Nelson DeMille - Plum Island

Beth was on the cell phone as I approached, and she hung up and got out. She said, "I just finished a long verbal to my boss. Everyone seems happy with the Ebola vaccine angle."

I asked, "Did you indicate to your boss that you think it's a crock of crap?"

"No… let's leave that thought alone. Let's solve a double murder."

We went to the Murphys' front door and rang the bell. The house was a 1960s ranch, original condition, as they say, pretty ugly, but decently maintained.

A woman of about seventy answered the door, and we introduced ourselves. She stared at my shorts, probably remarking to herself about how freshly laundered they looked and smelled. She smiled at Beth and showed us inside. She disappeared toward the back of the house and called out, "Ed! Police again.'"

She came back into the living room and indicated a love seat. I found myself cheek to cheek with Beth.

Mrs. Agnes Murphy asked us, "Would you like some Kool-Aid?"

I replied, "No, thank you, ma'am. I'm on duty."

Beth, too, declined.

Mrs. Murphy sat in a rocker facing us.

I looked around. The decorating style was what I call classical old fart: dark, musty, overstuffed furniture, six hundred ugly knickknacks, incredibly tacky souvenirs, photos of grandchildren, and so on. The walls were chalky green, like an after-dinner mint, and the carpet was… well, who cares?

Mrs. Murphy was dressed in a pink pants suit made of a synthetic material that would last three thousand years.

I asked Mrs. Murphy, "Did you like the Gordons?"

The question threw her, as it was supposed to. She got her thoughts together and replied, "We didn't know them very well, but they were mostly quiet."

"Why do you think they were murdered?"

"Well… how would I know?" We looked at one another awhile, then she said, "Maybe it had something to do with their work."

Edgar Murphy entered, wiping his hands on a rag. He had been in the garage, he explained, working on his power mower. He looked closer to eighty, and if I were Beth Penrose preparing a future trial in my mind, I wouldn't give odds that Edgar would make it to the stand.

He wore green overalls and work shoes and looked as pale as his wife. Anyway, I stood and shook hands with Mr. Murphy. I sat again, and Edgar sat in a recliner which he actually reclined so he was looking up at the ceiling. I tried to make eye contact with him, but it was hard to do given our relative positions. Now I remember why I don't visit my parents.

Edgar Murphy said, "I already spoke to Chief Maxwell."

Beth replied, "Yes, sir. I'm with homicide."

"Who's he with?"

I replied, "I'm with Chief Maxwell."

"No, you ain't. I know every cop on the force."

This was about to become a triple homicide. I looked up at the ceiling to about where his eyes were focused, and spoke, sort of like beaming up to a satellite and bouncing the signal down to the receiver. I said, "I'm a consultant. Look, Mr. Murphy — "

Mrs. Murphy interrupted, "Ed, can't you sit up? That's very rude to sit like that."

"The hell it is. It's my house. He can hear me okay. You can hear me okay, can't you?"

"Yes, sir."

Beth did some prelim, but related some of the details and times wrong, on purpose, and Mr. Murphy corrected her, demonstrating that he had good short-term memory. Mrs. Murphy also did some fine-tuning of the events of the prior day. They seemed like reliable witnesses, and I was ashamed of myself for showing impatience with the elderly — I felt awful about wanting to squash Edgar in his recliner.

Anyway, as Beth and I spoke to Edgar and Agnes, it was obvious that there was little new to be learned regarding the bare facts: the Murphys were both in their sun room at 5:30 p.m., having finished dinner — the elderly eat dinner about 4 p.m. Anyway, they were watching TV when they heard the Gordons' boat — they recognized the big engines, and Mrs. Murphy editorialized, "My, they're loud engines. Why would people need such big, loud engines?"

To annoy their neighbors, Mrs. Murphy. I asked both of them, "Did you see the boat?"

"No," Mrs. Murphy replied. "We didn't bother to look."

"But you could see the boat from your sun room?"

"We can see the water, yes. But we were watching TV."

"Better than watching the silly bay."

Beth said, "John."

Truly, I am a man of many prejudices, and I hate myself for all of them, but I'm a product of my age, my sex, my era, my culture. I smiled at Mrs. Murphy. "You have a beautiful house."

"Thank you."

Beth took over the questioning awhile. She asked Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, "And you're sure you didn't hear any noise that could be a gunshot?"

"Nope," Edgar Murphy replied. "My hearing's pretty good. Heard Agnes calling me, didn't I?"

Beth said, "Sometimes gunshots don't sound like what we think they sound like. You know, on TV, they sound one way, but in real life sometimes they sound like firecrackers or a sharp crack, or a car backfiring. Did you hear any sound after the engines stopped?"

"Nope."

My turn. I said, "Okay, you heard the engines stop. Were you still watching TV?"

"Yup. But we don't play it loud. We sit real close to it."

"Backs to the windows?"

"Yup."

"Okay, you watched TV for ten more minutes — what made you get up?"

"It was one of Agnes' shows. Some damn stupid talk show. Montel Williams."

"So you headed next door to chat with Tom Gordon."

"I needed to borrow an extension cord." Edgar explained that he went through a gap in the hedges, stepped onto the Gordons' wooden deck, and lo and behold, there were Tom and Judy, dead as doornails.

Beth asked, "How far were you from the bodies?"

"Not twenty feet."

"Are you sure?"

"Yup. I was at the edge of the deck, and they was like opposite their sliding glass door. Twenty feet."

"Okay. How did you know it was the Gordons?"

"Didn't, at first. I just sort of froze and stared, then it hit me."

"How did you know they were dead?"

"Didn't really know at first. But I could see the… well, what looked like a third eye on his forehead. You know? They didn't move an inch. And their eyes was open, but no breathing, no moaning. Nothing."

Beth nodded. "Then what did you do?"

"I got the hell out of there."

My turn. I asked Edgar, "How long do you think you actually stood there on the deck?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Half an hour?"

"Hell, no. About fifteen seconds."

Probably closer to five, I suspected. I walked Edgar through these few seconds a couple of times, trying to make him remember if he heard or saw anything unusual at that moment, anything he'd forgotten to mention, but to no avail. I even asked if he recalled smelling gunpowder, but he was adamant; his first report to Chief Maxwell was all of it, and that was that. Mrs. Murphy agreed.

I wondered what would have happened if Edgar had gone through the hedges about ten minutes earlier. Probably he wouldn't have been sitting here now. I wondered if that had crossed his mind. I asked him, "How do you think the murderer got away if you didn't hear or see a car or boat?"

"Well, I thought about that."

"And?"

"Well, there's a lot of people around here that walk, bicycle, jog and all. You know? I don't think anybody would take notice of anybody doin' any of that."

"Right." But a jogger with an ice chest on his head might attract attention. There was a good chance the murderer was still somewhere in the area when Edgar came upon the bodies.

I left the time and scene of the murder and began another line of questions. I asked Mrs. Murphy, "Did the Gordons have much company?"

She replied, "A fair amount. They did a lot of cooking outside. Always had a few people over."