When Ghosts Come Home

by Wiley Cash

  It would be like a movie, Winston thought. They’d managed to keep the fact of Groom’s departure a secret from the media, but Winston knew word would spread once the aircraft took off for Wilmington. He imagined the news stations would be there, cameras rolling, when Groom came in to land. It would mean something, especially after what had happened last night to Bradley Frye, if Winston had a hand in delivering to the FBI both the airplane and the evidence that implicated Frye. After all, the election was in four days, and while he was now running unopposed, maybe he should consider it. He could call home from Sweetney’s office, ask Colleen to pick him up in Wilmington. They could be back in plenty of time for Rodney’s funeral.

  He and Groom were crossing the bridge now. Winston pictured Colleen as a child in the backseat, asking over and over about the bridge collapsing, about their car plummeting to the water below. As he considered Groom’s offer, Winston did not feel the accustomed dread he sometimes felt crossing the bridge—dread at the possibility of descending toward something that may have no bottom. Instead, as the car climbed higher, he felt a lifting, as if—at any moment—he could take to the sky.

  Chapter 15

  Colleen had set her alarm for 8:00 a.m., which would give her plenty of time to wake up and get dressed, have a cup of coffee, and then drive her mother to the beauty shop to have her hair done before Rodney’s funeral. She woke up thinking about Rodney, but she also woke up thinking about Tom Groom. He was set to take his miraculous flight that morning, and as she lay in bed, Colleen could feel that his presence was gone from the house. She could also feel the absence of her father, which was something she’d grown accustomed to as a little girl, and that feeling had only grown more familiar as she’d gotten older.

  She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth when the phone rang. She stuck her head into the hallway, heard the shower running in her parents’ bathroom. She finished brushing and spit into the sink and walked into her bedroom and picked up the phone. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Colleen,” Winston said.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Listen, honey.” The line went quiet for a moment.

  “Dad?” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here. Listen, honey, I need you to do something for me.”

  “What?” she asked. “I have to take Mom to get her hair done.”

  “What time is her appointment?”

  “Eleven a.m.,” Colleen said. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s plenty of time,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I’m going to fly up to Wilmington,” Winston said.

  “You?” she finally said. She laughed. “You’re going to fly in that plane?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think it’ll be fun. And I have to drive up there anyway to drop some stuff off.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said. “Listen, I need you to come pick me up at the airport. We’re going to leave here soon, so if you don’t mind, go ahead and leave. I’ll be waiting for you when you get there. Same spot I picked you up.”

  “You’re going to fly?” she asked again. “You?”

  “Yeah,” Winston said. “I’ll see you in a bit. Tell your mother you’ll be home in time for her appointment.”

  “Okay,” Colleen said. “This is crazy, Dad, but I guess I’ll see you in Wilmington.”

  “Okay,” her father said. “See you in a bit.”

  She walked into her parents’ bedroom and poked her head into their bathroom, where her mother was still in the shower, steam pouring from behind the curtain, the mirror fogged over.

  “Change of plans, Mom,” she said.

  Colleen drove her mother’s Buick Regal down Oak Island Drive with her eyes scanning the sky, the clouds, the tops of the trees for any signs of the airplane.

  By the time she reached the bridge stretching over the waterway, she’d given up hope of spotting it, knowing that she’d missed the takeoff, or at least, she thought, she’d missed the scene of it not being able to get off the ground after all. She’d missed it because of those few moments she’d sat on her bed, thinking about her father’s sudden willingness to get on an airplane, those few moments of talking to her mother before getting into the car. As she drew closer to the top of the bridge, she looked to her left down the waterway in the direction of her parents’ house.

  And that was when she saw it in the water’s reflection as it emerged low over the trees across the waterway. Colleen’s eyes followed the silvery glint of the airplane as it rose sharply into the sky, its metallic shell so close it seemed that she could have rolled her window down and reached out and run her fingers over its shiny belly, the huge black propellers on either wing so close that she almost felt their power buffeting the side of her mother’s car. She watched the plane through her driver’s-side window as it rose slowly, nearly hovering in the air, and she followed it in her mirrors as it passed. She slowed her car to a stop at the top of the bridge, and she climbed out in time to see the wings wobble as the plane leveled off over the ocean and then banked left. It circled back toward land in a magnificent sweep and headed north along the coast toward Wilmington.

  As she watched the plane go, relief washed over her body that Groom and her father had made it off the ground, that she had not seen the airplane plow through the trees on its course toward the waterway or nosedive into the ocean after climbing into the sky.

  When she arrived at the Wilmington airport, she cruised slowly through the pickup area. She expected to find her father there, standing on the curb, but she didn’t see him. She parked near the same spot where her father had when he’d come to pick her up only a few days before. Outside, she could hear and see airplanes taxiing, landing, and taking off, and although Colleen knew her father and Groom would’ve arrived before her, she could not help but search the skies for the silvery plane she had seen take off in Oak Island. Taxis were lined up at the arrival doors just as they’d been lined up when she’d arrived from Dallas. Although she did not see him, Colleen wondered if the taxi driver she’d spoken to when she’d first arrived was watching her now. What would he have to say about her? A few days ago she had been a woman waiting for her father to come get her after she’d done something unpredictable. Now she could not help but think of the irony in the fact that she was a woman coming to get a father who’d done something even more unpredictable.

  Inside, the small airport was alive with people standing in line at the handful of ticket counters, checking luggage and making their way toward the airport’s single terminal. Colleen didn’t know where her father’s airplane would have landed, so she walked toward the huge windows at the terminal’s mouth that looked out on the runway, expecting to see something—police cars or FBI vehicles or the DEA or some other sign that people had been waiting to meet her father’s plane. But nothing outside the windows appeared any different than when Colleen had arrived days ago.

  A small information desk sat in the middle of the airport, and an older woman, probably a volunteer from the community, sat behind it. The woman smiled when Colleen approached.

  “My father just landed,” Colleen said, but she stopped. She tried to think of what to say next, how to explain what she needed to know in order to find him. “He’s with the FBI.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, as if it were the most surprising thing she’d heard all day. “Okay. Well, what airline did he fly in on?”

  “He wasn’t on an airline,” Colleen said. “They flew in from Oak Island. They should’ve landed maybe half an hour ago. I just don’t know where to meet him.”

  “Okay,” the woman said again with a slowness that Colleen thought might cause her to scream. “Let me check on that.” The woman picked up the phone on the desk and then searched a piece of paper for the correct number she wanted to call. She lifted the phone to her ear and waited.

  Colleen looked back out toward the runway, but she was too far away f
rom the windows to see anything. She turned and looked down the expanse of the terminal, expecting to see her father walking toward her, smiling with relief at having landed safely. But there was no one there that she knew.

  “Yes,” the woman said into the phone. Colleen turned back around and looked down at the woman. She smiled at Colleen as if getting someone to answer on the other end had accomplished half of what she’d set out to do. “Do we have any flights in from Oak Island today?” she asked. She kept her eyes on Colleen’s, nodding as if she was learning important information. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay.” She hung up the phone. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There are no flights scheduled from Oak Island today.”

  “This isn’t a scheduled flight,” Colleen said. “I mean, like, this isn’t an airline. I need to know where a plane would land if the police or the FBI were flying it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” the woman said. “We don’t have any flights today from—”

  “Jesus,” Colleen said. She turned away from the woman, and then she walked back toward the windows and looked out. She walked halfway down the terminal, and she looked out the windows there. She still did not see the airplane, and she still did not see her father or Groom or the police or the FBI. She could feel her heart in her chest, and she knew her vision was narrowing as if she were looking at the world through a periscope. She walked back to the information desk. The woman saw her coming. She smiled hesitantly.

  “I need to use your phone,” Colleen said.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We just don’t have any flights—”

  “I know that,” Colleen said, louder than she’d intended. “I understand that. I still need to use your phone.”

  The woman kept her eyes on Colleen and lifted the phone from her desk and set it on the counter between them.

  “I need a phone book,” Collen said.

  The woman nodded, and she bent at the waist and opened a couple of cabinets at her knees. She found a phone book and handed it to Colleen. Colleen flipped through the pages and found what she was looking for. She dialed the number. It was Saturday, well past 9:00 a.m. The office would be open. That’s where her father would be. That’s where they had taken him instead of leaving him at the airport to wait for her.

  A woman’s voice answered on the other end. “FBI Resident Agency, Wilmington,” the woman said. “How may I direct your call?”

  “I’m looking for my father,” Colleen said. The woman behind the desk stared at her intently, and Colleen turned her back and spoke quietly into the receiver. “His name is Winston Barnes. He’s the sheriff in Brunswick County.”

  “Okay,” the woman said. “Okay, let me—” Colleen could hear the sounds of something—papers rustling, static. She could hear the woman speaking to someone else in the room, her voice muddled as if her hand had been placed over the phone’s receiver. Colleen closed her eyes and tried to recall the names of the agents her father had mentioned.

  The woman’s voice came back on the line. “I’m sorry,” she said, “can you hold—”

  “Rollins,” Colleen said, the agent’s name suddenly popping into her mind. “Agent Rollins.”

  “Okay,” the woman said again.

  “Is something wrong?” Colleen asked. “I’m at the airport to pick up my father.”

  “Give me one more moment,” the woman said.

  Colleen held the phone against her ear with her left shoulder, and she folded her arms across her chest. She closed her eyes tight, realized she was holding her breath while the line remained silent on the other end. And then a man’s voice came on.

  “Agent Rollins,” the man said. “Is this—?”

  “Colleen Banks,” she said. “Sheriff Barnes’s daughter. I’m looking for him. He was supposed to meet me—”

  “And you said your name is—”

  “Colleen Barnes,” she said. “Jesus, Colleen Barnes. My dad is Winston Barnes.”

  “Ma’am,” Rollins said, “I understand that you’re frustrated. I know your father. I’ve worked with him. We’re trying to figure out what happened.”

  “What do you mean ‘what happened’?” she asked. “What happened? What are you saying?”

  “Miss Barnes,” he said, “that aircraft hasn’t landed. At this moment, we can’t confirm—”

  “No. That’s not right,” Colleen said. She felt her knees grow soft and begin to buckle. She straightened her body. She held the phone with her left hand and reached back to the counter with her right to steady herself. “No, no, no,” she said. “I saw it take off.”

  “We know it took off, Miss Barnes. We’ve been in contact with the airport down in Oak Island. The plane should’ve landed forty-five minutes ago. We’re working to locate it right now.”

  “Honey,” the woman behind her said. Colleen realized she was leaning against the counter, and she turned and saw that the woman at the desk was standing now, reaching her arms out to Colleen as if to steady her. “Are you okay?” the woman whispered.

  Colleen looked at the phone in her hand. The agent’s voice was still coming from it. She wanted to hang up and call someone who could give her answers, but who? Scott? Her mother? Her father’s office? She knew no one would be able to tell her anything because there was nothing to tell. She hung up the phone.

  She was crying by the time she made it back to the windows at the mouth of the terminal. She lifted her hands to her face and held her fingers together as if she were praying, but she wasn’t praying. She was scanning the runway for anyone or anything that looked like her father or Groom or the airplane. She tried to control her breathing, and she wiped tears from her eyes so that if there was something to see, she would see it.

  Colleen did not know it then, could not have known it, but by May she would be pregnant with her second child, and she and Scott would have moved back to North Carolina, buying a home in Wilmington with plenty of room for the new baby and for her mother should she ever decide to join them. Scott would take a job as a prosecutor at the federal courthouse downtown, and she would spend the summer before the baby was born in September studying for the North Carolina bar exam.

  She would be sitting at her desk, her study guide open, pages and pages of multiple-choice questions spread out in front of her, when she received the phone call from Agent Avery Rollins, informing her that her father’s body had been discovered by hunters in the woods a few miles north of Burlington, Vermont, near the border. He had been stripped of everything—his badge, his belt, his weapon, the boxes of evidence he’d planned to hand-deliver—but they had identified him by the patches on the sleeves of his uniform and the watch that Colleen’s mother had bought for him just before Colleen was born. The bullet that killed him would later match the bullet that had killed Rodney Bellamy, but the weapon would never be found. A few days later, the FBI’s Miami field office would finally release a statement saying that Agent Tom Groom had taken a vacation on the same day the DC-3 landed on the coast of North Carolina; they’d had no idea that he was even in the state, and they certainly had not sent him to fix and fly an airplane. The aircraft had disappeared, and so had he.

  But Colleen was months away from learning those things. For now, she stood at the windows inside the airport, for how long she did not know, unaware that she was waiting for a plane that would never land. The certainty of her father’s death and the possibility of new life were still months away. She saw a passenger jet lift from the runway and soar out over the trees. She watched the airplane flash in the sunlight as it ascended, and she imagined all the passengers aboard it looking out their windows at the receding earth below, while the ghosts of the people they’d left behind floated alongside them, staring into the windows, tapping on the glass, begging not to be forgotten.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book is an incredibly long and solitary process, but I am fortunate to have had so many people encourage me and assist me along the way. I especially want to thank my editor, David H
ighfill, for helping me find the story, as well as Nat Sobel and Judith Weber for the love and attention they give everything, from my books to my family. I also want to thank Sharyn Rosenblum for bringing her energy and heart to the finish line, and Tessa James for bringing order to the chaos.

  Thank you to my incredible students and my colleagues in the English Department at the University of North Carolina Asheville, where writing and literature are not only taught, but valued and sustained. I also want to thank Chancellor Nancy Cable, Vice Chancellor Garikai Campbell, Vice Chancellor Kirk Swenson, and David and Dianne Worley.

  My endless gratitude to the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, North Carolina, and the Doubletree Hotel at Biltmore Village in Asheville, North Carolina, where so much of this novel was written and revised.

  I am fortunate to have an incredible community of family, friends, creatives, musicians, and writers who pushed this book forward in so many ways, and I am so lucky that there are simply too many of them to mention by name. I hope a heartfelt thank-you will suffice.

  The best thing about me, as both a writer and a human, is my family. To Mallory, Early, and Juniper, there are no words to express how you sustain my heart and my soul. During the years I worked on this book, we called it “The Mysterious Airplane” because that was how Early and Juniper referred to it. Eventually, they began asking me who flew the airplane, and I did not yet have an answer, so they decided for me: a ghost flew it. That simple supposition changed the course of this novel in profound ways. When it came time to title the book, one day Early sat on my lap and pecked away at the keyboard as I spelled out the titles the girls had in mind:

  The Mystery of the Man from the Air Station

  The Mystery of the Stormy Coast

  The Mystery of the Cat in the Volcano