Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Brennan smiled lecherously. “I think the new reporter’s name is Sally Incaveria.”

Pace nodded. “It was Sally something.”

“Then you want to get your skinny little ass out to Virginia and help her,” Brennan said. “She’s hot. You could use a little love in your life.”

Pace smiled. “Yes, I could,” he acknowledged. “And I’m hoping that situation looks up, maybe in the next few days.”

“Anybody I know?”

“I think you’ve probably met her.”

“Who?”

“I’d rather see what develops before I start talking about it.”

Brennan pushed himself back from the table. “Shit,” he said. “You never tell me any of the good stuff. All I get to hear are the cockamamy stories about running around in the woods with a middle-aged flyboy.”

“That’s a pretty good story, you’ll have to admit.”

“It is. And if you need any help, don’t look farther than me. I’d love to have a piece of it.” He started for the cash register, then stopped and turned back to Pace. “You know, if you turn this story, you’re a cinch to bag your second Pulitzer. Anybody ever won two?”

“Oh, sure,” Pace said. “But that’s a bit premature.”

“Just planning, boyo. Just planning.”

Back at his desk, Pace immediately began making his round of regular calls: to Whitney Warner, Cullen Ferguson, the NTSB, and the FAA. He was reaching nobody who could help with a Monday lead when Suzy showed up.

“You hear from your rookie?” Pace asked.

“Yeah,” Suzy said, “and if I hadn’t red-flagged the story, I wouldn’t have known to send her back with more questions. Then we wouldn’t have known there’s something curious here.”

Pace spun in his chair and motioned for Suzy to sit at Tarshis’s desk, which was getting more work than when the environmental writer was in the office.

“What?” Pace asked.

“On the surface, it looks like a typical one-car fatality,” Suzy said. She looked down at her notes. “State police say the car left the road, turned over several times, bounced around and went whoosh. Coroner will do an autopsy tomorrow to determine cause of death. There’s no ID, at least none of any use. Police found the remnants of a wallet, but everything in it was too badly burned. Labs can bring info up off burned paper and plastic, and I guess they’re going to try, and also go for an ID off dental records.”

Suzy looked up to see if Pace had any questions so far, and he did.

“How can they ID him off dental records if they don’t know he was local?”

“Don’t know,” Suzy said. “They look at everything, I guess, including the car.”

“They don’t know the car was local, either,” Pace pointed out.

“Right. But there’s an identification number on the engine that should help trace it to its owner. The number’s smudged, but it’s stamped into the engine block, so it wasn’t destroyed by the fire. They’ll be able to bring it up, and that could help ID the driver. There’s a kicker.” She looked at Pace expectantly.

“So? What?” he asked. “What, for God’s sake?”

“This came to us off the record, and I mean that, ’cause the cops don’t know what to make of it,” Suzy said. He nodded. She continued. “According to a police captain named Clayton Helm—that’s C-l-a-y-t-o-n H-e-l-m—there are some very strange skid marks associated with the accident that haven’t been explained yet.”

“Skid marks?”

“Skid marks. Before the car left the road, it left skid marks for nearly 200 yards.”

“So what?” Pace shrugged. “The guy was going too fast, tried to brake, and skidded before he went off the road. That’s no mystery.”

“Not for 200 yards—that’s two football fields. Plus, there were two vehicles involved.” Suzy took two Bic pens from the cup on her desk and laid them on the blotter like parallel railroad tracks. “Both of them were headed northwest, up Georgetown Pike from the Beltway. It was cloudy and dark, no traffic that time of night. The car in the rear—let’s call it a truck because the wheelbase was longer and wider than a car—decided to pass the car on the left across double yellow lines. Maybe the passer tried to cut in too soon; maybe the car hit the truck. Who knows? Whichever it was, their bumpers got locked.”

“Is this all conjecture?” Pace asked.

“So far, but it’s the only scenario that fits the evidence.”

“Which is?”

“The truck, which is now slightly ahead of the car, drags the car up the road. The car’s front wheels are turned to the right, toward the ravine, so the tires leave smudges, drag marks, not tread lines. In a few places the truck leaves drag marks, too. But its wheels were pointed straight ahead. That suggests the car was trying to veer away from the truck, but the truck wasn’t trying to escape from the car. If it was an accident, they both would have pulled over and called for help. After 200 yards the car did break loose, but with the tires turned hard to the right, it sailed off the pavement and down into the ravine and exploded. The police are wondering if it was an accident or deliberate.”

“Look how interesting I’ve made your day,” Pace said.

“I’m all gratitude. What have you given me besides interesting? What’s the story?”

Pace ran his hands through his hair. He had no answers for those questions.

Pace grinned. “Would you or Sally have a problem with me talking to Clayton Helm?”

“Not if you take her along for the interview.”

“Suze, this is serious business,” Pace protested. “She doesn’t need to get involved. She wouldn’t understand—”

“That’s bullshit,” she snapped. “If there’s some sort of special story here, it happened on Sally’s turf, and the story’s hers. At the very least, she gets a piece of it, or I go to Wister.”

“Okay, joint venture. Have Sally set it up. She knows the guy. I’ve got to come up with a crash story for tomorrow, so the later the appointment, the better.”

“You wanna tell me what you suspect?”

“Not really,” Pace said. “The story’s pretty farfetched, and if there’s anything to it, it’s so sensitive I can’t risk having it get around. Except for Glenn Brennan’s sexist observations, I don’t know anything about Sally Incaveria.”

“Okay, suppose you tell me. I’ll tell Sally only what she absolutely has to know.”

Pace inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. O’Connor had a legitimate right to know the background on a sensitive story involving a member of her staff.

So he told it a third time, in abbreviated form and without naming names. It didn’t feel as good as the telling to Brennan, but he didn’t feel as foolish as when he’d told Schaeffer and Wister. When he finished, O’Connor didn’t scoff.

“I can see why you’re spooked about it,” she said. “I don’t think Sally needs to know any of it. But in return, I’d like a favor from you. If anything comes of the work you two do together, how about giving the kid a break and putting a double byline on the story?”

“No problem,” Pace promised.

“I’ll have her set up the interview.”

Shortly before three o’clock, Pace heard from McGill. Mike said he was late getting to Hangar Three and had been tied up with his systems group.

“Your team found anything?” Pace asked.

“No,” McGill replied. “We’re just getting into the guts of the plane.”

“Where are you calling from?” Pace asked.

“A pay phone in the lobby of the main Dulles terminal. I picked it at random, and there’s nobody within twenty yards of me.”

Pace brought him up to date on his morning.