Impact

41

Wyman Ford had crossed the Wiscasset Bridge when he finally pulled off the road in front of an antique shop. He threw the car into park and sat there, thinking. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something wasn't adding up. It had to do with the odd behavior of the girl in the restaurant and this crazy story in the local paper. He picked up the paper, which he'd tossed on the passenger's seat. The girl in the restaurant was definitely the girl in the news story, the one searching for the pirate treasure. When he'd asked her about the meteorite, she'd suddenly become nervous. Why? And how many small-town waitresses knew the difference between the terms meteor and meteorite?

He pulled out and headed back the way he had come. Ten minutes later he walked into the restaurant. The girl was still there, bustling around, and he watched her from the maitre d's station at the door. She was definitely the one from the story in the papers--in fact, she was the only African-American he'd seen on his entire trip to Maine. Short black hair that curled around her face, bright black eyes, slender and tall, with an athletic frame. Walking around with a sardonic, even ironic expression on her face. No makeup at all. A stunningly beautiful girl. Twenty-one, maybe?

As soon as he stepped into the dining room she saw him, and a guarded look came into her face. He nodded at her, smiled.

"Forget something?" she asked.

"No."

Her face frosted up. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry, but aren't you the girl who was involved in that incident I read about in the paper?"

Now her face became positively cold. She crossed her arms. "If you don't mean to pry, then don't." She turned to leave.

"Wait. Give me a minute. This is important."

She waited.

"You corrected me on my use of the word meteor versus meteorite."

"So?"

"How'd you know the difference?"

She shrugged, folded her arms, glanced back at her section.

Ford wasn't even sure where he was heading with this, what he hoped to find out. "It must have been exciting when that meteor streaked overhead."

"Look, I have to get back to work."

Ford looked at her steadily. She was oddly nervous. "You sure you didn't see it? Not even the trail? It persisted in the sky more than half an hour."

"I already told you, I didn't see it at all."

Her eyes were tense. Why would she lie? He pressed ahead, still unsure of where this was going. Clearly she wasn't used to lying, and her face betrayed confusion and alarm. "Where were you when it fell?"

"Sleeping."

"At nine-forty-four P.M., a girl your age?"

She faced him directly, crossing her arms. "You're really interested in that meteorite, aren't you?"

"In a way."

She narrowed her eyes. "You looking for it?"

"As a matter of fact, I am."

She seemed to consider this, then she smiled. "You want to find it?"

"That would interest me very much."

She stepped closer and spoke in a low voice. "I get off in half an hour. Meet me in the bookstore cafe down the street."

A half-hour later, the girl arrived. She had changed from her waitressing uniform into jeans and a plaid shirt.

Ford rose and offered her a seat.

"Coffee?"

"Triple shot of espresso, two shots of cream, four sugars."

Ford ordered coffees and carried them to the table. She looked at him directly, her brown eyes disconcertingly alert. "You start first. Tell me who you are and why you're looking for the meteor."

"I'm a planetary geologist--"

She gave a sarcastic snort. "Cut the bullshit."

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"No planetary geologist would have mixed up the words meteor and meteorite. A real planetary geologist would have used the scientific term, meteoroid."

Ford stared at her, flabbergasted at being smoked out so easily--by a small-town waitress no less. He quickly covered up his confusion with a smile. "You're a bright girl."

She continued to look at him steadily, her arms folded in front of her on the table.

Ford extended his hand. "Let's start with an introduction. I'm Wyman Ford."

"Abbey Straw." The cool hand slipped into his and he gave it a shake.

"I'm sort of a private investigator. That meteoroid interests me. I'm trying to track it down."

"Why?"

He thought of lying again, decided on a half-truth instead. "I'm working for the government."

"Really?" She leaned forward. "Why's the government interested?"

"There were certain . . . anomalies about the fall that make it interesting. I hasten to say I'm not here in any official capacity--you might say I'm freelancing."

Abbey seemed to be thinking, and then she spoke slowly. "I know a lot about that meteoroid. What's it worth to you?"

"Excuse me." Ford was nonplussed. "You want me to pay you for the information?"

Abbey reddened. "I need money."

"What kind of information do you have?"

"I know where it landed. I've seen the crater."

Ford could hardly believe his ears. Was she lying? "Care to tell me about it?"

"Like I said, I need money."

"How much?"

A hesitation. "One hundred thousand dollars."

Ford stared at her, and then started to laugh. "Are you crazy?"

Her face faltered. "I only ask because . . . well . . . that's what it cost me to find the crater."

"For a hundred thousand dollars, I could find the crater five times over."

"Trust me, Mr. Ford, you could search that bay a hundred years and not find it--unless you knew exactly where to look. It's small and unrecognizable from the air."

Ford leaned back, sipped his coffee. "Perhaps you might tell me how you made this discovery and why it cost you a hundred thousand dollars."

The girl took a long sip of her coffee. "I will. Back on April fourteenth, I had just bought a telescope and I was taking a time exposure of the constellation Orion. Wide field. The meteor passed through and I got the streak on film. Or rather digitally."

"You photographed it?" Ford could hardly believe his luck.

"Then I had an idea--I checked the GoMOOS weather buoy data on the Internet. No waves. I figured it must have hit an island instead of the water. So, by angulating from the photograph, I was able to identify a line along which it must have fallen. I borrowed my father's lobster boat, took a friend, and went out looking for it."

"Why so interested in meteorites?"

"Meteorites are worth a lot of money."

"You're quite the entrepreneur."

"To cover our tracks we circulated a phony story about looking for a pirate treasure."

"I'm beginning to see the real story," said Ford.

"Yeah. Our meth-addicted stalker was addled enough to believe it and attacked us, sinking my father's lobster boat. The insurance company wouldn't pay."

"I'm sorry."

"My father's making payments on a boat that doesn't exist. We might lose our house. So you see why I need money--to get him a new boat."

Emotion welled up in her eyes. Ford pretended not to notice. "You found the crater," Ford said easily. "So what did the meteorite look like?"

"Did I say I found a meteorite?"

Ford felt his heart quicken. He knew instinctively the girl was telling the truth. "You didn't find a meteorite in the crater?"

"Now we're getting into the information that's going to cost you."

Ford looked at her steadily for a long time. Finally he spoke. "May I ask what a girl with your brains is doing waitressing in Damariscotta, Maine?"

"I dropped out of college."

"What college?"

"Princeton."

"Princeton? Isn't that somewhere in Jersey?"

"Very funny."

"What'd you major in?"

"I was supposedly pre-med but I took a lot of physics and astronomy courses. Too many. I flunked organic chem, lost my financial aid."

Ford thought for a while. What the hell. "It just so happens a hundred thousand dropped in my lap the other day which I don't really need. It's yours--to buy a new boat. But it comes with conditions. You're working for me, now. You'll be absolutely quiet, tell nothing to no one, not even your friend. And the first thing we're going to do in this new boat is visit the crater. Agreed?"

The girl surprised Ford by the sheer wattage of her smile. She stuck out her hand. "Agreed."