The Sleepless by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

O’Brien’s life insurance policy and their daughter Sissy’s life insurance policy; not to mention all the contingent claims for losses and damages and negligence.’ 
    He blew his nose loudly. ‘All this wouldn’t be so bad if everything was straightforward, cut-and-dried. But this whole business has a very suspicious smell about it. You know what’s it like when you’re checking out a claim on a burned-out apartment building, and you think you can just detect the faintest whiff of gasoline, or paint-thinner, or methylated spirit? It’s that kind of a smell. And there are too many weird inconsistencies. Not the kind of normal inconsistencies you get in everyday life; but inconsistencies that make you think ... now hold on, how could that be?’ 
    ‘Give me a for-instance.’ 
    ‘Well, think about it. The helicopter has engine failure, crash-lands on Nantasket Beach, and there’s somebody apparently waiting for it to crash-land. If the engine failure is genuine, how does this somebody know exactly where the helicopter is going to come down?’ 
    ‘Sounds like you’ve got yourself some kind of a problem,’ said Michael, sitting down on his revolving chair, and swinging from side to side. 
    ‘Don’t tell me. And I’m being pressured for a quick result. Henry Croteau is on my case seventeen times a day. And our beloved president Edgar Bedford is on my case seventy times a day.’ 
    ‘How about the police? Are they co-operating?’ 
    ‘There’s another weirdness. When Commissioner Hudson first talked to the media, he promised a “full, frank and fearless investigation”. But so far, the police seem to be treating the whole case with about as much seriousness as if GI Joe fell out of his plastic Huey.’ 
    ‘The FAA?’ 
    ‘Zip. They refuse to release even their preliminary findings. They say they have to piece the whole wreck back together again before they can come up with any whys or wherefors whatsoever. I’ll tell you how cagey they’re acting. They won’t even admit that they have any preliminary findings.’ 
    ‘Who’s handling the reconstruction?’ 
    ‘Your old buddy Jorge da Silva.’ 
    ‘Really? It’s not like Jorge to be cagey. How about the coroner’s office?’ 
    ‘Same thing.’ Joe pretended to tug a zipper across his mouth. ‘All that the coroner is prepared to tell us so far – and I more-or-less quote – is that “the O’Brien party was involved in a fatal helicopter incident and there were no apparent survivors.” ‘ 
    Michael thought for a moment, and then he said,’ ‘The O’Brien party”. How many people was that, exactly?’ 
    ‘You tell me,’ Joe replied, with a gleam in his eyes. ‘The plain fact is that nobody’s saying. In that particular helicopter, it could have been three, it could have been anything up to eight. And what the hell is an “apparent survivor”? There’s nothing apparent about surviving, not in my book. If I ever find myself in a helicopter crash, God forbid, I don’t want to apparently survive. I want to be right there on NBC evening news, live and kicking, with a smut on my snout and a Bandaid on my forehead, praising the skill and courage of the pilot.’ 
    Michael asked, ‘So nobody has yet officially confirmed the number of dead?’ 
    ‘Got it in one. You know what they told me? “Physical trauma was so severe that full identification is still pending.” Pending my ass. You and I were up at Rocky Woods, and there wasn’t any pending up at Rocky Woods. If you wanted to know how many bodies you had, you counted heads, just like we did, whether those heads were attached to anything or not.’ 
    Michael said, thoughtfully, ‘There was John O’Brien, right? And his wife Eva O’Brien. And their daughter, am I correct?’ 
    ‘That’s right, Sissy O’Brien, fourteen years old.’ 
    Michael was counting on his fingers. ‘There was also a pilot, of course. Any co-pilot?’ 
    ‘Unh-hunh. But there was a