Exit Row

by Judi Culbertson

  “Hi. I’m trying to reach someone who was at MacArthur Airport yesterday to meet his daughter. I can describe him for you.”

  “That’s okay. Sal doesn’t have any daughters.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  An hour after she had made the last call, her phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Dom Basilea. You called me about being at the airport yesterday?”

  Thank God. “I was one of the people waiting. Black bicycle shorts, chartreuse shirt?”

  “Oh, right. Did you find out anything?”

  “Did your daughter get in?”

  A hesitation. “Not yet.”

  “Well, my boyfriend didn’t either, and I’m really worried. And she didn’t call?”

  “No, but I think I know what happened. Coral was visiting my wife in Taos—she’s staying at this artist’s colony—and she was supposed to be leaving on Sunday for Mexico. I think she may have taken Coral with her.”

  “Would she do that? Is she Mexican?”

  “Huh? No. She’s just a little crazy. But she’s headed somewhere I can’t reach her.”

  “And she wouldn’t let you know?”

  “Like I said . . . Listen, I gotta get back to work.”

  “Okay, but will you call me if your daughter gets in? And was on that flight, I mean?”

  “Sure.”

  AS SOON AS she hung up, the phone rang. Lee. Lee, thank God! She grabbed for it. “Hi!”

  “This is Rosa Cooper. You left a message?”

  “Oh. Yes.” She wouldn’t let herself feel the terrible letdown until that call was over. “I’m Fiona Reina from the airport. The Eccentric Traveler?”

  “Oh, yes. The pretty one.”

  Pretty? She supposed so. Growing in Lamb’s Tongue, where Scandinavian blondes were the standard, Fiona’s straight dark hair and olive skin were not valued. People thought her eyes—light gray but with a black circle around the iris—were weird. Aunt Karen had seemed unhappy when her breasts came in early and full, as if it were not quite decent.

  “I was wondering if your author ever got here.”

  “Susan? No, she didn’t. She hasn’t even called, which isn’t like her at all!”

  The sound of drums in the background. Fiona realized it was her heart. “But what could have happened?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t understand it. This is something she’s wanted for years. What author wouldn’t? Good Morning America! We had to jump through hoops to—do you realize what it takes to get on a show like that? She was deliberately flying in early so she could rest up beforehand.”

  “And it’s tomorrow morning? Maybe she’ll still make it.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears. Airlines are so crazy these days. All these hubs and layovers instead of just plain flying.”

  “I’m calling Day Star as soon as their offices open to see if Lee was on the flight. And I talked to that pool guy. He hasn’t heard anything from his daughter either.”

  “Why don’t you try the FAA, their offices in Denver, just to make sure? Any irregularities have to be reported to them. Let me know what you find out.”

  It only took a minute to find the number for the Denver office, but after she called, she was shifted to three different extensions.

  “My name is Fiona Reina,” she told the last voice wearily. “I’m calling from New York. I need to know if there were any problems with planes yesterday.”

  “I’m sure there were.” The voice was male and good-humored. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, something in your area. Between Taos and Denver. Or Denver and New York.” She felt stupid. Nobody had suggested any problem with the planes.

  “You’re talking about a problem with a scheduled flight? Why do you want to know?”

  “I’d heard something might have happened. I’m not a journalist or anything,” she said quickly. As soon as she said it, she realized that was not true. Not an investigative journalist, anyway.

  “I’ll take a look. It’s all public record. But you’re not talking about a small private craft, two-seater, anything like that.”

  “No, more commuter sized. Like a Day Star shuttle?” My bad, leading the witness.

  “Ah, Day Star. That bunch of cowboys. These little guys, they’re a menace in the air. Buy up those old boats and don’t update shit! Uh—sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Let me see what they were up to yesterday.” Silence while he checked. “Tucson and Phoenix, routine. Denver, made an emergency landing to their own airfield. Fixed whatever it was, but came in an hour late. No disasters though. If anything happened, we’d know about it right away.”

  But would they?

  Chapter Ten

  THE CALLS TO schools for disabled children in Suffolk County went rapidly. As soon as Fiona murmured something about calling from social services, people were anxious to help. Not exactly true, but she wasn’t doing it for fraud or criminal purposes. She soon had a phone number for Maggie Farley, mother of Derek.

  The woman who gave it to her sighed. “A really sad situation. No hope of change, but she won’t give up; she keeps trying all these therapies for him that she can’t afford. As I’m sure you know.”

  Fiona murmured something, then clicked off and pressed in the number.

  “Yes, hello?” There was the sound of a plaintive wail in the background. Probably Brenda.

  “Hi, Maggie? This is Fiona Reina. From the airport yesterday?”

  “Yes, hi! Did your boyfriend ever get in?”

  “No. What about your father?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I talked to the FAA, and they said that the plane from Taos had a little trouble but finally landed. Late.”

  “Well, that’s good. That it got there, I mean.”

  “Aren’t you worried? About your father?”

  “A little. But he might not even have made the plane.”

  “Isn’t there anyone you can check with?”

  “I could call the complex where he lives. But I think it will all work out.”

  “I hope so. I’ll call you back if I find out anything else.”

  “You could stop by.” She sounded as though she would welcome the company.

  FIONA WASN’T SURE she wanted to find the backpacker. She already had three. Still, his friend might have landed and know something about Lee and the others.

  The challenge would be tracking him down. All he had said was that he was into computers. No . . . computer science. That sounded more academic. Could he be affiliated with the university? She went to the Stony Brook University site and accessed the Computer Science Department. After scrolling down the faculty photographs to the end, she was disappointed not to see anyone who looked like him. Hard to imagine him dealing with students anyway.

  She was about to leave the page when she saw other headings—Affiliated Faculty, Research Faculty, Emeritus—and clicked on those instead. She found him under “Researchers,” with a smile so charming she almost passed him by. Greg Sanderson. His areas of interest were everything from algorithms to web accessibility. Once she had his name, she was able to get a phone number from whitepages.com. She hoped he hadn’t decided to go off to Portland anyway.

  The phone was picked up after three rings. “What?”

  “Greg Sanderson?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “I was one of the people waiting at the airport yesterday. Fiona Reina? I was wondering if your friend ever showed up.”

  “If he had, I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I? I’d be on the face of Mt. Katahdin.” Still, his tone was good-humored.

  In the face of, more likely. “Did you hear from him?”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions? Come to that, how did you find me? I didn’t give you my name.”

  “The information superhighway is a wonderful thing. Why I’m calling is, no one else has heard from the people we were waiting for either. Don’t
you think that’s odd?”

  “Well, it’s only been a day, Fiona.”

  He had glommed onto her name pretty fast.

  “You want me to keep you posted?”

  “Sure.”

  “DAY STAR AIRLINES. Priss speaking.” The voice was warm and not young.

  Fiona heard it as the voice of someone experienced, someone who would understand. “Hi, Priss. My name is Fiona Reina. I’m calling about a flight yesterday morning, a flight from Taos to Denver? I wanted to find out whether someone was actually on the flight.”

  “And you are? A relative?”

  “Not exactly. It was my fiancé.”

  A perplexed silence. “But, Fiona. Surely you understand that we can’t just give out information like that over the phone. We don’t know who you are or why you want it. Or whether the passenger would even want you to know.”

  “Of course he’d want me to know! And I want it because he never arrived. I haven’t heard from him since he was about to board.” Yet even as she said it, she knew she sounded like a jealous lover tracking down someone who had escaped her clutches. “He texted me right before he got on the plane, so I know he was planning to fly.”

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “What if I came to your offices? Would you tell me then?”

  A pause. “Where are you calling from?”

  “New York. Is there anyone else I can speak to?”

  “They’ll only tell you what I just did. It’s a firm company policy.”

  “You mean you can’t even tell me if he was on the plane or not? I find that hard to believe!”

  “I know what you’re saying, and I’m sorry. But you could be a private detective, and he could sue us for divulging his whereabouts. And you can’t fax us proof that you’re a relative, because you aren’t.”

  “Not yet.” Part of Fiona knew that the law had to agree with their policy. But why were they being so inflexible? “Okay, fine. Thank you.”

  You haven’t heard the last of me.

  Her final call was to Rosa Cooper.

  “Hi, it’s—”

  “Oh, Fiona. I’d hoped you were Susan. She was on the phone with me twice Saturday about what she should wear for the show, she was that excited. Anyway, after you called me, I called the Santa Fe police. They had someone stop by her house, though they couldn’t legally enter the premises. They said the house looked normal, no break-ins, and nobody answered when they knocked.”

  “Did you try the hospitals?”

  She laughed. “I’m very thorough. No joy there.”

  “I tried the hospital in Taos last night,” Fiona confessed. “Just in case. But no one like Lee had been admitted.”

  “What did the FAA say?”

  “That’s what’s interesting. They don’t think very highly of Day Star and their equipment. Evidently it’s some fly-by-night outfit. They had to stop and refuel or something in the middle of the flight! And they got to Denver late. None of the other passengers that people were waiting for have arrived or called. Something happened during that hour, I know it!”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe they wouldn’t let some of the passengers get back on.”

  “Hmm. The fact remains, they are missing. Maybe we should get together and decide what to do next.”

  “You think so? I mean, I can’t just sit around not knowing anything.”

  “Give me the other numbers; I’ll set something up.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THEY MET AT a sports bar near the airport, which Rosa Cooper complained had all the ambiance of an old sock. The same baseball game played on every mounted screen. Fiona was the last to arrive; she hurried over to the large corner booth under a blue-and-orange Mets banner.

  Maggie shifted on the leatherette seat to make room for Fiona, her freckled face shiny in the glow of a red glass candle holder. “This is wonderful. I never get out.” Then her expression clouded. “But there’s something I have to tell everybody now that you’re here.”

  Rosa put up a hand, her arm jingling with intricate silver bracelets. “Let her order.”

  Fiona glanced at Maggie, but she seemed content to keep her news to herself. What had she been going to say? Had she heard something on the news on her way to the restaurant?

  Because everyone was drinking beer, she ordered a Blue Point ale.

  “I still don’t know why we’re here,” Greg Sanderson said to Rosa. “Do you always pick up people waiting for planes?”

  He meant it to be funny, but nobody laughed. Fiona turned to Maggie. “What were you going to say?”

  “Well, I’m not sure what it means,” she said, playing with her glass. “But just before I left for here, this woman called me. She said she was from a hospital in Denver and that my father had had a slight stroke on the plane. He’s okay now, and they’re putting him on a flight to me in a day or two.”

  Fiona reacted first. “But that’s wonderful!” It was, wasn’t it? It was the last thing she had been expecting Maggie to say. “It means he isn’t missing anymore.”

  “It’s good news for everyone, isn’t it?” Maggie’s large green eyes scanned the table.

  “Of course it is. It proves nothing sinister’s going on,” Dominick said. He was still wearing his work clothes, dark green cotton pants and shirt with his name embroidered in yellow on the pocket. “I knew there had to be a logical explanation. It’s Eve playing one of her tricks.”

  “Wait a minute,” Greg said, his voice demanding. “Did you get the name of the hospital?”

  “I—no. I didn’t think about that. I was so happy I didn’t think about anything else.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Fiona said in her defense. But there were still problems. In the late afternoon, she had called Gusto! to see if they had heard from Lee.

  They hadn’t. He had sent some early photos to make sure they were acceptable, but the editors needed the images directly from his camera. Once they had them, they would Photoshop the models into the Southwestern scenery. The days of flying crews to exotic places was over—at least for Gusto!

  “He said he would stop in today,” the fashion editor had told her, perplexed. “When do you think it will be?”

  “Lee was supposed to take the photos to the magazine today,” Fiona told the group. “Even if he was avoiding me, he wouldn’t blow them off.”

  “Maybe he’s just not that into them either,” Greg said.

  “ ‘Not into them either’? Not into them?” Her fury startled everyone. “How do you know what he’s into or not? You don’t even know him—or me!”

  “Keep your shorts on, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m sick of people coming up with dumb explanations. Look at the facts: Five people coming to New York get on a plane in Taos and are never heard from again. They never call with any explanation. Okay, Maggie’s father,” she said, conceding. “That’s still four who are missing. So where the hell are they?”

  “Coral’s in Mexico with her mother,” Dominick said.

  “Dimitri’s just an asshole.”

  But Rosa gave her head a vigorous shake. “No, she’s right. This is inexplicable. Susan Allmayer would never act like this.”

  “I feel like I’m sitting around doing nothing while Lee’s in trouble somewhere. Something happened, I know it! It’s not the plane—the FAA said it landed in Denver—but are there always people missing like this? I don’t think so!”

  “What are you going to do?” Rosa asked.

  “I don’t know. But I can’t do anything here. At least out there, I could get the authorities involved.”

  “Would you really go?”

  “Flying’s no big deal for me. I’ve got tons of miles.”

  “If you went, you could stop by Susan’s to see if the neighbors know anything.”

  Greg leaned back in the booth and grinned at Fiona. “Our woman in Santa Fe.”

  “You want me to find your friend?”

&nb
sp; “Sure. And stop global warming while you’re at it.”

  They left the bar and said good night in the parking lot.

  Fiona decided that the meeting had been useless.

  Chapter Twelve

  TUESDAY MORNING FIONA was back at Islip MacArthur Airport, arranging frequent-flyer tickets on Voyager and Day Star. The flight to Denver was full, and Voyager upgraded her to first class.

  She stowed her bag in the roomy overhead compartment. It held nothing more than jeans, a sweatshirt and several T-shirts, running shoes, underwear, and a nightshirt. She was wearing her usual traveling outfit: a navy top with tailored khaki slacks and matching jacket. The heaviest things in her bag were her laptop and several books. She was bringing Examination in Blood by Susan Allmayer, Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, and a library copy of Beauty Can Hurt You.

  It was not until she was settled into her leather seat that she realized the irony of the Dinesen book. Karen Blixen’s lover, Denys Finch-Hatton, had died tragically in a plane crash at the height of their love affair.

  She had brought it because of the African connection. Lee’s dream was to go back home to South Africa and photograph everything, from its staggering beauty to the poverty that remained, then publish it in a book. He and his brother had inherited their grandparents’ farm north of Johannesburg, and he’d pointed out that he and Fiona could live there free.

  “How long?” she asked.

  “A year?”

  “God, no. I grew up on a farm, remember?”

  “But this is beautiful country. How long, then?”

  “Two weeks?”

  He’d laughed and hugged her shoulder.

  But they already had a wonderful life in Brooklyn, friends to hang out with, restaurants to try, work projects they loved. When they moved in together, it would be perfect. If they moved in.

  She’d had an odd phone call when she was packing. When her phone started playing “La Marseillaise,” she’d run over to the desk, sure that it was Lee.

  She saw from the caller ID that it was Dominick Basilea.

  “Hi, Dominick. Listen, I’m sorry I yelled at everybody. It was just—”

  “Never mind that. I’m calling to see if you’ll do something for me.”