The Disappeared Girl

by Martin J. Smith

  Dorsey peeled the phones off his head and hung them over the mike boom. He liked to finish strong. Today, he’d rambled and fumed. Was he even coherent? After shoveling the day’s news clippings back into the file folder, Dorsey squeezed past the console and opened the studio door. Sabrina was already gone; he was alone in the control room with his stone-faced brother-in-law.

  “Jim?”

  Christensen smiled, but it seemed perfunctory, like the handshake before a settlement conference. “Sorry to just drop by. I was Downtown anyway, and Gateway Center was close.”

  Dorsey waved away the apology. “Everything OK?”

  “I’m not sure, Michael. Got a minute?”

  “Of course.” Dorsey pushed Sabrina’s chair toward his brother-in-law and invited him to sit, then settled his bulk on the edge of her console. “What’s going on?”

  Christensen leaned forward, staring with the same intensity Dorsey had seen through the window. He said, “I need you to tell me again how you brought Melissa into the country.”

  Chapter 15

  Christensen was better than most at reading faces, but he couldn’t begin to guess at the emotions registering on Michael Dorsey’s at that moment. His brother-in-law flushed red, a scarlet wave that crested and broke immediately, then shut his eyes tight. He drew one long breath and let it out before he opened them, and when he did he looked everywhere in the studio’s control room except at Christensen. He’d hit a nerve, no question.

  “Michael?”

  Dorsey eased his beefy haunch off the console and pretended to study his producer’s computer screen. “How is Melissa?” he asked.

  “How much did Carole tell you?”

  Dorsey finally looked Christensen in the eye, but just for a moment before he glanced away again. “I know she’s pregnant. I know the baby’s father bailed on her. I’m assuming what happened Sunday night was all part of that.”

  “Her life’s pretty complicated right now,” Christensen said. “A lot of things may have caught up to her that night. I think—hope—that’s when she hit bottom. I just wish I’d seen it coming.”

  “Don’t blame yourself.”

  He shrugged. “I’m her dad. It’s my job.”

  Dorsey checked his watch. “But you think the worst is over?”

  Christensen waited until he had Dorsey’s full attention. “She had an appointment this morning. An unplanned pregnancy—it’s a complicated choice in the best of conditions. Quadruple that for an adoptee like Melissa. So she’s trying to deal with that.”

  Dorsey nodded and checked his watch. Christensen found his inattention annoying.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  Dorsey flushed again. “Jim—sorry. I’m supposed to be in New York for a late-afternoon thing with the network people. But it’s fine. Airport traffic won’t be a problem this time of day. I just need to keep an eye on the clock.”

  “I’ll cut right to it then.”

  Christensen reached into his shirt pocket and unfolded the newspaper clipping he’d put there, a report from that day’s Press about efforts to salvage the airplane wreckage from the muddy Mon River. He laid it on the studio’s control console and let Dorsey read the headline. He’d rehearsed this moment since he first started wondering if Melissa was aboard the plane. The best way to handle it, he’d decided, was to pose an ambiguous question and let Dorsey react.

  “What can you tell me about this?” Christensen said.

  Dorsey focused so long and hard on the clipping Christensen thought he might be trying to read the whole story. Christensen waited, and waited, resisting the urge to elaborate or explain.

  When Dorsey finally spoke, he asked a question of his own: “This is part of what happened Sunday?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Part of her depression? She told you this?”

  “I’ve been looking into it based on things she’s said since Sunday.”

  “But what’s the connection?”

  Christensen thought of his daughter’s desperate dreams, and the dancing shadows of street lamps, and her fear, or memory, of drowning in ice-cold water. He thought of Ray Krug and of the questions his files had answered and raised. He thought of the flight’s point of origin at a US airfield just outside Buenos Aires.

  “I believe—” He pointed to the unfolded news article. “I believe Melissa’s focusing on certain details of this incident for a reason.”

  Dorsey held up both hands, palms out. “Go back,” he said. “What you first said about how I brought Melissa into the country.”

  Christensen nodded. “She has these images in her head—to her they feel like memories—and what she’s saying makes me wonder if maybe she was aboard this military plane that crashed.”

  “And if she was?” Dorsey snapped. “It was twenty-two years ago, for God’s sake. What does that have to do with anything now?”

  Dorsey’s response caught Christensen unprepared. “She needs to know.”

  “Why?”

  Enough. “Skip the coy stuff, Michael. I’m asking the questions. You arranged the adoption. You brought her into the country through diplomatic channels.” Christensen gestured again to the newspaper clipping, “This accident—when it happened, how it happened, where the flight originated—”

  Dorsey looked away.

  “What I’m saying, Michael—we need to know everything we can about her life before adoption. She’s trying to decide whether or not to carry her pregnancy through to term, and her genetic test raised some questions that make her think—”

  “Questions?” Dorsey interrupted.

  Christensen cleared his throat. How much would his daughter want him to share? “Michael, Melissa’s at the point—in life, in this pregnancy—where she needs to know everything about her past, if that’s even possible, or at least as much as she can. And she needs to know it soon.”

  Christensen caught the edginess in his own voice and downshifted. “There’s only so much I can tell her, because there’s only so much I know. If there are real events behind these dreams, or memories, or whatever she’s struggling with, it could help us work back into her past. But she’s dealing with something bigger than any of this, and she needs help. Answering questions about how she got into the United States is a good start.”

  “And what if I can’t answer those questions, Jim? What if there are good reasons why I can’t?”

  “It’s ancient history, like you said.”

  “National security reasons. There are just some things I can’t talk about with you. With anybody.”

  Christensen was breathing hard. He stood up and walked to the opposite wall of the control room, waiting for his respiration to slow. When it did, he turned and crossed his arms to signal his resolve.

  “Was Melissa on this plane?”

  “Goddamn it, Jim.”

  “The truth, Michael.”

  The control room door popped open. Producer Sabrina stepped between the two men. “Tick, tick, tick,” she said to Dorsey. “Airport security’s a bitch, remember?”

  “Soon.”

  In the vacuum created by Dorsey’s terse answer, the young woman realized she’d blundered into something pointed and dangerous. She backed out the door, leaving a delicate “Sorry” floating like a soap bubble between the two men.

  “I’ve told you everything I can,” Dorsey said. He lifted his suit jacket from the coatrack in the corner of the control room, then stooped to pick up a leather overnight bag from the floor beside the rack.

  “It’s not enough,” Christensen said.

  “It’ll have to be. I’m not talking about this with you.”

  “Bullshit, Michael. Tell me why you can’t. What possible—”

  “Don’t put me in this position, Jim. Please. Bottom line: None of it matters as far as Melissa is concerned. That I can tell you.”

  Christensen unfolded his arms and squared himself to his brother-in-law. “I’ll find out anyway. There’s other people I can talk to
. Documents. Records. You’d make me do all that rather than tell me what you know?”

  “What I know are things you have no business knowing.”

  Christensen gestured around the tiny room. “It’s just us, Michael. You and me. All the years we’ve known each other—you’re as much my brother as Carole is my sister. And I know how you feel about Melissa. The way you’ve doted on her from the beginning, the strings you pulled to get her into college—”

  “Jim, stop.” Dorsey nodded to the wall clock and opened the control room door into the outer studio. He stepped halfway through and turned back. “Seriously. Prowling around about this … it’s way above your pay grade.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to,” Dorsey said, and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Chapter 16

  The Yellow Cab burst into daylight at the south end of the Fort Pitt tunnel, racing, at Dorsey’s urging, for Greater Pittsburgh International Airport. The driver’s abrupt lane changes kept the overnight bag skidding back and forth across the taxi’s gritty floor. Dorsey waited for it to slide within reach, then snaked a hand into it and groped for his cell phone and the folded piece of paper with Ramon Guerra’s number on it.

  He absently typed the name and number into his contacts, but paused before dialing. Was there really any point in talking to him now? What could he offer the man beyond vague reassurances?

  Dorsey studied the tiny screen, reminding himself to delete the record of this call from his phone’s memory. What was there to say that he hadn’t said at lunch that day? That Melissa was remembering? That Jim was asking questions? That his brother-in-law wanted answers about Melissa and the plane and the health histories of her biological parents? Dorsey knew his tone was going to be critical. Whatever he was going to say should come off as an advisory, not an alarm. Guerra had everything to lose if it all came undone, but there was no reason to spook him.

  “Airline?”

  Reflected in the rearview mirror, the driver’s dark eyes were on Dorsey rather than on the traffic just ahead. Dorsey checked for the driver’s name on the cab’s posted license.

  “US Airways, Josef,” Dorsey said.

  Josef veered left, just missing the back of a semi that was gearing down for the long climb up Greentree hill, which carried South Hills commuters up and out of the river valley and Downtown. The overnight bag skidded away again and banged against the inside of the cab’s rear door. The driver cut his eyes back to the mirror even as he rocketed across two more lanes.

  “You’re that guy,” he said. Slight Slovak accent.

  Dorsey still wasn’t sure how to handle the awkwardness of tentative public recognition. “I am?” he asked.

  “That radio guy.” Josef pointed to his dashboard radio. “You were on, right here, just twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thank you.”

  Josef smacked his steering wheel. “Michael Dorsey. In my cab!” He left one hand on the wheel, but reached his right arm across the seat back and turned fully around. Dorsey was still shaking the man’s hand when he gasped, “Bus!”

  Josef glanced ahead, swerved right, and turned back around. Dorsey saw his own giant face slide past the cab window as they passed the extended bulk of a Port Authority Transit bus. The radio station’s promo poster ran the length of the vehicle’s right side. Dorsey could have touched it if he’d reached out the cab’s open window. He pulled himself forward on the seat back, struggling against the cab’s thrust. But he wanted to make sure Josef could hear him.

  “When I said to hurry,” Dorsey said, “I probably should have mentioned I need to get there alive.”

  Josef laughed, but Dorsey felt the cab slow, just a bit, as the driver eased off the accelerator. The speedometer retreated into the high 70s, and Dorsey sat back.

  “I had Fred Rogers in my cab once, before he passed, God rest his soul,” Josef said. “Nice man.”

  “So the whole Mister Rogers thing wasn’t just an act?”

  Josef shook his head, apparently thinking Dorsey was serious. “He listened, do you know what I mean? You could tell he was listening when you talked to him. Very weird, having someone listen to you the way he did.”

  Dorsey held up the phone so the driver could see. It seemed a graceful way out of a conversation he didn’t really want to have. “I’m sorry, Josef, I need to make a quick call. Mind?”

  The eyes in the mirror narrowed. They appraised Dorsey critically now.

  “Always heard that about Fred,” Dorsey offered, trying to soften the blow. “That he was the real deal.”

  “Helluva nice man,” Josef said, nodding slowly. “You go ahead. You’re a busy guy.”

  Dorsey scrolled again to Guerra’s number and hit the call button. “This’ll just take a minute,” he explained as call connected. He was both relieved and anxious at the sound of Guerra’s accented voice.

  “Ramon? Michael Dorsey.”

  He heard an answer, but didn’t understand it over the rush of wind in the cab.

  “Ramon? You there?” Dorsey rolled up the window so he could hear.

  “Hello, Michael,” Guerra said. There was an odd echo to his voice. “We are talking a lot these days, my friend.”

  “On my way out of town,” Dorsey said. “That meeting in New York I told you about.”

  “I hope it goes well, Michael.”

  “I appreciate that, Ramon.”

  “But you are not calling about that.”

  Dorsey shook his head, said nothing.

  “Is there a problem, Michael?”

  “No, no. No problem. Just following up on what we talked about at lunch. I just talked to Jim, though, and wanted to let you know—”

  “The girl’s adoptive father.”

  “Right, I think my hunch was correct, Ramon. She’s maybe remembering the plane, and she’s asking about things. And now Jim’s asking questions.”

  Josef had settled the cab into the wide-open fast lane by the time they reached the top of Greentree hill. Dorsey listened to Ramon Guerra breathe for a while. He imagined him standing with those startling eyes closed, rubbing his temples.

  “Ramon, don’t read anything into this. I promised to let you know if anything came up. That’s all this is about. I talked to my brother-in-law, and he asked me some questions about how Melissa came into the country, about her birth. Not a big deal. But I promised that you’d know everything I know.”

  “He has made the connection, though? Between the girl and the plane?”

  “He’s asking, is all.”

  “And you told him what?”

  Dorsey shifted in the cab’s sticky vinyl seat. “Here’s the thing, Ramon. I told you she’s pregnant, right? She wants to know anything she can about her medical history. That’s all there is to it. Jim wasn’t interested in anything else, just what I might be able to tell him about that.”

  “But he suspects she was on the plane?”

  “So what? He knows she got here somehow. If I need to tell him something, I’ll tell him I had to keep it quiet for security reasons, or to spare the State Department any embarrassment. It’s true. How would it have looked?”

  “But Michael—do you believe that will be the end of his questions?”

  Josef the regular listener was watching him again. Dorsey forced his friendliest smile.

  “When I get back, Ramon, I’ll just sit Jim down and tell him what he wants to know. Yes, Melissa was on the plane. With me. Just the two of us and the flight crew. But because I’d cut some corners on the paperwork—that was the whole idea, remember, to expedite an international adoption—it was in everyone’s best interest, especially Melissa’s, that things were kept quiet after the plane went down. So I pulled some strings.”

  Guerra said nothing.

  “That’s really all he wants to know,” Dorsey said.

  “But, Michael, you said the girl has medical questions.”

  “They believe she was abandoned. I’ve told them that
story many times.”

  “She’ll want records, details.”

  Dorsey curled toward the cab door, away from Josef’s relentless gaze. Could the cabbie hear? Read lips? Dorsey pretended to scratch his nose, placing his hand over his mouth even as he lowered his voice.

  “There are no records, Ramon, or at least not many,” he said. “The only records are the ones I sent in the diplomatic pouch the day before we got on the plane. You know that. They know that. There’s no written information at all about her. Or your being on the plane. End of story.”

  “She is going to ask again, Michael. This time she is not just curious. Melissa, or perhaps her father, is going to ask you about her birth parents, about the circumstances back then. This is inevitable. How will you answer?”

  After the Greentree exit, the parkway opened up. Dorsey watched the speedometer creep past the 80 mph marker. Traffic was lighter, but he suddenly felt twice as tense.

  “I know nothing,” Dorsey said.

  “If you are not worried, my friend, then I suppose I should not worry. Correct?”

  “Trust me.”

  Guerra sighed. “Michael, what choice do I have?”

  Chapter 17

  Two packages had arrived in the noonday mail. One was from a parts dealer in Kansas. Guerra’s wife greeted it, as she did every new piece of his little restoration project, with a roll of her brown eyes and a muttered curse. Each new arriving part meant he was lost to her for hours, or days, as he worked alone in the fluorescent refuge of his garage. But this latest prize—a rebuilt original alternator from a 1965 Ford Falcon Sprint—was the one that most excited him, the one that at last would make the car drivable, and he resumed his work as soon as Dorsey hung up.

  The other package sat unopened on his workbench. It was about the size of a shoe box. He had ordered it from a personal-security products dealer, and it sat among his other tools, a peculiar reminder, like the Falcon, of the life he’d left behind.

  Guerra had never imagined himself restoring a vintage automobile. Cars were never his passion, even as a young man. But now, as a grandfather, he had begun to treasure certain things, odd things. His family, of course—Marta and their two daughters, and the grandsons they had borne with their American husbands—but also things that reminded him of an earlier time and another place, a time in his life when he was a man of education and influence, not just a self-exiled victim of circumstance. He and Marta lived a modest life in America, raising their daughters in the suburbs, planting tomatoes each spring, shoveling winter snow. He worked hard enough at his business to be comfortable, but there had been no extravagances until he bought the car. Once, though, there’d been entire fleets of these Falcons patrolling the streets of Buenos Aires—the vehicle of choice for the champions of their new military government. Its silent army moved in them, in darkness at first, but eventually by day. A Falcon was so much more than transportation then; it had once been a symbol of righteous men on a righteous mission. He had been given one of those fleet cars as a perk of his job at the hospital miltar.