Disclaimer: I don't own White collar, though I will claim a few original characters that show up later.
I've been reading and writing fanfic off and on for years now. This is my first White Collar fic and the first thing I've published in ages, but I'm really having fun in this fandom. I have about six chapters written and ready if this story finds an audience.
Fly, Fly Away
Chapter 1
"Neal, we have a case," Peter doesn't come by June's to fetch Neal in the mornings anymore, not unless it's important. He comes by to chat, and Neal is still adjusting to the new rapport between them, to Peter knowing his history with Adler. So when Peter shows up at 7:15 with a file in hand, Neal reluctantly finishes his Italian roast and grabs his jacket without protest.
"What kind of case," he asks, following Peter down the back stairs from his apartment to the street.
"I'll fill you in on the way," Peter replies.
But Peter doesn't explain the case once they get to the Taurus. He's pre-occupied with Manhattan traffic. Or rather preoccupied with getting away from Manhattan traffic, Neal notes as they head into the Bronx.
"Where are we going?" Neal finally asks as they approach the Throngs Neck Bridge.
"The American Airpower Museum in Long Island."
"That's not exactly the Guggenheim."
"Three days ago, someone stole the radio from a Nazi spy plane. Made me think of those crates of china we took from Larson last month."
"This could lead us to Adler," Neal surmises.
"Or give us an idea of what he's after. The local police don't have much," Peter hands over the case file.
It's an understatement. The local police don't even know how the thief got in or out, although they have three security camera shots of someone in dark clothes with a ski-mask.
"Security footage looks like a woman," Neal observes, knowing that Peter has already seen it.
"Most likely," Peter agrees. If this is connected to the music box somehow, they both know who their best female suspect is. Neal hopes he hasn't betrayed too much by telling Peter everything.
He tries to enjoy the drive out to Long Island, the farthest he's been outside his radius in a while. It's hard to work up an appreciation for a drive through the suburbs, however. It's not his type of place and the museum they finally pull up at his not his sort of museum. For one thing, it has a parking lot.
Peter introduces himself and Neal to the Nassau County PD sergeant, who introduces the museum's Director. The Director's baseball cap proclaims him to be a Vietnam veteran. As they walk inside, Neal takes in the building. It's basically a large hangar, with various aircraft scattered throughout. Yellow painted lines suggest a path, with dioramas and memorabilia surrounding the planes. There are two display cases with WWII era equipment and uniforms that appears to be alarmed; otherwise the security seems minimal.
"You reported the theft yesterday?" Peter is asking.
"We did," the director replies. "Museum's closed Monday through Wednesday. Looks like she got in Sunday night."
"And none of the security systems were triggered? Door alarms, motion detectors?"
"Door alarm was set as usual. We don't have motion detectors. Birds," he waves up at the trusses in the hangar's ceiling.
"It looks like the thief cross-wired the alarm on the case," the sergeant offers, pointing out the bypassed wiring on the display case. "We didn't find any prints, hairs, or fibers."
Neal isn't even really offended by their lack of security. There's nothing in here worth stealing, except the antique planes. That would be a heist on an entirely different scale. He'd need a truck, or someone who could fly the planes out from the airstrip next door, assuming the targets were airworthy. You'd need forged FAA documents to get them out of the country… He shuts off the part of his brain that automatically plans heists and refocuses on how the thief got inside.
"Tell me about this radio," Peter asks the director. "Why would someone want to take it?"
"Well, I guess a collector might want it," the Director suggests. "It's from a Junkers 290, German reconnaissance plane."
"What kind of reconnaissance?" Neal asks, looking at the two images in the file. The radio is a blocky receiver about the size of a shoebox, with a vintage headset and microphone attached.
"Most of them worked with the U-boats, spotting allied convoys to target; later in the war the Germans had variations equipped with missiles or bombs."
"How did it end up here?" Peter asks.
"Allies captured a Ju 290 in Munich in '45. They flew it in the airshow at Wright Field until they had to scrap the plane. Private collector bought the radio at auction and donated it to the museum five years ago."
"I'd like the name of your donor," Peter asks.
"See what I can do." The director seems reluctant. Why would someone donate an item like this to the museum and steal it back? But the very fact of the theft suggests that it's worth more than it seems, to someone.
"And I'd like to see the security footage." Neal's noted the locations of the four security cameras. With the large planes and few cameras, there are plenty of blind spots in the hangar.
In the museum's office, Peter and the Director go back and forth about the privacy of the museum's donors and Peter's ability to return with a warrant. Neal runs through the security footage. The thief stuck to the blind spots and was only caught on camera three times. She appears in the corner of the frame of a camera on the south side once, shows up a few minutes later on a camera near the display case and then just her legs appear on a camera on the west wall. Neal spots a door in a blind spot on the south wall. He leaves the director in the office. There are scratch marks on the doorknob, but it's unlocked. The door leads to a standard janitorial closet with cleaning equipment.
Peter and the director emerge from the office and the director hands Peter a print-out.
"Your donor was William Jenkins. He was a long time member here who left the radio and some other memorabilia to the museum in his estate. "
"When does the cleaning company come in?" Neal asks.
"Um, Wednesdays."
"We cleared them," the sergeant speaks up. "That crew has an early morning gig at a department store Mondays. No one missed work."
"So, no one had a reason to look in the janitor's closet Sunday night." Neal concludes. It's starting to come together. "Your thief walked in with the other visitors, slipped into that closet using a blind spot and waited for everyone to leave. The time programmed on the cameras is accurate, the theft happened at 5 am?"
"Yeah," the director says, defensively.
"Why would a thief wait twelve hours in that closet?" Peter asks.
"I don't know. It's almost light then, someone walking by might have seen."
"Walking by where?" the sergeant asks. "We don't even know how she got out of the building."
Neal rethinks the blind spots, and then walks over to an emergency exit on the west wall. He opens the door and is not surprised when the alarm fails to sound. Outside the door, beyond a short fence, is the airstrip.
"She went out here. And she needed daylight to fly away."
"Well sure," the director nods. "A lot of pilots only fly under visual flight rules. A lot of small planes don't have equipment for instrument flights."
Peter and Neal drive around to the airstrip's tower and main hangar. The director told them to ask for Gary, who rents small planes by the hour and sells fuel.
"So," Peter begins, "can Alex fly a plane?"
"Not as far as I know," Neal thinks he's relieved that she's not involved in this.
Gary does recall a woman who flew in Sunday morning, before the air show, and flew out Monday morning right after dawn.
"She was blonde, greenest eyes you ever saw, real young looking," he recalls when asked to describe the woman.
"Did she use a credit card?" Peter asks.
"No, she paid for the fuel and the tie down fee in cash. She signed for that somewhere here."
After a minute, he hands a document to Peter. "Amy L." Peter reads, "Not much to go on." He calls Jones and Diana at the office and reads them the flight registration numbers.
"Amy L. Amelia," Neal smiles at the pun. "Most famous female pilot ever."
"So it's an alias," Peter sighs. Neal, for one, is relieved he won't be forced to look through databases of pilot licenses for blonde women named Amy L.
They learn that Gary has two security cameras, but the footage is taped over after forty-eight hours.
"Did she look anything like this woman?" Peter shows him a photo of Alex, just in case.
"Naw, she was blonde," Gary replies.
"She might have worn a wig," Peter offers, trying to get something out of him. Neal doesn't think sitting Gary down with a sketch artist is likely to be helpful. And 'greenest eyes you ever saw' sounds like colored contact lenses. She could be anyone.
"No, not even then. She was younger. A kid really. I was surprised she had that she had that custom Cessna Skyhawk. Fancy plane for a kid."
"How young can a pilot be?" Peter asks.
"Aw, you can get a solo license at fifteen, commercial at sixteen. Amy looked a year or two older than that, I'd say."
"Did you ask her about where she got the plane?" Neal wonders.
"Yeah, she said she inherited it," Gary says with a shrug.
"So," Peter recaps on the way home. "We're looking for a teenage thief who inherited a plane. Sound like anyone you've ever heard of?"
"No, it's a unique MO. I'll ask around." By this, he means he'll ask Mozzie. "Maybe someone's heard of Amelia the Heiress."
"Amelia Heiress, that's good, we have a nickname," Peter chuckles. "Hopefully she hasn't disappeared in the South Pacific. Maybe Diana will have found something with that flight registration.
At first it seems like Diana has made headway when they return. A search of FAA databases reveals that the plane is registered to a private operator upstate who rents small planes by the hour or by the day.
"Who rented it on Sunday?" Peter asks over the phone.
"Morning or afternoon?" the reply scuttles their lead. The plane was rented in the morning, returned around 1pm and rented out again from 2 to dusk.
"Amelia forged the registration," Neal concludes.
"And the numbers on the tail," Jones adds.
"So we've got a thief, a pilot and a forger," Peter tallies the woman's skills.
"We've got nothing," Diana counters, frustrated.
Ultimately, Diana is right. The Burmese diamond case pushes Amelia from the top of the priority list, but Diana assigns a probie to look into Jenkins. He doesn't find any connection with Adler or with Alex. Mozzie's contacts come up empty as well.
They will have to find Adler—and the answer the music boxes riddle—another way, Neal thinks, as he files away the case materials and evidence. And, of course, they do. And given the circumstances, Neal is all too happy to leave the file with the other cold cases.
A/N: Thanks for reading. To clarify the timeline, this chapter follows "Forging Bonds" in Season 2. The rest of the fic will be set in S3. The American Airpower Museum is an actual place on Long Island. I based some description on pictures and invented the rest. The Junkers Ju 290 was an actual German aircraft used in WWII. One was captured, brought to the US and scrapped, but all details of the radio are my own invention.