Hard Landing

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I arrived at the airport Monday morning, Molly was already bent over her desk in the quiet office, lost in deep concentration.

"You're in early," I said.

Her head snapped up as she swung around in her squealing chair. I flinched and, trying not to spill my tea, dropped my keys.

"Ohmygod… don't sneak up on me like that."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I was sneaking." I reached down for the keys. "What are you doing here? It's not even seven o'clock."

Hand to her chest, she drew a couple of theatrical breaths. "It's time for invoices. I save them up and do them once a month. And I'm going to need signatures, so don't go too far. Here"-she handed me my morning mail-"this should keep you busy."

"Yes, ma'am. Come in when you're ready." As she turned back to her work, I unlocked the door and fled to the sanctity of my own office, where I could continue to unravel in private.

I was still unhinged from Friday night. I was supposed to have spent the weekend apartment hunting. Instead, I'd holed up in my hotel room eating room-service food and watching pay-per-view movies. The only times I'd gone out were to run, and every time I had, I'd looked over my shoulder at least once and resented it.

With my coat off, my tea in hand, and the mail in front of me, I tried to go through my morning routine. But the normal routine did not include standing up to adjust the blinds three times, or rearranging the chairs in front of my desk, or straightening all the pencils in my drawer. It seemed that Ellen had already done that, anyway.

After not having looked all weekend, I finally gave in and pulled the faxes out of my briefcase. Nothing about them had changed since Friday, and they were just as offensive in the light of day. I still felt that scraping in the pit of my stomach when I looked at them, but I couldn't stop looking at them. Molly arrived, giving me a good reason to put them aside. Facedown.

She pushed through the door with a heavy ledger, an accordion file, and a large-key calculator, all of which she arranged methodically on her side of my desk.

"All you need is a green eyeshade," I said.

"Never mind what I need. I've got a system, and it's worked fine for some twenty-two years. The bills get paid on time, we don't pay them twice, and the auditors are happy."

"Before we start, I have a question for you," I said. "Do you know where I can rent a VCR for my hotel room?"

"Are we boring you already?"

"I've watched every pay-per-view movie offered this month, some twice. I need something fresh."

"I'll see what I can do. One of the agents' husbands repairs TVs. I'll bet I can get you a deal."

"I'll bet you can."

She handed me a ticket envelope. "Sign this first."

I opened it and looked inside, trying to decipher her loopy handwriting. "What's this?"

"It's a pass."

"I know it's a pass," I said, signing. "But who is Our Lady of the Airwaves? Patron saint of radio broadcasts? Sister Mary Megahertz?"

"Airways," she said, snatching it back, "not waves. It's the chapel here at the airport. They have an auction every year and we always donate a pass."

"Ah." Ellen's frequent-flier travel popped into my mind. "Did you ever request any passes for Ellen on United?"

"I never requested any passes for her, period. She spent all her time here at the airport. Weekends, too."

"So you didn't know she was buying tickets on United."

"She was most certainly not doing that. I would have known."

She gave me the first invoice. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for three hundred barrels of deicing fluid, a reminder that I was in a true cold-weather station for the first time in my career. "How many of these will I sign this winter?"

"Could be two, could be ten. Depends on the weather."

"That narrows it down." I signed and passed it back. "I found a frequent-flier card in the desk. Ellen flew at least five times on United that we know about. Dan's finding out if there were more."

She handed me the next invoice without a word. It was to reimburse a passenger whose coat had caught in the conveyor belt at the security checkpoint, and it was almost a hundred bucks.

"This is pretty expensive dry cleaning," I said.

"It was a suede coat."

"Was the belt malfunctioning?"

"No. In fact, the checkpoint supervisor thinks the passenger might have done it on purpose trying to get a new coat."

I signed it and handed it back. "Wouldn't be the first time. What about Ellen's travel?"

"I'll believe it when I see it. You'll have to prove it to me."

"All right. Dan's got the card. He can prove it to you."

The next invoice was for ticket stock, and the one after that for snow plowing in the employee parking lot. I signed them all. "Molly?"

"Ummmm…" She was busy shuffling papers.

"I found something in Ellen's suspense file the other night, and I don't know what to do with it. It was a copy of an old invoice from 1992. It had no notes or instructions. Any idea why she may have had it?"

"Let me see it."

The mystery invoice from Crescent had popped out of suspense and was in my in-box again. I dug it out and gave it to her. "Did she ask you to pull it for her?"

"No. Means nothing to me."

"Do you know the company?"

"Sure. Crescent Security. They've done some work for us, nickel-and-dime stuff like background checks, but I haven't heard anything about them for a few years. Do you want me to do anything with it?"

"Stick it back in follow-up for next week. If nothing comes up by then, toss it."

"One more." The last invoice she gave me covered the cost of a new windshield for one of the tugs on the ramp. It was attached to a requisition, which had been approved by Ellen.

I read the explanation. "Wear and tear?"

"With a baseball bat. The boys on the ramp were upset about the last bid." She started to collect her files, then glanced over matter-of-factly. "So, what did you two find up in Marblehead? Anything?"

"What?"

"You and Danny were up there on Friday, weren't you?"

"How did you know that?"

"Everyone in the station knew."

Catching my reaction, she stopped sorting the files. "Oh, please. It's not like you can sneak around. You have four hundred people working for you, and every single one feels entitled to know what you're up to at all times, especially if it has to do with Ellen."

I turned the faxes over and slid them across the desk to her, keeping the one from the snitch and the one to me aside. "I found these."

She paged through the stack, no more affected than if she had been flipping through wallpaper samples.

"These are nothing," she said with a dry chuckle. "You should see what they wrote about her in the bellies of airplanes."

"Is this amusing?"

She shifted all the way back in her chair, looking more surprised than angry. But then her neck stiffened, and so did her backbone. "What do you want me to say? Yes, it's horrible. And yes, it offends me. But it doesn't surprise me. You work around here long enough and you get used to it. That's the way it is."

"This is not nothing." I snatched the faxes from the desk and held them up, surprised at my own angry reaction. But I couldn't help it. It was all starting to get to me. "How can anyone ever get used to this?"

Her trademark red lips seemed to grow more vibrant. Then I realized it was really her face growing more pale. "I don't believe I like your tone."

She stood up and huffed out, leaving all her files on my desk and me staring at the spot in the chair where she had just been. The lemon had been floating in my tea too long, and it tasted bitter when I drew one last sip. I slammed the cup into the trash, then sat by myself and tried to figure out whom exactly I was mad at.

"Molly?"

She must not have gone far because she was back instantly, standing in the doorway, hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry, Molly, that was uncalled for."

"Why are you yelling at me?" she demanded. "Why are you yelling at all?"

"Come back in and I'll show you."

"Can I bring my cigarettes?"

"Yes."

When she was good and ready, she strolled back in and sat down, closing the door behind her. In my entire career with Majestic, I'd never spent so much time with the door closed. I pulled the "We're watching you" fax out and showed it to her. "This came to me Friday night at Ellen's house. I was standing right there and the thing just rolled off." I pointed at the number. "That's my hotel room." Remembering the sound of the machine in that silent house set off a shiver. "It scared the shit out of me."

She shook her head and resumed her seen-it-all attitude, sticking a cigarette between her lips and talking around it. "I've got to admit, that would be upsetting, but it doesn't mean someone followed you. I told you, all the agents at the counter were chattering like magpies about how you and Danny were going up to Marblehead to find Ellen's 'murderer.' " She rolled her eyes as she fired up.

"How do people know these things?"

"As far as the hotel room, that's easy. Someone probably knows someone who knows someone at the Hyatt. Otherwise, they eavesdrop. They read the mail when it comes in. They listen in on phone conversations. They have friends and cousins and brothers and sisters who work around town. They compare notes and put two and two together. That's why we always close the door."

I thought back to last week. The door had indeed been open when Dan and I talked about getting the power of attorney and going up to Marblehead.

Molly was perched on the edge of her chair watching me, her small, manicured hands dangling off the ends of the armrests. "Molly, do you believe Ellen was murdered?"

She shook her head. "It makes for good gossip, but it just doesn't fit with the facts. I'm sorry."

I wasn't, and for the first time since I'd gone to Ellen's house, my shoulders came down from around my ears. "Help me understand what's going on around here."

She nodded as she drew deeply on the cigarette, letting her eyes close and leaving a bright red ring around the white filter. "About three months ago Ellen changed the manning on the ramp. There's nothing wrong with what she did. In fact, it was probably overdue. But bottom line, it made for fewer full-time union jobs and a lot of favorite shifts being moved or going away. She also cut the overtime, which to some was worth as much as their salary. And, she cracked down on sick-time abuse, vandalism, theft and pilferage."

"In other words, she was doing her job."

"If this were anyplace but Boston, I'd agree with you." She spoke with great patience and tolerance, making the most of her role as station historian. "But here you have to take history into consideration, and management has a history of looking at these problems with a wink. Either that or a blind eye. When Lenny ran the place, he winked a lot. Dickie Flynn was blind. Blind drunk."

"And Ellen was neither one."

"That is a true statement."

"Dan told me about Dickie."

"What did he tell you?"

"That his wife and kids left him and he went into the tank."

"He would say that." She took a drag and stared out the window for a long time, lost in her own thoughts. "Like oil and water, those two. Danny always resented covering for Dickie, and Dickie was usually threatening to fire Danny for one reason or another. As if he could. The place would have run into the ground without Danny."

"Dickie wasn't an alcoholic?"

"He was, but Dickie was a sweet man who got lost somewhere along the way. Something happened to him, I don't know what, but it wasn't because his wife left him. Twyla and the girls adored him. She never would have left him if not for the drinking."

"What about Lenny? What kind of manager was he?"

"A deal maker. Lenny's a very charming guy when he wants to be, but truth be told, he only cares about making the numbers and getting promoted. You'll get along fine with him if you just make the numbers. That's where Ellen got into trouble."

"How?"

"Coming over from Majestic and being young and a woman and from staff, she was trying to prove herself. I think she tried too hard, went at it too fast, and tried to change everything at once. You have to work slowly around here, especially with the union."

"Is that when the abuse started?"

"At first the union did like they always do when they get threatened. Slowed down the operation, delayed flights, set fire to the place. Equipment started disappearing or going out of service, and they wouldn't come to Ellen's meetings. The usual stuff."

"That's the usual stuff?"

She shrugged. Smoke drifted through her lips as she nodded toward the slightly crumpled faxes on my desk. "But then these type messages started showing up, and I felt like something changed. They were, like you say, more personal. And she started getting them at home. As far as I know, the union has never taken their grievances into a manager's home. On the other hand, they never had to work for a woman before, either. Maybe that's what really set them off."

"When did things start to get personal?"

"Two, maybe three weeks ago. Around the time she found the dead rat in her mailbox.

"A dead rat?"

"Yeah, it was disgusting. Head was crushed, all stiff and dried out."

"How do you know?"

"She took a picture."

"That's certainly presence of mind."

"She wanted to have proof. I think that's when she changed her locks and, if you ask me, that was the beginning of the end. Ellen was always so put together. You know what I mean? The hair, the nails, the clothes. But after that it was almost like she didn't care. She put in more and more hours at the airport, most of the time in her office with the door shut. I think she was afraid to go home. I'm pretty sure she was losing weight."

"Tell me about her last day."

"She was here in her office by herself all morning with the door shut. She took a few calls, but mostly I think she was calling out. About one o'clock I saw the light on her line go off, the door opened, and she came out. She was trying to hide it, but her nose was all red and she had sunglasses on. She told me she wasn't feeling well, packed up, and went home. I never saw her again."

"You have no idea what happened?"

"No. And usually I know everything. Whatever it was, she kept the secret well."

"I wonder if she confided in anyone. You don't know who she was talking to right before she left that day?"

"No. She was answering her own phone. I do have a log of all her phone messages, if you think that would help." She went out to her desk, this time taking her invoices with her. When she came back, she had yet another of her ledgers, which she opened on my desk in front of me. It was a single-spaced listing of callers, dates, and times of messages Molly had taken for Ellen.

"Are you keeping tabs on me, too?"

She turned to a page with my name across the top. Listed were all the messages I'd received since I'd been there.

"Dickie used to accuse me of not giving him messages," she said, "like he could even remember anything that happened from one day to the next. That's when I started keeping track. It really comes in handy sometimes."

I studied the pages, several pages with Molly looking over my shoulder. "These non-Majestic people, do you know who they were to Ellen?"

"When someone calls, I ask what's it about. If they say, I write it down on the message. I don't log that part, but I can remember most of them. Like this one"-her bracelets rattled in my ear as she reached across to point out an entry-"this was the woman who used to cut her hair. Here's a call from her aunt on Ellen's birthday. It was the only message I ever took from her. This woman here, I remember she wouldn't say what she wanted and she never left her phone number. Said it was personal."

"Julia Milholland. Sounds very old Boston. She called three times in one week?"

"She was trying to set up some kind of an appointment with Ellen."

I pulled out a pad, copied down Julia Milholland's name, and checked out the rest of the list. "Matt Levesque. I know him. He's a manager in the Finance department. We've done work together."

"He was usually returning Ellen's calls. I think she worked with him on the merger. And he's a director now, not a manager."

"Ellen worked on the merger?"

"She came here from that assignment, some kind of a task force."

I opened the drawer and pulled out the empty hanging file labeled nor'easter/majestic merger. "Do you happen to know where this file is?"

"I don't know where it is now, but she had it on her desk a couple of weeks ago."

I copied down Matt's number. "I think it's time I called my old pal Matt and congratulated him on his promotion."