“Anyone we can ask?”
“We’ve had a private investigator on this for weeks… one we use often. Hopefully he’ll dig up something. We’ve got another PI firm doing everything they can to find out whether there was a snow plow on that runway, or what those lights were that distracted you. As far as Richardson’s anger? I don’t know… maybe Regal Airlines lost his bags sometime in the past or refused to give him a free first class upgrade, or worse, didn’t recognize who he was at the gate!”
Marty looked puzzled. “What would any of that have to do with coming after me?”
“I’m trying to be funny… and not obviously not succeeding. Sorry.”
“Oh.”
“The investigators are supposed to report back this afternoon.”
Marty shook his head. “The trial starts in two days.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“Judith, I want to testify. I know I don’t have to, but…”
She had her hand out to stop him as she nodded an assent. “I want you to. But I want you to be very, very aware of the fact that you have to stay extremely calm, because Richardson will try to gore your goat and get you to show anger or arrogance. The jury needs to see you as the consummate captain — the unflappable guy with icy steadiness they would want flying their loved ones around, and a guy who is being persecuted by a bully of a DA. You can’t whine about being prosecuted, and you can’t go into some diatribe about the injustice of it all. That will lose the jury in a heartbeat. You absolutely must be calm and professional and serious and as certain that you made the right choice as you are broken over the results. Can you do all that?”
“A month ago, hell no. A week ago, maybe. Now… yes.”
“Good. Remember that classic movie, “A Few Good Men,” with Jack Nicholson playing a flint-hard Marine, Colonel Jessup?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can you quote Nicholson’s best line?”
“That’s a strange request. But, yes, so happens I can.”
“Go ahead,” she said, crossing her arms and sitting back for the performance.
He took a deep breath and leaned forward, adopting a furious expression, eyebrows flaring and index finger wagging the air, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“You want the truth? YOU WANT THE TRUTH? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
She clapped slowly and smiled. “Very good!”
Marty relaxed back into his chair, his face returning to normal. “That was kinda fun, but I don’t get the point.”
Judith leaned forward then, looking him steadily in the eye for an uncomfortable few moments before speaking.
“The point is, you can’t be Colonel Jessup, Marty. Colonel Jessup goes to prison.”
Denver — Brown Palace Hotel Churchill Lounge
Entering the plush, leather-bound, cigar-friendly Churchill Lounge in the historic Brown Palace Hotel was always a mixed pleasure for Scott Bogosian. He loved the hotel with its central atrium and 1890’s history, and he also loved the wafting aroma of rich, varietal cigars which enveloped the lounge’s patrons on entry. But any visit had its price: as an ex-smoker of cigarettes already worried about the damage he might have done to his lungs in the past, the temptation to smoke a cigar or to just give in and re-start the two-pack-a-day cigarette habit always reverberated for about a week.
The old friend who’d recommended the Churchill as their meeting place waved to him from the far corner, near the bookcase, and Scott moved to greet him.
“Hope you don’t mind, Scotty,” he said, “…but I haven’t had one of these in months.” He held up the lit Rocky Patel. “And, I suppose it’s not too early for a scotch. What’ll you have?”
A waitress materialized and Scott ordered coffee as he sat down.
“How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” Scott asked.
“Well… since the paper folded, probably. We started working together back in the 80’s if you’ll recall.”
Scott laughed. “Yeah, I do. Others do, too! A friend… in fact, the chief ranger up in Rocky Mountain National… remembered you recently as the guy carrying a sack of Nikons.”
“About right,” he laughed. “But that was back when dinosaurs walked the earth and we used something called film. Nowadays I dance with the pixels!”
“Which is why I wanted to see you,” Scott replied.
“Uh, oh. Not a social occasion, huh? Business?”
Scott pulled an 8x10 photo from a thin folder and slid it over the table.
“This is one of yours, right?”
The veteran news photographer studied the shot for a second. “Yep. That’s one of mine. I don’t know the exact date, but sometime in late January.”
“That was taken at the funeral of one of the Regal Airlines crash victims, as I recall?”
“Yes. I remember, her name was Martha Resnick. The teenage girl killed in the crash. Why are you interested?”
Scott sighed. “I’m trying to figure out why our district attorney is so damned determined to put this airline captain in prison. The captain of the Regal Air crash in January.”
“Right. Just doing his job, I guess, right?”
“Well, Richardson is making a lot of people in aviation very angry by charging the guy with murder and really stretching the law to do so, but the odd thing is, he’s all but snarled about it in news clips, like he really hates that pilot. Why the intensity? I can’t find any evidence or even rumors that he and the captain knew each other or had ever met. I checked school records, newspaper morgues, a world of databases, military records… you name it. Nothing. So, I have to wonder, was there was someone he knew in that accident? Someone who’s death upset him? I haven’t found any connection yet, but I thought it might be a big clue if he had attended any of the funerals.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know, but that’s where you and this shot come in. I looked at the newspaper and online coverage and saw your shot and when I looked closely, there’s this one guy standing just behind the main family group who might, just might, be Grant Richardson. I just can’t see his face.”
“So… you’re hoping I have more shots in the file, and maybe one or two of them might show him?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know, Scotty, but I’ll look. You mentioned you’re doing a book on that crash, right?”
“I’m really close to making a launch decision, yes. But there’s no real hurry.”
“A lot of very shaken people came off both those planes.”
Scott sighed. “Probably none more so than a woman on the 757 who thought her fiancé was in the cabin of the Beech on their wing. Lucy Alvarez. She was sitting right across from them and was convinced she’d seen him in one of the windows.”
“If he was aboard the commuter, though, he lived. Right?”
“Well,” Scott began, “…after she lived through hell, it turns out he was at her place in Denver with a dead phone wondering where the hell she was. He’d ditched his business trip to be with her, and she was angry at him and fleeing to Florida.”
“So they’re probably married now?”
“Nope. Broke up,” Scott replied. “Survivor’s guilt was part of it.”
“You do know the trial is coming up in two days, right?”
“This has nothing to do with the timing of the trial, and in fact, the captain’s lawyers probably already have this question about Richardson answered. I just can’t stop wondering.”