Brainstorm (10 page)

I waved at Sean when he walked through the door. I’d arrived
early, needing some quiet time between my meeting with Officer Donaldson and
this one. He looked worn out.

“Hi,” he said, as he slid into his side of the table.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me.”

“Did you talk with the police yet? Or is that after
lunch?” Our waitress brought over water glasses, silverware, and menus.
“Thanks, Lyn,” I said. She smiled, and said she’d be right back to take our
order.

Not needing to check my menu, I waited quietly while Sean
perused his. I eyed the manila envelope he’d brought with him; the word PHOTOS
was printed on the front.

“I’m meeting with them at three o’clock,” he said. “I
need to look at their faces when they tell me where they are in the
investigation. Or where they aren’t. I can’t detect bullshit over the phone –
excuse my French. But I
can
look
someone in the eye and tell if they’re full of it or not.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the envelope.

“Pictures of Ferdy. I thought it would help if they had
some different shots of him. The one they had at the press conference was of
him all shined up for a friend’s wedding.”

“It’s almost impossible that no one has laid eyes on him
after all this time,” I said. “I mean people fake their deaths and get found,
and I assume they put a lot of thought into how to stay gone. Ferdy just up and
disappeared!”

“Ferdy was taken by someone, or more than one person, who
did a lot of planning before they ever went to his house to get him,” he said.
“The condition of his house that day was a huge clue for me. He’s a total neat
freak.”

I smiled, remembering how he would tidy up things on my
desk when he came to the office. “I would try to have things organized when
Ferdy came to see me,” I said, “but he would always fidget – it was like he
couldn’t sit still until he had my folders in a perfect pile or my pens
arranged according to ink color. I used to tell him he would be impossible to
live with.”

“Trust me – he
was
impossible to live with. He was the same when he was a kid.” We ate our lunch
while Sean shared fond memories of his brother.

“I’m sorry I haven’t kept in closer touch,” I said.
“There’s something going on with me that’s dividing my attention and most days
I don’t know which way to turn.”

“Don’t feel badly. There’s only so much you can do when
it comes to Ferdy.”

“Can I see the pictures?”

He pushed the envelope across the table to me. “Be my
guest.”

I went through the stack, pausing at each one long enough
for Sean to explain how old Ferdy was and where the photo was taken. I had to
admit he was right. Ferdy did look different in these then he did in the formal
shot. “I’m glad you thought to bring them,” I said, “they should be very
helpful.” I stopped at a shot of Ferdy playing basketball with Sean. They both
looked a lot younger, a nice memory of brothers having a great time shooting
hoops.

“That one was taken at the old house,” he said. “We’d
have a game of pickup before Mom’s Sunday dinners.”

“Where was that?”

“Rochester.”

“Rochester, New York?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We grew up there. Eventually I moved to
Pennsylvania for a job and Ferdy moved here to open his company.”

“How long ago did Ferdy move to Syracuse?”

“Oh, jeez,” he said, “has to be eight years now. Maybe a
little longer.”

“Did he work in the software business in Rochester too?”

Sean shook his head, “No, software was a hobby for him.
Ferdy was always a numbers man. Nerdy sort. But he took some courses in
software development and loved that too. He got so good at both, he decided to
open his financial planning business. He held several patents on software he’d
developed for his and other companies.”

I nodded. I had marketed two of them for him. “So what
did Ferdy do for a job before he opened his company?”

“He was a teller at the National Bank of Rochester, why?”

As much as I wanted to tell Jack about this epic revelation,
I wanted to be compassionate toward Sean. After all, he was tortured by the
fact that his brother was missing; I couldn’t just leap up and run out of the
restaurant. But as soon as it was possible to get away gracefully, I bolted.

I called Jack and told him that Ferdy had worked as a
teller in the bank that Danny Stearns had robbed. “I read on-line that police
thought the robbery had been an inside job because so much money was taken,” I
said, “but then they talked to the employees and ruled out the theory. You
don’t think that Ferdy…”

“Ferdy what? Was in cahoots with Danny Stearns?
Anything’s possible, but we need to know exactly when Ferdy worked there. Why
didn’t you ask Sean?”

“I couldn’t do that. He’s already a basket case over his
brother’s disappearance. I couldn’t lay this on him too. I’m going to the
office to do a search.”

I could tell Jack was thinking from the silence on his
end of the line. Then he said, “I’m going to call Matt and see if he’s had
someone from the department talk to Mike at the café about a description. If he
has, I’ll come get you and we’ll go take a look. If it hasn’t been done, I’ll
light a fire under him.”

“You don’t think it could have been
Ferdy
at the café? And that he drugged Tony? No. What would be his
motive? He had no connection to Tony, other than they were both clients of
mine. I don’t think they’d even met!”

“That we know of,” he said. “But before today, we didn’t
know that Ferdy and Stearns were connected by a bank, whether it was an
innocent connection or not. I want to follow up on it.

“But
why
? It
makes no sense!”

“Because,” he said, “a lead is a lead.”

Back at the office, I unlocked the door, closed it behind
me, and re-set the alarm; the new normal that would remind me of poor Miller
every time I repeated those steps.

I booted up my computer and went to the page I’d
bookmarked. I scrolled through the grainy black and white photos of bank
employees; some had only a few people in them, others whole groups. I saw
nothing in the first few, but then there was one of a dozen or so employees
standing in the bank’s newly remodeled lobby. I searched the faces, one by one,
staring at each much too long. But it paid off. Face #10 was Ferdy’s. No doubt
about it. The date on the newspaper was November, 2000. Thirteen years ago. I
printed out the page and called Jack.

“I found a photo of Ferdy as a bank employee 13 years
ago. Jack – he was most likely still there at the time of the robbery, three
years later.”

“Print it out…”

“I did,” I interrupted.

“Let me finish what I was saying,” he said calmly. “Print
it out and put it in a safe place. But also send me a link to the page.”

“Okay, I’ll do that right now.” Harley could have done it
faster, but I finally clicked SEND. “There. Did you get it?”

“Yes, but keep the page bookmarked on your end, just in
case.”

Adrenalin washed through me.
Ferdy
, I thought. Then I snapped back to reality; Ferdy was a nerd
of epic proportions. Nerds don’t rob banks. It would take them too long to
explain the intricacies of their mission to a teller. I dismissed the thought
of Fergal Finnegan doing anything unseemly.

I turned off the computer and looked around my office,
wondering if there was a future for me here at all. This building had been my
salvation for so long – a place to come where I had specific things to
accomplish each day, and deadlines to keep me on track. Would it be fair to me
if I closed the doors permanently? Would it be fair to my clients if I didn’t?

The rent was paid until the end of the year, so I had
some time to figure it out, but questions persisted. Could I even find another
Harley? Did I have it in me to bring on new clients to replace the income I’d lost
from Tony and Ferdy, not to mention Carrie? Did I dare find another Miller,
knowing that something could happen to him too? Jack would tell me I was
over-thinking, but I didn’t know how else to make a decision this significant.
Maybe closing was too large a response for the actual problem, like burning
down a house because it had ants.

After hours of debating with myself, I decided to go
halfway, and close my doors temporarily; the clients I had left would have to
fend for themselves for now. I called them all and explained that I was taking
some time off; that I would be in contact when I returned. I offered to
recommend another small agency in the area and a couple of them took me up on
it. I then called each of my media reps and told them I would be out of touch
for a while.

Realizing that this place would feel like an empty shell
in another couple of days, I decided to start clearing things out. I went to my
filing cabinet and started pulling folders, artwork, scripts, and billboard
designs; anything I was working on for new campaigns, and copies of old as well
as newly-paid invoices for each client. It all went into neat piles on my desk,
on Harley’s desk – excuse me, on Harley’s
former
desk, and on the floor. It took three hours to get the padded envelopes and
boxes stuffed and addressed. I hauled them out to Nelly and piled them in the
hatch. Finally, I went back into the office, grabbed my purse, locked up, and
headed to the post office.

Once that was done (to the tune of $247.00), I headed
back to the office for my printer and filled an empty box with ink cartridges,
paper, and my Rolodex. I left my letterhead, envelopes, and business cards, for
another time. Done for now, I was too tired to clear out the kitchen or go
upstairs and pack my clothes and remaining personal items.

Before I left the building, I put in a call to Carrie
Ashton’s office to tell Harley I had taken her advice to close, at least
temporarily.

“Hi Carrie,” I started, “this is Audrey. I’d like to
speak with Harley, if she’s free.”

“Oh, hi there, Audrey, Harley’s not here.”

I looked at the clock. “She left early today? Well, I’ll
try her cell. If I don’t reach her, I’ll call back tomorrow.”

“No,” she said, “that’s not what I mean. Harley’s not
here
anymore
. I assumed you knew. She
called yesterday and quit. Just like that. And she’s not answering her cell.”

Oh, Lord
, I
thought,
did Carl find her
? “Did she
say why?”

“No explanation whatsoever.”

“Did she say where she was going? Another job maybe?”

“Nope. I can tell you she sounded like she was in a
hurry, though. I asked her if she wanted me to send her the check she had
coming, or if she wanted to pick it up, but she said no, that I should donate
it to Vera House. Any idea what that’s all about?”

I do, I thought. Vera House was the agency in the city
that provided shelter for victims of domestic violence. Carl must have tracked
Harley down, and she had fled. I didn’t believe I’d ever see or hear from her
again. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my eyes, imagining the hopelessness she must
be feeling. So alone. And terrified. She would have to find a place safe from
Carl, and how far away would that take her? I said goodbye to Carrie and hung
up.

I supposed Harley could be here, under the protection of
Vera House; after all, she had donated her last pay check to them. Maybe she’d
done that as a clue to me, either to let me know where she’d gone, or that
she’d left because Carl was on her trail. Only a handful of people knew the
location of the shelter; not even the police knew where it was. So if that’s
where she’d landed, there was nothing I could do to help her. I tried her cell,
thinking maybe she’d pick up for me. Nothing. Not even voice mail. I felt my
own world shrink in the wake of Harley’s disappearance, and I put my head in my
hands and sobbed.

Jack called. “Hey, can you come down to the police station?
We’ve got a composite of the guy who spoke with Tony at Mike’s Diner. Like you
to take a look at it.”

“I’ll be right there.” I grabbed my keys and headed
toward Nelly, wondering if I would recognize the man. Was it someone I knew, or
had at least met? As upset as I still was over the conversation I’d had with
Carrie, a sort of nervous excitement bubbled up in my chest at the anticipation
of seeing this sketch. I pulled onto the street and drove away.

“So?” asked Jack. I was sitting in a chair next to Matt’s
desk, staring at his computer screen. “Have you ever seen this guy? At the
diner? Anywhere else?”

I shook my head in disappointment. The guy in the sketch
looked so plain, so unremarkable, that I stared at the rendering, wondering if
he could even be real, or if Mike was just not good at giving descriptions.
This was a rendition of a million guys rolled into one; dark shaggy hair,
mustache, glasses. A run-of-the-mill Joe. Try as I may, I could not see Ferdy
in it. I felt relieved at that, but wondered if it was possible I’d seen this
guy at the counter and not remembered; if I worked at it, would the memory of
him come to me? Right now, the answer was no. “Sorry,” I said.

I went from the police station to the hospital. I wanted
to see what Tony remembered about Diner Guy. Why hadn’t he mentioned him
before? The trauma of the accident, I guess, could have overshadowed many
details and I wondered what else Tony might have forgotten.

Rose was at her brother’s bedside when I arrived. She
waved me in and introduced me to her sister Bella, and brother Nick. “Look how
good our boy looks today,” she said.

Tony indeed looked more like his old self. The bandages
that had covered the top of his head had been removed, and a lot of the facial
swelling had gone down. He smiled at me. “They haven’t given me a mirror yet,”
he said. “Do I want one?”

“You look wonderful to me,” I said, and I went to the
side of the bed opposite Rose. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you
making so much progress.”

“We’ll leave you two alone,” said Rose, as she motioned
to the others, “and go get something to eat.”

I waited until they were gone to ask, “Tony, do you
remember a man at the diner who came to your table the morning of the crash?
Someone who shook your hand – maybe said he was a fan? Mike said he sat down at
your table.”

“Yeah, the police already asked me about him. He came
over to me and said he recognized my voice. Said he’d listened to my traffic
reports for years and was happy to meet me.”

“Did they say why they were interested in him?”

“No,” he said, “but they asked if there was anything
strange about the way he walked, or moved, you know, like a limp. Or if I remembered
something different about the way he spoke; if he had an accent or a lisp or
anything like that.”

“Did he?”

Tony shook his head.

“They think he put sleeping pills in your coffee,” I
said. “They’re trying to figure out who he is.”

“Why didn’t they tell
me
that?”

“They probably didn’t want to upset you. They don’t know
you like I do; don’t know how strong you are. The police talked to Mike and
created a composite,” I said. “I saw it but didn’t recognize the guy. Did you
see it?”

He nodded. “I meet a lot of people,” he said, “and
usually have a good memory for faces, but nothing about the printout they
showed me looked like the guy I saw that morning. In fact, they’re sending over
a sketch artist – someone from out of town. They’re supposed to be more
accurate than the cut-and-paste computer programs. They want to compare Mike’s
memory with mine.”

“I’m just glad Mike remembered the guy at all. The police
thought I was the one who put something in your coffee.”

“You! Why on Earth would anyone think that?”

“I know, right? They were going on the fact that I was
the last one to see you that morning. But now they know I wasn’t – Diner Guy
was. So they need to find out who he is.”

Tony looked up at the ceiling. “You remember when that
cop asked me if I’d left my table?”

I nodded. “You didn’t get up while I was with you. Why?”

“Because I did use the restroom right before I had my
last cup of coffee – not just before I left, like I first thought.”

“So you came back to the table and then ordered another
cup?”

“No, I ordered it before I went to the restroom. I was
just getting up when the guy came over and shook my hand. I asked him to join
me, told him I’d be right back. He sat down and I left, but I was only gone a
few minutes.”

“And your coffee was there when you got back?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“That has to be when he slipped the pills into your cup.
Mike said it was busy after I left. No wonder no one saw him do it.”

“I didn’t even remember the sequence,” Tony said, “until
just now.”

“I can’t wait to tell Matt St. John. I’m sure he’ll come
to take a formal statement.”

“Listen, Audrey, I’m getting tired. Do you mind?” he
asked.

“Of course not. I’m sorry I stayed so long. Get some
rest. I’ll be back.”

After picking up a decaf at a drive-through, I headed to
Harley’s house. I had only caught a glimpse of Carl’s face through the truck’s
tinted window, which was as good as never having seen him at all. I wanted to
see this guy who had hit Harley and made her so fearful she’d had to disappear.
It would be good to be able to recognize him, in case he decided to show up at
my apartment or at the office.

I parked down the street, because he knew Nelly. There
were a lot of Jeeps exactly like her on the road, but I didn’t want him to have
even an inkling that I was nearby. I hadn’t finished half of my coffee when a
man exited the house. It had to be Carl. He walked quickly and gave me the
impression that he was prone to jerky movements; about as laid back as a
squirrel. Just the sight of him upset me. I looked at his hands; the hands he’d
hit Harley with.

Heat built at the back of my neck and my heart rate
picked up, as I imagined myself revving up Nelly and ramming into him, pinning
him against a building, waving at him through the windshield, and then gunning
the engine and driving further into him, until he squished like a bug. I felt
flushed as adrenalin pumped through me, and I realized that in the excitement
of the moment, I’d put down my coffee and was clutching the steering wheel with
both hands.

As my heart rate slowed, I watched him enter a little
grocery store, just a few doors down. Harley said that he almost never left the
house, except to pick up beer and cigarettes. He wasn’t in there very long, and
as I expected, he came out carrying a six pack. It was not only nerve-wracking
seeing him, but even from this distance, I realized there was something
familiar about him. But what was it?

Having had enough of this day, I headed home. I ordered
dinner at the bar and hiked my sorry behind up the back stairs to my apartment.
I juggled the food, my purse, and the Styrofoam cup that held the cold remains
of my coffee, and unlocked the deadbolt, cursing it, yet grateful for it.
Everything went on the table. I ran back downstairs to grab my mail, then back
up to lock myself in and wedge kitchen chairs under the doorknobs. I showered
and donned a pair of flowered PJs, poured a diet soda, grabbed some silverware,
and set my feast in front of the TV. Oh, the grace of tiny living.

As usual, before I dug in, I turned on the tube to see
what was on the news. Half an hour of local stuff reported nothing about Tony.
He was old news now, I guessed, and until something formal came down from the
FAA, or whoever else was involved, he would be off the radar. No pun intended.
A short piece about Ferdy’s disappearance reported that the police had no
leads, and mentioned again the $100,000.00 dollar reward. This time, instead of
the one formal shot of Ferdy, the screen was filled with a compilation of the
photos Sean had brought.

Where are you,
Ferdy?
I thought.
Are you involved in
this Danny Stearns thing? Did you know him? Did you tell him when the bank
would have that three million in the vault? Was it you? And did Danny come get
you? Did he kidnap you or kill you because you could confirm his part in the
robbery? What did you do Ferdy?

The national news came on and the first story was the
capture of Danny Stearns. The FBI had delivered him to Rochester, where he was
shown being led into what I assumed was the police station there, his hands
bound behind him in cuffs, or zip ties, I couldn’t tell. My food forgotten, I
stared at the screen. Breathe 1…..2…..3……4…5…6. Breathe 1…2…3…4…5…

Now it would begin
,
I thought. He was in police custody. They wouldn’t have arrested him without
reason. They wouldn’t jeopardize their case against him with a flimsy arrest.
Did they find DNA in that ski mask? Did it match something in that data base
they talked about? Now they would come for me. They’d want me to pick him out
of a lineup. How long would it be before they brought him to trial? I would
have to sit in that witness chair and see him. Up close. He would stare at me
with those eyes of his and try to intimidate me. I knew he would.

I ran to my bedroom and shook not one, but two happy
pills out of the bottle into my palm. Without hesitation I swallowed them both
with the dregs of the cold coffee. I put my dinner in the fridge and climbed
into bed, not wanting to prolong this day any longer. I yearned for the solace
of unconsciousness – for the escape sleep could afford me. But it wasn’t to be.

Danny Stearns haunted my dreams. He was at my door, in my
kitchen, getting closer and closer to me as I slept. He waved a ski mask in one
hand, a gun in the other. “You want my DNA?” he shouted, his eyes burning with
fury. “I’ll give you all the DNA you can handle.”

I woke drenched in sweat, quaking like an Aspen leaf – my
legs hardly held me as I got out of bed and made my way to each of my doors. My
shoulders, aching with tension, relaxed a little as I saw that both deadbolts
were in place and the kitchen chairs were still wedged beneath the doorknobs.
Sobbing, I sank to the floor, hands over my ears, eyes closed, and rocked back
and forth to comfort myself.

My cell phone rang. I crawled to the table near my sofa
and retrieved it; the readout flashed “unknown caller.” Who would be looking
for me in the middle of the night? Fearing it was Harley in a panic, or that
something had happened to Jack, I pressed the Talk button.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“Did you get a good look at me today?” The voice was deep
and raspy. And angry.

“Who is this?” I asked. But I already knew it was Carl.

“Did you? While you were parked down the street from my
house? What – are you watching me now? Holding your own little stakeouts?”

“I,” I started.

“Let me tell you something,
Audrey -
I don’t know where the hell you’ve stashed Harley, but
I’ll find out. So why don’t you smarten up and just tell me where she is?”

“I didn’t stash her anywhere,” I said, “I don’t know
where she went.” I couldn’t loosen my grasp on the phone
. Lord, help me!

“I want her back here now!” he shouted.

“I can’t help you, Carl.”

At last I was able to hang up, expecting him to call
right back, but he didn’t. He knew where my office was, but did he know where I
lived?

It was 4 a.m. and with no way to go back to sleep, I made
a pot of coffee, lit a stick of Frankincense, and kept watch on my kitchen
chairs, expecting one of them to shift and the door behind it to fly open.