Ulrich stood and straightened his tie. Radford didn’t envy him. Whatever the FBI agents had just whispered in his ear caused him to blanch. For several minutes, Ulrich talked about the early phases of the work, especially about the extensive recovery efforts. He reiterated that numerous probes remained opened, and any of the inquiries could affect the outcome. “We’ve taken great care to collect the victims of this accident, to make a positive identification for each. It has been difficult, and that work remains ongoing.”
Radford expected him to mention the Falling Woman, but Ulrich sidestepped the topic, talking now about the reconstruction team, about the hundreds of engineers, scientists, and experts who’d come together to figure out what had happened that spring night over Kansas.
“We’ve come to the end of the recovery phase,” Ulrich said with a beam of pride in his voice. “The long, slow process ahead will provide the answers we all want and need.”
Whatever the FBI had found clearly rattled Ellsworth too. He flipped through his notes and typed into his laptop while Ulrich went over a detailed time line, starting with the flight path Pointer 795 took and concluding with the Go Team’s arrival in Kansas. Ulrich spoke for more than ten minutes, and continued to avoid any mention of the Falling Woman or Radford’s work. The more he avoided the topic, the more the pressure built around it.
“I’m going to turn the floor over to our working group leaders,” Ulrich said. “Each will issue a brief statement, and then we will open the floor to questions.”
Lucy would go first. She took a deep breath, collected her files, stood, and crossed to the microphone. She began talking about the ID procedure for the bodies, stepping through the complicated logistical process that Radford had started three weeks ago. She thanked the state coroner, Cheney High School’s administrators, the local cops, and the Red Cross volunteers. Then she nodded at Radford and thanked him for his work at the beginning of the investigation. After that, she provided a general analysis of the types of injures involved. With great delicacy and tact, she assured the families that the victims were being handled with the utmost care and urgency.
“We won’t stop until we have accounted for every single passenger,” she said.
Like Ulrich, she dodged the topic of the Falling Woman. Radford grew more anxious. Very clearly, everyone onstage still wanted to distance themselves from any association with the woman currently waiting in Charlie Radford’s hotel room. Why had he left her alone, without any support? In a few minutes, he’d stand up in front of the cameras and all the people watching, and he still had no idea what exactly he was going to say, how he was going to present his findings. Four more working group leaders followed Lucy. Each spoke briefly while Ellsworth continued to type into his computer. Ulrich crossed behind the table and leaned down to Radford.
“You’re going after Shep,” he said while a structural engineer droned on about metal warping and burn patterns. “The shit just hit the fan with his theory. Goddamn FBI meddling where they shouldn’t. Please tell me you have something conclusive. I need one thing to go right today.”
Ellsworth had loosened his tie by the time he stood up to talk. His face glistened with sweat. For a man who normally bristled with confidence, he now looked like he might throw up. Radford took no small measure of joy in Ellsworth’s distress.
“We are investigating every phase of the accident,” he said, glancing down at his notes. “There are several factors that indicate the explosive decompression was triggered by ignition in the center fuel tank, possibly caused by a lightning strike.”
He paused and glanced at the FBI agents, who stared straight ahead, not making eye contact.
“However,” he said, with a tone of open disgust, “an explosives team with the Federal Bureau of Investigation has just reported that they found trace elements of explosives in the baggage compartment.” The mood in the room grew agitated. Reporters typed into their phones. “I emphasize the word trace,” Ellsworth said. He was hot, ready to blow. “We have no concrete reason to think that there was an explosive device aboard this plane.”
The mood verged on bedlam now. People shuffled in their seats. Someone cried out, “We need answers!” A woman on the left side of the room, more than likely a relative of a victim, covered her mouth. Carol Wilson stepped to the microphone. She smiled, tried to regain control of the room.
“I want to tell all of you how important transparency is to this investigative process, and to me personally as the director,” she said. She assured the audience that every step was being taken to complete the most thorough investigation possible. She repeated that they were being transparent, open, forthcoming. Radford wondered where that transparency stopped. Apparently, somewhere short of his investigation.
“Let’s open the floor to questions now,” the director said.
Radford glanced at Lucy and then at Ulrich. Had he just been skipped? Had the director really just passed over his briefing? Lucy shrugged. Down the long table, Ulrich stared straight ahead. Wilson chose a reporter from the side.
“We’d like an update on the Falling Woman,” the reporter said. “We’ve all heard reports that she was found in Virginia.”
“We’d like to stick to the technical questions first,” Wilson said. She pointed at another reporter, who also asked about the Falling Woman. Radford scanned the crowd, hoping at least to spot Dickie Gray out among the many faces staring back. It was all happening too fast. When the third reporter in a row asked a similar question, Wilson yielded the microphone to Ulrich.
Ulrich looked exhausted. If the fallout from this meeting was going to land anywhere, it was going to land on Ulrich’s head. That was why Dickie Gray had been brought in. That was why Carol Wilson had just taken over the hearing. Though technically still in charge, Ulrich now faced his own insignificance, a feeling Radford understood well.
“Ten days ago,” Ulrich said, “we opened a special investigation into reports about a possible survivor. I’m going to let the lead investigator brief you on the progress.”
Radford again thought about Erin up in his room. Was she watching the hearing? What could she be feeling? He glanced out at the room and pictured each of those seven families, some of them in the audience now. Dickie Gray was right. He was a pawn in this game, easily sacrificed, hardly valued, never missed.
He stood, crossed to the dais, cleared his throat, and took a sip of water.
“The most difficult part of this investigation,” he said, “is knowing that there are families out there in need of closure. There have been so many rumors, so many stories about what has happened. I hope to clarify some of this now.”
He took a deep breath. He didn’t know what he’d say next until the words actually came out.
“There is no credible evidence that anyone survived the explosion of Pointer 795,” he said. His voice didn’t even catch. “I have no evidence to support any claims about a woman falling out of the plane and surviving.” The words echoed off the back of the room. Then came a pause, a moment of complete silence, before reporters began to shout questions.
Ulrich stood and pressed into Radford, almost shoving him away from the microphone.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said.
“I don’t have her,” Radford said. “Don’t make this worse. Let me take their questions.”
Both men’s careers teetered on the edge of a cliff, and Radford was hanging by the slimmest of threads. Ulrich stepped aside from the dais, and Radford came forward again. He’d never run a press conference before, and had no way to get control. But finally, one reporter stood. It was the woman from the bar, the woman in the hotel lobby, the woman he’d seen on television. She looked angry, betrayed, ready to throw something at Radford’s head.
“What about the report of the woman in Virginia?” she asked. “Several credible sources revealed that your agency had located and identified a passenger from the flight.”
“As you may know,” Radford said, “I’ve
just returned from western Virginia. I have interviewed several people, including a woman who had recently moved there. I could find no conclusive link between this woman and any passengers on the flight. The woman has made no such claims and is requesting privacy.”
The lies came so fast and so easily that Radford marveled at his own efficacy. It felt incredible.
“What about these reports?” the reporter demanded over the clamor in the room.
“Pure speculation,” Radford said. Ulrich looked queasy. Lucy Masterson refused to lift her eyes from her notes. He needed to reel himself back, to remain, at least, professional, or they’d simply think he’d gone off the rails. At the microphone for almost twenty minutes, he answered every question that was asked, never once revealing that Erin Geraghty was just a few floors above all of them. When it was over, when the last question was answered and everyone settled back down, he wondered what he’d just done. The only person who seemed pleased was Shep Ellsworth.
Ulrich came to the dais and the meeting continued for a few minutes, with a smattering of questions about the investigation and where it would go from here. Radford didn’t wait for the end. As soon as the focus was off him, he slid out the side door and raced back to his room.
He had lied. He had lied at an official investigation. As he left the room, he saw Dickie Gray looking at him with a knowing smile. Would he keep this secret? Radford could only hope.
41
Erin hadn’t intended to fall asleep. But the shower was hot and the bed comfortable, and she knew there was nothing more she could she do at that point. When the door opened and Radford stepped inside, Erin awoke.
It wasn’t as if she’d expected clarity or resolution, but what she felt on waking was a profound and gentle warmth. The afternoon light fell across her body. The thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There was no reason to climb out of that bed.
She kept her eyes closed. Radford seemed to be gathering his files. He was audibly mumbling to himself. What was the next step? Where could she hide to keep the press away from her? And what of Doug and the girls? It would be terrible for them. All the attention—just what she’d wanted to avoid.
“The files,” he said, talking to himself, “all the technical data, photographs, research, every printed document in this room belongs to the NTSB.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked
“If I have any chance at keeping my job, or getting a paycheck next month, I need to make sure that every document is in perfect order.”
He seemed panicky, rushing around the small room, throwing papers and files into boxes.
“I need the receipts,” he said, rifling through a pile of papers on the nightstand. “I’ll need to log the hours, to make a perfect accounting of my time.”
She sat up in bed. Her hair was still wet from the shower.
“I fell asleep,” she said. “Is the hearing over?”
He kneeled beside the bed. “We need to get you out of here.”
“How bad is it?”
“It’s bad,” he said. “But not for you. You need to get your things. I don’t have much time.”
He told her that they’d come looking for him. He said he was surprised they hadn’t banged on his door already. At most he had a few hours to get her somewhere safe so he could get back to the hotel and take care of things. She stared at him—he was making no sense.
“Charlie, slow down. What happened? What did you do?”
“I’m going to meet you up the street,” he said. “Gather your things and walk out of here like you haven’t a care in the world. But don’t linger.”
“I just want to sleep,” she said.
“We don’t have time,” he said. “There’s a gas station about a block from here, to the left when you leave the hotel. I’ll pick you up there.”
“I’m tired of running,” she said.
“You can decide all that later,” he said. “But right now, I need to get you out of this hotel.”
She must’ve had questions. She must’ve wondered what had happened, but she didn’t appear to care. He’d burst in the room and prattled on like a madman, but she hadn’t even climbed out of bed. Radford almost admired her ability to react without anxiety, to press ahead with only partial information and no plan. It was a type of grace, that willingness to go with the flow. Did you have to face down death to get there? he wondered. Or was there a simpler way? The past few hours of his life indicated that maybe he’d found a bit of that within himself. Right up until the minute he stood at the microphone and unleashed his lies, he’d lacked such an ability.
Five minutes later, while idling in the car a block away from the hotel, he spotted her making her way up the street, a bag looped over her left shoulder. For the first time it hit him—what the fuck had he done? And why? But if regrets or doubts threatened his decision, they passed quickly. You did something right, he thought, something that didn’t fit with what everyone expected you to do.
His whole life, he’d behaved exactly as expected. Hadn’t he come back to his father at the air show? Hadn’t he followed the doctor’s orders and taken his heart medicine? For ten years, hadn’t he accepted his fate? Ulrich, Wilson, his father, his goddamn high school football coach. He’d been following orders his whole life. He’d finally done something authentic, finally done something without seeking someone else’s approval first. It might cost him everything, but he didn’t care. When Erin climbed into his car, he wanted to kiss her. He finally understood her decision not to do the expected things. Many would call her decision selfish, but he finally understood how brave she was.
“I saw the news,” she said. “Jesus, Charlie. Why? Why did you lie?”
“I had no choice,” he said. “The way you are being tossed around in all this. The government doesn’t care about you. They just want to exploit you, and then they want you to go away. So, why not let you go away on your own terms?”
“This has been so sudden. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” she said.
“I have a plan,” he said. “I don’t know if it will make any sense, but it buys you some time. Maybe we both just need some time.”
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Does your plan include dinner?”
He thought about what he’d do when he returned to the hotel to face his boss, the team. Would there be an explanation that made sense? Would he still have a job? Did it matter anymore? And he had to call Wendy; she must be completely confused. He drove west, without explaining where they were heading. Erin stared out the window while he drove.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said.
The storm had passed north of the city, but the lightning was still vivid in the dark clouds in the distance. The plains held light and dark in equal measure. Balance. Everything felt balanced here.
He’d read somewhere that humans respond on some innate level to ideal landscapes, ones that include water, trees, rocks for shelter, grazing animals, and open space. Radford didn’t know if that was true, but driving out of the city, he felt a deep connection with this place, the ancient prairie that had mostly been plowed over now. Only a faint echo of that long-ago time remained, in the way light cast long shadows over the roads, or in the ability to see far off toward the distant horizon. Kansas was a good place, he thought, despite everything that had happened, despite all the darkness he’d seen. They would figure out what brought down that airliner. The questions would be answered, even the most pressing ones. Nothing he’d done today hurt the investigation. He believed that standing up for this woman, refusing to bend, would eventually make sense too. A streak of lightning flashed over the city skyline now.
“I’m going to miss you, Charlie,” Erin said. “Surprisingly, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you.”
He didn’t know what to say. He’d felt the same way, felt like they’d become true friends, even though they were forced together by circumstance. He didn’t like the idea of their time together coming to an end.
&nb
sp; “You asked me how I ended up doing this work,” he said. “Why I do this and not something else.”
“I didn’t think you liked that question,” she said.
“I was afraid all the time as a kid. I was nervous. Sickly. My mother nurtured me, but she was overprotective, clingy. I used to throw up and cry whenever anything frightened me. When I was ten years old, my father took me to an air show. We drove together down this beautiful road. It’s the only time I remember being alone with my father. It was one of those moments, one of those magical little windows into what life could be like.”
She twisted around in the passenger seat so she was facing him.
“It was like falling in love,” he said. “When I saw planes flying overhead. I didn’t have anything in my life that was as pure, as magical. I loved them. I wanted to be with them, to be one of those people who could fly. It was all I wanted to do.”
“You found something that you connected with deeply,” she said. “Something that was purely yours.”
“I thought if I could do what those pilots did, then I could make my fear go away.”
“Did it work?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“I used to pray when I was little,” he said. “I used to pray for courage. I just wanted to be brave, like my father, like my brother.”
“You are brave,” she said. “But this work? Isn’t this a corruption of what you wanted? Shouldn’t you find another way to fly? Maybe I’m out of line to say that.”
He exited the highway and slowed. He’d come to Kansas filled with ambition, eager, even excited to get to work on a major accident. He’d experienced things that he couldn’t have imagined a month ago. The woman sitting next to him seemed utterly normal, just a good person to talk with, to spend time with. The fact she’d somehow been blown out of an exploding jetliner and fallen from almost six miles up, and then crashed through a barn roof, and by some incredible quirk had survived—this story felt secondary. The miracle of it was beside the point. The world was full of awe-inspiring things. All you had to do was notice.
The Falling Woman: A Novel Page 24
