Jack chuckled. “Me too.”
Jack threw the worm into the creek. Then suddenly he jumped to his feet and ran out into the middle of the creek; with water up to his knees.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s fish in the creek.”
Jack dashed a yard to his left and tried to catch a fish with his bare hands.
“That’s not going to work, Jack. Even if you catch one, you’d lose it just as fast. It’s too slippery,” Julie said. “Do you still have the steel wire from my bra?”
Jack pointed at Julie as a sign of acknowledgement and then reached into his inside jacket pocket. But he didn’t take out a wire—he took out a note. Jack read the note with a puzzled look on his face. Then, he turned his head all the way back, and looked at the sky; he looked defeated.
“What’s wrong?” Julie asked. “What does it say?”
“I shouldn’t have made those remarks.” Jack shook his head. “Now, I feel bad.”
“Why, what did the note say?”
“Read it yourself.” Jack said, and handed Julie the note. “I’ll find a branch to attach the wire to.”
Jack came back a few minutes later with something that resembled a spear.
“You shouldn’t feel bad, Jack.”
“I shouldn’t have made those remarks.”
“Well, you didn’t know.”
Julie extended her arm toward Jack, the note still in her hand.
“You hold onto it, Julie. Your pocket has a zipper.”
Jack reached into his left pants pocket and took out a gold ring.
“Hold onto this too, so I don’t lose it while fishing.”
Jack handed Julie the ring before he walked out into the middle of the flowing creek. Julie carefully studied the ring before she put the ring in her right pocket along with the note; she closed the zipper.
Jack moved several rocks around in the shallow creek.
“Are you searching for gold?” Julie smiled.
“I’m building a horseshoe out of rocks, so I can lure the fish into a dead end.”
A while later, after several disappointing stabbing attempts, Jack lifted the spear in the air, and smiled triumphantly; the fish sprawled at the end of the spear. They had plenty of fish for the next couple of hours, and they picked the fish to the bones.
Jack stood up. “We should get a move on.”
“So, you’re married?” Julie suddenly asked while she rose to her feet.
“No, I’m not married,” Jack responded.
Julie took the ring out of her pocket. The note fell to the ground, but she didn’t notice. Julie held the ring up for Jack to see.
“You’re telling me this isn’t a wedding ring.”
“No, it’s a wedding ring all right.” Jack nodded. “But it’s not mine. The ring belongs to Andrew. I checked his pockets when I took his pants. I put the ring in my pocket, so it wouldn’t get lost.”
Julie put the ring in her pocket and closed the zipper.
“So Andrew had his wedding ring in his pocket?”
Jack nodded, and raised his left eyebrow.
“That sounds about right.” Julie shook her head. “So, do you have a girlfriend, perhaps?”
“No, it’s just me.”
Julie bowed her head as she climbed on Jack’s back; she looked just as disappointed and confused as previously.
They walked along the creek, the note still on the ground.
32 PREJUDICES
Saturday morning
George expected Mike Williams to be alone in his office this morning, but instead he was in the company of two men George recognized as legal representatives. Mike gestured through the glass windows that George should wait outside the office. He noticed the envelope lying on Mike’s desk and he feared that his assumption was right—Captain Daniels had left a suicide letter.
George wonder if the company had already begun the process of filing for bankruptcy, as he assumed the insurance company wouldn’t cover the damage if the crash was deliberately caused by one of the F.A. employees.
The two legal representatives had looks of defeat as they left the office.
By now, George Stanton had grown accustomed to the CEO’s office, which didn’t feel as intimidating as it had the week before. However, the envelope lying on his boss’s desk did look menacing. George felt a tension in his chest.
“What do you have there, Mike?”
George felt certain he knew the answer to his question.
But Mike Williams didn’t provide his employee with an answer right away. He just handed George the envelope. George thought his boss had a look of resignation.
George opened the envelope and sprinted his way through the single sheet of paper. To his relief, the envelope didn’t contain a suicide letter from Captain Daniels. Rather it was a formal complaint about Daniels from one of his co-workers, from a man named Isaac Gregorian.
“Have you talked to this Gregorian fellow about the complaint?”
Michael Williams tilted his head, and his eyes appeared as they were about to fall out of his eye sockets. “He’s the co-pilot, George.”
George quickly scanned the document once more, and then focused on the name at the bottom of the sheet.
“I thought the co-pilot’s name was Gregory.”
“Isaac Gregorian.” Mike sounded annoyed.
George noticed the envelope didn’t have a stamp on it.
“Tell me you got this in the mail, Mike.”
“No, it was delivered to the office reception on Friday morning, seemingly by Mr. Gregorian himself,” Mike said, and exhaled deeply. “Opening internal mail hasn’t been on my agenda for the past week. Especially not any mail addressed to Jeff—until last night, that is.”
“As long as the complaint was delivered on the same day the plane crashed, then we couldn’t have acted any differently. Besides, the co-pilot never claimed Captain Daniels was suicidal. He just wrote he was uncomfortable working with him. This doesn’t change much. I think we’re all right here, Mike.”
“What do you mean we’re all right?”
“I mean, the terror angle is still intact,” George said, and shrugged. “Did you tell the feds about the complaint?”
“Of course, I did,” Mike responded. “I called them yesterday evening, as soon as I read the letter.”
George placed the envelope and the letter on the desk. “How did they react?”
“They requested a copy, but they didn’t seem that interested.”
“Well, there you go. They’re probably still focusing on the Imam.”
“Blaming the Imam certainly seems to be the consensus in the media,” Mike said.
“Thank God for prejudices, am I right?”
Mike Williams suddenly looked infuriated. George got the feeling his boss was about to leap over the desk and strangle him.
“I beg your pardon,” Mike said in a lethal tone.
George wondered what part of the last sentence had provoked his boss the most. Was it that he’d used the Lord’s name in vain? Or because he might have insinuated religion was a source of prejudice?
“It’s fortunate that everyone is focusing on terrorism,” George said.
Mike didn’t seem pleased with George’s response, but he did however, lean back against his chair, which made George feel more at ease. He dismissed the thought of his boss leaping over the desk.
“This whole thing could still be a coincidence,” George said, and tried his best to keep a straight face. “Perhaps the captain did buy the tickets for his ex-wife out of the goodness of his heart, and the co-pilot misinterpreted the experience of going through a divorce as signs of depressions.”
George reached for the letter on the desk.
“He wrote that the captain showed signs of depression, and that he gave the co-pilot the creeps.” George shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, what does that prove?”