Read Coffee, Tea, or Murder? for Free Online Page A

egregiously that the only solution was murder? He had a quick temper; I was witness to that in his exchange with Captain Caine over the aircraft’s technical problem. George had suggested that Wayne’s business connections were skirting the edge of respectability. The reporters on the plane had hinted of “connections.” Had one of his partners in this venture, or perhaps in his Las Vegas dealings, become dissatisfied with their business arrangement? What could have been the “things he had to do” that his wife said were keeping him at the airport? If he had accompanied her and the rest of his guests to the hotel, would he still be alive? Who else from our group may have lingered at Stansted? Was it possible that Wayne had been killed by someone who’d been on the flight? Maybe it was a worker at the airport. My mind was awhirl with these and other questions without any answers—at least for the moment. All I knew was what George had told me, that Wayne’s death had been reported.
    I straightened in my seat.
    “Something occur to you, Jessica?” George asked as we reached the entrance to a highway and pulled onto it. The sign said it was the A11.
    “I was just thinking that for people like Wayne Silverton, the road to success is often strewn with enemies.”
    “The price you pay, I suppose,” he said, accelerating, the Jaguar’s engine a faint, smooth whine as it propelled us along, passing every car on the road.
    “I was also thinking how ironic my words were back at the bar, that I was happy not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when murder takes place.”
    He glanced at me. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have come with me,” he said.
    “Oh, no,” I said. “How could I not come? Only a few hours ago I was happily winging along at thirty-five thousand feet in a lovely, spacious, modern jet aircraft, feasting on caviar and shrimp and chateaubriand, and reading a good book. And now—”
    “And now your host has been murdered. Hang on.”
    He made a sudden, sharp move that sent us hurtling between two huge trucks as though we’d been slung from a slingshot. He immediately shifted to the left lane and exited onto another highway, the A118.
    “Sorry,” he said, sensing my discomfort.
    “You’re a very confident driver, George,” I said, hoping the lump in my throat wasn’t too evident.
    We eventually took a third highway—the A406 I think it was—until reaching the entrance to Stansted International Airport.
    “Know where your aircraft was parked?” he asked.
    “Down that way, I think,” I said, referring to the last terminal in a row of four.
    As we approached, SilverAir’s 767 came into view. It was still bathed in spotlights; Wayne had said that he wanted the plane illuminated at night wherever and whenever it was parked. Seeing the tail jutting into the night sky, its emblem gleaming proudly in the intense light, was unsettling, considering what had occurred.
    As we pulled up in front of the terminal, it was obvious that something unusual had happened inside. A cadre of uniformed police stood guard at the main doors. An array of marked police vehicles choked the area, lights flashing from their roofs and casting a macabre aura over the scene, as though it was a theatrical production.
    We got out of the car, and I followed George as he went up to one of the officers and showed his identification. The bobbie stiffened, hit a military brace, and told George to follow him inside. He saw me fall into line, stopped, and asked who I was.
    “She’s with me,” George said.
    “Yes, sir.”
    We followed the young officer the length of the main corridor off which numbered gates were located, some with lounges filled with passengers awaiting their flights, others void of people. We eventually arrived at the gate, which I recognized as the one into which we’d deplaned earlier in the evening. It was cordoned off with crime scene tape, and a dozen officers, both uniformed and plainclothed,