Unaccompanied Minor (11 page)

Since then I’ve kept the events of that day at Ash’s condo to myself, except I sent an anonymous e-mail to Officer Ned imploring him to please look into the disappearance—and stolen identity—of Jalyce Sanders. I tried to be as detailed as possible without revealing my identity, including the involvement of Kathy Landry and describing Old Cinderblock, his car, and most of his car’s license plate numbers—but I had no idea if he did as I asked. I sincerely hoped so. Aside from Officer Ned, I don’t trust the police, for obvious reasons, and I didn’t want to endanger my mother and other family members—including Flo—by putting them on my radar as I’d done to poor Jalyce. Again, I’d spent the last few weeks in a literal holding pattern, trying to determine my next move. I no longer communicated with my mother via Skype, but rather through e-mail. As long as she knew I was okay, she didn’t push for details. She assumed I was at Ash’s place, and I didn’t correct her.

And my grandparents? Ash had issued a protective order barring them from coming into physical contact with me. It had to do with “not allowing” me to celebrate Easter, a move that was surprisingly effective in the Bible Belt. I kept in contact with them via e-mail as well. I didn’t have to worry about running into Grammy Mae because she worked a regional airline and rarely traveled nonrevenue, and Poppa Max hated to nonrev. He was so content with his vegetable garden that it kind of warmed your heart. I wish things were that simple for me.

My father’s parents were gone. My grandfather Roy, the airline engineer who used to let me help him study for his annual recurrent training, died a year and a half ago when the jack supporting the vintage Ford Rambler he was restoring collapsed and crushed his chest. That was a bad day. I was nuts about him. We used to spend every Sunday afternoon conducting experiments and testing the viability of any number of inventions he’d concocted over the years. He had a large barn at the back of his property, and it was packed with gadgets and motorized pulleys and levers. It was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in there, only with machines. Talk about a personal paradise. When we got the news, I remember my mother sitting on the couch and crying almost as hard as she did when my dad died.

“He was such a good man,” she sobbed. I sat on the floor crying as well, and rested my head against her knee, patting her calves until we both seemed to feel better.

My father’s mother had passed away when he was a boy, from hypobaropathy (or altitude sickness) while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of fellow flight attendants on a ten-day layover in Tanzania during the late seventies. She and Flo had been best friends, having graduated from the same flight attendant training class in 1967.

I kept a picture of them in my backpack. In it, she and Flo are standing in the massive engine well of a WorldAir jet, each wearing one of those iconic pink-and-orange uniforms designed by Pucci for WorldAir stewardesses back in the day. The uniform consisted of a short tunic over nearly-as-short hot pants, and white patent-leather boots. Their bleached platinum-blond hair is styled in the volumized cascade that was popular then, with a center strand clipped at the crown like Nancy Sinatra on the cover of her
These Boots Were Made for Walkin’
single. Their youth and beauty are absolutely incandescent.

When I looked at their picture, I’d get flooded with a nostalgia I’m not nearly old enough to feel. Wow, I think, it must have been so
insanely amazing
to be a stewardess back then, and my heart swells with pride. I kept the picture pressed in a compact flipbook along with those of the rest of my family. One each. I had to keep it light. None of my family members had any idea I lived in the air. Only Flo knew that secret, and never pressed me on why it needed to be kept.

Investigator Peter DeAngelo, NTSB:

April, Agent Kowalski of the FBI has arrived and he has some questions for you as well.

April Manning:

I spoke to him on the phone!

DeAngelo:

Exactly. Here he is now. I’m leaving for a bit to get a cup of coffee and let him take over for a while. Can I get you anything?

April Manning:

Yes, please. A Gatorade and a blanket, please.

DeAngelo:

Fine. Agent Kowalski, maybe you can help her get around to describing how she committed the federal crime of breaching the cockpit of an operational aircraft.

Investigator Anthony Kowalski, FBI:

April Manning, I take it?

April Manning:

Nice to meet you—

Kowalski:

Yeah, right. Listen, the first thing I want to know from you, young lady, is this: How the hell did you manage to throw a dead man off an aircraft
during flight
?

April Manning:

I should start with the bomb threats.

Kowalski:

That would be good.

April Manning:

When Ash first won custody of me, it was Malcolm’s suggestion that I write a letter to Judge Cheevers threatening to bomb a plane.

“Since your stepdad is now your primary physical custodian,” he said, “he is responsible for everything you do now. Before, when your mother had custody, you never threatened to bomb things, right?”

“Right.”

“So this would be a new development in your behavior. It would constitute a ‘change in circumstance,’ so when you go back to court and get a real guardian ad litem this time, as opposed to some sucking bottom fish, you can reverse everything.”

“Genius,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he said.

Another genius thing about Malcolm is that he finagled Captain Beefheart, real-live “emotional support” dog, out of his parents during the divorce. It was his guardian ad litem’s suggestion, and the only thing she did for him that seemed to put his welfare at a precedent. Now Malcolm has official papers and can bring Beefheart on board every flight, and he doesn’t even have to keep him in his carrier. Not once has Beefheart ever pooped on the plane, that I know of. There was that unfortunate time when he peed in the aisle, though.

Malcolm acted like this was just pulling the wool over his parents’ eyes, but I could see how the dog really helped him with the perpetual transition from coast to coast. Beefheart was the most constant thing in Malcolm’s life. He was pretty constant in my life, too, come to think of it.

And Captain Beefheart is not some pedigree puffball, like you’d expect from someone as rich as Malcolm. Instead, the dog is a Dumpster mutt with a half-chewed-off ear that looks like a baby crocodile covered in fur. In reality, Beefheart is a corgi/pit bull muttigree mix. He was found by a trash man who heard a puppy yelping inside the truck compactor. He dug it out and dropped it off at a rescue organization in Georgia called Angels Among Us.

Beefheart was then trained in an experimental program instigated by the Fulton County Penitentiary that used prison inmates to train the animals, which included all kinds of creatures like spider monkeys and even miniature horses. Malcolm qualified for a support animal about six months ago, owing to the amount of time he’d flown as an unaccompanied minor.

“All I had to do was tell the court-ordered co-parenting counselor I cried a lot on the airplane (Malcolm never cried that I saw), and
boom!
, instant prescription for Captain Beefheart.”

The prisoners get to name the pets they trained, and Captain Beefheart came already christened. Malcolm learned it was in honor of an avant-garde musician who’d gained cult fame during the seventies and early eighties.

“Still, why Captain Beefheart of all things?” I wondered.

“Maybe Frank Zappa was too mainstream,” Malcolm responded.

Beefheart had an official green vest, and was cleared by WorldAir to board all aircraft. Much of Beefheart’s extensive training was unnecessary for Malcolm’s purposes. For example, Malcolm didn’t need Beefheart to flip light switches and only had him retrieve things for him for fun.

“How cool is
this
?” Malcolm would exclaim, dispatching Beefheart up the aisle to nip some extra pretzel packets off the back of the snack cart.

“Can you send him back for some cookies, too?” I’d ask, impressed.

“Of course.” And off Beefheart would go to the quiet cheers of the nearby passengers.

I loved that dog. He made me wish I had one of my own to bring on the plane. I remember my mother tried to assign me one, but because Ash was my primary physical custodian and held sway with decision-making authority on all aspects of my life, of course he vetoed anything that would make it easier for me to deal with my present circumstances.

So I’d use my mother’s password to pull up a preliminary flight summary to see if an emotional support animal was listed on the departure report. Nine times out of ten, on the flights to LAX out of ATL and vice versa, it was Captain Beefheart. It was a reliable way of discerning the pattern of Malcolm’s flight habits. Luckily they often coincided with Flo’s flight habits, especially since Flo let me put in the bids for her trips every month. So, even though I should have been used to it, my heart still skipped a beat when I saw him. Even on this fateful flight, up until the hijacking, I was so happy to see Malcolm on the plane.

FBI subject log, April 1, 2013, 13:34:

1. April Mae Manning
   
   • Born: April 1, 1998 (15 years old today)
     
   • Caucasian female, light brown shoulder-length hair, green eyes, 56, 105 lbs.
     
   • Identifying marks: Large scar, right arm
     
   • Parents:
     
   • Elizabeth Davenport Manning (divorced)
     
   • Flight Attendant, WorldAir
     
   • Born: November 16, 1974 (39 years old)
     
   • Robert Madison Coleman (deceased October 12, 2003)
     
   • Flight Attendant, WorldAir
     
   • Born: September 16, 1974 (29 at time of death)
     
   • Ash Underwood Manning (divorced)
     
   • Pilot, WorldAir
     
   • Born: March 15, 1967 (49 years old)
     
   • Adoptive father, primary physical custodian
     
2. Malcolm Jeffrey Colgate (14 years old)
   
   • Born: January 2, 1998
     
   • Caucasian male, red wavy hair, brown eyes, 55, 95 lbs.
     
   • Identifying marks: Freckles
     
   • Parents:
     
   • Matilda Marie Remington Colgate (divorced)
     
   • Morton McGill Colgate (divorced)
     
   • Founders, Global Colgate Enterprises, under investigation for tax fraud since April 2010.
     
3. Edward Thornton Rockwell (42 years old) (single)
   
   • Born: August 11, 1970
     
   • African American male, brown hair, brown eyes, 65, 195 lbs.
     
   • Identifying marks: Scar, left shoulder, bullet entry wound. Scar, upper left torso, bullet entry wound. Scar, upper left back, bullet exit wound.
     
   • Law Enforcement Officer, Atlanta Fulton County Police Department
     
   • Date of employment: January 16, 1993
     
   • Record of employment: 12 disciplinary actions. Discharge of firearm resulting in death of suspect. 14 interdepartmental accolades. Request for advancement: Declined 1998, 2002, 2007, 2012.
     
4. Florence “Flo” Beulah Butterfield Schnieder Chang Davenport (67 years old) (divorced)
   
   • Caucasian female, white hair, blue eyes, 50, 95 lbs.
     
   • Identifying marks: Birthmark, right hip. Tattoo (“MacGyver”), right ankle. Pierced belly button.
     
   • Flight Attendant, WorldAir
     
   • Born: February 15, 1946
     
   • Date of employment: March 20, 1967
     
   • Record of employment: 7 incidents of “failure to appear,” 5 suspended terminations, 14 disciplinary marks for behavior described as “wantonly insubordinate,” 1,423 passenger appreciation letters.
     
5. Captain Beefheart (approx. 2 years old)
   
   • Emotional Support Animal
     
   • Mixed-breed corgi/pit bull male canine. Rescued from Dumpster by Angels Among Us Pet Rescue. Trained by the Atlanta inmate program. Certified January 15, 2013.
     
   • Identifying marks: Prominent teeth. Mild halitosis. Partial missing left ear.
     

Kowalski:

Here’s your Gatorade and blanket.

April Manning:

Thanks.

Kowalski:

Now get back to explaining how events transpired today.

April Manning:

I noticed the first sign that something was wrong with WorldAir flight 1021 during boarding of the aircraft, after Malcolm and I had taken our seats and were engaged in our usual pre-flight banter.

“PSA flight 182,” Malcolm challenged.

“Puh-leez.” I rolled my eyes, trying to suppress my elation over seeing him. “PSA flight 182 crashed over San Diego in 1978 when it collided with a two-seater Cessna. Everyone on board both aircrafts died, plus seven people on the ground.”

“The pilot of the Cessna had a heart attack and lost control of his equipment,” Malcolm added as he situated Captain Beefheart in his soft-sided crate under the seat in front of him.

“A common misconception,” I chided. “Actually, the NTSB concluded it was the PSA pilot’s error when he failed to follow the tower’s instructions to maintain a visual of the private plane.”

“Really?” Malcolm answered. “Well, what were the pilot’s last words on the black-box recording?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. Okay, sometimes I do throw him a few softballs.

“He said, ‘We’re going down. Tell my mother I love her.’” Actually, the doomed pilot had said, “Ma, I love ya,” but I didn’t want to be a stickler.

“Wow, good one.” I widened my eyes like Flo told me to. Flo was pretty good at flirting with men. She’d divorced four husbands, who all remained devoted to her. “The best husband is an ex-husband,” she liked to tell me. I didn’t exactly agree with everything she said, though, as I don’t understand the reason people get married in the first place.