Angelina and I stepped into the office, making our way through the chaos of reporters and eyewitnesses. I listened to the conversations around us, trying to gather as much information as possible about what I had missed here after I left. Apparently, it had come out that Alan Bennet had hired the pilot to take him to Burlington, Vermont. From there, it was now being assumed, he had been planning to rent a car and drive to Canada, then fly from Montreal to the Caribbean. The money he transferred out of the bank in Philadelphia this morning had gone to a bank in the Cayman Islands, where officials were cooperating with local authorities to secure its return.

I looked around at the room. Probably it was usually a sleepy little airport hangout. The people that were being interviewed were predominately men in baseball caps and grease-stained overalls. The walls were lined with torn pieces of fabric, names and dates written in black marker across them. I was looking at those when a man spoke, standing next to me.

“That’s for solo flights,” he said. I turned to see a friendly-looking fellow with stark white hair and a toothpick in his mouth.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Them shirts. When you make your first solo flight, as soon as you land, your buddies tear off your shirttail, write your name and the date on it, and stick it up on the wall. That’s mine, there, from back in ’72. Martin Van Buren.”

“Martin—”

He held up two hands to cut me off.

“I know, just like the president. I’ve been fighting jokes my whole life. But it tickles my wife. She likes folks to call her the First Lady.”

“Nice to meet you, Martin,” I said. “My name is Callie; this is Angelina.”

“How ’do?” he said, tipping an imaginary hat at us. “You ladies reporters?”

“No,” I answered. “We’re friends of the Smythe family. We’re looking for the boy, Carlos. The one who’s missing.”

“Yeah,” he said, “them cops was out there earlier, looking around for him. They thought maybe they’d find his body in the woods around the field or something. But as far as I know, nobody turned up nothing. Not one sign that he was even here. I think now they’re searching elsewhere.”

I nodded, thinking this was probably a waste of time. But still, it was worth a shot.

“So who would we see about getting a look inside the hangar, and maybe inside some of those planes?” I asked.

“You have to see the president,” he said looking around. “Oh! Martin Van Buren. I guess that’s me.”