Healing Waters (8 page)

He took an imperceptible step toward the bed.

“Hey, pretty lady,” he said.

He looked as if he wanted to smack himself, though I would have gladly done it for him.

“Did she hear me?” he said.

I watched Sonia. Her eyes were darting, searching for the face to match the voice.

“You might want to come closer so she can see you,” I said.

I might as well have asked him to throw himself from the fourthstory window. His hands twitched and clung to the gown, drawing its paper into his fists.

“We're praying for you,” he whispered. “You know that. We pray without ceasing, right?”

His answer was the frantic beeping of an IV bag that needed to be changed out.

“I think I should go,” he said, and did, gown swirling out behind him.

I wanted to grab him by the back of his Brooks Brothers belt and yank him back into that room Sonia couldn't escape and make him look at her, make him tell her to what face she had left that she was a living miracle. But I felt something nudge my hand.

Sonia poked me with her bandaged paw.

“What do you need?” I said. “Are you in pain? I can get you—”

I stopped, because what I saw in her eyes was not pain but confusion. I would have been befuddled, too, by what her staunch supporter had just done. Or hadn't done.

“He's not used to this look on you,” I said. “It's different.”

She gave me another nudge and drifted out again.

As much as I abhorred confrontation, I ripped off the sterile regalia and was on my way out to Lounge A to tell those people that unless they were ready to suck it up and talk to my sister like she was a human being, they weren't going to talk to her at all.

That ended when I heard Nurse Kim's voice raised on the other side of the glass doors. Did the woman never take a day off?

I stayed put until I heard her say, “We do not give out medical information to anyone except family members.”

I went for the doors. Could those people be any more pushy?

But it wasn't the Designing Women or the Board of Directors that Nurse Kim held off in the hallway. I didn't recognize any of the three who faced her, apparently unfazed by her tiny firmness.

“We understand,” said a woman who no doubt had applied Cover Girl with a spatula. “But can you just make a general statement about her condition?”

How many vultures did Sonia know, for Pete's sake?

“Are you with ALM?” I said. “Because they're all in Lounge A.”

Heads swiveled to me.

“We'd like to hear from some medical personnel,” the guy said. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “We're not trying to invade her privacy—we just want to be accurate.”

“We're with the religion desk at the
Philadelphia Inquirer
,” the woman said. “I'm not sure if you know this, but Sonia Cabot is well-known among—”

“I know,” I said. “Go talk to her people. They're in Lounge A.”

Nurse Kim gave me a small push back toward the doors and said over her shoulder, “We appreciate your sensitivity. Perhaps her manager will give you the statement.”

The two chatty ones looked only slightly put off as they headed for the lounge. The other one, a square-faced woman, reached into the pocket of a periwinkle-blue blazer and pulled out what appeared to be her wallet.

“Are you Lucia Coffey?” she said. “Mrs. Cabot's sister?”

Honestly.

“Yes, I am,” I said, “but like I told them, I'm not talking.”

“I hope you will.” She flipped open the wallet. “I'm Special Agent Deidre Schmacker with the FBI. I need to ask you a few questions.”

I'd talked to a number of FBI agents in my recent past. They'd all worn black and gray and left no question that they could ruin my life. All of them had been men.

Special Agent Deidre Schmacker had fooled me with the periwinkle jacket and the heavy silver earrings and the understated manner.

Still, my mouth went dry as I followed her obediently to a lounge I didn't know about—Lounge C, the sign read. I barely waited until the door closed behind us to say, “I hadn't seen my husband in three months before yesterday. If he's in trouble again, I know nothing about it.”

The agent gave me a long look, which, again, was nothing like the scrutinizing gazes I'd squirmed under three and a half years ago. Her eyes drooped at the outer corners and her mouth went toward a smile and stopped just short of it. She looked like a grandmother accepting an apology.

“Why don't we sit down?” she said.

As I edged onto a chair, I realized that she'd set up shop in Lounge C. A BlackBerry, a laptop, and a legal pad were arranged on the table. She opened a Thermos and drew her pale brows in. “Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

She poured herself a cup, and the sound reverberated in the room. Already sucking in air, I wished she'd get on with it. I'd answer the questions and come apart later.

“Do you have a reason to think your husband is in trouble again?” she said finally.

“None at all.”

She waited. When I didn't volunteer anything, she took a sip, waited some more, cupped her hands around the mug.

“I'm not here to talk about Halsey,” she said. “Chip is what you call him, right?”

Of course right. You people know everything about us.

“You can relax. I just need to ask you a few questions about the plane crash.”

She waited yet again. Something seeped into me like damp air. “I thought the crash was an accident,” I said.

“We have to look at all possibilities. The report from the NTSB—”

I shook my head.

“The National Transportation Safety Board. They're the investigative board that takes possession of the wreckage after a plane crash. Their findings indicate that we need to look more closely at the circumstances. Since 9/11 it's policy.” She indicated the Thermos again. “You sure you won't have some tea?”

“Positive.”

“All right, I just have a few questions for you. I know you want to get back to your sister, so I'll try not to take up too much of your time.”

That had never been a consideration with the FBI before.

“You were there the day of the crash, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw your sister before the plane took off.”

“Yes.”

She paused after every answer, as if I might want to add more. I didn't.

“Where exactly did you see her?”

“On the plane.”

“You were
on
the plane.”

That was what I'd said, plainly.

“How would you describe Sonia's state of mind when you talked to her?”

I couldn't help the widening of my eyes.

“It's just a routine question,” she said.

“She seemed like she always is. Upbeat. Anxious to get going.”

“Anxious?”

“Eager.”

“She didn't seem preoccupied at all, maybe distracted?”

“No.” Sonia had been totally aware of what went on with everyone, inside and out.

“Who else was on the plane when you were on board?”

“My husband. Marnie, her assistant.”

“Did she appear to have any issues with either of them?”

I scraped my palm with my nails. “I hadn't seen my sister in two years, and I'd never met her assistant before that day. I couldn't tell you if they had issues.”

“Of course. I'm just asking for an observation.” She took a long sip of her tea. “You seem like an observer to me. I just thought you might have noticed something.”

I pretended to be considering that. One thing I'd learned about the FBI: if you didn't tell them something you knew, it came back to bite you later. You or someone you loved.

“Sonia wasn't happy with Marnie because she hadn't told me we weren't all going to my home—that they had to leave for Pittsburgh right away. That was evidently a last-minute change in plans that I wasn't notified about.”

The agent scribbled something on the legal pad.

Good. A meaningless detail was now in writing.

“Do you know why the change in plans?” she said.

“No. I don't have anything to do with my sister's company.”

She fingered her chin. “Even though your husband was employed by this”—she consulted the pad—“Abundant Living Ministries?”

“He lived in Nashville for the past three months. I stayed here. We didn't discuss it.”

“So you and your sister are not close.”

“No.”

“How did the assistant react when Sonia called her on her mistake?”

I couldn't even remember, being too busy recovering from the sight of her making love to my husband with her eyes.

“I don't think it was any big deal,” I said. “Sonia moved on to the next thing.”

“Which was?”

“The pilot told her they needed to get going.”

“So you saw the pilot.”

“I got a glimpse of him.”

“How did he seem to you? I know you're a nurse—did you notice anything about his color or his behavior that would indicate an illness?”

“I barely looked at him,” I said.

And if I'd seen anything amiss, didn't she think I would have said something? He was about to take my sister to 15,000 feet.

“So he seemed fine to you.”

“Yes.” I was dying to say,
Why are you asking me that?
But it would only have prolonged what was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I had already rubbed the skin raw in the palm of my hand.

“What did he say exactly? From what you can remember.”

“I didn't hear him say anything. He must have given my sister a signal, because she said something like, ‘Okay, Otto, I know we have to go,' and then my husband and I got off the plane.”

“He didn't say anything to anyone else.”

“Not that I heard.”

“Did anyone react to him in any way?”

For Pete's sake,
no.
“My husband shook hands with him before we deplaned,” I said. Maybe that would get her off this.

“You're doing great,” she said. “I just have a few more questions.” She consulted her pad, which gave me a chance to lick my lips. “How did your husband seem when you first saw him?”

“Fine.”

Her brows pulled in. “You hadn't seen each other in three months, and he just seemed ‘fine'?”

“I guess he might have been nervous,” I said. I bit back the testiness in my voice. “Three months is a long time.”

“What is his relationship with your sister like?”

My lips were so dry, they stuck together momentarily when I tried to open them.

“Would you like some water, Lucia?” she said.

“I'm okay. My sister was good enough to give Chip a job when he needed one. He was grateful for that. Like I said, we didn't discuss it much.”

“So you didn't sense any animosity between them.”

“No,” I said. “Everything seemed fine to me.” Could I use the word
fine
about twenty more times?

“Since the crash, has he said anything to you about their relationship or his relationship with anyone else on the plane?”

Had he said anything to me? No. Had he shown me exactly what one of those relationships was? In spades.

“Did you think of something?”

“We haven't talked about anything since the crash except my sister's injuries,” I said.

“I can completely understand that. This must be difficult for you.”

I wasn't sure whether she meant Sonia's condition or this interview. A yes to either one would have been an understatement.

“I just have one more question.” She nodded at me, all concern. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to talk about, but I need for you to tell me exactly what you saw from where you were standing, from the time the plane's engines started up until the crash. Then I'll be out of your hair.”

I wanted nothing more. I closed my eyes, saw and heard it all again, and described it to her. Terror tried to lick at me, but I talked it down with the best words I could choose to reproduce the experience, down to the heat that singed my eyebrows when I ran from the terminal. Then I prayed that when I opened my eyes at the end, she would be gone. Of course she wasn't.

In her grandmother voice she asked a few more questions, to clarify the color of the smoke and how long I estimated the time between the plane hitting the ground and bursting into flame.

I snapped my fingers.

“So you're saying instantly.”

“That's what I'm saying.”

She made a note on the pad. I saw that she hadn't added anything since the last time I looked. Nothing I'd said in my long harangue had been written down. Evidently she didn't need the ravings of a fat lady after all.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I lied—I do have one more question.”

I wanted to stand up so she'd know I only had one answer left in me, but I stayed put.