Free Fall

by Rick Mofina

  “Can you help me?”

  “No guarantees, but there are things I can try, people I can talk to.”

  “Thank you. Anything you could do would be great.”

  Kate heard a soft vibration. Erich reached into his pocket for his phone and scrolled along the screen, reading a message.

  “I’m sorry, Kate, I have to go.”

  * * *

  After Erich left, Kate stayed, finished her Coke, and paid the bill.

  The night was warm and pleasant. Buoyed by Erich’s promise to help, Kate decided she’d walk the seven blocks to her building. Along the way she searched her phone and reread the Zarathustra email.

  One way or another I’m going to find you.

  The sudden growl of a motor prompted Kate to look quickly behind her at a passing motorcycle. She did a double take. Half a block back, she saw a woman window-shopping.

  Dishwater blonde, open jacket over a tight T-shirt, jeans, red bag.

  The woman from the bar.

  Kate continued walking, thinking hard. Something troubled her about the stranger. She was familiar. Why?

  Kate crossed the street, throwing her a backward glance. The woman continued window-shopping. As Kate kept walking, she scoured her memory, trying to recall anything familiar about the woman’s hairstyle or the shape of her face. As details swam into focus, it hit her.

  I saw that woman in the grocery store near my building just before I left for London!

  Kate kept walking and glanced back. The woman was still behind her but was now on her side of the street. Maybe she lived in the neighborhood.

  No, because I saw her again when I got back from London and took Grace to Central Park. She was on a bench reading a book. She was always in the distance. I remember her. She can’t be following me.

  Kate walked faster.

  I’m going to find out.

  Kate stopped in front of a closed jewelry store and gazed through the steel bars of its storefront. All the while, she watched for the woman. The stranger crossed the street and rounded a corner. Kate resumed walking, rounding the opposite corner. A short time later, she spotted the woman in the distance. Kate thought quickly, deciding to go around the entire block.

  With every turn of every corner, the woman had stayed with her.

  Kate stepped into an alcove. Her breathing quickened.

  Why am I being followed?

  Kate peered from the alcove. The woman was at the end of the block, across the street. Kate waited to confront her, unafraid.

  She could handle herself.

  She’d taken firearms courses, although she hated guns and never carried one. She’d taken self-defense courses. She’d taken courses with private investigators. She had a can of pepper spray and a personal alarm in her bag.

  The stranger lingered at the end of the street.

  Come on, come on.

  Kate wanted her to get closer. She reached into her bag and slid her fingers around the pepper spray canister.

  Come on. I’m ready for you.

  The woman kept her distance.

  Kate stepped from the alcove and walked in the stranger’s direction. The woman turned and began walking away. Kate bolted after her, glad she’d worn flat shoes. The woman ran around the corner. Kate ran after her as fast as she could, rounding the corner, glimpsing her crossing the street and running to the next corner. Kate darted through traffic, adrenaline and anger giving her speed.

  When Kate took the next corner the woman had vanished.

  Kate stopped in her tracks and scanned the street. A car door shut. An ignition turned. She was near. Kate tore off in the direction of the sound and spotted the woman in a sedan, hearing the transmission shift. As she got closer, the engine revved, the car lurched, tires squealed and it pulled away.

  Kate stood on the sidewalk, reciting the license plate as she wrote it down in her notebook.

  “Gotcha!”

  Thirty-Three

  Manhattan, New York

  The fresh coffee Kate gulped at her desk scorched her throat.

  She’d gone to the newsroom early that morning, riding a wave of anger and hammering at her keyboard.

  Who was following me and why?

  She had to cool off and think clearly. She looked at her notebook again, thankful she’d gotten the stranger’s New York license plate and gone on the offensive. Before leaving her building for the subway that morning, she’d taken action.

  One of her sources was Ivan Vestrannicki, an NYPD detective, who’d had twenty-one years on the job before his squad took down an armored-car heist in the Bronx. Ivan had taken two bullets in his left leg. It’d left him with a limp and a cynical view of the world. After he’d retired he’d set up his own PI agency. Kate had interviewed him for a series on the challenges cops who’d been wounded on the job faced with disability payments. Ivan never forgot that.

  You got a friend here, he’d told her.

  This morning Kate had reached out to him for help with the plate.

  Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you.

  While waiting, Kate had searched the plate online, but struck out. Then she’d thought of Grace and Vanessa. Without revealing that she’d been followed, Kate had questioned them at breakfast. They’d said that they hadn’t received any strange calls or hang-ups, or seen anything odd. They hadn’t seen anyone following them. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.

  She’d considered all of the recent stories she’d written.

  Who would do this?

  Twice in the past she’d been the target of private investigations. A corrupt millionaire stockbroker who’d been scamming seniors had hired an agency to follow her. It had also happened with a story she’d done on people trying to break away from a cult. In both cases they’d tried to find dirt on Kate to scare her off the story. In both cases they’d failed. Their tactics had become part of the story. Her line rang.

  “Kate, it’s Ivan.”

  “Hey, what’d you find out?”

  “The plate belongs to a woman who works for a private investigation agency, who subcontracts for a larger one.”

  “Any idea who her client is and why she was hired?”

  “I won’t be able to get that info. It’d be like asking you to name your sources. I can tell you the larger agency is Infinite Guardian Shield, a global security operation.”

  “Really? Do they have offices in London, England?”

  “Yup. Say, aren’t you working on that airline story?”

  “You think it could be related to that?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Could always be something you wrote about prior to that. Hard to say.”

  Kate glanced around the newsroom.

  “Ivan, could they bug my phone, intercept my emails?”

  “It wouldn’t be easy, given your office environment, but it wouldn’t be impossible, either.”

  “What about at home?”

  “Quite possible.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “Look, Kate, the fact you challenged this woman and made it clear to her that you knew what she was doing means her surveillance of you was blown. That could end the case right there.”

  “Think so?”

  “Again, anything’s possible. Let me do a little digging and see what I can find out. Meanwhile, try not to piss off anybody.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Thought you’d like that.”

  Kate took another sip of coffee and pulled her thoughts together. She had to tell Chuck what was going on. She went to his office. His jacket was draped over his chair but he wasn’t there. On her way back to her desk she saw Sharlese Givens from the news library.

  “Oh, Kate, I’ve got those printouts of the artic
les you requested on airline security. I just dropped them off at your desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  The clippings were in a yellow legal-size folder. Kate had just sat down and opened the thick bundle when her phone rang.

  “Newslead. Kate Page.”

  “Kate, Tim Yardley at the Washington bureau. Got a minute?”

  “Hi, Tim. Sure.”

  “I didn’t want to put this in an email. You know Chuck assigned us to help out on your EastCloud stuff, look into the companies involved and any political connections, anything we could find.”

  “Right, but I thought nothing came up.”

  “It was looking that way until we got an interesting lead. It concerns Sloane Parkman, who’s working at headquarters with you.”

  “What about him?” Kate looked across the newsroom just as Sloane was arriving at his desk. “I can see him now.”

  “Are you good to talk?”

  “I am. Go ahead.”

  “It turns out Hub Wolfeson, who sits on Richlon-Titan’s board of directors, is Sloane’s uncle.”

  “What?”

  “That puts Sloane in a serious conflict of interest when working on stories concerning Richlon-Titan. Newslead policy states that you cannot report on issues or subjects where you, or your family, have a direct personal or financial interest, or can be perceived as having one.”

  Looking more closely at Sloane, Kate saw that he was wearing a jacket over his Brooks Brothers shirt. Every hair was in place but there was no gleaming white-toothed grin today. In fact, he looked somber.

  “Does Chuck know?” Kate asked.

  “He does. This all came up last night. Very few other people know and since you were working with him, I wanted to give you a heads-up, Kate.”

  Sloane had placed an empty cardboard box on his desk and was putting personal items in it.

  What’s going on?

  At that moment, Chuck Laneer stepped into the newsroom, which was still largely empty because it was so early. He gestured for Kate to come into his office.

  “Kate?” Yardley said on the phone. “You still there?”

  “Yes, Tim, thanks. I appreciate the heads-up, but I have to go.”

  * * *

  “Shut the door,” Chuck said. “Have a seat.”

  His collar button was undone and his tie was loosened. He remained standing and rolled up his sleeves.

  “I just met with Lincoln and Fitzgerald in Human Resources. We’ve let Sloane go this morning.”

  “He’s fired?”

  “Yes, for violating Newslead policy. He not only failed to disclose his direct family connection to Richlon-Titan, he tried to direct coverage in a manner that deflected any criticism of the company. We’ll post a memo to staff underscoring Newslead policy on conflicts of interest.”

  Chuck tossed his pen on his desk and put his hands on his hips. Stress lines cut deep into his face.

  “I can’t tell you how much this sickens me,” he said. “Sloane’s uncle is a senior board member at RT.”

  “How’s Reeka taking this? Sloane was her hire.”

  “She was advised to take some time off and reflect,” he said. “We can’t afford this kind of bullshit at a time when we’re trying to strengthen our credibility. That’s why I was pushing you hard on getting confirmation.”

  “I get that.”

  “So where are you at on the story? We could use a big score right now.”

  “I’ve reached out to my best sources, but something’s come up.”

  “What?”

  “I was followed last night.”

  “Followed? By whom? Have you been threatened?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  Kate brought Chuck up to speed on what had happened the night before. While listening, he ran his hand over his face. Then he interrupted her several times to ask questions, staring hard at her when she finished.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been through this before.”

  “This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to talk with Newslead’s lawyers and you’re going to report this to the NYPD. I doubt there’s much they can do, but I want this on the record. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “If, at any time, you want off this story, or want help of any sort—”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know.”

  Kate went downstairs for a fresh coffee.

  The morning had barely started, but she felt as if a week’s worth of stress had washed over her. Back at her desk, she resumed reading the batch of articles the librarian had left for her. Kate tried to push her concerns aside and focus on her research. She paged through story after story, but she was familiar with many of the reports. Not much here, she thought, but then she came to one story that was written shortly after September 11, 2001, and froze.

  “Oh my God! How did we miss this?”

  Thirty-Four

  North Dakota

  Robert Cole pounded on the door of the double-wide trailer that served as the office for Riverwind Self-Storage before reading the hours-of-operation sign in the window.

  The office was closed.

  He cursed then saw the number to call in case of emergency, took out his phone and called it. He got a voice mail, left a message, then called the Clear River police.

  “I want to report a robbery. A break-in and theft of property.” Cole gave the police operator details. Then he sat down and waited on the wooden steps in front of the office and battled the panic surging through him.

  He struggled to fathom why his belongings had been taken, while contending with the chilling fact that it was now hopeless for him to even attempt a solution to prevent another airline tragedy.

  Some fifteen minutes later, a Clear River police car, along with a pickup truck, rolled up to the gate. Officer Ken Bropton and Chester Yakawich, the owner of Riverwind, had arrived. Yakawich, who had an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth, retrieved a clipboard and keys from the office. The three men walked quickly to unit 108, Yakawich’s keys jingling as Cole recounted his shock and anger. Bropton immediately inspected the door.

  “Doesn’t look like forced entry,” he said.

  “That’s because it wasn’t.” Yakawich pulled out his cigar and snapped through pages of his clipboard. “Nothing was stolen. All the contents were auctioned on the weekend.”

  “Auctioned?” Cole repeated. “Who gave you permission to auction my property?”

  “You did, sir.”

  Cole shook his head.

  “I certainly did not.”

  Bropton shot a glance to Yakawich, who suggested they go to the office. Once they were in the trailer, Yakawich went to the steel cabinets against one paneled wall. He sifted through files, removed one and consulted it.

  “Yeah,” Yakawich said, “it’s what I thought. You called us on the twenty-sixth of last month, Mr. Cole, and told us to auction the contents of your unit. I sent Becky to your place. You signed the paperwork and gave us your spare key.” Yakawich handed a contract to Bropton, who gave it a quick read and passed it to Cole. “She said you weren’t feeling so good that day.” Yakawich gave Bropton a subtle look. “And, I’m sorry, but we found a lot of empty liquor bottles in your unit.”

  “I don’t think this is a police matter,” Bropton said.

  Cole stared disbelievingly at his signature and traveled across a wasteland of fog-shrouded memories.

  It was true. In a fit of booze-drenched emotional pain he’d decided to jettison all his belongings, but he’d been too drunk to remember.

  “In any event—” Yakawich went to his desk and passed an envelope to Cole “—we’ve just processed your check. Here it is, four-hundred and fi
fty, after our fees. The invoice and list of items are in there.”

  “Who bought my property? There’s something of value I need to retrieve. Where is it?”

  “It’s on your invoice, but I can tell you that it went to Kord Pitman. He’s a second-hand dealer in Bismarck.”

  “Would he still have it? It was only last weekend.”

  “I’ll give him a call for you right now if you like, sir.”

  “Please, it’s urgent.”

  * * *

  The distance to Bismarck from Clear River was over three hundred miles and was usually a four-hour drive. Cole made it in a little over three and a half, heading directly to the High Plains Vintage Emporium.

  The business was in the northeast fringe of Bismarck, on a stretch of flatland with an aging farmhouse and an enormous metal Quonset hut. Behind it, there was an array of used cars, trucks, farm vehicles and heavy equipment. Three large German shepherds roamed the grounds freely.

  “Well, like I said on the phone, Mr. Cole—” Liz Pitman led him into the massive Quonset hut “—you’re more than welcome to take a look. See if you can find what you want. Then we can talk.”

  The hut was crammed with rows of huge storage shelves groaning under the weight of beds, tables, dressers, stoves, fridges, sofas, TVs, desks, paintings, driers, washers, clothing, books, toasters, blenders, it went on and on. Dust mites danced in the columns of sunlight leaking through the tiny rooftop windows. The place had an air of discarded dreams.

  “The load from Clear River was recent and hasn’t been processed.”

  “Processed?”

  “As you can see, we distribute items to the proper area,” Liz said. “Kord’s in Idaho, so Jess and Dwight were working on it this morning. All the new items are near the back. So what was it you were most concerned about?”

  “The contents of two metal file cabinets.”

  “There you go and there they are.” Liz pointed.

  Cole’s cabinets stood alone in an area near all the other material from his storage unit.

  “Now we’ll be happy to sell it back to you.”