“You needed the job at Prairie Air and yet you let yourself get fired.”

“As much as I’ve been butt-fucked in life, you’d think I’d be the last person to stand on principle on anything. But this was wrong.”

“In what way specifically?”

“The manifest on Flight 2112.” Karen put her fork down and wiped her lips with a napkin. I didn’t think she was done eating so much as taking a breather.

Karen set her elbows on either side of the plate and leaned toward me. “I got fired because I was asked to lie about the manifest. Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook were booked for the flight but never boarded.”

“You sure?”

Karen grabbed a fried wonton and munched it. “Absolutely. When their names didn’t show up as having scanned their boarding passes I called the plane and spoke to the attendant. She gave me a head count. There were four empty seats out of twenty. Should have only been two. Wasn’t hard to miss.”

“Why did you go to the trouble of checking to see if Vanessa and Janice had boarded?”

“Because this was the first time I’ve ever had passengers miss a flight. Since they boarded on the ramp versus down a Jetway, there was the possibility they had gone out the door of another commuter airline. Not likely, considering security, but it has happened.”

“What were you asked to lie about?” I asked.

“That Vanessa and Janice had boarded and that the manifest reflected that.”

“Why and who asked you to lie?”

“The why I don’t know. The who were my boss and his boss.”

“Both employees of Prairie Air?”

Karen nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do they routinely deal with the manifest?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Is changing a manifest something out of the ordinary?”

Karen rolled her eyes. “Hell yes.”

“Why would your bosses ask you to change it?”

“That’s the why question, right? Like I told you, I don’t know. Maybe it was the feds?”

The question made me pause. “Feds?”

“One of those Go Teams arrived early this morning to investigate the crash. They did interviews and took records from the booking clerks and the maintenance crew.”

“And they interviewed you?” I asked.

“Not directly. They were in the office when my bosses were asking me to change the manifest.”

“But the manifest is on the computer, right? There would be a record that it had been altered.”

“That’s why they wanted me to go back and change it. To make it look like it had been my mistake by not putting those two passengers on the manifest. And they wanted me to sign an affidavit that I had made a mistake and not Prairie Air.”

“And if you didn’t cooperate?”

“I’d get fired for insubordination.”

“And these feds? What were they doing during the interview?”

“Just watching. Once they made me wait in the hall while they discussed something with my bosses.”

“How did you know they were feds?”

“Because my boss kept calling them ‘the feds.’ Two of them had NTSB badges and the other an ID with the initials RKW.”

Rockville Kamza Worthington. The consultant firm Goodman worked for. He was within tackling distance. Why was Goodman interested in changing the manifest? The corpses of Vanessa and Janice weren’t in the morgue trailer and, according to Karen, they had never boarded the doomed flight. So why the charade of claiming they had been killed in the crash?

My kundalini noir twitched with suspicion. What about the other crash, the Cessna Caravan? Were any of those victims missing?

I asked, “What did the man…it was a man who wore the RKW badge?”

“Yeah. About your height. More filled out. Short blond hair. Quiet. Late forties I’d guess. Looks like he works outside a lot. Wore one of those official blue windbreakers.”

Goodman, for sure.

“You get his name?”

“No. As far as I was concerned, he was just another bureaucratic busybody.”

“Your bosses threatened you with dismissal?”

“Not in those words. It was more like sign this or you’re out on your ass.”

“And your bosses were comfortable with this?”

“Charles, my immediate supervisor, wasn’t. He’s a nice enough guy otherwise but I could tell he didn’t want to join me in the unemployment line. My other boss is a real career prick. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t admit to making a mistake. Of course, I didn’t make a mistake. Even if I cooperated, I knew this wouldn’t be the end of the story. Something else comes up, a criminal investigation for instance, and do you think they’d admit to pressuring me to sign that affidavit?”

Karen and I locked eyes for a moment. I sensed her gratitude; she’d found someone on her side. Maybe she would extend that gratitude to the bedroom.

“Who else could verify the manifest?”

“The flight attendant. After the crash, now it’s just me.”

I tried to remember which of those corpses in the trailer belonged to the flight attendant. Not that I could’ve gotten her to talk.

I scooped rice with my fork and pretended it tasted good. “What now?”

Karen sighed. She ran a hand over her scalp and fluffed her hair. “Find work. And pronto. My rent is due at the end of next week and I won’t have enough to cover it.”

Karen had been more than helpful. Thanks to her, the light on Goodman shined even brighter. This Dan Goodman was my man.

I fished a roll of hundreds from my pocket and kept the roll below the level of the table so Karen couldn’t see what I was doing. I removed twenty bills, cupped them in my hand, and offered them to Karen.

She stared at the money. “What’s that for?”

“To give you a little breathing room until you find more work.”

“What’s the catch?”

“There is none. My client gave me a good advance and so far, you’ve been my best lead.”

Karen took the money and counted it. “You sure about this?”

“Of course.”

She folded the bills and shoved them into her purse. “Don’t expect no quid pro quo. Like putting out.”

“Didn’t cross my mind.”

“Well, make sure that it doesn’t.”

The way she snapped at me meant I was wrong in thinking there was chemistry between us. How could I have misread her? Usually, when I’m with a woman alone like this, sex is not a matter of if but when. My vampire lure is always out there. Why wasn’t she interested?

The waiter came by and took Karen’s plate. She asked for hot tea. After the waiter left, she asked me, “What’s next?”

“After lunch?” I was hoping for a chance to check out Karen’s bra size, but considering her tone, I didn’t want a repeat of the debacle I had with Belinda in Oswego. “I keep going with the investigation.”

The waiter brought hot tea. Karen poured a cup and took a sip. “Got time for a break?”

“As in?”

“As in, I got the afternoon off. Duh.” She sipped again. “You play pool? There’s a sports bar about a half mile from here.”

“I can hold my own.” Okay, maybe I did have a second chance.

Karen laughed. “Hold your own. Good luck with that. I’m going to kick your ass.”

Did chemistry flicker between us?

I paid the check for both of us. Karen and I had come to the restaurant in separate cars; I drove a Monte Carlo rental, she a little Metro. Karen had taken the last spot behind the restaurant while I parked down the street. I went back to my car and would follow her Metro to the sports bar.

If the afternoon unfolded as I imagined it would, and we ended up together, I wouldn’t make the same mistake as I had with Belinda. Karen was getting a dose of vampire hypnosis.

A woman screamed.

The scream had come from Karen’s direction.

My fingers and the skin on my arms tingled with dread. My kundalini noir writhed in alarm. So much for my sixth sense giving me a warning. The scream I heard meant the worst had already happened.

I sprinted down the sidewalk and through an alley back to the tiny lot behind the Ling Ding Chinese Palace.