Sweat (24 page)

“Not that I recall. But the days here blend into one another more easily than the defined lives of the masses. Services in the morning, visits to the ill during the day. Dinner and evening prayers. Sunday is really the only day where I have what most people would call a ‘normal routine.'”

Detective Wallace opened the envelope in his left hand and pulled out the photo of Chow Ying from the surveillance tape. “Father, have you ever seen this man in church?”

Father McKenna adjusted the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He took a long look at the photo. “No detective. I think I would remember him.”

Both men picked up their coffee cups. Father McKenna sipped the steaming coffee off the surface of his cup with puckered lips. Detective Wallace, with years of hot-coffee-induced asbestos on his tongue and throat, gulped down half the cup.

“Could I see the phone or phones with this number?” Detective Wallace asked, showing the priest a page from the small detective note tablet that was an extension of his right arm and constant breast-pocket companion.

“That is the number for the public phone in the back of the church.”

“Could I see it?”

“I can show it to you on the way out, if you like.”

“Trying to get rid of me, Father?”

“No detective, not at all. But it is early. Is there something else I can do for you?”

“Would it be possible to get a list of current parishioners?”

“Absolutely,” Father McKenna said standing and keeping his bathrobe closed with his left hand. “If you wait here, it should only take a minute or two.”

“Sure Father,” Wallace answered, starting to re-read the well-crafted verse on the wall.

Father McKenna came back with a simple stack of stapled white paper. Fifteen hundred names, listed alphabetically.

“Here you are, detective.”

“Thank you, Father. And if you would show me the phone, I will get out of your hair.”

Father McKenna led Wallace through the back halls of the rectory, past the altar, and down the aisle.

“The phone is just beyond the bathroom, in the room on the right. You can let yourself out the front door when you are done. The door is always open,” said Father McKenna, pointing down the hall.

“I will. Thanks, Father,” Detective Wallace said, producing a business card and handing it to the head of the church. “If you think of anything that may be useful, please give me a call.”

“Of course, detective. Good luck with getting the answers you are looking for.”

Nguyen walked up behind Wallace as the older detective dozed in his seat, his neck swaying back and forth like a flagpole in alternating winds. Nguyen tapped him on the shoulder and Wallace shook violently in his chair, his hand catching the corner of the desk, narrowly avoiding an incident that would have resulted in a daylong ribbing from colleagues.

“Nice recovery,” Nguyen said with disappointment. “Been in long, Sarge?”

“Couldn't sleep. Got up early and went to speak with the priest at St. Michael's this morning. He doesn't know anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he's a priest. The call came from the public phone in the back of the church. It's accessible to anyone. It's down a little hall in the back of the church in one of those play rooms for kids. One of those soundproof rooms where parents can take their crying kids so they don't disturb the service.”

“You don't think the call was from someone who just happened to be walking by?”

“Not likely. I mean, would you look at a church and think ‘Hey, this is a good place to make a call?'”

“Not unless I was a parishioner and knew the phone was there.”

“Right.”

“So you think it was a parishioner who made the call?”

“Probably.”

“How many in the congregation?”

“According to the list the priest gave me, there are officially over fifteen hundred on the registry. Probably another thousand not on the list who come irregularly and could know about the phone.”

“That is a lot of pavement to pound.”

“Yes it is, Detective. And before going down that street, I was thinking about checking Marilyn's former company.”

“I'm driving, I assume?” Nguyen asked.

“Until further notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Al's legs dangled over the edge of the Potomac's retaining wall, the water rushing by five feet below, a dangerous current lurking beneath the surface. Jake stepped under the bridge into the now familiar respite from the heat. The smell of urine was strong. Empty wine bottles with screw-off lids littered the embankment near Al's neighbor's designated area. Jake scrunched his nose as he walked by, two bare feet protruding from a worn dark purple blanket.

“Jake, my friend. I knew you would be stopping by today,” Al said before his visitor got too close.

Jake looked in the same direction that Al stared, the Kennedy Center and the Whitehurst Freeway dominating the skyline, the morning sun bouncing off the water in the distance. Eight-man sculling teams raced down the edge of Roosevelt Island, oars cutting through the water in perfect unison.

“Oh, yeah? Why's that, Al?”

“Your problem hit the front page. Go grab those papers from the chair in the living room, if you don't mind,” Al asked still staring off into the distance.

Jake tried to force a smile as he walked up the sloped dirt.
The li
v
ing room…

Jake dropped the papers on the concrete wall next to Al, flopped his butt down, and hung his feet over the edge, shoes still on. Al shuffled through the first paper on the top of the stack.

Jake reached into his backpack and pulled out a bag. “I brought you lunch, if you want it. An eight-inch sub with everything… an apple, a banana, and some milk.”

“Sounds very nutritious. You'll make a great mom someday.”

“If you don't want it, just say so. I'll eat it myself.”

Al reached for the bag and put it on the other side of his body. “I'll make sure it goes to someone who can use it.”

“That's what I thought,” Jake said.

Al flipped through pages like a speed-reader on cocaine. Jake noticed the variety of the day's newspapers. The stack was thick. Everything from the
Wall Street Journal
to
Barron's
to the
Financial Times
. Al peeled off page after page and handed them to Jake.

“Take a look at the articles on the pages I dog-eared. Tell me what you see.”

Jake opened the first page, started to fidget, and moved to the next paper. The same photo, taken a few frames later than the first.

Jake looked at Al. “I know all about the photo. The story ran on the news last night.”

Al gave Jake a serious look, his mouth closed, his eyes focused. “This isn't what I would classify as a positive development.”

Jake looked at the picture of his father and Senator Day, shaking hands with Lee Chang. All three men were identified in the photo caption.

“I'm not sure exactly, but there is something you need to know. You can't really see this clearly, but on TV they had a closer picture. That's the big Asian guy I think I saw the night Marilyn was killed.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

“Not one hundred percent, but sure enough that if I see him again I'm going to be running in the opposite direction before I start asking questions.”

Al fell into a deep silence, all of the life, the craziness, gone from his personality. He was somewhere else, and Jake waited for him to return.

“Senator Day,” Al said with open disdain.

“What about him?”

“It's not good, Jake.”

“I had dinner with Senator Day a month ago. He was harmless. Arrogant and full of hot air, but harmless.”

“You had dinner with Senator Day? The senator from Massachusetts?”

“Yes. It was my first day working at my father's office. I guess he was trying to impress me.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Jake.”

“What, that my father was trying to impress me?”

“No, that you had dinner with the senator. Just as I was beginning to like you, I find out you've been sharing your table with vermin.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I'll tell you about the harmless Senator Day,” Al hissed, pausing slightly before continuing. “The plane that killed my wife and son, Egyptian Air Flight 990, took off from New York at 1:20 a.m. on October 31, 1999. The plane flew for thirty-one minutes and vanished from radar sixty miles south of Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. As usual, there was a large-scale investigation headed up by the NTSB, the FAA…the usual suspects. Lack of physical evidence made determining the cause of the crash difficult. The debris of the 747 was scattered across some fifty square miles of ocean. Two hundred and seventeen lives reduced to pieces of foam, plastic, and seat cushions bobbing on the water,” Al said, fading out, his voice cracking.

“Of course, given my former employer, I was able to lean on a few people and get a little more information than the general public could get. There were complications with the investigation. The little black boxes were eventually retrieved via a robotic arm on an unmanned mini-sub. Contrary to popular belief, information from the data recorders can be hit-or-miss, and in some cases the black boxes are worthless. In the crash of Egyptian Flight 990, the data was too good. All evidence pointed to a plane that was mechanically sound. There was no history of failed hydraulics or engine problems, and a recent scheduled maintenance showed a perfectly fit aircraft.

“The crux of the crash was the voice recordings from the cockpit, and it wasn't until these were studied that real problems began. Two minutes of tape from some crazy-ass, co-pilot-in-training quoting the Koran and rambling on about Allah. There were all kinds of procedural inconsistencies, starting with the pilot leaving the co-pilot behind the controls in the first hour of flight. When the plane started dipping erratically, the pilot fought his way back to the cockpit and tried to regain control of the aircraft, battling the structural limitations of the airplane and the physics of an aircraft in a steep dive. All the evidence needed for the investigation was there, on the tape, in words.”

Jake looked at Al as he continued to tell the story, tears rolling down his cheeks, his voice quivering.

“Well the Egyptians start screaming foul, claiming the cockpit recordings were inconclusive and that by portraying the Egyptian Air pilots as kamikaze, suicidal maniacs, it would damage the mainstay of their economy—tourism. Given the political nature of the claims, a special Senate inquiry team was formed to gather additional, impartial information from a clusterfuck of agencies and individuals. The FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force, the FAA, NTSB, the Airlines Pilot associations, Boeing, Airbus. Anyone and everyone who knew anything about aircraft, or the two million parts that go into one, was paraded through the Capitol in front of the Senate inquiry.”

“I think I see where this is heading.”

“I guess you can. The inquiry team was headed by one ‘harmless' senator from Massachusetts. The plane had crashed in his backyard, and with that individual piece of luck, Senator Day was nominated as the Senate point man for the investigation. The whole affair was anything but a picnic. Surviving family members were going toe-to-toe with the airplane manufacturers, the airlines, and the Egyptian government. Senator Day, avoiding decision and repercussions that could come from making the wrong one, simply drowned the proceedings with testimony, knowing the longer he could stall the proceeding, the less public interest there would be. Twenty months later, with the Egyptian government still protesting loudly, the official initial finding of the NTSB was thrown out in favor of a much more politically-correct finding of ‘inconclusive.' I'm sure Senator Day got honorary Egyptian citizenship and a free lifetime pass to the Pyramids.”

“I'm sorry, Al.”

“Yeah. Everyone is sorry,” Al responded with half the volume in his voice. “You know, I was able to pull a few strings and listen to an unedited version of the cockpit recording. The man plunged the plane into the ocean, pure and simple. And Senator Day sold out the Americans onboard that flight to appease the Egyptians.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Senator Day? No, never met him face-to-face. He was too much of a coward.”

Jake tried to say something else, but the words failed him, inaudible breaths escaping his mouth.

Al wiped his cheeks and both men watched the water rush by. “If Senator Day is involved with this girl and your father, then you are in very deep indeed. He's a powerful man, even among senators who are generally power heavyweights.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I hope you're wrong about the guy in the photo.”

“Why? What does this have to do with me? This guy in the picture doesn't know me from Adam. This news story is in every major paper between here and Boston, but it was filmed over a month ago. Six weeks ago I was burying my mother and I hadn't seen my father in six years.”

Al had already done the math in his head. “Don't bet on your anonymity. It's a small world.” He leaned back and rested on his hands, his double-jointed elbows fully extended.

“Did Marilyn ever mention the senator?”

“No.” Jake thought about the question. “Why?”

“Those newspapers articles represent a second explanation for the current situation,” Al said, trying to draw Jake toward his own conclusion. “Your father, Marilyn, the senator, the Asian guy…a pregnant girl.”

“I don't follow you.”

“Two American men in Saipan, one pregnant girl,” Al hinted.

Jake choked up. “The girl is pregnant with the senator's child,” he said, the air rushing from his lungs in a moment of self-enlightenment. His face felt flush, his head light.

“Congratulations, you are smarter than you look after all.”

Jake took a trip into the same pensive darkness Al had just visited. “I should've figured it out as soon as I saw the fax,” he said. “That was around the same time we went out for dinner with the senator. I should have known.”

“It's water under the bridge now, Jake,” Al said gesturing to the bridge above and the water below. Jake didn't laugh. Al ran his fingers through his reddish brown hair, and threw his head back with a sigh. “Besides, I don't think it matters.”

“What do you mean?”

“When did you get that fax from Wei Ling?”

“Ten days ago.”

Al took a deep breath. “She is probably dead already.”

“Dead?”

“If she isn't dead, she is locked away somewhere beyond your reach. Beyond the reach of American law, the power of righteousness, civil liberties, all that good stuff.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“I'm telling you it may be too late.”

“Too late to help the girl, or too late to find out what is going on between the senator, my father, the girl, and this guy in the picture?”

“Jake, I'm going to spell it out for you very clearly. Be careful. For the next couple of days, be careful. If I were you, I would stay away from your girlfriend. Keep your head down for a while. Vary your routine. And you may want to tell your father what you know. He could be in danger.”

“My father is out of town until the end of the week.”

“Well, eventually he is coming back and unless you want to bury both your parents in one summer, you might want to warn him. Assuming he doesn't already know.”

“Al, you're officially scaring the shit out of me.”

“Good.”

“Good for whom?”

“Fear is a good emotion. It creates alertness.”

“I'm going to have to disagree with you. Fear sucks, Al.”

“It can be good…” Al said thinking. “Who knows, today might turn out to be one of the best days of your life.”

“Not unless we get a quick turnaround. The day is young and it's going downhill fast.”

“You're missing the point. Some people wait their whole lives for a day like today. A day where they learn they have the chance to be an honest-to-goodness, balls-to-the-wall, hero.”

Jake shook his head. “Maybe this hero is going to slip into his apartment, grab his sleeping bag, and join you right here at the Potomac View Retreat.”

“My door is always open.”

Jake left and Al dug through a plastic bag he kept on the shelf in the rafters under the bridge. He pulled out an old pair of running shoes, the treads almost completely bare in the path his foot followed as it hit the ground on the heel and rolled forward.

He slipped on the shoes with their bright yellow reflective trim and reached down to tie the laces. With the grace and lightness of a ballerina, Al propelled himself down the shore of the river. He passed the Jefferson Memorial at a six-mile-a-minute pace, and kicked it up a notch when he headed over the Fourteenth Street Bridge.

It was redemption time. It was time to join the world of the living.