car and solemnly shook hands. “I appreciate the loan of the car.

“And Nick,” Dreyfus continued with a serious look. “If they think your wife can identify them, if she has a video of the robbery, they won’t stop until they silence her. If I were you, I would get her away from this town now. If you’ve got friends you can trust, I’d find them. Because I wouldn’t trust anyone in that police department if I were you.”

“I agree,” Nick said.

Dreyfus nodded in appreciation as he climbed in the driver’s seat of Nick’s Audi, closed the door, and rolled down the window. “Good luck, Nick.”

Nick watched Dreyfus pull out of the driveway and disappear around the corner. He pulled the watch from his pocket and checked the time: 2:57. Julia’s Lexus wasn’t in the driveway. He didn’t know where she was at this moment but this moment would soon be over.