CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I mean, as long as we’re pulling back, should we consider that it might not be related to the Unibrow Bomber at all? It could be any number of people who were disgruntled with the two of them.”
Faith looked out the window at the darkening sky and took a deep breath. “It could be,” she admitted. “But let’s hope we don’t have to pull back that far.”
“Hope springs eternal,” Jessica said. “All right. Let’s start looking for people.”
They divided the work with Jessica scouring news articles and social media posts and Faith looking through official records.
Since the incident was so catastrophic, it involved a very large number of people.
In all, over one hundred sixty airport and TSA personnel were involved.
Including local first responders would triple that number, so Faith chose to focus on the airport and TSA personnel first.
The families of the baggage claim handlers and TSA agents who died in the attack were clear candidates based on motive.
Sure enough, several of the families filed wrongful death lawsuits against the TSA.
Settlements were paid to all of them, but at least two individuals didn’t believe that was enough.
The husbands of Martha Wahlberg and Yolanda Perez, two of the deceased baggage handlers, continued to pursue legal action, filing individual lawsuits against Entwhistle and Hayes and lawsuits against Thurgood Marshall Airport as well.
The lawsuit against the airport was settled while Entwhistle and Hayes contested their lawsuits in court and won dismissals.
Faith was encouraged by this at first. That strengthened the motive for Henry Wahlberg and Koldo Perez to seek more personal revenge.
That excitement waned quickly. Research showed that both men had moved out of the area shortly after their suits were dropped, and phone calls to each were accompanied by more research, proving that they had both been thousands of miles away when the murders were committed.
Faith pushed through her irritation and reminded herself that this kind of tedium was part of the job.
It wasn’t as exciting as interrogating suspects or following leads, but when the obvious threads reached dead ends, this process of elimination was critical to finding the thread that would unravel the mystery.
With that in mind, she moved on to the employees still active at Thurgood Marshall.
While many of the employees involved had quit voluntarily or transferred to other airports or other roles within the TSA, seventeen still worked at Thurgood Marshall.
When she talked to them, nine had solid alibis that ruled them out as suspects.
The other eight insisted that Entwhistle and Hayes were the salt of the Earth and had done nothing wrong, and this killer was an asshole taking their anger out on the wrong people.
And they had solid alibis that ruled them out as suspects.
It was after dark by the time Faith finished following up on those individuals.
She rubbed her eyes, not tired but exhausted from the tedium and the lack of progress.
Jessica was similarly frustrated. She got to her feet, closing her laptop hard enough that she had to check to make sure she hadn’t accidentally shattered the screen.
“I’m going to get some dinner,” she told Faith. “I’m starving, and there’s nothing useful on social media or in the news. Let me know if you find anything in personnel records. Otherwise, I’ll help you when I get back.”
Faith gave her a thumbs up and kept working. The next item on her list was going through any employees terminated in the immediate aftermath of the bombing whose dismissal was either explicitly or implicitly connected to the event.
That yielded more possibilities. While the TSA had limited their scapegoating to Sandra Yeun, airport security had been more sweeping. Nine security personnel were dismissed in the six weeks following the attack. Under cause for termination, each file bore the descriptor, UNDISCLOSED.
“Hmm. That’s interesting.”
She started on the list and quickly found a repeated pattern among the dismissals.
All of them were assigned to the baggage handling department in positions ranging from the check-in counter alongside TSA agents to the handling facility in the terminal to the loading area where trams would be filled with bags to be taken to the airplanes.
All of them signed non-disclosure agreements that prevented them from discussing the circumstances of their firing.
All but one received settlements. The amounts were undisclosed but surely greater than the zero that Robert Stevenson received.
Jessica returned just as Faith began looking deeper into Mr. Stevenson. She set a sandwich in front of Faith and stopped when she noticed Faith’s intent stare at her laptop screen. “Hello,” she said. “Can I presume that you’ve found someone?”
“Maybe,” Faith said. “Turns out that nine airport security personnel were let go within six weeks of the bombing. All of them signed NDAs and all but one of them received settlements.”
"Ah. The NDAs make sense. They were terminated because their bosses screwed up, and the NDAs were because they didn't want the individuals talking about how badly their leadership screwed up. The settlements were because they really didn’t want these disgruntled individuals coming back with juicy stories about how much airport security screwed up.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm.” Jessica leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. “The plot thickens. We’ve been assuming TSA screwed up here, but it might not just be the TSA. Airport security at Thurgood Marshall apparently feels they screws up too.”
“But they feel that Robert Stevenson screwed up too,” Faith said. “Enough that they didn’t think they needed to offer him a settlement.”
"Right," Jessica said. "That conversation wasn't a polite one. That probably looked more like, 'sign this and be grateful we're not throwing you to the wolves."
“My thoughts exactly,” Faith agreed.
“So what did Mr. Stevenson do to deserve being shunned like this?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Faith said. “I think we should find out.” She looked through the window at the darkening sky. “And quickly. It’s been thirty-six hours since the last death. I don’t think our killer’s going to wait much longer before giving the world another message.”