by John Moralee
“See you tomorrow,” Ripley said.
She smiled at Ripley, but she looked uncomfortable in Nolan’s presence, which puzzled him. Where had he seen her before? She hurried out before he could remember.
“Who was that?” Nolan asked.
“Oh, that’s just my teaching assistant.” Ripley pulled the books across his desk. “Excuse me – I have to work now. Goodbye, Mr Nolan.”
Nolan was sure he had seen the girl somewhere else – but he didn’t figure it out until he reached his car.
Then he realised where he had seen her.
She had been a waitress at last night’s restaurant, where his car had been vandalised.
*
He found out where she lived – in a condo the colour of a boiled lobster near the university. He staked it out until she appeared. She was about to unlock her apartment’s door when he stepped up behind her. She heard him coming and turned around, perhaps expecting a friend because she was smiling until she saw it was Nolan. The smile vanished, replaced by fear.
“What are you doing – stalking me?”
“Melanie, I know what you did to my car.”
She fumbled with her keys, trying to get away from him, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a waitress at the place I went last night. You swiped my card. Sometime during my dinner, you went out to the parking lot to spray my car. You’re a part of the anti-DART movement.”
“You’ve got the wrong person,” she insisted. “I’m just a student.”
“No.” He had noticed a peace symbol on her wrist. “I saw you at the protest wearing a pink wig. “You were with a Native American. You saw my car, then when you saw it again you vandalised it.”
“You can’t prove that,” she said. “So stop harassing me.”
“Listen, I’m pretty sure you’d get kicked out of university if I told the police about what you did. But I don’t care about the vandalism. But I do care about what happened to my friend Ken Mayer. Did you or your boyfriend have anything to do with his plane crash?”
“What? That’s insane. We protest. We don’t harm people. I could have messed with your brakes if I’d wanted to – but I didn’t.”
“How can I be sure you didn’t sabotage his plane?”
“I can prove it,” she said. She reluctantly invited him into her apartment, which was untidy and chaotic. She rummaged through a mound of unwashed clothes until she found a Sony camcorder. “Billy and I were filming for a documentary the day that happened.”
She plugged the camcorder into a big television, playing the recording on the screen. Melanie and Billy had been shooting from a position close to the security fence. Nolan could see Ken’s plane in the distance flying low over but keeping its altitude steady. Melanie had been zooming in when it suddenly flipped over and crashed. He heard Billy swear when it exploded. “Let’s get out of here, Mel!” Then they were running away.
“See? We had nothing to do with it.”
“Go back. Slow it down just before the plane flipped over.”
Nolan stepped closer to the television until he could see the individual pixels. Just before the plane crashed, Nolan saw a red flash on the cockpit window. It was only on one frame, but Nolan gasped.
“What is it?” Melanie asked him.
“That was murder.”
*
When Nola arrived at DART, he could tell something had happened because the security was tighter than normal.
“What’s happened?” he asked a security guard.
“We’re on high alert,” the man told him. “Mr Falcon’s increased the security checks because of that lot out there.”
The Think Tank smelled as bad as the first time, but the worrying thing was Nolan found himself getting used to the BO. Ed Hubert was on his own staring at an equation so complicated it looked like Chinese.
“Ed, I’ve got something I’d like you to look at.”
The scientist faced him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“I’ve found a tape of the plane crash taken by a civilian. It shows something very interesting.”
Ed looked at the tape Nolan was holding. “That contains footage of the crash?”
Nolan nodded.
“There’s a machine over there you can play it on.”
Nolan played the tape for Ed, who watched it as carefully as he had done. “Did you see that red dot?”
“I’m not blind,” Ed said. “Someone targeted the cockpit with a laser.”
“It was fired from the direction of this building. Probably from the roof. It must have dazzled and blinded Ken, causing him to lose control.”
Ed’s eyes narrowed. “And you think I did it?”
“Where were you when it happened?”
“I was here in the Think Tank.”
“Any witnesses?”
“No – but that doesn’t mean I did it.”
“You didn’t want to watch the test?”
“No – I had more important things to do.”
“What did you do when you heard the explosion?”
“I didn’t hear the explosion. The whole building is soundproofed. It has to be because of all the planes flying over it. Far too distracting. I only found out when Dr Harker rushed in and told me what had happened.”
Angela was in her office when Nolan located her. She looked up with a smile until she saw the security men behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“You lied,” he said. “You didn’t hear the explosion from your office. It’s soundproofed. You heard it from the roof, where you were using a laser to blind Ken.”
“Geoff, that’s ridiculous!”
“I wish it were,” he said sadly. “But I have proof, unfortunately. Some protesters filmed the crash. You can see a red dot on the cockpit window aimed from this building. You used your security card to take a laser from the restricted area, then returned it just after the crash. There’s also a security video of you going up to the roof.”
She glared at him speechless.
“These men are going to place you under arrest now. But I’d like to know why you did it. Why did you kill Ken?”
“It was nothing personal, Geoff. I liked Ken, but I deserved to be running my department. I deserved the big office for all of the work I’ve done for DART. I thought by removing Ken I would get the job, but that idiot Peter Falcon is a sexist fool. He’d never let a woman have that office. Never. His male chauvinism is a bigger crime than what I did.”
*
Nolan found Judy in the gazebo. Her eyes were half shut until she saw his shadow fall upon her, then she looked up. “You know who did it, don’t you?”
“Dr Harker caused the crash,” he told her. “She just wanted a promotion. He was an obstacle in her way.”
He told Judy the FBI had arrested her. She wept with relief. “Thank you, Geoff. I knew you could help.”
“I also found out something else, which may be a comfort in a way. On the day Ken died, his phone was left in a box in the reception. It was forgotten about until today. They gave me to give to you. It turns out the ‘H’ in his diary stood for ‘hospital’. Specifically, the oncology department at John Hopkins. Remember how Ken had been getting bad headaches for weeks? It wasn’t because of stress. He had an inoperable brain tumour. That was the reason why his behaviour changed. The day he discovered the truth, Ken’s doctor gave him less than six months to live. Ken didn’t want anyone to know or worry – especially you. That was why he kept it a secret. The knowledge must have been eating him up. He wanted to finish the Phoenix Alpha project before he died so you would receive his bonus. Ironically, Dr Harker killed him for nothing.”
Judy shook her head in disbelief. “So he would have died anyway?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“So that means the crash saved him months of suffering?”
“Yes,” he said. “He died flying, which was the one thing he loved doing.”
Judy poured
herself a drink. “Will you join me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Make mine a big one.”
She poured him a glass.
“To Ken!” Judy said.
They clinked glasses and drank a toast, while looking up at the pale blue sky, laced with vapour trails.
Ken, Nolan thought, I hope you’re up there again, flying through the heavens.
Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye..
Afterword
Dear Kindle Reader:
The original version of Afterburn first appeared in the magazine Crimewave. Diamond Pass and An English Rose with Thorns also appeared there. Pulling Punches and Distant Relatives appeared in the magazine The New Writer. The Uncertainty Principle was in The Mammoth Book of Future Cops.
The other stories are new to this collection.
I hope you enjoyed reading them.
John Moralee © 2011