She tried to convince herself she wouldn’t regret her decision to disappear. She knew that when the truth came out, people would judge her harshly, and that even the people who loved her most would never understand. She wondered if she could she accept that judgment. She wondered what choice she had.
Adam had come back to the cabin one last time over the weekend. Erin had returned from work and found him sitting on the couch. The sight of him made her furious. She’d begun to think of the cabin as hers, not his, and now his presence felt like a violation. Her anger was raw, new, and something she couldn’t explain. Rage welled up and erupted out before she could stop it.
“Why the hell are you here?” she said. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“This might be a good thing,” Adam said. “This delay has given me time to think. You did the right thing by coming here.”
“Get out,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
He stayed calm, made her a drink.
“You need to talk about what happened,” he said. “Put it out there. People want to hear your story.”
“What am I supposed to say? Why would people want to hear from me? I’m no prophet.”
She wanted to talk and wanted him to listen the way he used to. She wanted to tell him about her job, about the books she’d been reading, about her thoughts and the rhythm of her days. She wanted to talk about anything except going home.
“You’re all alone out here,” he said. “It’s not safe. Not to mention that none of this makes sense.”
“Stop. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”
Once again, Adam tried to persuade her to go home, but she wasn’t listening. Perhaps if he made love to her instead of talking, perhaps if he swept her up with the passion she craved, perhaps if he looked at her with something besides pity and disgust, perhaps then she’d entertain his notions about what she should do.
“This isn’t sustainable,” he said, “not to mention the fact that there are people out there who are suffering because of you, wondering if you’re their mother, or wife, or daughter. Your disappearance has created so many questions.”
“I can’t help them. I can’t answer their questions,” she said.
“No one is looking for you to answer their questions,” he said. “They just want to know who you are. You owe it to the others, and you especially owe it to your family.”
“Why don’t you answer a question for me. Why me? Why am I the one that’s still here?”
He didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect him to.
By the end of the night, Adam said he had no idea what to do with her.
“You could murder me. That may be your only viable option,” she said playfully. “The perfect crime. You could literally get away with it.”
“This isn’t funny,” he said.
“On the contrary, it’s fundamentally hilarious.”
She was angry, unyielding and unreasonable. He tried one last time to sway her with reason and logic.
“Look, Erin, you have to go home. This makes no sense.”
“Every morning,” she said, “for the last twenty years, Doug would come downstairs and go through his rituals. With his puffy half-closed eyelids, he’d turn on a light and glance down at me, forcing that crooked half smile of his in my general direction before grabbing a white mug and a Lipton tea bag from the cabinet. There were so many times I wanted to shake him. So many times, I wanted to scream in his face and say, ‘Don’t you feel this? Don’t you feel anything?’ Our lives were slipping through our fingers, and he didn’t even notice. He seemed to feel that he had his part to play, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to play it. Well, that’s over now, thank god.”
Adam just stared at her, silenced by her passion.
“He’s a good person. I see that. Never once did Doug question my irrational moods. Never once did he ask for an explanation about my missing weekends. Never once did he object to my constant bellyaching. But his ambivalence, however much it may have verged on saintliness, made me feel paralyzed, comatose. Every morning, those two minutes while he warmed his tea felt like a century.”
“They’re just little life patterns,” Adam said. “Everyone falls into them.”
“That tea was the highlight of his day. That was the only time he seemed awake. How can I go back to that? Please tell me.”
Adam explained how he and his wife fell into patterns too, but Erin tuned out. She hated the sound of his wife’s name coming from his mouth. She hated him for dismissing her pain so easily.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I reject them all. I’ve been granted immunity from patterns. I reject the mundane too. I’m awake, at last, and I won’t go back to sleep.”
“You have two daughters who need you,” he said. “My god, have you considered them?”
“I think about them all the time,” she said. “Should I go home so they can watch me waste away again? Should I come back from the dead so I can shrivel and die with them weeping at my bedside four months from now?”
“You need to see a doctor,” he said. “You’ve stopped making sense.”
“A doctor can’t help me. There’s no cure for what I have,” she said.
“You’re going insane,” he said. “I mean it, Erin. I think you’re losing your mind.”
She shook her head. “But then again, maybe I’m finding it. Maybe I’m rediscovering what matters.” She finished her drink and sat on the bed, realizing suddenly that this was where they last made love, almost a year ago. Adam’s presence only served to remind her of what she’d lost.
“Watching his morning routines, I used to pretend Doug was a fortune-teller, and that my fate would appear in the tea leaves left at the bottom of his cup. But if he saw my future, he never shared it. Surely, if he had seen all this, he would have told me. Or maybe not. I feel now like I never really knew him.”
“You’re being unfair,” Adam said, his voice sharp with anger.
“I don’t care,” she said before he left for the last time. “I’m not going back. I won’t.”
31
The meeting with Ulrich left Radford frustrated and defeated. He had nothing to go on, nowhere to look, no more interviews. He was standing in the hangar, in the shadow of Pointer 795’s ruined engine cowling, when his phone rang. He saw the hotel’s number and assumed someone was calling with another urgent plea to allow a cleaning crew to enter his room, so his first instinct was to ignore the call. But on the fourth ring, he yielded.
“There’s a man here who’s asking to speak with you,” the day manager said. The employees long ago dropped their polite customer-service voices when talking to him. He understood how they saw him. Were he not holding the room with a government credit card, in all likelihood a local would’ve already broken down his door.
“I’m busy,” Radford said. “Have him leave a message.”
“The man says it’s urgent,” the manager said. “He says he needs to speak to you in person.”
On a different day, Radford wouldn’t have cared, but with his investigation at a standstill, with his career in jeopardy, he had nothing to lose.
“Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said.
Coming from the humid morning air into the cool hotel lobby, Radford wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. Three days since his last shower. He’d worn the same khakis for a week. A ketchup stain smudged his shirtfront like a battlefield wound. An oniony scent now wafted from his armpits.
The man sat in the lobby, reading the Wichita Eagle. The hotel clerk rolled her eyes at Radford’s approach. The man stood awkwardly, dropped the paper, and turned to face Radford.
“I’m Charlie Radford.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” he said without introducing himself.
Radford gestured toward the bar and the man followed. Except for a woman sipping a cup of coffee, the bar was empty. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock. Radford took a booth near the door and in
vited the man to sit.
“I hope you’re not looking for an interview, because that’s not going to happen,” Radford said. “But I’ll listen to you if you’ll have a drink with me.”
“I’m not comfortable talking about this,” the man said.
“Then why are you here?” A waiter approached, and Radford ordered a gin and tonic. The stranger checked his watch but ordered a beer anyway.
“She’s left me no other choice,” he said. “But first, I need assurances from you. Nothing can happen to her.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Radford said.
The waiter brought the drinks to their table. Radford realized he’d been drinking earlier and earlier each day, sometimes, like today, starting before noon. For a man with such a firm grip on reality, he was surprised how he embraced his own free fall. At the end of the week, he’d be publicly humiliated. However debauched and degraded things had become, they were only going to get worse. But he felt he’d cracked through something. Dealing with this investigation, this woman’s story, his own descent into obsession, something had snapped. It was as if he could see himself from the outside now. After years of trying to live up to everyone else’s version of him, Radford had begun to trust his own instincts. The only problem was, until now, that trust had gotten him nowhere.
Radford watched as the man fiddled with his beer bottle. Whatever he’d come here for, he was clearly having second thoughts. Could this guy really be talking about her? Was it possible this man had information on the Falling Woman? Had he really just walked in off the street, into the lobby of the Wichita Holiday Inn, with the precise information Radford needed?
“I need to know that you aren’t going to exploit this,” the man said. “I loved her. I still love her, but she doesn’t have any idea what she’s doing anymore.”
“Slow down,” Radford said. “Start at the beginning. Start by telling me your name.”
“My name is Adam Moskowitz,” he said. “And I know where the Falling Woman is.”
Stunned, Radford reached into his pocket for his notepad, but his pocket was empty. He knew he must have left the notepad in his hotel room, yet another symptom of his ongoing decline. With no alternative, he began scribbling notes onto bar napkins. Adam spoke fast. Before long, Radford was on his fifth napkin.
Adam explained that he and the woman had worked together. That they’d fallen in love and had an affair. He explained that she still possessed a strange power over him. “I don’t act rationally around her,” he said. He had known that she was going to California, knew what flight she was on, knew the plane blew up. He watched the news, saw the footage of the burned and shattered plane. “And then she called me,” Adam said. “Two days after the accident. My phone rang and it was her.”
“What did you think?” Radford asked.
“I thought it was a goddamn joke,” Adam said.
Some small part of Radford didn’t want this story to be true. Some tiny corner of his obsession preferred uncertainty, doubt, the mystery of it all. Yet now it appeared that the shades were about to be thrown open, and everything illuminated. Was he ready for that?
He put the drink down and tried to focus. Adam told him how she asked him to come to Wichita to get her. And though he doubted the truth of what she said, Adam booked a flight to Kansas City, rented a car, and drove toward the hospital. “As I approached the hospital, I saw the crowds outside and realized that something incredible had happened.”
Radford reached for more napkins. He tried not to judge the fact that this man admitted to cheating on his wife. He tried to separate his feelings about what they’d done with his need to find this woman.
“But now she won’t go home. She’s not seeing this thing clearly. I’ve tried and tried to convince her she has to contact her family at least, but she’s not listening to reason.” Adam took a sip of his beer. “I don’t want to betray her like this, but I don’t have a choice. First, I need you to agree to a few terms.”
Radford listened while Adam outlined the framework of his terms, which included the stipulation that she could not be charged with any crime, and that she had the right to refuse to cooperate.
“The NTSB isn’t a law enforcement agency,” Radford said. “Besides, she’s committed no crime that I can see.”
The waiter came by and offered to bring another round, but almost surprising himself, Radford declined. He needed to be clearheaded.
“She won’t go home,” Adam said. “She’s been very sick. She has pancreatic cancer, Mr. Radford. She’s not going to beat it, and I think she wants to disappear. To go off into the woods and live out her remaining days. But she has a family. I can’t stop thinking about her daughters.”
“What’s her name?” Radford asked, trying not to reveal his excitement.
“I need you to understand,” Adam said, “there’s a lot at stake here. She will be exposed. Frankly, our affair will be too, which means that a lot of people we both love will be hurt.”
“I need to talk to her. I need her name. There are seven families still holding out hope.”
“I’m not sure I can do this,” Adam said. “I thought I could. I came all the way out here to find you. But I love her, Mr. Radford. I don’t know if I can betray her.”
He didn’t doubt the man’s sincerity, but he wondered about his character, and this was still a negotiation. Radford didn’t want to yield his advantage by revealing his own desperation.
“I’m not selling her out. I will never go to the press. If she decides to come forward, if she decides to do what’s right and come home, then that will be her choice.” Adam stared at Radford. “You have to promise me that.”
“I’m not playing games here,” Radford said. “I need a name. There’s a world of people out there wondering who the hell this woman is. This whole thing has been a media circus from the start.”
Adam fiddled with his beer and seemed uncertain about what to say or do next. He looked at Radford, at his watch, at his phone, and then up at the television above the bar. Radford waited patiently, not wanting to provoke the man, not wanting to say the wrong thing and turn him away.
“Her name is Erin Geraghty,” he finally said. A great weight seemed to fall from his shoulders. The man visibly slouched in the chair. “She’s staying at my hunting cabin in Virginia. If you go there, you’ll find her.”
Radford recognized the name immediately, third on the list of seven passengers who fit the profile of the Falling Woman. Hearing it spoken out loud felt like a shot of ice to his spine. He wrote the address of the cabin on a napkin. He was too stunned to feel anything at that moment, too shocked to register what the man was telling him.
He pressed Adam further, asking for more details, but he got nothing.
“I have to catch a flight back to D.C. in two hours,” he said. “I’ve told you more than enough. I’ve been half out of my mind since this started. Find her. End this.”
Adam paid for their drinks and left Radford sitting alone in the bar, the ice melting in his drink. For a moment, he was paralyzed, unable to move or think.
Twenty minutes later, he’d showered, shaved, donned a fresh pair of khakis, and was on his way back to the hangar. He failed to notice the blue Chevy that followed him out of the hotel parking lot. Had he been paying more attention, he might have seen the car trailing him all the way to the base. He might also have noticed the woman from the bar, the same woman whose drink he bought a week ago, the same woman sipping coffee that morning. Now that woman pointed a telephoto lens at his car as he drove onto the base.
Ulrich and Ellsworth turned when Radford entered the office. It was just after one on Monday afternoon.
“I need a travel voucher,” he said.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Ellsworth said. “If I have to put up with this nonsense, then the Sasquatch hunter does too.”
“Shut up, Shep,” Radford said. “I’m done listening to you.”
Ulrich pounde
d his desk.
“Enough,” Ulrich said. “What are you talking about, Charlie.”
A surge of adrenaline made it hard for him to breathe. He hated showing any hint of fear in front of Ellsworth, but his legs pulsed and threatened to buckle. He hadn’t wanted to hit anyone this badly since Wendy told him about her abusive ex-boyfriend.
“I just got a lead,” Radford said. “A solid lead. I think I found her.”
“Sit down,” Ulrich said.
“This cocksucker gets a free pass from the investigation,” Ellsworth said, “and you let him come in here and demand a travel voucher?”
“You’re out of line, Shep,” Ulrich said. “You’ve been out of line since day one. Let’s start acting like goddamn professionals around here. We don’t have time for this childish crap.”
Radford hoped that Ellsworth would take the hint and step out of the office, but Shep didn’t move.
“I have new information,” Radford said. “From a credible source.”
“Sweet Jesus, tell me you have a name,” Ulrich said, folding his hands into prayer.
“Not a name,” he said. He wasn’t going to tell them everything, not yet. He had to see her first, had to verify that this information was true. “I need to run this down. I need to go see.”
“I’m not inclined to send you off on a wild-goose chase this close to the hearing,” Ulrich said. “We are in an all-hands-on-deck situation here.”
“This could be the break we’ve needed,” Radford said.
Ulrich shook his head. “I need more than that. Shep isn’t wrong. We’ve granted you an awful lot of leeway. And so far, your results have been less than stellar.”
Radford had no intention of revealing the source of his new information. Adam provided enough details, he seemed credible, and it was clear he was conflicted about coming forward. Radford believed his story.
“Look, I have nothing to add at this point,” Radford said. “But I might soon if you give me the voucher.”
“You don’t belong here,” Ellsworth said. “Cut him loose, Gordo. Earn your pay for once.”
The Falling Woman: A Novel Page 17
