“You had feelings for her, though,” says Bill. “Mrs. Bateman.”
“What does that mean, feelings? She was a nice person. She loved her children.”
“But not her husband.”
“I don’t know. It seemed that way. I’ve never been married, so what do I know. It’s not something we ever — she was very comfortable, it seemed, as a person. They had fun, her and the kids. They laughed all the time. He worked a lot it seemed, David, but they were always talking about him, the things they’d do when Daddy got there.”
He thinks for a moment.
“She seemed happy.”
* * *
Gus is on the Long Island Expressway when the calls comes. The flight recorder is fixed. There is some degradation, they tell him, but it’s in the quality of sound, not the content of the recording. His team is about to listen back and does Gus want them to wait for him?
“No,” he says, “we need to know. Just put the phone up to the speaker.”
They hurry to comply. He sits in his brown government vehicle in stop-and-go traffic. He is mid-island, past LaGuardia, not yet to Kennedy. Through the car’s speakers he can hear hurried activity as they prepare to review the tape. It is a record of another time, like a jar that holds the last breath of a dying man. The actions and voices of the tape are secret still, but in moments they will be out. The last unknown thing will become known. And then everything that can be clear, will be clear. Any other mysteries are there for the ages.
Gus breathes recycled air. Rain dots his windshield.
The tape begins.
It starts with two voices from within the cockpit. The captain, James Melody, has a British accent. Charles Busch, the copilot, has a Texas drawl.
“Checklist, brakes,” says Melody.
“Are checked,” responds Busch after a moment.
“Flaps.”
“Ten, ten, green.”
“Yaw damper.”
“Checked.”
“Little crosswind here,” says Melody. “Let’s keep that in mind. Flight instrument and annunciator panels?”
“Uh, yeah. No warnings.”
“Okay then. Checklist complete.”
Traffic lightens ahead of Gus. He gets the Ford up to twenty-six mph then slows again as the line of cars ahead of him constricts. He would pull over to the side of the road and listen, except he’s in the center lane with no exits in sight.
The next voice is Melody’s.
“Vineyard flight control, this is GullWing Six Thirteen. Ready for takeoff.”
A pause, and then a filtered voice comes through their radio.
“GullWing Six Thirteen, cleared for takeoff.”
“Thrust SRS. Runway,” Melody tells Busch.
He hears mechanical sounds from the tape. The phone relay makes them hard to identify, but he knows that techs in the lab are already making guesses about which ones are yoke movement and which are increases in engine rpm.
“Eighty knots.” Busch?
More sounds from the tape as the plane leaves the ground.
“Positive rate,” says Melody. “Gear up, please.”
ATC comes over their radio.
“GullWing Six Thirteen, I see you. Turn left. Fly the Bridge. Climb. Contact Teterboro departure. Good night.”
“GullWing Six Thirteen, thanks much,” says Melody.
“Gear up,” says Busch.
The plane is in the air now, on its way to New Jersey. Under normal conditions it is a twenty-nine-minute flight. Less than a short hop. There will be a six-minute lull before they are in range of Teterboro ATC.
A knock.
“Captain.” A female voice comes in. The flight attendant, Emma Lightner. “Can I bring you anything?”
“No,” says Melody.
“What about me?” asks the copilot.
A pause. What was happening? What looks were being exchanged?
“He’s fine,” says Melody. “It’s a short flight. Let’s stay focused.”
* * *
Bill Cunningham leans forward in his seat. They are on a set designed to be seen from a single direction. This means that the walls behind him are unpainted on the backside, like a set built for an episode of Twilight Zone, where an injured man slowly realizes that what he thinks is real is actually theater.
“And on the flight,” says Bill. “Describe what happened.”
Scott nods. He doesn’t know why, but he’s surprised that the interview is unfolding in this way, as an actual interview about the crash, what happened. He assumed they’d be trading body blows by now.
“Well,” he says, “I was late. The cab never came, so I had to take the bus. Until we reached the runway, I assumed I’d missed it, that I’d get there just in time to see the taillights lifting off into the sky. But I didn’t. They waited. Or not waited — they were folding in the door when I — but they didn’t leave. So I — got on — and everyone was already — some people were in their seats — Maggie and the kids, Mrs. Kipling. David and Mr. Kipling were still on their feet, I think. And the flight attendant gave me a glass of wine. I’d never been on a private jet before. And then the captain said, Take your seats, so we did.”
His eyes have moved off Bill’s by now, and he finds himself staring directly into one of the lights, remembering.
“There was a baseball game on, Boston. It was the seventh inning, I think. And the sound of that, the announcer’s voice, was going the whole time. And I remember Mrs. Kipling was next to me and we were talking a little. And the boy, JJ, was asleep. Rachel was on her iPhone, maybe choosing songs. She had headphones on. And then we were up.”
* * *
Gus snails past LaGuardia, incoming and outgoing flights roaring past overhead. He has the windows up and the air off so he can hear better, even though it’s ninety degrees out. He sweats as he listens, tendrils running down his sides and back, but he doesn’t notice. He hears James Melody’s voice.
“I’ve got a yellow light.”
A pause. Gus can hear what sounds like tapping. Then Melody again.
“Did you hear me? I’ve got a yellow light.”
“Oh,” says Busch. “Let me — that’s got it. I think it’s the bulb.”
“Make a note for maintenance,” says Melody. Then a series of unidentifiable sounds, and then Melody exclaims, “Merde. Hold on. I’ve got a—”
“Captain?”
“Take over. I’ve got a goddamn nosebleed again. I’m gonna — let me get cleaned up.”
Sounds from the cockpit that Gus assumes are the captain getting up and going to the door. As this happens, Busch says:
“Copy. Taking control.”
The door opens and closes. And now Busch is alone in the cockpit.
* * *
Scott listens to the sound of his own voice as he speaks, both in the moment and outside of it.
“And I was looking out the window and thinking the whole time how unreal it felt — the way you sometimes feel like a stranger when you find yourself outside the limits of your experience, doing something that feels like the actions of another person, as if you’ve teleported somehow into someone else’s life.”
“And what was the first sign that something was wrong?” says Bill. “In your mind.”
Scott takes a breath, trying to make logical sense of it all.
“It’s hard, because there was cheering and then there was screaming.”
“Cheering?”
“For the game. It was David and Kipling, they were — something was happening onscreen that had them — Dworkin and the longest at bat — and their seat belts were off by that point, and I remember they both stood up, and then — I don’t know — the plane—dropped—and they had to scramble to get back in their seats.”