“No,” Justin told her. “I don’t mean that it’s okay that you were yelling. It
She nodded, too drained to smile. Too exhausted even to say thank you again. She patted him lightly on the arm, then went to sit down.
Justin sat through three eulogies before it was his turn to speak. He went up to the pulpit, pulled out a piece of paper that had his prepared speech. He stared at the words he’d typed up, decided they were idiotic, that he couldn’t say them, then turned the paper over so all he could see was a blank page.
“I’m not very good at this kind of thing,” he began. “But I just decided to toss my little speech away. What’s written here suddenly seems so fake, like I’m talking about a stranger. So. . To be honest, I don’t know if there’s all that much to say about Jimmy, except that he wasn’t a stranger. At least to anyone in this room. He was a pretty normal guy. But maybe that’s what made him special. He wasn’t rich, he didn’t do things that changed the world. He was just decent. He worked hard and he liked people. Some people he loved. But whether he liked you or loved you or not, he did his best to help you. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so sad today. Because I don’t know all that many normal people who are like that.”
He hesitated, thought he should say something about Marjorie and the kids, maybe something a little more personal. He was distracted, though, by a muffled bang. It sounded like a thunderclap. Or a car crash. Everyone was on edge, half expecting another bombing, so most of the audience turned toward the back door or jumped nervously. This wasn’t an explosion, though, Justin knew. His guess was car crash. Some kind of collision. Maybe even something large falling off a truck. That clearly was the general consensus because the fear seemed to subside. People were turning back to face him now. The interruption was over.
And then he realized that a cell phone was ringing.
Two, three, four rings. Jesus Christ, talk about inappropriate.
A fifth ring. Then silence. He waited to make sure it really had stopped before he continued. He turned toward Margie, said one of the ways you judge good people is by the relationships they maintain with other good people. .
And there it was again. The ringing cell phone. He was about to say something, after the second ring he began to tell the person with the phone to get the hell out.
Then he realized it was
His mouth dropped open in embarrassment. For a moment he almost had to laugh, it was just too awful, but he realized that laughter was even less appropriate than the call. It was ringing a third time now, at least two more to go before his voice mail picked up. He wondered if people knew where it was coming from, and, looking out at the sea of faces staring up at him, he realized they sure as hell did. Everyone knew. Every single person in the church. His mouth went dry. He couldn’t even name anyone who might possibly be calling him. Everyone he knew was at the goddamn funeral.
There it was-the fourth ring.
Justin looked out at the mourners, all of whom were staring at him in disbelief. He swallowed, coughed to clear his throat, and then he said, “I’m really sorry about this. Excuse me.”
Then he reached into his suit pocket, took out the phone, saw from the digital display that the call was coming from the East End police station, and he answered it.
“Jay, it’s Mike.”
Mike Haversham was the only cop who wasn’t at the funeral. Someone had to stay behind to mind the store.
Justin kept his voice low, put his hand over his mouth to muffle his words even further. “I’m in the middle of the funeral, you idiot.”
“I know. I know.” The young cop’s voice was trembling. “I’m really sorry. But it’s an emergency.”
Justin looked at the people in the pews. With his eyes and the briefest shrug of his shoulders, he did his best to convey that this wasn’t his fault.
“It
Mike Haversham told him. Justin clicked off the phone, lifted his head to stare back out over everyone who was there to mourn Jimmy Leggett.
“I think Jimmy would understand this,” he said to the crowd. “At least I hope so.” He tapped the cell phone lightly against his forehead, then said what he knew he had to say. “But either way, I’ve got to go.”
2
“We’ve got plenty of witnesses,” Mike Haversham was saying. “A few people at the airport saw a lot of it. Bunch of people saw the crash. Drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians. I’m sure a couple of people in their homes.”
Judging by the crowd that was rapidly gathering, Justin was sure that Haversham was right. Witnesses would not be a problem. “What the hell happened? Give me the short version first.”
“The guy took off from the runway. Everything seemed okay. He was only up in the air a few minutes and seemed to lose control. He kind of circled around for a while and then. .” The young cop exhaled a deep whistle and made a diving motion with his hand. “Looks like he tried to land on the road here, and just couldn’t do it.”
“Tried to land right in the middle of fucking town?”
“Hey, who knows what was goin’ through his mind? The guy thought he was going to die.”
“Yeah, well, he was right about that, wasn’t he?” Justin stared again in disbelief at the wreck, something he’d already been doing for a good two minutes now. He walked up to the small private plane, which had crash- landed maybe thirty yards from the busiest intersection in East End Harbor. It had come down in the middle of the road that led in and out of town, missing by ten feet the concrete bridge that spanned the bay. The brand-new concrete bridge, Justin thought. The town council would have had a shit fit. The bridge had taken six months longer than it was supposed to take to be built. It had just opened two weeks earlier. Ten more feet. He almost smiled at the thought. Ten more little feet. .
The plane was at a forty-five-degree angle and looked to be compressed to about two-thirds its normal size. The nose and most of the front half were crumpled after colliding with the road.
Beneath the pilot’s-side wing, a man’s body was sprawled on the ground. His neck was clearly broken. Next to the man’s body was a small puddle of vomit.
“I got sick,” Mike Haversham said quietly. “I never saw anything like this before. I knew I had to get the guy out, see if he was still alive. But when I got the door open. .”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Justin told him. “It happens.” When Mike nodded quickly, gratefully, Justin went on. “So you pulled him out of the plane?”
“With that guy’s help.” Mike pointed to a man who was standing about twenty feet away next to a Lexus SUV.
“Who is he?”
“Just some guy who was passing by. There were a few other cars but he’s the only one who stopped. You might think about hiring him. At least he didn’t puke his guts out.”
“And who’s that?” Justin now waved his hand toward a second man who wore jeans and a light gray sport coat over a long-sleeved white shirt and gray-and-blue tie. He was pacing off to the side and quite upset. Curiously, Justin thought he didn’t look upset about the crash, more like he was angry about something else. Maybe it was the man’s comb-over. It wasn’t pretty.
“He’s pissed because I wouldn’t let him leave,” Haversham said.
“Why not? He see something?”
“I don’t know. But he was in the plane, you know, and then he wouldn’t talk to me, so-”
“What do you mean, he was in the plane? A passenger?”
Haversham shook his head. “No. After the crash.”
“What the hell was he doing?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know. He’s whaddyacallit, you know, the agency that deals with planes and shit.”
