Hello readers! I'm so sorry for such a late update. I was with a friend for a few days. I finally go to write and I hope you enjoy this chapter, there's some important information revealed! Please leave reviews!
She had never seen anything like it before, not even on a television or in movies, where a spectacle, she now understood, lost its immediacy, it's garish color, its menace. Along the sidewalk in front of the brownstone, there were parked cars and fat vans with their far wheels stuck into the curbs. Olivia saw call letters on the vans, CNN, ABC, WNBC, CBS, a man running with a camera and complicated brace on his shoulder. People were beginning to look at the car, to peer at the passengers side. Robert hunched over the steering wheel, as though at any minute they might be assaulted. Olivia resisted the urge to turn her head away or to bring her hands to her face.
"Remind me why we did this?" she asked, her voice tight, her lips barely moving
A man banged hard against the passenger door window and Olivia flinched. Robert moved the car forward, peering through the crowd to find a policeman, and almost immediately, the car was engulfed, men and woman shouting through the glass.
"Mrs. O'Connell, have you heard the tape?"
"Is that her? Darren, is that her?"
"Move, get her face."
"Can you comment Mrs. O'Connell? Do you think it was suicide?"
"Who's the guy with her? Is that Jerry from the airline?"
"Mrs. O'Connell, how do you explain...?"
To Oliva, the voices sounded like dogs barking. Mouths appeared magnified and watery, the colors around her heightening and then subduing themselves. She wondered briefly if she was fainting. How could she possibly be the focus of so much attention, she who had lived the most ordinary of lives under the most ordinary of circumstances? Not really, but to her she did, once she became a cop.
"Jesus Christ" Robert said when a camera lens banged sharply against his window "That guy just broke his camera"
Sitting taller to see beyond the crowd, Olivia spotted Elliot instead. Olivia waved through the windshield, trying to catch his attention.
"It's Elliot, he's on the other side of the crowd."
"You drive." Robert said "Lock the door for me, what's his last name again?"
"Stabler."
With one fluid motion, so swift it was over before it had registered, Robert stepped out of the car and slammed the door. Olivia slid awkwardly over the gearshift into the drivers seat and locked the door. She watched Robert put his hands into the pockets of his top coat and shoulder his way through the reporters and cameramen. He yelled Elliot Stabler so loudly that everyone stopped for a moment to look at the man separating the crowd. Olivia began to move the car forward into the vacuum Robert created as he walked. What would happen, she wondered, if the wall of people in front of her simply refused to part?
She worried for a moment that the crowd might simply go with her, move her to the house like a cortège, a grotesque cortege with the widow trapped inside the car, a beetle under glass. At that moment she turned the engine off, and left the car abandoned there. She pushed her way through the crowds and walked in silence, soon having Elliot and Robert guide her into the house.
She looked out the window and saw four unfamiliar cars, one with it's door still open and the dinging bell. Four cars mean at least that many strangers.
"You don't have to do this now." Robert said
"But I'll have to do it sometime." she said
"Possibly."
"Shouldn't I have a lawyer?"
"The union's taking care of it." He put his hand on her shoulder "Just don't give these guys any answers you're not absolutely sure of."
"I'm not sure of anything" she said
They were in her kitchen and in the front room, men in black uniforms and dark suits. A large man with oval wire dimmed glasses and excessively gelled hair came forward to greet Olivia first. His collar, she noticed, cut into his neck, and his face was flushed. He waddled somewhat, in the way of heavy men, leading with his stomach.
"Mrs. O'Connell" he said, holding out his hand "Dick Somers"
She let him take her hand, his grip was tentative and damp. The phone rang, and she was glad Robert didn't leave her to answer it.
"From?" Olivia asked
"I'm yet another investigator from the Safety Board, let me say how very sorry I am, we all are, for your terrible loss."
Olivia could hear a low, steady male voice on a television in the other room.
"But I do have some questions."
He turned to the other man next to him.
"My colleague, Henry Boyd." Somers said, introducing a younger man with a blonde mustache
Four other men came forward to be introduced, men in America Airlines uniforms, with their caps tucked under their arms, the uniform, with it's gold buttons and braid, it's familiarity, causing Olivia to catch her breath. They were from the airline, the chief pilot's office, they said, and Olivia thought how strange these greetings were, these niceties, these condolences, these cautious condolences, when all about them there was the palpable strain of waiting.
A man with iron filing hair stepped forward than the rest.
"Mrs. O'Connell, I'm Chief Pilot Bill Tierney" he said "We talked briefly on the phone yesterday"
"Yes"
"Let me once again express myself how sorry I truly am, he was an excellent pilot, one of our best."
Olivia imagined how many times the chief pilot had to say these words to the widows of the pilots.
"What can you tell me about the tape?" Olivia asked
Tierney pursed his lips and shook his head.
"No information about the tape has been officially released."
"I understand that." Olivia said, turning to the investigator. "But you know something, don't you? You know what's on the tape."
"No I'm afraid I don't." he said
But behind his wire rimmed glasses were his eyes, skittish and evasive.
"One of you left your car door open." Olivia said, gesturing towards the door
"Why don't we sit in the living room?" Somers said
Feeling unfamiliar in her own house, Olivia walked into the living room, the men following behind her
She had found only one seat left open, James' not hers. She felt dwarfed by the size of it.
Somers seemed to be in charge, he stood while everyone else sat.
"I'm just going to ask you a few questions, it shouldn't take too long." he said
"Can you tell us anything about how your husband was behaving prior to his departure for the airport on Sunday?"
Olivia saw that no one had a tape recorder out or was writing anything down. Somers seemed almost excessively casual. This couldn't be office then, could it?
"There's not a lot to tell." she said "It was routine, James took a shower, got dressed in his uniform, came downstairs, and shined his shoes."
"And where were you?"
"I joined him in the kitchen. To say goodbye."
The word goodbye triggered a quick jolt of sadness and she bit her lip. She tired to remember Sunday, the last day James had been home. Occasionally, she had fragments, dream bits like the fluttering glints of silver in the dark. It seemed to her that it had been an ordinary day, nothing special about it. She could see James' foot on the pulled out drawer, the old green checked rag in his hands as she passed through the kitchen on the way to the laundry room. The length of his arms, lengthened even more by the weight of his bass as he walked to the car outside. He'd said something over his shoulder. She'd had the rag in her hand. Don't forget to call Alfred, he'd said. And tell him Friday.
He'd shined his shoes. He'd left the house. He would be home, he said, on Tuesday. She was tired in the middle of the doorway, slightly annoyed he hadn't done it himself. Call Alfred.
"To your knowledge, did James call anyone that day?" Somers asked "Talk to anyone?"
"I have no idea."
She wondered. Could James have talked to someone that day? Of course he could have. He could have talked to twenty people for all she knew.
Robert and Elliot had their arms crossed over their chest. They seemed to be studying the coffee table with great interest. On the table were books, a stone plate that James had brought back from Spain, and an enabled box from Portugal.
"Mrs. O'Connell" Somers continued "Did your husband seem agitated or depressed that day or the night before?"
"No" Olivia said "Nothing out of the ordinary. The shower was leaking, and I remember he was a bit annoyed with that, since we'd only had it recently repaired. I remember he said to call Alfred."
"Alfred is?"
"Alfred McKinnon, the plumber."
"And when did he ask you to call Alfred?"
"Twice actually, once upstairs and ten minutes before he left, and again, walking out to the car."
"Did James have a drink prior to his departing to the airport?"
"Don't answer that." Robert said, sitting forward on the sofa.
Olivia crossed her legs and thought about the wine James and she had had with dinner on Saturday night and had continued to have after dinner, and she quickly calculated the number of hours between his last drink and his flight. At least eighteen, that was all right then. What was the phrase? Twelve hours from the bottle to the throttle?
"It's alright." she said to Robert "Nothing." she said to Somers
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing at all."
"Did you pack his suitcase?" he asked
"No. I never do."
"Or his flight bag?"
"No. Absolutely not. I virtually never look in there."
"Do you usually unpack his suitcase?"
"No. That's James' responsibility. He takes care of his own bags."
She heard the words, takes care of, present tense.
"Did your husband have any close friends in the U.K?" Somers asked "Did he regularly talk to someone there?"
"The U.K.?"
"England. Ireland. Scotland."
"I know what U.K. means" she said "I just don't understand the relevance of this question. He knew a lot of people in the U.K. He flew with them."
"Have you noticed any unusual withdrawals from or deposits into any of your bank accounts?"
She wondered where they were going with this, what any of it meant. She felt herself to be on shifting ground, as though at any moment she might step unthinkingly into a crevice.
"I don't understand." she began
"In the last several weeks, did you notice any unusual behavior in your husband?"
She had to answer this one, for James' sake. She wanted to answer it.
"No."
"Nothing out of the ordinary?"
"Nothing."
Olivia looked down at her feet.
"Everything all right Mrs. O'Connell?"
"Just fine." Olivia answered
"Mrs. O'Connell..."
"May I be permitted to ask you a question, Mr Somers?"
Olivia heard the anger in her voice.
"Yes of course." the investigator said warily
"What other scenarios besides suicide have you imagined given the material that is theoretically on the CVR?"
Somers looked discomfited. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that just now, Mrs. O'Connell."
"Oh really?" she asked quietly
She looked down at her feet, then up at the faces in her living room. They were backlit, haloed by the light from the windows.
"Then I guess I'm not at liberty just now to answer your questions." she said
Robert stood up.
"This interview is over." Olivia said
She got up and left, going upstairs to her bedroom.
She sat on her bed, looking out the window, her eyes fixed on the wind blowing around the trees outside. She was started by the creak of a door.
Robert was at her door.
"I was hoping you would bolt." he said
She put her arms on her lap. Was Robert telling the truth? she wondered. Was he glad she bolted?
"Have they gone?" she asked
"No."
"And?"
"They'll be alright. They have to do this. I don't think they really expected you to say anything."
She clutched her hair into a ponytail, tightening her grip with each word that came out of Robert's mouth.
"We need to have a funeral." she said
He nodded.
"Julia and I need to honor James." she said "Julia needs to honor her father."
And she thought suddenly that this was true. James should be honored.
"It wasn't suicide. I'm sure of that."
A pigeon cooed suddenly, the bird landing at her windowsill.
"When I was small," she said " I used to think I wanted to come back in my next life as a pigeon. Until my mother told me how filthy they are."
"The rats of the sky." Robert said
Olivia removed a strand of hair from her mouth. She looked out the window to find families with strollers heading to the park. Looking down, she sighed.
"When Julia was tinier, maybe two, I used to worry that something would happen to her if I didn't keep my eyes on her."
"Two summers ago, that happened to a five year old, she turned up dead, kidnapped and assaulted. Her name was Rosemary. I remember thinking that was such an old fashioned name to give a girl."
He nodded.
"When it happened, all I could think of is how treacherous the world truly is, one minute your life is normal, the next it isn't."
"You of all people should know that." Robert said
Olivia looked up at him.
"You're thinking how it could have been worse. Aren't you?"
"Yes."
"It might have been you and Julia on that plane."
"Yes."
"That would have been unbearable, literally unbearable."
"You could go away you know? You and Julia."
"Go away?"
"To the Bahamas. To Bermuda. For a couple of weeks, until things die down."
Olivia tried to imagine Bermuda right now with Julia. Olivia shook her head.
" I couldn't do that." Olivia said "And besides, I don't think Julia would go."
"Some of the relatives have gone to Ireland."
"And what? Stay in a motel with a hundred other families who are out of their minds? Or go to the crash site and wait for the divers to bring up body parts? No, I don't think so."
"What was your life like before this?"
"A sort of ordinary life, not really, more of hectic, less hectic then this at least." Olivia said "It was different each day. Which one do you want?"
"I don't know Thursdays?"
"I take Julia to upstairs to Margaret to get her to school, then Elliot and I grab coffee, get to work, then depending what happens, I can either be holding a gun at someone, interrogating someone, or in court."
"And James?"
"When James was there, he was there. He did it all."
Elliot had suddenly came into the room, interrupting the two.
"Somers has just a few questions left, then he'll get out of here."
Olivia turns on her bed.
"Might as well get this over with."
The three make their way downstairs. Somers rolled a fax in his hand. Olivia announced that she had a short statement to make.
"My husband, James, never gave me nor anyone else any indication of instability, drug use, abuse of alcohol, depression, or physically illness." she said
"As far as I know" she said "he was healthy, both physically and mentally. We had a happy marriage and were a normal family. As you all know, my daughter is with my friend, and neither of them are to be interviewed or contacted at all. That's all."
"Mrs. O'Connell." Somers said "Have you been in contact with James' mother?"
"His mother is dead." Olivia said
And then silence ensued. In the silence, she knew something was wrong. The silence was complete even with so many people in her house.
"I don't think that's the case." said Somers softly, placing the paper into his breast pocket
The floor seemed to dip and waver like a ride at an amusement park. Somers pulled a torn piece of notebook paper from another pocket.
"Marge O"Connell" he read "Forest Park nursing home, 245 Jefferson Street, Ontario, New York."
The ride picked up speed and dropped fifty feet. Olivia felt light headed, dizzy.
"Divorced three times, only son is James Dean O'Connell."
Olivia's mouth went dry, and she licked her top lip. Perhaps there was something she hadn't understood correctly.
"James' mother is alive?"
"Yes."
"James always said..."
She stopped herself. She thought about what James had always said. His mother had died when he was nine. Of cancer. Olivia glanced quickly at Robert and Elliot, and she could see from the expression that they too, were taken back. She thought about the arrogance, the smug certainty, with which she had made her statement seconds earlier.
"Apparently." Somers said
The investigator was enjoying this, Olivia thought.
"How did you discover her?" Olivia asked
"She's listed in military records."
"And James' father?" she asked
"Deceased."
She sat on the nearest chair an shut her eyes. She felt vaguely drunk, the room swirling unpleasantly behind her eyelids. All this time, she thought, Julia had had a grandmother.
But why? she asked herself
James. Why? she silently asked her husband
Now how do you all feel about that? :) Anyways, leave a review please! What do you think will happen?