I’m not sure why I’m at work. It may be because it offers a potential distraction, as if anything has a hope of seriously distracting me from the nightmare unfolding around me. Or maybe I’m trying to keep up appearances so that I don’t arouse suspicions that there’s more amiss than “simply” a missing daughter. I’m too fried to even know what the hell I think much of the time.
Penelope walks around her desk and settles into the visitor’s chair beside mine. She takes my hand in hers and gazes intently into my bloodshot, scratchy eyes. “You don’t need to be here, Tony. Mom and I can hold the fort for a few days.”
The unspoken end of the phrase is implicit in the river of empathy flowing through Penelope’s eyes and touch… until you find Brittany.
Tears well up in my eyes and a sob escapes me when Penelope reaches her arms around me and pulls my head to her shoulder. She doesn’t say a word, correctly judging that nothing she can say will soothe me as much as her simple gesture of humanity. We sit like this for a couple of minutes before I ease out of her arms, wipe my nose on a Kleenex that has magically appeared in my hand from hers, and smile sadly. “Thanks.”
She pats my hand. “Any time, partner.”
We sit quietly for several seconds while she waits for me to make the next move.
“Let’s go through this stuff again,” I suggest. It’s been a busy couple of days on the R & B front. My muddled mind is having a hard time assembling it all into a coherent narrative. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” she replies. “Let me top up my coffee. You want one?”
I nod. “Please.”
I pull a print copy of yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times in front of me and scan through Sandy Irving’s latest “bombshell” story about the investigation into “the Tragic Milton Crash” while I wait for Penelope to return. This time Irving’s been fed a tidbit that “structural failure cannot be ruled out.” She’s also been cleverly served a scoop that “a mandatory inspection that might have revealed structural deficiencies in a failed wing strut may not have been completed by R & B Ramp Services. Authorities are investigating allegations that records pertaining to the alleged non-inspection may have been falsified.”
“What bullshit,” I grumble. “We’ve seen the damned invoice for the work.”
Penelope nods. “Windy City never paid that invoice, you know.”
“They didn’t?”
“Billy told me that Walton says they aren’t paying for work that wasn’t done.”
“But it was done!”
Penelope nods. “Smells of a set-up, doesn’t it?”
Jesus. How many blind alleys are we going to wander into by the time this nightmare ends?
“But how?” I ask. “We’ve seen the invoice.”
“The question is: What are the FBI and NTSB looking at? Sandy Irving suggested that there may be falsified paperwork. If so, who doctored it?”
“And how,” I mutter.
She nods.
I fold the paper closed and launch it at Penelope’s trash can as she circles back to her desk chair after setting a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. “I hope this Irving bitch is being well compensated for spreading bullshit.”
Penelope frowns. “Nice as it would be to catch her with her hand in the cookie jar, I doubt any money is changing hands. Sandy Irving strikes me as one of those ambitious people who doesn’t let scruples get in the way of getting her byline on a sensational story.”
The characterization echoes Pat’s scathing accusation that her cross-town rival “lacks even the most basic respect for journalistic ethics.”
I sink back in my seat and attempt to organize my thoughts. “What’s the point?”
“Of Irving’s story?” Penelope asks as her eyes drift to the newspaper on the floor about two feet wide of the garbage pail.
“Yeah. What’s the point of that article? Who’s her source? What’s their game?”
She shrugs. “If I had to guess, I’d say someone is laying groundwork for a future trial.”
My mind drifts away to Brittany. Where is she? Which leads me to thoughts of Joe. Is he behind Sandy Irving’s stories? If so, is he expecting a reaction from me? Am I doing or failing to do something that’s putting Brittany in more jeopardy, assuming she’s even alive? God, this is torture.
Joan Brooks pokes her head in. “Ben Larose is here, honey.”
“Thanks,” Penelope says to her mother. Then she glances at me. “Ready?”
I nod.
Joan gives me a soft-eyed look dripping with empathy before she backs out. Like mother, like daughter.
Larose enters. After the initial greetings are dispensed with, he stands awkwardly and meets my gaze. Then he shrugs as if he’s at a loss for words. “Sorry, Tony,” he finally mutters uncertainly. What else is there to say to a father who doesn’t know if his daughter is dead or alive?
I nod. The topic of Brittany is quietly set aside.
“Any more news on the fuel sample?” Penelope asks after Larose settles into the second guest chair beside mine. It’s a tight squeeze, two sets of long legs wedged into a space more suitable to the limbs of grade school kids.
He shakes his head.
I have a vague recollection about something to do with a missing fuel sample. I ask him to fill me in on the details.
He shoots a concerned sideways glance at Penelope. I get it. He’s wondering, “How can he not know all about this?”
She gives him an almost imperceptible nod and graciously says, “I’d like to hear it again, too.”
Larose nods and turns back to me. “The NTSB recovered an uncontaminated fuel sample from the engine block of the Cessna.”
I nod. This much I know.
“The sample they sent for testing went missing sometime in the past week or two,” he continues. “The original thinking was that it had been misplaced in the lab and would turn up when they had a good look around.”
“It hasn’t?”
Larose shakes his head with a disturbed expression. “Not only that, but a second sample they held back from testing
