The boilerplate form carried the agency’s letterhead and four paragraphs of bureaucratic language, followed by five pages of standardized questions. Designed for people who’d witnessed an aircraft accident, everything from minor mishaps to major tragedies, not one section applied to a woman falling out of an airplane that came apart in midflight. But the questionnaire provided a framework for structuring his interview. He downloaded a copy of the form to his computer and then set to work modifying its contents.
Working through the form, Radford understood the extreme nature of this woman’s experience. No form, especially one with routine questions, covered the fall she had experienced. After an hour, he’d whittled the form down to a single page. He checked his watch. It was just after noon, and while he wanted to be on time for their two o’clock meeting, he hated any further delay. He headed south, back to town. From the road, he called Wendy.
“What’s she like?” Wendy asked.
“She’s detached,” he said. “I think she’s still in shock. She rambles when she talks about what happened. It’s the strangest thing in the world. Wendy, she’s as frail as a kitten, but ferocious.”
“Why doesn’t she go home? Why is she hiding?”
“She’s scared. And she’s been sick. I think she doesn’t want to put her family through such a shock. It’s almost understandable in a way.”
Wendy made him promise he would be careful. “I don’t like any of this,” she said. “It all sounds so strange. Too strange, Charlie.”
“I’m fine. This will be over soon. I’ll be back in the office. Strictly nine-to-five after this. We’ll get our lives back to normal.” He told his wife he loved her and couldn’t wait to be home. “But, Wend, one thing. Please don’t say a word about this. Not to anyone.”
Writing up an accident investigation report could take two years. The final report would sprawl to hundreds of pages, chock full of highly vetted technical data, reports, interviews, summaries, analyses, and conclusions. He used to dread the very idea of it, all that office work, the minutiae, endless meetings and tedious arguments over syntax and style. But now he saw it differently. He’d pack a lunch in the morning and kiss his wife when he got home every night. For so long he’d dreamed about working a major. Now that had happened, and soon, he’d be back to the routines. He was surprised at how much he missed his ordinary life, missed the predictability of the daily grind. Having been away more than two weeks, he was ready to be home.
“I love you, Wendy,” he said again.
“I love you too,” she said. “Charlie, I just want you home. We have to make some decisions, and I can’t do it alone.”
During the rest of the ride into town, he thought about his legacy, about the path he would leave behind. He thought about Dickie Gray, and all the work the man had done now only to be ignored. He thought about his father too, about the walls the man had built. But after all that work, only the stones remained, with no trace of the craftsman. So much disappeared. So much vanished into thin air. He wondered if he was too naïve, too idealistic to work in a town as cynical as Washington.
It was still early when he reached the outskirts of town, and he didn’t want to make Erin nervous. Ahead, a sign for a roadside bar beckoned, so Radford stopped. One drink, he told himself, just to take the edge off. He looked around the bar. A few ornery patrons claimed barstools inside. Drinking in the early afternoon was a time and space reserved for the desperate and the detached, he told himself. So where did that put him?
“Get you a beer?” the bartender asked.
Radford checked his watch and nodded. He read through his questions once more, wondering if she’d laugh at them. When he returned to Kansas, with the completed interview and the pieces of this puzzle finally put together, he’d be sure to staple a copy to Shep Ellsworth’s door. Whatever else came of this, Radford had a sense of who his friends were at the agency. He wanted to let Lucy Masterson know what he’d found, what he’d learned. He wanted to celebrate this news with someone.
He looked again at the form. What did any of these questions have to do with what happened to Erin Geraghty? What would her answers reveal about the fall? He fought an urge to throw the form into the trash can behind the bar.
When the bartender returned with his beer, Radford glanced up at the television. A bright red breaking news banner flashed on-screen as the local news came on. The credits rolled, the dramatic music, a shot of the mountains in autumn, a helicopter in flight, a reporter in front of a burning building.
“News Five, your leader in breaking news for the Shenandoah Valley. Let’s go to our ABC affiliate in Washington, and to Pamela King, who’s on the ground in Augusta County with some stunning news.”
Radford set his drink on the bar. On the screen, the scene cut to a reporter standing in front of Sandy’s restaurant. This time, he recognized the woman immediately—she was the one in the hotel lobby who’d wished him a safe trip. At least a half dozen news vans, satellite poles extended, framed the back of the shot.
“I’m outside a popular local establishment here in Augusta County, Virginia, where I’ve learned that the mysterious Falling Woman, the lone survivor from the crash of Pointer Airlines flight 795, may be working right here at this roadside restaurant.”
Radford grabbed some cash out of his wallet and threw it on the bar. He didn’t even look at the bills.
In the car, racing south, he tried to figure how long this reporter had been trailing him. Could she have been the woman who talked to Wendy too? And who had tipped her off? Someone had leaked his name a long time ago. Ulrich? Lucy Masterson? Shep Ellsworth? What the hell sense did that make?
Then it hit. A cold wave of panic flashed through him. It couldn’t be true, but what else explained it? The only person who knew what was happening, the only person he’d even hinted to about a destination, the only person with an axe to grind against the agency, was Dickie Gray. Gray had read his notes. Gray had seen the words, the address in his notepad. No one else knew.
“Fuck me,” Radford said.
Was it possible? What would possess his mentor, his hero, to betray him like this? No reason made sense, but no other explanation presented itself.
He called the main line at the headquarters and asked to be put through to Gray’s extension. Holding the phone in one hand, the wheel with the other, he drove close to eighty miles an hour. If the state police spotted him, he had no intention of pulling over.
“Aviation Division,” a woman’s voice said.
“This is Charlie Radford. I need to talk to Gray immediately.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “But Mr. Gray is in the field today.”
“What field?” Radford almost shouted. “What’s he working on?”
Before the woman could answer, Radford slammed down the phone and pressed the gas. The restaurant was still several minutes away.
What would she do now? The first thing she’d do was blame him. All his work—not just the past couple of weeks on this woman but his entire career, his entire life’s journey, from the time he was ten years old—began to crumble. She’d never trust him now. He might as well have punched her in the mouth. Ahead, Radford spotted a helicopter hovering over the trees.
He had to think. If Erin Geraghty was still at the diner, if he could somehow get to her before the press did, then maybe they could slip away. The key was to get her out of there. He’d keep her from being exposed. If she still trusted him, which seemed almost impossible now, he could sneak her out. After that, he didn’t know what he’d do, but it was a start.
What could they really know? Gray knew only the location, so if he had tipped them, it meant someone in town had to fill in the rest. Unless Erin Geraghty decided to talk, the press still knew nothing. Since this story began, everything about it rested on half-truths, speculation, and scant evidence. He just needed to get inside the restaurant and convince her he hadn’t called the press. There was still time.
He spotted the
building ahead. More than a dozen news vans jockeyed for position in the parking lot. Crews from local channels, D.C. stations, and two national networks were setting up. A crowd of locals stood nearby. The shades were drawn in the restaurant’s windows, and the Closed sign was lit, even in broad daylight.
There was no way to get inside through the front, but he remembered the side door, behind the dumpster. He parked the car down an adjacent alley and donned a baseball cap. If the bartender and the owner didn’t shoot him on sight, he’d try to slip inside the restaurant and plead his case. Two helicopters now circled overhead. The one thing she’d wanted to avoid, the one thing he’d promised her wouldn’t happen, was unfolding.
He slipped behind the dumpster, startling a squirrel. He tried the side door but found it locked. He knocked twice, but no one answered. Circling around back, past the smelly dumpster, he stopped by a small window that was partially open. He thought about trying to climb through, but the opening looked too small. A low stone wall ran along the back of the building, separating the restaurant from an adjacent car wash. Could he climb from the wall to the roof, maybe find a door up there? Instead, he picked up a large stone and made his way back to the side door. With as much power as he could muster, he smashed the stone against the wooden door. Paint splintered off, then chips of wood. He must have hit the door a dozen times before he heard footsteps inside.
“Go away,” a woman’s voice said. “We’re closed. We ain’t talkin’ to no reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter,” he said. “Tell her it’s Charlie. Tell Erin I didn’t do this. Tell her I didn’t call the press.”
A long pause followed while Radford tried to think of another way in.
“You got a lot of nerve,” a different woman’s voice said. Was it Erin? He couldn’t tell over the roar of the helicopters flying overhead.
“I didn’t call the press,” he said, almost shouting straight into the hinges. “There’s no way in the world I want them here.”
“Go away,” the voice said. He still wasn’t sure if it was her. But who else could it be?
“Erin, listen to me. I can get you out of this. But you need to trust me.”
He waited, but there was no reply. The rock was still in his left hand. He didn’t know what he’d do if she refused to open the door. What the hell had Dickie Gray done? And why? Not only had the entire investigation been strange from the start, but now the very people who should know better appeared to be running down personal agendas rather than doing their jobs. Revenge. That was the only thing that made sense. Gray must’ve wanted to exact revenge on the agency for leaving him behind. A senior, venerated investigator had been jilted. No other reason he’d do something as stupid as call the goddamn press.
Radford smashed the rock into the door again. He wouldn’t leave. No matter what, he’d see this through to the end. Erin Geraghty deserved that much at least.
After a few seconds, the lock jiggled and the door creaked open. He grabbed the door with his hands and pulled it open wide, stepped inside, and quickly shut it behind him. Inside the kitchen, the angry bartender pointed a double-barrel shotgun at Radford’s knees. In the corner, Erin Geraghty sat on a metal stool amidst shelves of sugar and jars of canned fruit.
“I didn’t call the press,” he said again.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. She turned and waved at the armed bartender. “Hazard, it’s okay.”
The bartender lowered his shotgun and locked the door.
“It’s the last goddamn thing I need at this point,” Radford said. “But I am responsible for this now. And I’m the only one who can get you out of here.”
In the bar, Hazard poured Erin a glass of whiskey. The restaurant appeared from different angles, in three panels, on the flat-screen above the bar. There were even more people outside now, with the parking lot full and the highway traffic slowing to a standstill. Waiters and busboys huddled around a television, trying to understand how their backwoods hamlet had suddenly become the center of the universe.
Radford knelt beside Erin. The idea forming in his head seemed absurd, the worst possible plan given the situation unfolding outside, but nothing else suggested a way out.
“I need you to trust me,” he said. “I know that goes against every instinct you have, but at this point, I may be the only person who can help you.”
“I don’t care anymore,” she said. “I’m ready to walk out there and let them ask their questions.”
“That’s an option,” he said. “It is. In some ways, that may even be the simplest option. But then they own your story and control your future. I know you don’t want that. I think I have another way out of this.”
He was lying about that. He barely had a plan to get her out of town and to safety. But about her future, about what came next, he had no earthly idea. At best, he could buy her time, time to figure out her next move, and maybe, he hoped, time to still answer some of the questions he had. For the next few hours, if she trusted him, he could hold the wolves at bay. After that, he figured, she could decide how to come forward on her own terms.
“You need to listen to me,” he said. “I know this is hard to believe. But I am on your side.”
“You caused this,” she said. “Maybe you didn’t call the press, but you caused this. You put this in motion.”
“I did,” Radford said. “That’s true. But remember, I was just doing my job. You put this in motion before I set foot in Kansas. You knew this was going to happen.” He pointed toward the front door. “This was only a matter of time.”
“Why should I trust you?” she asked.
“Because right now, you don’t have a better option.”
Radford went up to Sandy and Hazard, who stood in front of the television watching the ongoing coverage.
“I’m going to take her out of here,” he said. “Give us thirty seconds, and then one of you needs to walk out there and tell them she’s not inside.”
“Frankly, mister,” Sandy said, “I’m inclined to tell you to go to hell. I don’t know what is going on out there. I just know that this woman is scared, and right now, she seems to blame you.”
“It will all be clear soon,” he said. “But if I don’t get her out of here, one of us has to walk her out the front door. So, it’s a matter of who you trust more—me or them?”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Hazard said.
“Look, they’re not going to go away,” Radford said. “She can’t hide in a town this small for very long.”
“And you have a better option?” Sandy said.
“I do,” he said.
Ten minutes later, they were ready to leave, but as Radford took Erin by the arm, she stopped and turned to Sandy and Hazard and the rest of the staff. They were all standing stock-still, watching her.
“Sandy, all of you,” she said, “you’ve been so good to me. I’m sorry to have turned your lives upside down like this. But I need to ask you one more favor. What you’ve never quite understood, what I’ve never wanted to tell you, is that I am dying. I’ve been on my way to death for many months now, and I came here to live out my final days in quiet, undetected by the curious world that would make something else of me. But now they’re all outside, waiting for me to surrender, and I just can’t do that. The favor I need from you is to ask that you please, please keep my secret. Don’t talk to these people, don’t point them toward me. They’ll ask you questions about me—don’t answer them. They’ll show you pictures—turn away, please. Let me go. Let me be free.”
There was a pause, and then Sandy spoke: “Babe, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who you are or that you ever existed. We sell beer and meatloaf. None of what is going on outside there has anything to do with us, right, guys?”
There was a low murmur of assent. Erin grabbed Sandy and embraced her, then she and Radford slipped out the side door. Erin wore Radford’s NTSB windbreaker, turned inside out, and Hazard’s baseball cap. They scaled down
the stone wall behind the restaurant. Radford’s car was away from the street, but they still had to stay low to avoid being seen. Rain started to fall, which made the ground slippery. A news helicopter circled overhead, trying to stay beneath the lowering clouds. They were like fugitives, evading detection, though no one had committed a crime. When they reached his car, they were both drenched. He hoped the storm might force the reporters inside, but floodlights lit the vans as he looked back down the road.
“We’ll stop by your cabin,” he said as they reached the highway. “You can get your things. But we have to be quick.”
“What difference does it make,” she asked. “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”
“No, I’m not giving up,” he said.
At the cabin, he looked around for a towel. While she packed, he stepped outside to call Ulrich. With less than forty-eight hours until the public hearing, he owed it to his boss to at least warn him. But when Ulrich answered, it was clear that he already had seen the news.
“What the fuck is going on in Virginia?” he said. “And why am I finding out on the news?”
“That’s where I am,” Radford said. “Right now.”
“You called the press?” Ulrich said.
“Of course not. I think Dickie Gray tipped them off. He was the only one who knew where I was going.”
“I don’t care,” Ulrich said. “Tell me you have something I can use at the hearing on Friday. Jesus, Charlie. Tell me you found her.”
“I’m coming back tonight,” he said. “I need you to authorize me to purchase two plane tickets.”
“So, it’s true?” Ulrich asked. “What’s her name, Charlie?”
“Just authorize the purchase. There’s enough wild bullshit floating around now that I need boots.”
When Radford had finished on the phone, he went inside the cabin. But Erin hadn’t finished packing. She hadn’t even dried herself off. Mud from her shoes splattered the bedcover, where she lay, her head on the pillow. A small bag in the corner remained almost empty. He picked up the bag and tossed it to her.
“Pack,” he said. “We need to go. I’ve booked us a flight out of Pittsburgh. No one will be looking there.”
The Falling Woman: A Novel Page 21
