Page 90 of Identity Unknown
“I hope that’s not been hacked like so many things,” Shannon says. “And speaking of mysteries, the hornet nest is where the exterminator left it.” She directs this at Marino and me.“I’ve made repeated calls asking when she’ll return to remove it so more hornets don’t move in. But nobody at her company knows who I’m talking about. The owner of Bug Off told me they have no women working for them and that they hadn’t dispatched anyone to the medical examiner’s office yet. For which he was most apologetic, by the way.”
“I’m not sure who that exterminator was, but I don’t have a good feeling about her,” I reply, envisioning the woman in protective clothing that covered her face.
I explain that the vehicle bay cameras briefly turned off while the exterminator was near the ceiling’s support trusses. While she was up there she could have tucked some type of surveillance device out of sight. After that, the cameras magically came back online, and the elevator went berserk, as did the parking lot security gate. Then at three o’clock in the morning the vehicle bay door retracted with nobody there.
I’m betting it was Carrie untethered on top of that ladder. She installed something that enabled her to take control of my building. I can’t stand the thought that she was that close when Marino and I were arguing with the mortician from Shady Acres Funeral Home. She could have pulled out a gun and killed us right then. But she didn’t. She’d rather watch, and I think about what Benton says.
The world’s more interesting to her with us in it…
“Lucy needs to check my building as soon as possible,” I add while wishing Carrie had fallen from forty feet up.
Maybe she would have suffered Sal’s same fate, lying onthe ground with her head smashed in, slowly dying all alone. It would be what she deserves.
“Lucy doesn’t know if she’ll be back tonight.” Benton is preoccupied with his phone, a red-checked apron over jeans and a tight T-shirt that look very good on him.
“I hope she’s going to find some dinner and stay out of this weather.” I take a sip of the Manhattan.
“I believe that’s the plan,” Benton replies. “Sounds like Tron’s on her way to the training center, which is good.”
“They should be together in this ugly weather and everything else going on,” Shannon adds. “That makes me feel better.”
“I understand the Brileys are in the city jail.” Marino makes sure we know that Fruge leaked the breaking news to him. “That’s at least something good, right?” He drains the bottle of beer.
“And a little while ago, our agents picked up one of Ryder Briley’s security guards, Mira Tang.” Benton offers another update. “She has quite the rap sheet. And owes him a lot of favors.”
I remember Lucy saying that the ex-con would do anything for Ryder Briley. Including murder, it seems. Benton explains that video from the flight service’s cameras shows the security guard inside the hangar where Dana Diletti’s helicopter was kept. Mira Tang was wearing gloves, carrying a bottle of berry-flavored vitamin water and a red plastic gas can.
“The helicopter was waiting to be towed out to the tarmac,” Benton is saying as I stand near the stairway, wrapped in my limp towel. “There was nobody else around. And you cantell she wasn’t worried about the cameras. She’s the one who turned them off at around seven o’clock this morning, assuming everything she did from then on would be unwitnessed and unrecorded.”
She didn’t know that earlier Lucy accessed the flight service’s security system, making sure the cameras can’t be disabled. Even if the software indicates they’re turned off, they aren’t. Mira Tang is on video opening one of the helicopter doors and placing the bottle of vitamin water between the front seats. Then she removed the fuel cap and emptied the contents of the gas can inside the tank.
“She was sabotaging it, pouring in water,” Benton says. “We know that because there’s video of her filling the gas can in a sink inside the hangar. She’s getting ready to cause the deaths of five people if all goes according to plan, and figures no one will be the wiser. But we’re seeing everything she did and so will a jury.”
“Obviously, she was following orders,” my sister deduces with another splash of tequila in her glass. “She didn’t decide to do this on her own. Why would she?” Setting down the bottle again.
“Ryder Briley’s orders.” Marino begins massaging Dorothy’s neck, and they’re getting along fine now. “He and his wife ordered a hit on Dana Diletti because of all the shit she said about them on the TV news.” He wraps his arms around Dorothy’s waist, pulling her close.
“The Brileys are horrible human beings,” she declares, her eyes half shut as Marino kisses her ear. “What they put that little girl through is unimaginable. But did they really believeit would never catch up with them? Why don’t people think about consequences?”
“Hardly anybody does. Including me, if I have enough of this.” Shannon holds up her glass of whisky. “But there are a lot of people out there who believe they can get away with murder.”
“Stupidity like that is what keeps some of us employed.” Marino holds Dorothy tight, and usually he’s not this amorous when there’s an audience.
“But Dana Diletti should have anticipated what Ryder Briley might try to do to her,” my sister reasons.
“Most people never assume someone will go that far,” Benton answers. “And Dana Diletti is a raging narcissist herself. She thinks she’s invincible and came extremely close this morning to finding out she’s not.”
“A miracle.” Dorothy is starting to slur her words, gettingclumsy-tongued, as she describes it.
“Had the engine flamed out sooner, had the pilot been incapacitated earlier in the flight?” Benton says. “The result would have been vastly different.”
“It’s a miracle,” Dorothy repeats. “The engine could’ve quit over a crowded neighborhood right after takeoff. Or landed on a school…”
“God forbid.” Shannon is shaking her head.
“Or a beach where people are sunbathing,” Dorothy continues. “Or in the middle of Fort Monroe for that matter, destroying a national monument and lots of people living there…”
“I talked to Lucy before you got home,” Benton says to me. “She explained that if you pour water into an aircraft fuel tank that’s already full, it’s unpredictable how long before it hits thefuel line, causing the engine to flame out and quit. But it could take a while, which fortunately is what happened in this case or there would be at least five people dead instead of one.”