Brainstorm (2 page)

When we arrived on the south side of Onondaga Lake, Air One,
the county police helicopter, was circling above the wreckage of Tony’s plane.
Emergency vehicles were lined up on the roadside and an ambulance waited near
the shore; police directed traffic in an attempt to keep rubberneckers moving
along. There were more flashing lights than I’d ever seen in one place. My
stomach lurched, as I watched divers in black wetsuits working in the water.

I tried not to cry. Tony was a good guy; a local
celebrity, who was well-liked and well-respected, and now maybe he was dead.
The press arrived. Cameras rolled. Microphones were thrust in the faces of
police officers; everyone wanted to know what had happened to Tony. Including
me.

Cat grabbed my arm and pointed to the divers. We watched
as Tony was floated to shore strapped to a board, not moving as far as I could
tell. Finally, the ambulance took off with him in it, and we followed the
speeding vehicle to the E.R. at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where we reported to the
women behind the reception desk.

“Are you relatives?” she asked.

Cat pushed me forward. “No,” I said, “I work with Tony.”

“Does he have any relatives that you know of? Someone we
could call?”

“He has siblings, but I don’t know how many or where they
live,” I said. “I can tell you that he’s 58, and I’ve never heard him talk
about any medical problems.”

“Are you thinking about waiting here?” she asked.
“Because there’s nothing you can do right now and we can’t give you any
information. You might as well go home.”

“At least he’s still alive,” I said, as we walked back
out to the car.

Cat drove me back to Ferdy’s to pick up my Jeep. Police
cruisers and vans filled the driveway, and men and women in law enforcement
uniforms traveled in and out of the front door. Cat and I hugged, agreed to
keep each other in the loop, and then went back to our respective offices.

The light on my answering machine was flashing, and I
listened to panicked messages from the general managers of the radio and
television stations who had Tony under contract to deliver traffic reports
every weekday morning and afternoon. How was he? Was he even alive? Did I have
someone to deliver air traffic reports in his absence?

“Hey, Harley,” I said, “Do a search to see if you can
come up with any of Tony’s relatives while I return some of these calls.”

Even though I resented the fact that the station managers
seemed to care more about their traffic reports than about Tony, I couldn’t afford
to piss any of them off by not getting back to them. We’d had tough
negotiations getting Tony’s current stations on board when he’d first hit the
air eight years ago, as the voice of Syracuse traffic. Now his whole livelihood
was at stake, and I, as his agency of record, had to try to keep his network
together until I found out how long he would be out, or if he would be able to
go back to work at all.

I returned call after call, and with as little sarcasm as
I could muster, promised to try and find a private pilot who had his or her own
plane, and who could fly it while watching the sky above and the streets and
highways below, report traffic problems, provide alternate routes to drivers,
read advertising copy, and do it all while keeping track of which station he
was on the air with at any given moment. Sure. Dime a dozen.

As far as Tony’s condition, I had no answers. Not being
related to him, I’d have to get my information from radio or TV reports like
everyone else – unless I could find one of his siblings who could pass
information along to me.

“Here’s a sister,” said Harley, as she handed me a slip
of paper, “she lives three to four hours away, in Newburgh.”

Rose Bravada answered the phone, and although she was
very upset at the news, assured me that she would notify her other siblings and
then drive right to the hospital. I asked her to let me know whatever she could
about Tony and gave her the number to my cell. When I finished the call, I
turned to Harley. “What about Ferdy’s next of kin?”

Within minutes she had a number for a brother, Sean, who
lived in Pennsylvania. I called him and explained what little I knew about
Ferdy. He said he would be on the next flight to Syracuse. I gave him my cell
number and told him to call when he arrived and I’d pick him up at the airport.
Then I called Officer Morey and told him that Ferdy’s brother and Tony’s sister
would be in town shortly. If he needed to speak with either one, he would find
Rose at Tony’s bedside and Sean, since Ferdy’s home was a crime scene, at the
Crowne Hotel. Then I called the Crowne and made a reservation for him.

It was five o’clock, and although I had deadlines looming
and needed to get Harley started on a website re-design, I was exhausted and
hungry. “Want to grab something to eat?” I asked.

“Right behind you,” she said, “just let me finish this
one update and I’ll lock up and meet you at Krabby Kirk's.”

Krabby Kirk’s Saloon is an establishment in the village
of Camillus, a small suburb west of Syracuse. The best thing about the saloon is
that I live above it. I most often do “take up” instead of “take out,” since
it’s simply a matter of picking up my food at the bar and walking up the back
stairs to my apartment.

I know what you’re thinking. Advertising executives are
supposed to be well-heeled and prosperous, live in large sprawling homes with
panoramic views and drive BMWs. And that may be the way owners of large
agencies roll. But when you own a two-person shop and your clients are people
who run small businesses and cannot afford to pay large commissions and
outrageous hourly rates, you keep your overhead low. And anyway, I like my
little apartment. It has a great living room window that looks out over Main
Street, where once a year, the Memorial Day parade marches by. Even though it’s
always the same, never any surprises, I cherish the tradition and look forward
to it every year. I do love a parade.

I ordered a beer and wondered where Harley was; a call to
her cell went to voice mail. Fifteen more minutes went by and another call went
to her voice mail. I paid for my beer and began the trip back into the city to
see where the heck she was, worrying the whole way that she’d had a flat tire,
a fender bender, had run out of gas, or been mugged and left stranded or hurt
in a bad part of the city where anything could happen; I stepped on the gas as
my spin cycle whispered to me.

Her car was in the driveway, which should have relieved
me, but did not, and I pulled in next to it. The door was ajar and I pushed it
open. “Harley?” Filing cabinet drawers stood open and papers were all over the
floor; a soft cry brought me in. Harley was lying on the floor in the far
corner of the office. “What happened?” I asked, as I helped her up and walked
her over to her chair.

“This guy appeared out of nowhere when I was locking up,”
she cried. “He had a gun and forced me to come back inside.”

“Did you recognize him?”

She shook her head. “He had one of those knit hats with
eye holes pulled over his face.” She hugged herself and sat rigidly on the edge
of the seat.

“You mean a ski mask?” I took a deep breath, remembering
the one that had been dropped at my feet a decade ago.

“Yes – one of those,” she said, as she rubbed her arm.

I got her a glass of water. “Did he hurt you?”

“He grabbed me and I hit my back and my head when he
pushed me down,” she winced.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, as I reached for the phone on her
desk. Wondering what anyone could possibly want from this office, I dialed
9-1-1, and within a few minutes two patrol cars and an ambulance were in the
driveway. Officer Morey was first through the door.

“We meet again,” he said.

“This is my office,” I said. He waited with me as the
EMTs checked Harley.

“And the young lady works for you?”

“She does.”

“How long?”

“About two years.”

“First two of your clients and now your assistant,” he
said. “Someone unhappy with you?”

“With
me
? No,”
I said, a little put out, “of course not.” The EMTs loaded Harley into the
ambulance. “I’d like to ride with her.”

“I need you to stay here and check the place,” he said,
as he glanced around at the mess. “Obviously this person was looking for
something. Can you tell if anything’s missing?”

I attempted to take stock, but it was impossible to
concentrate. The equipment was all here and we didn’t keep anything of value on
the premises. There was no art collection to steal or even award statues that
could be sold for scrap. We had won many of those over the years, but we always
gave the statues to our clients. It was our way of reminding them that Silent
Partner was a small firm, but a good one.

I opened my top desk drawer and withdrew the $500 I had
in there. “This was in my desk,” I said, holding up the money, “and the drawer
wasn’t locked, so they weren’t looking for cash.” I folded the bills and put
them in my pocket. “It’s going to take me a while to sort through this stuff,
get it back into the right folders, and then look through it all to see if
anything is missing.”

I led Officer Morey through the rooms of the 100-year-old
house that I had turned into the agency’s office building. There was a
storeroom for supplies, a small conference room, a bathroom, a little
kitchenette, and the front office where Harley and I worked. The second story
was closed off to conserve heat or AC, depending on the season, but we climbed
the stairs and entered the first bedroom, which contained two cots; each piled
with blankets, sheets, and pillows, all packed in plastic bags. “Why the beds
if you don’t use this floor?”

“For winter,” I said, “in case the weather turns ugly and
we don’t want to tackle the roads.”

I followed him as he walked through the rest of the
upstairs. “I wouldn’t have put carpet up here,” he said, “I would have
refinished all of the floors.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to live here,” I said, “I just
wanted to update it little by little. I got a deal when I had this part done,
as I pointed to the room with the cots; do one room and get a second room free,
if I used the same carpet. So I did this one bedroom and instead of a second
bedroom, I had them do the stairs.”

“Huh,” he said, as we headed back down.

I really had no interest in following him down to the
basement, but he insisted that I look around with him. The lighting was dim
because I’d put in low-watt bulbs to save energy. “What’s all this?” he asked,
referring to a number of boxes and crates that were haphazardly stacked against
one wall.

“I don’t really know. Stuff from a former tenant, maybe,
or the owner’s. I don’t come down here.”

We trudged back up the stairs where the air smelled
better. Officer Morey moved toward the door. “This place is now a crime scene,
so you’ll have to stay away for a day or so. An evidence technician is coming
to dust for prints. When your assistant is able, we’ll talk to her about a
description of the guy.”

“She said he had on a ski mask, so I don’t think she’ll
be much help.” He nodded and made notes in his little book. “If you don’t
mind,” I said, “I’d like to head to the hospital. Where did they take her?”

“St. Joe’s; I’m headed there now myself.” He dug in his
breast pocket. “Here’s my card. Call me if you find anything’s missing.” I took
the card, grabbed Harley’s tote and my purse, and walked out, leaving my office
to the mercy of the Syracuse PD. “And,” he called after me, “you should have an
alarm system installed. Like yesterday.”

“I’ll do that,” I said, scolding myself for not having
done it already, and made a mental note to call a security company first thing
in the morning. As I drove out of the driveway, the evidence technician arrived
in his truck. “This day just sucks,” I informed myself.

When I arrived at the hospital, Harley had been sedated
and was sleeping soundly, so I decided to check on Tony. But the nurse at the
desk shook her head. “He’s just out of surgery and won’t be allowed non-family
visitors until his doctors say so.”

With nowhere to go and nothing to do, I headed home,
wanting nothing more than some comfort food and my bed. I sat at the bar and
ordered a cup of tomato soup and a grilled cheese.

“You okay, Aud?” asked Dick, my landlord and owner of
Krabby Kirk’s.

“Sucky day.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Talking about it would only mean reliving it,” I sighed.
“I’ll just take my order and go upstairs.”

I kept the food warm in the oven while I did my best to
wash the day away in the shower and changed into my PJs. I needed even more
calming than the steamy shower could provide, so I lit a stick of Frankincense
and spent a few minutes practicing slow breathing before I carried my dinner to
the couch.

Hoping for an update on Tony, I turned on the TV, and was
immediately assaulted by a pharmaceutical commercial; I reached for the remote
before the inevitable disclaimers (vomiting, blurry eyesight, constipation,
boils, hair loss, stroke, and death) made me lose my appetite. I changed to a
cable channel with 24/7 news and found amateur video from two different angles,
showing Tony’s plane falling into the lake; both were horrific to watch. The
aircraft had come in low, with its wings waggling from side to side, before it
nose-dived into the water. I put my dinner aside.

The news anchor began a second story. Rochester police
were reopening the case of a decade-old unsolved armed robbery, during which a
customer was shot and killed. On what they claimed to be an anonymous tip, they
named one Danny Stearns as a person of interest. “In New York State,” said the
reporter, “there is no statute of limitations if someone dies during the
robbery. Three million dollars was taken at gunpoint from the National Bank of…”