Impact (21 page)

He stood up. After two steps his hands were on her. He pulled her to his chest and embraced her tightly, burying his face in her soft shoulder. He thought he felt her shudder, heard her say his name. When he released her, he made her look at him. “If all you want me to be is your lawyer, then that's all I'll try to be.”

She looked at him through fresh tears. “I can handle it if he dies, you know,” she murmured, as though to remind herself of a tolerable alternative. “That night in the motel when I was certain he was dead already, I lay awake all night imagining how life would be without him. And I decided life would be just fine. You know better than anyone that I've been prepared to do without Jack for a long time.” She sniffed, and he kissed her cheek.

“And I can handle it if he gets well. If he wakes up one day and is the same old Jack, then I could be the same old me and you the same old you, which would be the best for all of us. But what I'm afraid I
can't
handle is if he's something in between. I'm afraid the miracle people keep talking about will be that Jack opens his eyes and grunts some subhuman noise and slobbers down his chin and stays that way forever.”

She had made the forecast dreadful and inescapable. Tollison had no idea how to alter it.

“I'm sorry,” Laura said after a minute. “It's just … I want to be able to do what I have to do, you know? I want to be a hero if I have to be.”

He pulled her toward him a second time. “That's the job I've been trying to get for twenty years,” he said. “But you'll be better at it than I've been.” Awash in hope and anguish, he kissed her a quick goodbye.

Ten minutes later he entered Altoona's Chinese restaurant. Brenda looked up from a booth in the back and waved. Tollison slid onto the bench across from her, asked if she wanted a drink, and motioned for the waiter when she nodded.

The waiter's name was Sam. Tollison had represented him in the negotiations to buy the building from the video entrepreneur who had owned it previously. Because he had taken advantage of the collapse of the video fad and gotten a deal well below the market, Sam would have given Tollison three free meals a day for life.

After he and Sam exchanged spry greetings, Tollison ordered a whiskey sour for Brenda and a bourbon and water for himself. Irrepressible as always, Sam went away smiling, and Tollison turned to Brenda.

In the months since learning of her sister's death, Brenda had become strangely subdued. There were duties to perform, of course—the funeral, the inventory of Carol's small estate, collecting Carol's possessions and auctioning the items Brenda didn't want, putting the house on the market, filing the will for probate. Through it all, Brenda maintained a beatific calm. Which made Tollison anticipate a storm.

He reached for her hand and gave it a pat. “Long time no see.”

Her response was desultory. “I suppose. I haven't kept track.”

“How's school?”

“The kids went on strike for movies at the noon hour.”

“I thought they already had movies at the noon hour.”

“That was last year. The principal closed them down after
The Breakfast Club.”

“What was wrong with
The Breakfast Club?”

“I think it had the temerity to show kids talking about things kids really talk about.”

Sam returned with the drinks. Tollison and Brenda shared long swallows. “I see that's not your first,” she said as he lowered his glass. “You've got that little red spot you always get, right below your nose.”

Involuntarily, he reached to rub it off.

Brenda met his eye. “You've been with Laura.”

The question implied a visit as intimate as the one Tollison had hoped would transpire. Thanks to his newfound innocence, he stayed steady, wondering if this was the moment of truth he had dreaded for so many months, wondering if she really knew or was merely guessing, wondering if it mattered.

Brenda's voice was stout. “I don't care anymore, you know.”

He blinked. “About Laura. Or about anything?”

Brenda's look made either answer likely. “You had an affair with her, didn't you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I ran into her at Safeway the other day. She was so
careful
when your name came up. She acted like she'd never laid eyes on you before.” Her lips whitened. “The affair I don't mind. What I mind is that you didn't have the guts to tell me.”

“It's not like that, Brenda. We aren't—”

“Don't
lie
to me, Keith. I've had to put up with a lot lately, but I don't have to put up with that.”

As they exchanged stark looks, Sam returned for their order. Tollison, who had spent a year wondering how to confess his faithlessness to Brenda, spent the interval wondering whether he any longer had anything to confess to her at all.

He waited till Sam left, then said, “About Laura. I just want to—”

Brenda held up a hand. “Do you know what's funny? In a way, I hope it's true.”

“Why?”

“So I don't have to keep feeling sorry for what I did to you thirty years ago. The way I see it, maybe when the score gets evened up we can give it another try. What do you think?”

He knew only that what would have been inconceivable six months earlier was now no longer that. “Maybe so.”

They finished their drinks in silence. “On the phone you mentioned Spitter,” Tollison said finally. “What's happened?”

“He quit his job.”

“I thought he loved it at the garage.”

“He did.” She waved for Sam to bring her another drink. “You know those guys he hangs around with?”

“The little kids?”

She shook her head. “The grave diggers. As best I can interpret it, those idiots told Spitter they buried Carol without her head.”

“What?”

“You heard me. According to Spitter, Carol's head wasn't in the casket.” Brenda's eyes were boiling. “Do you think it can possibly be true? Or were they playing tricks on him? Those guys are pretty macabre sometimes—they used to make fake body parts out of clay and hide behind gravestones and toss them at kids who went to the cemetery to neck. Maybe this is more of that.”

“Maybe.”

“Can you find out for sure?”

He shrugged. “I can call Ethan Calthorp at the funeral home. I know enough about Ethan's cremation practices to give me a little leverage, but the question is why you want to know.”

“For Spitter's sake, for one thing.”

“Do you think he'll believe you even if you tell him Carol's all there?”

“Probably not.”

“Then what's the point?”

“The
point
might be not to let the bastards get away with giving me back only half my sister.”

“It was a terrible crash. Plus, weird things were going on at the crash site. None of it will make you—”

“Are you telling me someone
stole
it?”

“I'm telling you to leave it alone.”

She shook her head in wonder. “I don't believe my life is so fucked up that I have to dig up my sister's coffin to make sure she's all
there.”

He reached for her hand and tugged her away from the state of her sister's cadaver. “What else is Spitter doing? You sound like you haven't seen him in a while.”

“He moved out.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago. I haven't seen him since. Neither has anyone else. Until today.”

“What happened today?”

She put a hand over her eyes, as though to become blind to the picture she was about to paint. “I got a call from Marge Hilton—she runs the photo shop? She told me she'd been out to the cemetery this morning—her mother died a year ago, and she was planting some bulbs by her grave. Well, there she was, pulling weeds and planting tulips, and she looked over to the next section and there was Spitter.”

“Doing what?”

“Camping out.”

“Where?”

“On Carol's grave. He had a tent and sleeping bag; he'd even built a fire. Marge said he looked like a soldier who didn't know the war was over.” Brenda's eyes extruded tears. “He hasn't been the same since she died, Keith.”

“I know.”

“I've talked to the doctors and all they recommend is tranquilizers. But that's not going to help. He needs something to do, a job with someone who cares about him. Something to take his mind off Carol.” Her look made her meaning clear.

“I don't have a place for him, Brenda; I'll keep my ears open, but—” He shrugged. “Don't count on anything.”

Her lips flattened. “I haven't counted on anything since you went away to college.” She lowered her head to her hands. He reached out and touched her hair. After a moment she looked up. “I don't know what to do,” she said. “If he stays out there in the cemetery they'll arrest him, and if he goes to jail I'm afraid he won't survive. They'll pick on him, and—”

“There must be
some
place in this state that treats people like Spitter.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And what people might those be?”

He squirmed. “I don't know. Retarded, I guess. Mixed up. You know better than I do what's wrong with him.”

“There's nothing
wrong
with him that a little understanding wouldn't cure.”

“He could use therapy, Brenda. Job training. Something.”

“And how am I supposed to pay for therapy?”

“Sue the people who killed your sister.”

“Sue them for what?”

“Wrongful death and the loss of Carol's society. For both you and Spitter.”

“But I want to let her rest in peace.”

“Why do you want the airline to get away with killing Carol without it costing them one red cent?”

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

“Come on. The Lord didn't lose His sister in a plane crash.”

“I want to be like the Japanese.
They
don't sue everyone in sight at the drop of a hat.”

“Did the president of SurfAir come to your house to apologize for killing your sister? Or resign because of the shame? Or take a cut in pay to cover the damage done to the airline? Or offer a reasonable amount to settle your claim?
That's
the way the Japanese do it.”

She reddened. “SurfAir hasn't apologized, but the insurance man has.”

“Goddamnit, I
told
you not to talk to—”

“Not in person; his letter.”

“His letter was trying to get you to make admissions they can use against you, and to convince you not to hire the kind of lawyer who can get you what you're entitled to under the laws of the land.”

“So you say.”

“Listen. Whether you sue them or not means nothing to me. I told you, I'm not competent to handle your claim. What I want to do is get you in touch with someone who specializes in crash cases, so he can tell you what your rights are. A guy I used to know is an aviation attorney in San Francisco. I can probably get a meeting set up with him sometime next week. Just
talk
to him, Brenda. Let him tell you about how these cases work, then you can decide what you want to do. What are you afraid of, anyway?”

“I'm afraid I can't live with myself if I try to make a profit off my sister's death. I don't want to dance on her grave, Keith; I just want to plant flowers.”

“How the hell do you think they'll grow, with Spitter using them for a mattress?”

LAW OFFICES OF ALEC HAWTHORNE

PIER 32, THE EMBARCADERO

SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105

ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF

CALIFORNIA

COMES NOW PLAINTIFF AND ALLEGES THAT:

First Cause of Action

I.

At all times mentioned herein, plaintiff WALTER J. WARREN was the husband of decedent Rhonda J. Warren and the father of decedent Randolph F. Warren, a minor child.

II.

Defendant SURFAIR COASTAL AIRWAYS is, and at all times herein mentioned was, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Nevada and authorized to do business and doing business in California.

VII.

Defendants HASTINGS AIRCRAFT CORPORATION and CROSS AND DOLBY, INC. at all times herein mentioned were engaged in the business of designing, manufacturing, assembling, inspecting, placing on the market, and selling aircraft and their component parts and instruments to the general public, and plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that as part of said businesses and at some time prior to March 23, 1987, said defendants designed, manufactured, assembled, inspected, placed on the market, and sold for use by members of the general public, a certain fan-jet Hastings aircraft, Model H-11, registration number C1446-989, and each of its component parts and instruments, hereinafter referred to as “the airplane.”

VIII.

At all times herein mentioned, defendant SUBFAIR COASTAL AIRWAYS INC. was operating as a common carrier for hire in the transportation of persons and goods on various aircraft owned or leased and operated by said defendant, said aircraft including, at all times pertinent hereto, the airplane hereinabove described.