Mara Lantern: Broken Realms Part 27

BANDS OF SHADOWS cast by the scaffoldlike North Steel Bridge swept across the winds.h.i.+eld as Bohannon and Suter crossed the Willamette River heading northeast, returning from an unsuccessful attempt to interview a pa.s.senger in Portland's trendy Pearl District. Suter craned his neck up at the two towers looming over the bridge.

"The middle of this bridge, the part between the towers, is designed to be raised to allow tall vessels on the river to pa.s.s through," Bohannon said. "It's also a double-decker. Cars and the MAX light rail cross on this level, and Amtrak, bicycles and pedestrians use the lower deck."

Suter didn't respond to the chitchat.

Bohannon switched tactics. "Do we have a copy of the pa.s.senger list with their seat a.s.signments?"

"I'm sure Pirelli has one. Why do we need it?" Suter continued to look out the pa.s.senger window.

"We are wasting our time talking to anyone who sat in the front two-thirds of the plane. Whatever brought it down happened in the back. We should talk to those people first, then if necessary talk to the others later."

"Couldn't hurt," Suter said. "Let's stop by the hangar and get the list, then we can prioritize. Although I think we both know the pa.s.sengers we should be talking to are Mara Lantern and that Chinese guy. That's where this thing is going to get resolved."

"Yeah, but it would be nice to have another pa.s.senger who saw them do something on the plane. Until we get that, we can't prove anything."

"Oh, it's no a.s.sumption they broke into the hangar, and it's no a.s.sumption that the only body we don't have is Mara Lantern's. They are our suspects all right."

"But what exactly are they suspected of doing?"

"That's what I'm going to find out."

The black Caprice spun its wheels when Bohannon put it in Reverse to pull back out of the gravel parking lot next to the hangar. Two semitrucks with black cabs and yellow trailers idled next to each other in the lot, blocking all the parking s.p.a.ces. The detective maneuvered the car onto the shoulder of the street and cut the engine. He reached into the backseat for his suit coat and stepped out of the car. Several more large trucks could be heard rumbling and maneuvering around the corner on the broad side of the building.

Bohannon slipped on his suit jacket and looked across the top of the car at Suter. "What's going on? Looks like they are packing up and leaving."

"Don't know. There's Pirelli. Let's ask him," Suter said.

The investigators walked across a gra.s.s island that divided the parking lot from the street, crossed behind the large trucks and stepped up onto the small stoop on which the NTSB chief stood. Suter stomped his feet to get the gra.s.s and dust off his s.h.i.+ny black Rockport shoes.

"What we got going on, George?" Suter asked.

"Just moving out some equipment we don't need. Lots of logistics but not a big deal," he said. He opened the door for them.

Inside the reconstructed airplane sat where it had been since its recovery. Daylight from open bay doors on the far side of the hangar backlit the wreck. Forklifts and men moved busily behind it.

Bohannon bent sideways to get a view of what was going on. "Hey, what happened to the morgue? Where are the bodies?" He looked at Pirelli.

"What are you talking about?" Pirelli asked, deadpan.

"The morgue, the plastic tents, with a hundred-some-odd dead pa.s.sengers in them. Where are the bodies?" Bohannon looked at Suter.

"You must be mistaken," Pirelli said. He turned and walked away.

Suter shrugged and pointed to the small conference room.

Bohannon took off his jacket and folded it over his arm before squeezing into a seat on the far side of the tiny room. He slid the jacket into his lap, then placed his palms down on the round table as if he expected an earthquake to begin at any moment. "So what's going on? Why would they move the bodies?" he asked Suter.

"I have no idea. They didn't consult me. After the break-in last week, they might have decided to move them to a more secure facility."

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

He shut the door and sat down. "Probably not. If I had to guess, I would say the bodies were carted off and cremated. I bet the rest of the equipment went back to where it came from, an army depot in Utah. To be honest, I don't care. We don't need the bodies to continue the investigation."

"The investigation? You call this an investigation? It's more like a cover-up."

"That's enough. Calm down." The sweating and twitching started up.

Bohannon grimaced when sweat dripping from Suter's chin spattered the table.

"You were warned not everything would be shared with you. You also signed that security agreement. Dead bodies and plastics tents aren't the only things these people can make disappear. Keep it up, and you'll be sitting in a federal prison cell somewhere without so much as a good-bye phone call to your mother."

"What is the point of an investigation if the evidence can be trucked off and destroyed? What happens if we actually catch the people responsible for this? We'll never be able to convict someone without evidence."

"We are not conducting a criminal investigation. We are simply trying to find out what caused that airplane to fall out of the sky. Once we do that, let the powers that be figure out what to do." He rubbed his neck, twitched a little less. "I would strongly recommend you don't bring up the morgue again, unless Pirelli brings it up first."

Bohannon's phone vibrated in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. He pulled it out to see Lt. Mike Simmons's name displayed on its screen.

"Lieutenant."

"Hey, Bo. We are getting reports that pa.s.sengers from your flight are disappearing."

"What do you mean? Taking off without telling someone? Kidnapped? What?"

"We're not sure. Might be a little of everything. Might be a lot of nothing. We even got one missing person's report where a man said his wife was sitting at her vanity in their bedroom, and she exploded."

"She exploded what?"

"He says she exploded, like a firecracker. There are definite signs of some kind of blast in their bedroom, but there are no remains of the wife."

"What's this got to do with Flight 559?"

"She was a pa.s.senger on the flight. Like I said, we've got a handful of reports that some of the pa.s.sengers are missing. You guys working on anything that might explain that? I know it's a long shot, but it is kinda strange that they all were on that flight."

"Just a sec. Let me talk to my partner."

Bohannon hit the Hold b.u.t.ton and conveyed what his lieutenant had said.

"Tell him that we'll take them," Suter said.

"What? You want to take a bunch of missing person cases? You just said we weren't conducting a criminal investigation."

"Do it, or I will. They are already a part of our investigation. Why have another set of cops working it?"

Bohannon tapped his phone. "Lieutenant? We will follow up on the reports. Can you email them over to us?... Yeah, I'll file updates on what we find out.... Yeah, I'll let you know." He hung up and looked at Suter. "We now have six missing-person cases."

CHAPTER 42.

PATRICK HARRINGTON, A late twentysomething guy with the wiry look of a vegan, invited Bohannon and Suter into his nicely remodeled bungalow just off Glisan Street in northeast Portland. Dark circles and haggard hair indicated he probably had not slept since his wife had reportedly vanished the previous evening.

Bohannon and Suter introduced themselves as the young man grabbed a floppy stuffed bunny off the couch and motioned for them to sit. He tossed the toy into an armchair and sat on an ottoman in front of it.

"Mr. Harrington, can you recount for us what happened to your wife last night?" Suter asked.

The man rubbed the side of his face for a few seconds.

"Kathy and I were getting ready for bed. Well, I was already in bed. She was sitting at the vanity across the room. We were talking about our daughter's preschool-we're thinking of moving her. I was looking directly at her while we talked, and suddenly she exploded. There was a flash of light that seemed to consume her, and then she was gone."

The investigators looked at each other.

"That's it? There was an explosion, a flash of light and then she was gone? What was she doing? Was she handling some kind of flammable liquid or explosive? Messing with an electrical device or something like that?"

"No, just doing her thing at the vanity."

"What precisely was she doing when this occurred?"

"Well, she brushed her hair, but that was before. It looked to me like she was working on her nails or hands, clipping, filing or something like that. I wasn't watching that closely. We were talking, but her back was to me."

"And you didn't see anything that could have caused this explosion?"

"Absolutely not. Certainly not something that could destroy half a room and completely obliterate a person." His voice cracked.

"She just disappeared into nothing?" Suter asked.

"That's exactly what happened."

"And you haven't seen or heard from her since?"

"No." He put his face into his hands.

"Your wife was a pa.s.senger on Flight 559 to San Francisco, the one that went into the river, correct?"

"Yes, she and Missy, our daughter, were going down to the Bay Area to visit some family friends for a couple days. What does that have to do with anything?" He looked up.

"Please bear with us, Mr. Harrington. Have there been any other odd occurrences since the airplane crash, since your wife and daughter were rescued?"

"What do you mean?" He did not look the investigator in the eye.

"Has your wife or daughter acted unusual or out of character since the accident?"

"No. Nothing." He looked at his hands.

Bohannon leaned forward. "Mr. Harrington, our only interest here is to help you and your family. If anything unusual has happened, it would be best if you told us. The more we know, the more likely we can help."

"If I knew anything that I thought could help, I would tell you." He glanced at Bohannon, only to look away.

"Where is your daughter now? Is she still at preschool?" Suter asked.

"No. Missy is playing in her room."

"Would you mind if we talked to her?" Suter asked.

"I would mind. She is only five years old, and she is freaked out about her mother not being here. I have not told her what happened, and I'm not going to have her grilled by two strange men. No way."

"Daddy, where's my bunny?" the daughter called from the back of the house.

"It's right here in the living room. I'll bring it to you in a minute," he said, and then turned back to the investigators. "I don't mean to be uncooperative, but I don't want my daughter traumatized any further. She's still dealing with being on that airplane."

"We underst..." Bohannon's eyes moved from Patrick Harrington's face to the stuffed bunny floating in the air behind his head. As it moved toward the back of the house, the investigators' eyes tracked it. Harrington followed their gaze to the flying toy. He lunged after it, plucking it out of the air. Turning back toward the couch, red faced, he opened his mouth and closed it again without uttering a sound. His shoulders fell.

"Is there something you want to tell us?" Suter asked. "I would think that might strike you as a little unusual, don't you agree?"

"I can't explain it."

"Don't try to explain it to us. Just tell us what's been going on. Maybe we can help," Bohannon said.

Bunny legs and ears flapped in the air of their own volition, trying to slip from Harrington's grip. He slipped it under his thigh and held it there.

"Missy, come here," Harrington called to the back of the house and shot a warning look at the detectives. "No interrogations. Just calm normal talking. That's all."

A blue-eyed blonde girl wearing a pink s.h.i.+rt dotted with daisies and a tiny pair of denim shorts walked directly to her father, took possession of the bunny and crawled onto his lap. She hugged the stuffed animal to her cheek and looked at the men on the couch.

"I thought we agreed not to call things like that," Harrington said, talking to the top of her head.

"Sorry, Dad. Sometimes it just happens. Are those men here to help find Mommy?"

"That's right. We're going to help find your mom," Suter said, his smile so fake and cold it repulsed Bohannon. "Can you tell me how you do that, how you call things?"

The little girl shrugged. "I just do, when I want something."

"Have you always been able to do that?"

"Sure. Can't you?"

"No. I can't do that."

"My dad says he can't, but he used to. Mom said he was just pretending."

"I see. We'll try our best to find your mom for you. Would you be willing to help us do that?"

"Yes. I want her back."