The Paternal Predecessor Paradox

Chapter Two

The Middlemobile had gotten a similar low-key disguise, mostly closing off interior panels and controls that a normal car wouldn't have. Nobody spoke much. Wendy, in the back seat beside her mother, wondered what they were thinking about each other. Mom looked different -- smaller, older -- and it wasn't all from the news about Dad. Her Cuban accent had worn away almost completely, at least in English. That part certainly hadn't happened overnight. Wendy felt bad that she'd taken her mother so much for granted. Mom had never tried to keep her close to home; she'd been the biggest fan of Wendy's art ambitions. But Wendy felt guilty, looking back, over how little time they'd spent together in the last few years. Having Dad's death a certainty instead of a guess reminded her that eventually she'd lose Mom, too.

At the Naval base, they were met by a polite noncom who looked ridiculously young even to Wendy. He escorted them to a conference room. "I'm sorry for your loss. Please make yourselves comfortable, Dr. Crane will be here in a few minutes. Would you like some coffee?" He was talking to the Middleman.

Who turned to Wendy's mom instead of answering. "We'll be fine, thank you," she said. Their guide left, looking flustered.

The older woman looked at him thoughtfully. Wendy kept her expression carefully neutral. This part had a terror all its own, getting Mom and the Middleman together with time for casual small talk. "Wendy thinks very highly of you." Mom let the statement hang. That and the Maternal Look of Mind-Reading had worked on teenaged Wendy long before her adult self learned it was an interrogation technique.

The Middleman knew that trick, of course. He also didn't have memories of kindergarten intimidating him. "I think very highly of Wendy," he answered. "Professionally as well as personally. She's smart, self-assured, valiant..."

"Hmm. Does her job call for valor very often?" Mom asked sweetly.

Wendy smiled a little, not looking at either of them. Direct hit! And you thought we didn't need to build a whole cover story in advance.

Luckily, she'd gotten her way on that point. "It's true that our consulting firm does quite a bit of investigation and security work," The Middleman said with hardly a pause. "Specifics about our clients are confidential, but that much is no secret."

Wendy winced slightly. Damn improvisation. Might as well have said 'honestly, I'm not lying.' "They're not all confidential," she said lightly. There was that time we were doing concert security for Varsity Fan Club when they toured here. And the product safety research when they test-marketed that new diet energy drink. '!!!!'" She did the gesture. "The inventor used rainforest-based ingredients, trying to be trendy, but it wasn't actually very good. Fishy aftertaste."

"We have a consultant relationship with the fashion house Famuse," he added, leaving out who consulted for who. "The designer, Roxy Wasserman, has developed a real respect for Wendy's intelligence and determination."

"Just stuff," Wendy said. "If you're picturing me chasing bank robbers and murderers, some CSI thing, it's not like that at all." It's a hell of a lot stranger. Wendy focused on how much she loved her work, instead of how dangerous it was, and hoped her sincerity came out in her body language. Nobody can push your buttons like your Mom. Because she installed them.

Mom looked doubtful but not quite able to spot the catch. "You're still painting, I hope?"

Wendy was happy for one she could answer without reservation. "Pretty much every day. I've done seven big canvases in the last two months. And there was a gallery showing a while back, three pieces sold." Only one had stayed sold, after Pip the building owner's son confessed he'd copied her work, but that was irrelevant. "The job's good for my art. I meet so many different kinds of people, I'm up to my elbows in new ideas."

The door creaked; they turned and saw two middle-aged men in uniform. "Mrs. Watson?" the older said. "I'm Dr. Crane, the pathologist. I'm very sorry for your loss. This is Captain Hedison, who's also investigating the crash."

More introductions; Wendy noticed again that the Middleman was subtly keeping himself in the background. They settled facing each other across the conference table. Wendy's mom sat directly opposite the two Navy men, Wendy beside her; the Middleman took a seat by Wendy and a bit back from the table.

The pathologist opened a manila folder and arranged several sheets of paper in front of him with nervous fingers. "I should say first, Mrs. Watson, Miss Watson, that we will not be asking you to positively identify the remains that the salvage crew found. We were able to confirm all that from Captain Watson's medical and dental records, as well as the markings on the plane itself. The remains we found, ma'am, were essentially skeletal. You're free to see them, but it won't be ... as far as any personal connection..."

Her chin came up. "I understand, doctor. All that was pretty much implied when we were told he'd been underwater. But what can you ..." Her composure shifted for the first time; she wrapped her fingers around Wendy's. "How did Peter die? Did he suffer?"

The doctor's eyes were compassionate. "Not that we can tell, ma'am. He was still belted into the pilot's seat, no broken bones. No sign he tried to get loose. Without soft tissue I can't give you sure answers, but hitting the water at that speed could easily knock the passengers unconscious even in seat belts. My reading is that your husband died on impact, or was badly concussed and drowned. I doubt he had any idea what was happening."

She nodded. "That is a comfort. When will we be able to take him home?"

Dr. Crane looked uncomfortable. "That falls into Captain Hedison's jurisdiction."

The other man hadn't said much -- doing a watch-and-wait of his own, Wendy realized -- since he arrived. Now he leaned forward a little. "I'm sure you remember, Mrs. Watson, that your husband's disappearance was investigated at the time," Hedison said. "Mostly from the standpoint of mechanical failure. He was flying a fifty-year-old aircraft, after all. He and the other pilots at his naval air station had been restoring and maintaining the plane in their spare time over the previous several years. He was one of ten or twelve men who flew the DC-3 to various air shows, for community outreach, as their schedules allowed. There was no thought at the time other than that he'd been unlucky enough to be the one flying when the plane broke down."

Wendy's mother sat up a little straighter. "At the time," she repeated. More than suppressed grief was flattening her tone, now. Wendy started to feel afraid.

Captain Hedison met her eyes steadily. "Yes, ma'am. At the time. As Dr. Crane says, the medical facts are nothing unexpected. As far as the mechanical condition of the aircraft, we can't tell what brought it down -- it wasn't likely we could have, after that many years in salt water. But we do know that he was a couple of hundred miles off his registered flight plan. And ... it was your husband's intention to fly alone that day?"

"Of course. I told them so at the time."

"Yes, ma'am. I've read the original report, your deposition was very clear. But he wasn't alone. Another man was found in the plane with him, an armed man. One we haven't been able to identify either by his effects or by medical records."

"That's impossible. All of his friends were there, at the funeral and afterward; no one else disappeared along with him." Wendy's mother bit her lip. "Armed. Are you suggesting that Peter's plane was hijacked?"

"That's one possibility, ma'am." Hedison didn't sound like he believed it. "But the gun was in the second man's holster, not in his hand or loose in the plane. We have to look at other theories. Think back, Mrs. Watson. It's been a long time, but did anything your husband said, anything about his manner suggest he was doing more than taking a vintage craft to an air show?"

Wendy was trying to remember too. Age fourteen was old enough to retain clear detail, but she hadn't focused on the same things an adult would have. One more of Dad's business trips hadn't meant as much to her as the chances of going to the movies on Saturday in spite of a bad math grade. Until he didn't come home, and her world was never the same again.

"This is silly," Wendy said. "Dad was just a naval aviator, the plane was just a plane. What reason would some guy with a gun have for picking on him?"

"A surprising number of DC-3's are still in service today," Hedison said. "They were simple but they were rugged -- efficient, reliable, easy to repair and operate. Under modern conditions... one factor is that they fly low and slow compared to almost anything built in the last forty years. That can make them hard to detect, for civilian air-traffic control that isn't expecting them."

Wendy gripped the table edge in front of her. "What are you suggesting?" she snarled. Glanced at her mother. "Sorry, Mom. He's just making it sound ..."

"Don't be sorry, dear." Mom fixed her eyes on Captain Hedison, too. "It's a very good question."

He stood up to the glare. "I can't ignore the context. Many of the DC-3s still in operation are used by smugglers."

"Peter would never have been involved with something like that." She wasn't shaken, only angry. "You can't tell me you found drugs in his plane."

"No, ma'am. Nor any other contraband," Hedison admitted. "But taking an armed, unknown passenger to an unknown destination looks ... questionable. It's my duty to clear this up, as much as we can this many years after the fact."

"My husband served his country all his life. He was a good man, an honorable man. You can't question that."

Captain Hedison had a briefcase on his side of the conference table. He opened it. "Mrs. Watson, do you remember if your husband was wearing a watch the day he disappeared? An unusual one?"

Wendy's mother relaxed a bit at the less menacing question. "He wore a waterproof watch. But it was perfectly ordinary."

"Is this it?" Hedison took out a clear, labeled evidence bag and laid it on the table.

He was looking for a shocked reaction, Wendy realized later. But he was looking in the wrong direction. Wendy's mother looked at the bulky, chromed device with complete and honest non-recognition. "No, I've never seen that at all. I'd have remembered."

Wendy stared blankly for a few seconds before she got control of herself. She let her right arm fall loosely down the side of her chair, so that the sleeve of her suit jacket covered her Middlewatch. The watch identical in every detail to the one her father had worn when he died. Don't look at him. It would be dumb dumb DUMB to do that right now. But the Middleman was going to be very sorry when she had a chance to talk freely. You know what my dad meant to me. Not just what you read in my dossier; I told you. I trusted you.

Captain Hedison was still looking at her mother. "We haven't been able to trace the manufacturer. It got our attention, you see, because the second man was wearing one too." Another clear evidence bag laid out on the table.

"I'm afraid I can't help you. If he'd broken his watch on the trip, I suppose he'd buy a new one." Wendy's mother sat up stiff and square. "That's not a crime, as far as I know."

The Middleman had his hands in his lap, below the edge of the table. When they came up again his left wrist was bare. "I couldn't help noticing," he said mildly. Hedison and the pathologist started, as if they'd forgotten he was there. "Captain. You never said who you work for. You told us you're investigating, but not under whose authority." The look in his eyes didn't go with the unassertive tone.

Hedison looked not only suspicious but abashed, as if he'd been hoping not to answer that question. "ONI."

"Why would the Office of Naval Intelligence be involved in a plane crash? You only deal with the naval technologies of foreign powers. I remember reading that somewhere." His tone didn't give a damn if the explanation was believable or not.

"Dr. Crane's people looked at the two watches in an attempt to identify their John Doe. Even a cursory analysis turned up peculiarities. Solid-state technology orders of magnitude beyond commercial microchips. We could tell that even after ten years in salt water." Hedison studied the Middleman with new interest. "Mr. Middler, you said. Friend of the family?"

"I've known Wendy a bit less than a year. I met Mrs. Watson for the first time today. I never met her husband at all." The blatantly truthful statements fell into place like stones. "But I share their concern for his honor and his memory."

"Then clearing this up quickly will be best for everyone," Hedison said smoothly. "Mrs. Watson? Any thoughts?"

"I think I want a lawyer," she said icily. "If you're so determined to see Peter as some sort of international spy. And I want his remains released to his family now."

Dr. Crane glanced at the other man. "We, er, can certainly do that, Mrs. Watson. I'll start the process. But."

"I'm afraid we'll have to hold his personal effects -- the watch, and anything else that seems relevant -- while my investigation continues," Hedison said. "I hope the delay will be brief."

"How are you ever going to close the investigation if Dad was innocent?" Wendy said. "Hard to prove a negative. Especially since you can't decide what you're accusing him of."

"Captain Watson's dead, miss; there's no question of putting him on trial."

"Just a question mark at the end of his military record forever, huh?" Having a clear target for her rage felt good. "We aren't going to let that happen."

"My daughter speaks for me as well." Mrs. Watson stood up; the men stood with her out of sheer force of courtesy. "I'm not going to wish you a good day." She swept out of the room, leaving Wendy and the Middleman with nothing to do but follow.

-----

They were outside at the car before Wendy's mother let go of her dignity. She used a few words, in English and Cuban Spanish, to relieve near-lethal levels of rage. "Sorry, dear," she said in a more controlled tone. "I thought I was ready for anything that could happen, knowing that your father was beyond being hurt. I was wrong."

"Mrs. Watson," the Middleman ventured. "I don't know what happened with or to your husband." A glance at Wendy to direct the words at her, too. Wendy met them with a venomous silence. "I'm sure you're right that he was going about some perfectly honorable course of action. We have experience investigating strange and ambiguous situations. Let me look into this, see if I can find out anything useful."

"That's a good idea," Wendy agreed. "We really are good." A sharper edge. "I'm behind you all the way, Boss."