Down to the Wire, page 21
She felt instinctively that a person she could trust, and who might also be able to help her, was Chris Turley. She called him at the newspaper and though they at first said he wasn’t available, they put her through when she identified herself.
“Mr. Turley, I need to speak with you,” she said.
“What about?”
“Peter. I heard something today . . . Mr. Turley, my Peter did not do this. I have proof.”
“What did you hear? No, wait a minute, don’t say anything over the phone.” Chris knew that his office phone was likely still tapped and was sure that hers would be tapped, as well. “Can you come here?”
“I’m afraid . . . there are so many people outside.”
Chris felt terrible for this woman; she was a prisoner in her own home. None of what she was going through was her fault, yet it would ultimately define her life. And he could certainly identify with her being harassed by press in front of her home. “I’ll come to you. I can be there in an hour.”
“Thank you. I’m afraid I have little in the house to offer you. I haven’t been able to go to the market.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you soon.”
When he got off the phone, he called Dani at home. “You up for taking a ride?”
“Where to?”
“To visit Peter Randolph’s grandmother. I think it would make her feel better if you were there. But we have to make a stop first.”
Chris picked up Dani and they went to the supermarket on the way to the Randolph house, where they loaded up on groceries for her. He couldn’t reduce her fear, but hopefully he could have an impact on her hunger.
Novack was annoyed. That in itself was not exactly a news event; he spent his entire waking life annoyed. And it fed on itself and multiplied; the very state of feeling annoyed was annoying to him.
The source of his current annoyance was his inability to connect Peter Randolph to Mayor Alex Stanley, or even to Charity, the hooker who visited the mayor that night. Most of the detectives in the department were still on that aspect of the case, since it was the only one officially under their jurisdiction, and no one had uncovered even the slightest bit of information that could explain how Peter knew what would happen that night.
Perhaps even more significant, every single neighbor of the Randolphs referred to Peter as a hermit who almost never left the house. Yet obviously P.T. had to have spent a great deal of time out and about, unless he was working with an accomplice, which seemed unlikely. There would have been no logical reason for Peter to have snuck out of the house on all those occasions, yet the neighbors said they almost never saw him.
On the other hand, these nagging doubts that Novack had were countered by the damning evidence found in the Randolph house and by the statement from P.T. broadcast on CNN. It amounted to a virtual confession by Peter Randolph; he even referred to his house being “invaded.”
When Novack was in this mood, nobody wanted to come near him, but sometimes it was unavoidable. One of the officers assigned to him, a young patrolman named Fred McCaskill, entered Novack’s office.
“Detective, I just wanted to tell you that I’m leaving for the day.” Since they were on overtime mode, Novack insisted on being told when officers were leaving, so that he could make last-minute changes in their schedule if he needed them to stay around. It was not something that officers looked forward to.
“So Randolph has been captured?” he asked.
“No, sir. I don’t believe so. No.”
“So you’re going to do something more important than trying to find him? Where are you going?”
“Home. And then I’m taking my wife to the movies.”
Novack nodded. “Very commendable. A grateful public thanks you. Listen to the radio on the way home from the movie; that way you can find out if somebody else died while you were sucking down popcorn.”
The officer was growing more nervous by the moment. “If you want me to stay, I . . .”
Before Novack could answer, Willingham came by and extricated the officer from the conversation, sending him on his way. After he left, his partner said, “I see we’re in a cheery mood?”
“Kiss my ass,” Novack said.
“HE SAID I WAS his mother,” Doris Randolph said as soon as they walked in the door.
“What do you mean?” asked Chris. “Who said that?”
“Peter. No, not Peter. In that horrible statement on the television, the one they said was from Peter. It said that I was his mother. But I’m not. I’m his grandmother.”
“Maybe he made a mistake,” Chris said.
“Chris . . .” Dani said, her tone telling him that he should know better.
“He would never make that kind of mistake,” Doris said. “How could he? Would you? Peter didn’t say that; someone else did.”
“Maybe it was transcribed incorrectly. Maybe it really said ‘grandmother.’ ” He didn’t want to give this woman false hope that all of this was going to blow over and she’d have her grandson back.
“Can you find out if that’s true?” she asked.
Chris nodded. “Yes, the original message was sent over the wire. I saw a copy of it; we even have it up on our Web site. Do you have a computer?”
She shook her head. “The FBI took it when they took Peter’s.”
“No problem,” he said. He asked Dani for her cell phone, since it was the one the FBI was least likely to listen to. He called Scott Ryder at the office.
“Scott, I need you to do something for me.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Take a look at the message from P.T. that CNN circulated.”
“What about it?” Scott asked. He was at the moment looking right at it, since it was on the front page of the newspaper Web site. Of course, he was familiar with it anyway, since he wrote it.
“Does it refer to his mother being terrorized, or his grandmother?”
“Mother. Why?”
“Gotta go,” Chris said. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”
Scott got off the phone and in two minutes online realized his error. He was furious at himself; it was the first mistake he was aware of since the beginning of the operation.
He knew that no serious harm would come of it; the belief that Peter Randolph was P.T. was too overwhelming to be changed by something as minor as this. Still, it was an upsetting thing to have happen, especially when he was so close to the end.
It was the least festive holiday season that anyone could remember. The number of Christmas parties and planned New Year’s Eve parties was dramatically reduced, since people felt that P.T. would be more likely to attack a crowd, so as to achieve maximum impact. That was despite the fact that not since the medical center had he done anything other than target individuals.
The governors of New Jersey and New York released a report that they had commissioned together which said that even if P.T. were captured immediately, the economic impact he had already caused would be felt for at least seven years.
Tourism had slowed to a trickle; New York hotels that were ordinarily impossible to get into at that time of year were operating at an average forty percent capacity. Broadway shows that usually played to capacity were giving away tickets at half price, but that barely made a dent in the vast expanses of empty seats.
The producers of many shows were faced with the choice of closing down or trying to stay alive in the hope that P.T. would be caught soon. But few people had a real expectation of that.
Though tips were coming in by the thousands, the FBI, state, and local police were making no significant progress in locating Peter Randolph.
Quinlan did not believe that he was in the area at all; literally millions of eyes had seen his picture and were searching for him. And while it was true that he could be holed up somewhere, out of sight and with an ample supply of food and water, Quinlan doubted that was the case.
Peter would have had no reason to believe that his identity would be discovered, and though he could have had a hideout as a backup in case he was forced out of his home, it seemed more likely that he had fled the area.
The unfortunate truth was that he could be anywhere in the country, his deadly devices already planted and under his control. Quinlan did not believe that the countdown merely represented the days until the ransom was due; he felt that P.T. was threatening to pull off a major event on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
At Quinlan’s suggestion, the word went out to substantially increase security at all major events, such as New Year’s concerts and college bowl games.
While it was well above Quinlan’s pay grade, he knew that a lot of consideration had been given to paying P.T. the money, but that the final decision was not to do so. Quinlan suspected that if the payment could be made with a guarantee of secrecy, the president would authorize it. But without that guarantee, it represented far too great a political risk.
Lawrence Terry was putting a lot of pressure on Chris to continue filing stories about the crisis. “This is our story,” Lawrence said, “and we’re letting it get away from us.”
“The guy has stopped calling me,” Chris said. “I don’t know any more of what’s going on than anyone else.”
“What about this mother-grandmother thing?” Lawrence asked.
Chris was jolted by the question. “How did you know about that?”
“How did I know about it?” Lawrence asked. “What do you think I am, the janitor? I’m running this paper, and I keep on top of what the hell is going on.”
Chris had told only Dani and Scott Ryder about his conversation with Doris Randolph. He doubted that Dani would have said anything, so he would have to speak to Scott about it.
He was annoyed with Scott if he was the source, but not terribly so. He hadn’t told Scott to keep it confidential and Lawrence could be a rather intimidating boss. He may have known that Scott had received a call from Chris and demanded to know what it was about.
“I don’t want to write about that yet,” Chris said. “I don’t want P.T. to know about it.”
Lawrence slammed his hand down on the desk in anger, an uncharacteristic display for him, at least where Chris was concerned. The pressure was obviously getting to him, as it was getting to everybody.
“Who are you, Sherlock fucking Holmes?” He calmed down a little and added in a more controlled voice, “Chris, our job is not to worry about what P.T. knows. It’s to make sure that our readers get to know. Okay?”
“Okay, I hear you. I’ll get to it.”
“Chris, there’s a Pulitzer at stake here. It’s the biggest story either of us will ever cover. Bigger than any story your father ever covered.”
“Lawrence, I’ll get to it.”
“Good,” Lawrence said. “Knock it out of the park.”
“LET ME GUESS. YOU don’t think Randolph is the guy” was what Novack said into the phone when he learned that Chris was on the line. Chris was calling from Dani’s cell phone so that the FBI would not be taping the call.
“I have my doubts,” Chris said.
“I know the feeling.”
They agreed to meet at Novack’s office to discuss their shared concerns. As Chris was leaving the paper, he ran into Scott Ryder. “Hey, Scott. Did you tell Lawrence I was asking about what P.T. said in the statement about his mother?”
Scott shrugged. “Sorry, Chris. He practically beat it out of me.”
Chris nodded. “That’s what I figured. Don’t worry about it.”
Once Chris got to Novack’s office, the detective closed the door and asked, “Okay, what have you got?”
“You want to call your partner in so I can say this once?”
“No, he thinks I’m off the deep end on this one.”
Chris related the reasons for his suspicion, including the failure to find a voice transformer at the house and the fact that the statement referred to Doris Randolph as Peter’s mother.
Novack listened and said, “That’s it?”
“No.” He told Novack of his last conversation with Craig and of how Craig said he had sent an anonymous e-mail to Chris, alerting him to what the mayor was doing. The coincidence of P.T. and Craig giving him the same unsolicited tip was just too great to believe. “There’s no way Craig Andrews was connected to Peter Randolph.”
“That e-mail thing is something you might have mentioned earlier,” Novack said.
Chris nodded. “I might have, but I didn’t.”
Novack, at Chris’s prodding, shared his own reasons for his doubts about Peter’s guilt. He talked about his inability to connect Peter to the mayor in any way, as well as Peter’s neighbors’ unanimous declarations that he almost never left the house.
“On the other hand,” Novack said, “we found all that stuff at the house, and that statement was a goddamn confession. If Randolph isn’t the guy, somebody has sure as hell set him up as well as someone can be set up.”
“P.T. is smart,” Chris said. “Did you see Randolph do that TV interview? He is not the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“So where is he?”
“He’s running. Hell, I’d run, too, if the whole world thought I was a mass murderer.”
“He left three days before we got to his house,” Novack pointed out.
“Look, I’m not saying Randolph is not P.T. I think he probably is. I’m just raising the possibility that this is not airtight, okay? And I think someone should be looking into it.”
“That someone is Quinlan,” Novack said. “He’s got all the resources.”
“He thought I was P.T.,” said Chris.
“Get over it. And besides, I told you he was never on board with that. They rammed it down his throat.”
“Can you set up a meeting?” Chris asked.
“I think so.”
“You’d better hurry, because tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. And I’ve got a feeling that after that it’s going to be too late.”
Scott Ryder took the rest of the day off from work, not unusual for this time of year. Half the staff was on vacation, and if any problems came up on the Web site, he could handle them from his computer at home.
It was December 30, and Scott knew that the countdown demanded he kill someone before the day was out. The truth was that he would rather not, as it would take him away from watching the coverage on television. Television watching had never been more fun; he would rather watch the talking heads blabbing about the P.T. crisis than the Super Bowl.
But Scott knew the importance of delivering on one’s promises, or threats, in this case. Doing so tomorrow night would be even more important. Scott had no illusions that the money would be paid according to his timetable demand, so he would hit them harder than they had ever been hit.
And then they would pay, because they would know he meant exactly what he said.
Scott consulted his GPS monitors and saw that forty-five of the fifty-one were inactive. That percentage got higher every time he looked, most likely a reflection of the fact that people were growing more and more afraid to drive their cars.
As he always did, Scott put the possibilities into a hat and drew out the winning, or in this case losing, entry. He didn’t know the name of the owner of the car, or for that matter whether or not it was the owner who was driving at that moment. All he knew was that the car was on the Cross Bronx Expressway heading west towards the George Washington Bridge, which was two and a half miles away.
He decided to play a little game with himself. If the driver turned off before the bridge, he would let him live and choose another car. If he got onto the bridge, Scott would blow up his car when he was approximately midway across.
The driver passed a number of exits, continuing to head for the bridge. Finally, there were just two possibilities remaining, either to get onto the bridge or take the Henry Hudson Parkway south.
Scott was fascinated as he watched the blip on the screen; this represented the ultimate video game. He didn’t know the driver, but he found himself rooting for him or her to take the exit and be saved.
And that is exactly what happened. The car edged over to the right lane and exited onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. It was an amazing human drama that had just taken place, and only Scott got to watch and experience it. And he was happy with the ending.
Then, once again turning to the business at hand, he blew up a car on the Major Deegan Expressway, as it passed Yonkers Raceway. The driver was killed, as was the driver of a car behind it, which veered into the embankment.
Scott turned on the television for a few minutes, since he had to leave shortly to take a long drive. Within ten minutes the media had reported the explosions and identified the victims.
“Don’t blame me,” Scott said to the television. “Blame the guy on the Henry Hudson.”
QUINLAN AGREED TO SEE Chris and Novack immediately.
Novack had described it as “important,” and by this point Quinlan had a healthy respect for Novack’s instincts as a cop. The fact that Chris was coming along only added to Quinlan’s curiosity and willingness to take up some of his very precious and limited time with a meeting.
They went to Quinlan’s office, but had to wait in an anteroom for a half hour. What they didn’t know was that Quinlan was spending that time on another in a seemingly endless series of conference calls, which included Director Kramer and the attorney general, and which did nothing to move the case forward.
Quinlan could have summed up the entire call in one sentence; Peter Randolph was nowhere to be found and everybody was very pissed off about it.
When Quinlan got off the phone, he called Novack and Chris in. “Don’t tell me anything that is going to make me feel worse,” he said.
“Okay,” Novack said. “I love your outfit.”
Quinlan nodded. “Thanks. Now you can give it to me straight.”
“We don’t think Peter Randolph is P.T.,” Chris said.
“Does that mean you’re confessing?”
Novack cut in. “Chris doesn’t think Randolph is P.T. I wouldn’t state it quite so strongly. I would say there’s a chance he’s not.”
