Act of God (36 page)

I walked toward her, holding my ID out in front of me. She flinched at first, then glared harder.

Three feet from her, I stopped, the hand with the holder at eye level to her. Into the phone, Jorgensen said, “Janey? His name’s John Francis Cuddy.” She recited the rest of the information on the thing. “What? … I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it, just make sure you remember it for the police. … Right, right. I’ll call you in five minutes.”

Hanging up the phone, Jorgensen said, “She doesn’t hear from me, my friend’s calling the cops.”

“Dead battery?”

“What?”

“Your friend Janey. Dead battery in her car?”

Guardedly, “Yes.”

“And because of your arm, she was supposed to drive you somewhere, right?”

Still guarded. “Maybe.”

“Tell you what. My car’s just out front. I’ll drive you, and we can talk on the way.”

Shaking her head, having to use the good hand again on her hair. “I’m not going to talk with you, now I’m supposed to take a ride with you?”

I took out my wallet and started doling things out to her. “Driver’s license, with photo. Permit to carry a concealed weapon, also with photo. My passport would take a while, but I can give you the names and telephone numbers of three or four Boston cops who’ll vouch for me.”

Jorgensen caught herself smiling. “And for your driving?”

“If I didn’t have this doctor’s appointment, there’s no way on earth I’d be doing this.”

I nodded. “Given the reason you need the appointment, I hope the airline’s picking up the tab.”

She turned in the passenger’s seat to look at me. “What do you mean, ‘the reason’?”

“I read some newspaper articles about the crash. One profiled how you broke and burned your arm.”

Jorgensen looked back out the windshield, not saying anything.

We stopped for a red light. “It must have taken a lot, going back inside that plane after the little girl.”

Nothing at first. Then, “She had braces.”

“Braces?”

“Not on her teeth, on her legs. Like from polio, only I guess it couldn’t have been polio she had, this day and age.”

“Probably not.” The traffic light changed. “Do you remember another passenger with a limp?”

“Just from preboarding.”

“You mean helping some people onto the plane before you let everybody on it?”

“Yes. The little girl, somebody else helped her on, but I kept track of her.” Jorgensen suddenly seemed to want to talk, her face still straight ahead. “We were a lifeguard flight, so I was thinking about sick people.”

“Lifeguard?”

“Yes. When a plane is carrying donated organs—for transplanting into somebody else—the air traffic controllers add ‘lifeguard’ to the flight number. So we’d be like “Flight four-zero-five Lifeguard.’ When you’re carrying organs, speed is of the—what’s the expression?”

“Speed is of the essence?”

“Right. Once we were airborne, the captain used that, talking to the passengers. To tell them how … lucky they were to be on the plane, because the tower would give us expedited consideration for routing and landing. Anyway, since we were a lifeguard flight, I was thinking about sick people, and when the little girl wasn’t in my section, I switched off with one of the other attendants, so I could be near her. She was only seven or eight, had the cutest little face, dimples to drive the boys wild. When the … when we went down, we only had a few seconds warning from the cockpit, not even enough time for most of the passengers to panic or anything, unfasten their seat belts. The cabin … the fuselage just split apart and burst into flames. It was … unbelievable, really. One second, you’re on this approach, everything just fine, smiling with relief that you have only the return hop back to Logan, and the next minute it’s like … some kind of nightmare in hell, everybody screaming, the walls opening up, the section behind you just … just not there, not there anymore.”

Jorgensen was speaking more to the windshield than me.

I made a left turn. She said, “The second right after this one.”

We slowed down for it. “You said there was another passenger with a limp?”

Jorgensen’s head came back to me. “What?”

“You said there was somebody else who needed help preboarding?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” Eyes front. “A blond woman, with a limp. She was kind of crying, almost didn’t make the preboarding, like she was … preoccupied, thinking about something.”

“Did you get a good look at her?”

“Pretty good. I would have tried to help her, too, when we … when we hit, but she was in the section that … was gone.”

I reached into my suit pocket to get the photo I’d been carrying around for a week. “Was this the woman?”

Jorgensen looked at it. “I don’t think so. The hair is wrong, and she’s—this woman’s too young. The passenger had sunglasses on, but she dressed and … she was just older.”

I took the photo back. “Did you speak to her?”

“A little.”

“Do you remember what she said?”

“Just introduced herself, thanked me for helping her.”

“Introduced herself?”

“Told me her name, said she really appreciated the help because she was going to D.C. to see the Wall.”

“The Vietnam Memorial?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“She said it was ‘Hool.’ I made a mental note, thinking ‘Heated Pool.’ Word association, you know, ‘H’ for ‘Heated’ with ‘Pool’ is Mrs. Hool.”

“Why did you do that?”

“In case she might need anything on the flight. You keep a little more track of the people who preboard.”

“Why the ‘Mrs.’?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did you say ‘Mrs.’ Houle?”

“Oh. Her wedding rings. I didn’t ask her about it, though. Thought it might have been her husband.”

“Her husband?”

Jorgensen looked at me. “You know … on ‘the Wall?’ ”

“I understand. Anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did Mrs. Houle say anything else to you?”

“I don’t think so. She seemed to be in pretty good shape, except for the limp.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, when I took her arm, it seemed pretty strong under her clothes. Toned, you know?”

“But she didn’t say anything else?”

“Not then.”

“Then?”

“Not as I found her window seat for her. Just later.”

“Later?”

“After the aisle seat arrived. We were only about two-thirds full, so there was going to be an empty middle one between them, but this Mrs. Hool said she had to change her seat.”

“Why?”

“She didn’t say. A lot of people with disabilities like an aisle seat, but just as many go for the window, since you don’t have to get up to let other people out all the time. This time, though, when the woman who had the aisle seat arrived—kind of late, just barely made the flight—we’re about to shut the door when Mrs. Hool told me she had to change her seat.”

“But she didn’t say why.”

“No. And the way she was, I didn’t ask her.”

“The way she was?”

“Kind of weepy and all, tissues in her hand, rubbing under her eyes.”

“The way she’d been as you boarded her?”

“Yes, only … more so? I guess she was thinking about the Wall.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I got Mrs. Hool out of that row and then aft maybe ten, twelve rows. That made the difference.”

“The difference?”

“Yes. The way we … hit, she probably would have been okay, because I think the fat lady walked away without a scratch.”

“The fat lady?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that. The aisle seat, she was pretty heavy.”

“The woman who would have been next to Mrs. Houle.”

“Right. Well, a seat away, like I said.”

“Because of the middle one being open.”

“Right.”

I thought about it. “The seat that Mrs. Houle changed to, was that a window seat, too?”

“No. No, it was a middle seat. I was afraid the other people in her new row would give me a hard time, too. You know, you figure, the doors are sealed, you’ve got that middle seat free, but they saw her limp and the aisle seat in the new row got up so Mrs. Hool could get in the middle.”

“You know the name of the heavy woman?”

“No.”

“Her seat number?”

“Well, it was the row just forward of …” Jorgensen closed her eyes. “On that aircraft, it would have been ‘13,’ and ‘C’ for the aisle.” She opened her eyes. “That’s what’s so ironic.”

“The number, you mean?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Hool stays in 13A, she’s probably okay, because the fat—sorry, the heavyset one, like I said, I think she walked away. Or ran away, like everybody else did.”

“Except for you.”

Jorgensen swung her head toward the windshield. “All the good it did.”

“Your going back into that plane gave the little girl a chance.”

“Not enough of one.”

“The only one she had.”

Jorgensen said, “It’s the tall building in this mall.”

I pulled into the parking area for a strip of eight stores with a four-story professional building at the far end of it. “Any way I can find out the name of the woman in 13C?”

“Not airline policy to release that.”

“Could you find it out for me?”

She got frosty again. “Why?”

“Why should you find it out, or why do I need it?”

“Both.”

“I need it because I think that flight revolves around a murder.”

“Oh, great.” Jorgensen looked at me as we stopped in front of the professional building. “So why should I find it out for you?”

“Same reason you went back in after the little girl.”

Jorgensen looked at me some more, then shook her head. “God, I have to find another line of work.”

I waited, but she didn’t get out of the car.

Finally, Jorgensen used her good hand cross-body to yank on the door handle. “There’s a pay phone inside the lobby. I’ll call somebody, but it’ll probably get you just a name, not an address or anything.”

“That’d be more than I have now.”

“What I mean is, the woman might live in the Washington area. She could have been heading home instead of down there on business or something.”

“That would make things harder, but I’d still like the name.”

Jorgensen got out of the car, closing the door with the window still down. Then she leaned in. “Thanks.”

“The information more than covers the ride.”

“I didn’t mean for the ride. I meant for what you said about my giving that little girl a chance.”

Despite the bad arm, Becca Jorgensen trotted into the lobby.

The name could have been “Smith.” Even “Taylor” or “O’Brien.” Fortunately, it was “Iturraldi.” There were none in the Boston White Pages, and only two in the rest of the metropolitan area. The first was a dead end, no female in the family. As I dialed the second, first initial “K,” I began to picture myself sitting in the Boston Public Library, going through the shelves of nationwide directories, trying all the ones around D.C.

Then a woman’s voice answered. K. Iturraldi heard me out, then said, “Yes, that was me,” and “Sure, I can see you.”

Half an hour later, I parked in front of the address she’d given me over the phone. A small cape, it had a nice lawn and hedges trimmed in the shape of popover tarts.

I walked up the front path and rang the bell at the side of the screened door, the inner wooden one standing open. A large figure filled the foyer, and I found myself smiling as she moved closer to me on the other side of the screen. A wave preceded her, washing over me before she asked if I was the private investigator. A wave of perfume, Shalimar or Opium maybe. K. Iturraldi reeked of it.

A
S
I
DROVE OUT
there, I thought about how to play it. Maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, I’d have tried.

I left the Prelude in front of the house and walked up the flagstoned path. At the door between the white Doric columns I pushed the button and heard the deep, bong-bong chiming inside. This time he answered the door.

“What … ?”

“I’m afraid I have to bother you again, Mr. Houle.”

His hands were empty, his clothing just shorts and another T-shirt with a breast pocket. The chin forced the rest of his face into a smile. “Sure. Sure, come on in.”

I let him precede me into a living room with a traditional sofa and love seat arranged around a marble fireplace. On the mantel sat the covered urn I’d last seen in the garden my first visit there.

Houle said, “Take the couch, it’s more comfortable.”

I did as he moved to the love seat, some newspapers scattered at the base of it. Houle stepped over them but instead of settling into the love seat, he perched on the front cushion of it. “Caroline was always after me about leaving papers on the floor like this.”

I nodded. “I take it you really didn’t get around to spreading the ashes.”

Houle looked at me strangely, blinking rapidly. “What was that?”

I gestured toward the mantel. “The urn there. You told me yesterday that you’d spread the ashes in the garden your wife loved so well. Since the urn’s still here, I’m guessing you were mistaken, that you just haven’t found the time yet.”

More blinking. “That’s pretty … harsh, don’t you think?”

“Harsh. Now that’s a word that could cover a lot of ground, Rog.”

The blinking stopped.

I said, “Abraham Rivkind’s death was harsh. The plane crash was harsh. Rush Teagle’s death was harsh. The only death I’m not sure of is the fourth one.”

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. It was a hell of a plan, Rog, and it should have worked. And it would have, except for those darned geese.”

Houle’s face seemed to cave in. “What … what the hell are you trying to do to me?”

“Nothing worse than you’ve already done to others. Let me outline things for you, in case some of the details have slipped your mind, all the pressure you’ve been under lately.”

Houle didn’t sit back. He didn’t move in any way.

I said, “A while ago, you started losing interest in your wife. Divorce didn’t make much sense: The real money in the marriage, like this house, came from her side, and trying to make it on your own in real estate with this economy didn’t look too appealing. So, you stuck it out. Then, about a year ago, along comes Darbra Proft.”