“He must be a lawyer.”
Again, she laughed, a soft, throaty sound. I think I was establishing a rapport, which might be the right way to go. The other way is intimidation, but Jill Winslow had undoubtedly been the subject of that five years ago and had probably built up some resentment.
I touched the scab on my chin, and Jill Winslow said, “That looks raw. Do you want something for that?”
“No, thanks, I soaked it in salt water.”
“Oh… how did that happen?”
“I was jumped by assassins in the casbah in Aden. That’s in Yemen.” I added, “Just kidding. Actually, do you have a Band-Aid?”
“Yes. Just a moment.” She stood and went to a cupboard, removed a first-aid kit, and came back to the table with a Band-Aid and some antibiotic ointment, which she gave me.
I said “Thank you” and smeared some of the ointment on the scab, then took the Band-Aid out of its wrapper. She stood there, as though she was considering helping me place it, but I got it on.
She sat down and said, “You need to keep that clean.”
She was a nice woman, and I liked her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to like me in about ten minutes. I put the Band-Aid wrapper on the table, and she glanced at it.
I stayed silent for a while, and finally she asked me, “Why do you want to know about Bud, and my relationship with him?”
“There are some apparent inconsistencies between your story and what he said at the time. For instance, tell me what happened to the videotape after you watched it in your room at the Bayview Hotel.”
“What did
“You tell me.”
“All right… after we watched the tape,
This was not consistent with what good old Ted had told me. But it was all coming together now. I said to her, “I’d like you to take me through this in some detail. Okay? You left the beach, and on the way back to the hotel-what?”
“Well… I looked through the viewfinder on the video camera, and I saw what we’d recorded… the aircraft exploding…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It was just awful. Awful. I never want to see anything like that again.”
I nodded and looked at her as she stared down into her coffee cup. I had the feeling that she might have been a different woman five years ago. Probably a little happier and maybe more spirited. What had happened on July 17, 1996, had traumatized her, and what happened afterward had disappointed her and made her resentful, and perhaps fearful. And then there was Mark Winslow, whose face I could see behind the windshield of his Mercedes. And she was still here, five years later, and she knew she’d be here for a long time. Life was a continuing series of compromises, disappointments, betrayals, and what-ifs. Now and then, you get it right the first time, and more rarely, you get a chance to do it over and get it right the second time. I was going to give Jill Winslow a do- over, and I hoped she took it.
She seemed composed again, and I said to her, “So you saw the explosion through the viewfinder.”
She nodded.
“And Bud was driving.”
“Yes. I said to him, ‘Pull over. You have to see this,’ or something like that.”
“And he said?”
“Nothing. I said to him, ‘We have the whole thing on tape.’”
I sat there for a while, wanting to ask. And not wanting to ask. But I was here to ask, so I asked, “Did you see the streak of light on the tape?”
She looked at me and replied, “Of course.”
I looked out her bay window, which faced the backyard. There was a big slate patio, then a swimming pool, then about an acre of landscaped gardens. The roses still looked good.
I poured myself another cup of coffee, cleared my throat, then asked her, “And this streak of light was not a reflection of a stream of burning fuel on the water?”
“No.” She added, “I saw the… whatever it was rise from the ocean… I mean, I saw it in
“You were standing on the beach?”
She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I was sitting on the beach, and… I saw this streak of light rising into the sky… I said something to Bud, and he sat up and turned toward it. We both watched it as it rose, then a few seconds later, there was this huge explosion in the sky… and pieces of burning debris or something started falling… then this huge fireball started to fall… then, maybe a minute later, we actually
This was not quite what Mr. Bullshit Artist had told me about what this couple had seen. But I wasn’t exactly shocked to discover a major discrepancy. I said to her, “The report I read said you were still making love on the beach
She shook her head and said, “We’d finished making love. I was sitting”-her face flushed-“on top of him, looking out to sea.”
“Thank you. I know this must be uncomfortable for you, and I’ll only ask those kinds of details if I need to.”
She nodded, then said, “It was very embarrassing five years ago answering these questions, and describing it all, but I’m over it now… It’s almost as though it didn’t happen, or happened to someone else.”
“I understand. Okay, so after the aircraft exploded, you did what?”
“We ran back to the sand dunes where our things were.”
“Because?”
“Because we knew the explosion would bring people to the beach, or to Dune Road… we were naked, so we ran to the dunes, got dressed, grabbed the camera and tripod, and ran to the car.”
“Bud’s Ford Explorer.”
“Yes.” She thought a moment, then said, “In retrospect, if we’d taken just a few more minutes to gather up the blanket, ice chest, and all of that… and we didn’t realize we’d left the lens cap on the blanket… we really weren’t thinking about anything except getting out of there.”
I replied, “I’m sure Bud has thought about that many times since then.”
She smiled and nodded.
Apparently me making uncomplimentary remarks about Bud made Jill happy, so I added, “He might as well have left his business card.”
She laughed.
And more important, I didn’t have to divide and conquer; Jill and Bud were already divided, and there were no issues of loyalty to worry about, which made my job easier. I asked her, “What were your thoughts when you looked in the viewfinder and realized you’d videotaped everything you’d seen?”
She stayed quiet a moment, then replied, “Well, I was stunned to see… to see it all on tape. Then… I know this sounds self-serving, but I wanted to go back and see if we could help…”
“You were fairly sure you’d seen an aircraft exploding?”
“Yes… not positive, but I wanted to go back, but Bud said no. Then, when I was watching the tape through the viewfinder, I said that this was evidence, and that someone, meaning the authorities, needed to see this. And he said no. No one has to see us having sex on videotape. He wanted me to erase it, but we decided to play it on the TV in the hotel room, then decide.”
“Okay. So you got back to the room.”
“Yes. And we played the tape-”
“From the video camera through the VCR?”
“Yes. We’d brought the cable with us to do this… for later, when we got back to the room after the beach… so, we played the tape, and we could see it all very clearly on the TV screen, with the sound…”
“And you saw this streak of light again?”
