"Didn't that make you nervous, being up there by yourself and knowing that?"

He looked at me, and I knew there was no point in pursuing the subject.

The item he'd been studying so intently was a wall calendar. "Are you planning your next vacation?"

"This is Molly's calendar from last year. My buddy over at United got me the list of Ellen's destinations from their frequent flyer desk. Altogether she took fifteen trips, and thirteen of them she could have flown on us. The two we don't fly are to Pittsburgh and Charleston. She got miles for every trip, so you were right. She bought tickets like a real passenger."

I turned the calendar so that I could see the dates. "Did you tell Molly? Because she didn't believe me."

"Yeah. Neither one of us can."

The calendar was from an insurance company, the kind they give out free every year. It had pictures of Massachusetts tourist attractions through the seasons. We were looking at November and Bunker Hill in the snow. Dan had penciled in the three-digit city codes for Ellen's destinations throughout the year. Most corresponded with an ELS, Molly's designation for Ellen, and an explanation of a dentist appointment or an off-site meeting or a personal day off. For some, she must have flown out that night and come back the next morning, because there was nothing on the calendar. No time lost.

"Any pattern or interesting sequence?" I asked.

"Nothing jumps out at me, but I'm working on it. My next step is to call the GMs in those stations."

"If she was sneaking around, flying under cover of another airline, it's not likely she'd check in with colleagues while she was there."

"I know, but I don't know what else to do."

"Is there any connection to the Beechcraft angle?"

"I thought of that," he said. "If there is, I can't figure what it is, other than the fact that we fly them out of here. Big deal."

"You said she had questions about the Beeches. What kind?"

"Like I said, a lot of questions about the cargo compartments, how much weight they can take, position of the fuel tanks, that kind of stuff. That's why I made the connection to drugs."

"But we don't think it was drugs, right? So what was it?"

He shrugged.

"Why don't you try to find another copy of that Nor'easter procedures manual?" I said. "If we looked through it ourselves, maybe we can figure out what she was doing with it."

We stared at each other. We were glum. Stumped and glum. Finally, I reached for the calendar and pulled it into my lap. "When was her first secret trip?"

He checked his list. "A little over a year ago. Not too long after she got here."

I leafed backward through the months, reading the various notations Molly had made and charting the station's recent history in reverse. Besides Ellen's travel days, there were employee birthdays and company anniversaries, retirement luncheons, and the annual Christmas party. September of last year had an entry in red with big arrows pointing to it. It was always an event when Bill Scanlon passed through your station.

"You believe Ellen started her investigation a few weeks ago, right?"

"A little longer, sometime before Christmas."

"If her first trip was over a year ago, then it's hard to relate the travel to the investigation. In fact…" I flipped a few pages as the idea settled into my brain. I flipped a few more and I knew I was right. "What these look like to me are secret rendezvous, especially those overnighters."

"What, like she was meeting someone?"

"Someone she didn't want anyone to know she was meeting."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why? Why does a woman usually have a secret rendezvous?"

"You mean like she was having an affair? No way."

I knew I was right. It felt right, but I had to figure out a way to convince Dan without telling him that my conjecture was based on my own personal experience traveling through the shadow land of whispered conversations, furtive plans, and hidden destinations. "Dan, we've already established this woman's ability to keep secrets. I think it's very possible that she was hooking up with someone in these cities."

His pained expression, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn together, was one I was coming to recognize, because he displayed it every time we found out something about Ellen he didn't know or like. He began to roll down his sleeves and button his cuffs. Something under his desk rattled when he bumped it with his foot. He kicked it impatiently and then again before he looked under the desk.

"Oh, shit." He checked his watch, then reached under and came up with an overnight bag. "I gotta get out of here."

"Where are you going?" As far as I knew, Dan didn't travel anywhere except back and forth to Logan Airport.

"Jersey. I'm going down to see my kid."

"Michelle."

"Yeah, I called her last night and told her I was coming. She'll be waiting for me." As he put on his jacket, he couldn't stop grinning. It was an unabashed, I'm-crazy-about-this-kid-and-don't-care-who-knows-it smile. "She's a pisser. I can't believe some of the stuff she comes up with."

I smiled, too, picturing a miniature female Dan racing around at Mach speeds, spewing invectives. "Does she talk like you?"

It took him a moment to get my drift, but when he did, he was horrified. "No fucking way. I don't swear around my kid." He put his hand over his heart. "On my mother's grave, she has never heard me cuss. Not once. Not my kid."

"If you say so." He unzipped the bag and started loading in files and printouts. I snatched them all back, including the calendar. "I'll take care of this."

"You sure?"

"If you're going to be with your daughter, be with her. And by the way, why did I have to hear about her from Lenny?"

"I don't know. It never came up." He closed the bag and looked at me. "You got any?"

"Kids? No."

"Ever been married?"

"No."

"See that? I didn't know that about you. It never came up."

I squeezed back into my shoes and followed him to the reception area. "Hold on, I'll walk you to your gate." I grabbed my coat and briefcase, closed up my office, and we started walking. It was hard to talk as we pushed through the crowded concourse, so I waited until we'd arrived at his gate. The agents on his flight were boarding stragglers, so I had a chance to tell him about my tete-a-tete with Big Pete. I kept my voice low so no one could eavesdrop.

"Am I doing the right thing not bringing back Little Pete?" I asked.

The bag thudded to the floor as he leaned back against one of the windows. "I think you're doing the right thing-" He caught himself and started again. "I know you're doing the right thing. The question is, can we deal with the consequences? And I'm not just talking about here in Boston. Have you talked this over with your boss?"

"Not exactly."

"I'll tell you what's going to happen. Assuming we could even get Terry McTavish to talk and we can nail Little Pete in the first place, Lenny is going to find some way to make a deal with the union and bring him in through the back door. Lenny will be a hero and we'll look like idiots."

"If we can prove that the guy was drunk on the job and physically attacked another employee, I can't see how Lenny could bring him back, if for no other reason than self-preservation. Setting aside all the issues of moral responsibility and self-righteous breast beating, in terms of pure self-interest, knowing what we know-"

"Suspect. What we suspect. Right now we can't prove anything."

"You're right, but if we get to the point where we can prove it, we would have no choice but to pursue his termination. And if Lenny was aware of the same facts, he'd be on the hook, too."

"You're going to threaten him?"

"I'm simply going to make him aware of all the facts. Maybe in writing."