Accidents Waiting to Happen (16 page)

Josh veered off I-5 onto the exit ramp at a steady seventy-five, ignoring the thirty-five miles per hour speed limit with impunity.
 
He braked hard, the vehicle weaving under the stress.
 
Without halting, Josh turned left onto the road taking him over the highway and towards the spectacle in the field.

He closed in on the field and the concentration of people and vehicles came into clearer view.
 
All the emergency services were represented—police, fire and paramedics.
 
In the field, people were gathered around an object.

Josh’s Caravan came to another shuddering halt, stopping with two wheels on the road and two wheels in the dirt.
 
He saw it, recognizable from two hundred feet, the colorful tail of his Cessna C152 pointing skyward.
 
It looked like a toy discarded by an angry child.
 
The emergency services people and their vehicles obscured the rest of the plane from sight.
 
He clambered out of the minivan and raced across the road without paying any attention to other vehicles.
 

The policemen keeping everyone back from the scene closed upon him.
 
“Where do you think you’re going, sir?” one officer demanded.

Josh ignored him and ran on.
 
He didn’t have time for questions.

Two officers engaged him and swiftly halted his progress before he got to the three bar fence.
 
They unceremoniously brought him to the ground.
 
All three men crashed sprawling on the highway.

“I’m Josh Michaels and that’s my plane!” he shouted, as one policeman started to handcuff him.
 
He repeated himself twice more before they listened.
 

The cop uncuffed Josh and said without apology, “Next time have the presence of mind to approach an accident scene with more sense.”

The officer led Josh to the scene but Josh half-ran, half-walked and it looked like Josh led the cop.
 
He ignored the whining pain from the cuts and grazes he’d taken to the hands, knees and chin when the policemen had brought him down.

“What makes you think this is your aircraft?”
 
The cop’s speech sounded choppy over the rough terrain.

“That tail section. ” Josh pointed at the colorful design.
 
“Those are our colors.
 
And I left my flying partner an hour ago before he took off for Stockton Metropolitan.”

“How did you know the plane had crashed?”

Josh ignored the cop’s question as he made it to the constellation of people encircled around the crash site.
 
Men tried to stop Josh from getting too close.

“Let him through.
 
He may be the plane’s owner,” the out of breath policeman said.

The men parted to let him through.
 
Josh came up on the rear of the plane, giving him his first sight of the Cessna.
 
People were asking him questions.
 
Josh didn’t listen.

His plane was buried nose-down in the ground resting on its starboard wing.
 
The wing had buckled and split, dumping its fuel load onto the plowed earth.
 
There’d been no fire but fire extinguisher foam had been sprayed over the spilt fuel.
 
Josh moved around to the side of the aircraft.
 
Everything on the front end of the plane had been destroyed.
 
The undercarriage was bent and twisted, the nose wheel invisible.
 
The propeller had embedded itself into the ground.
 
Struts had been torn from fixings.
 
A spider-web of cracks speckled the Plexiglas window.
 
A trickle of blood ran along the dashboard.
 
The plane’s artwork looked vandalized on its wrecked canvas.
 
Josh read his and Mark Keegan's names on the door.

“I’m Josh Michaels.”
 
He pointed at his name on the plane.
 
“This is my plane.”
 

Josh saw Mark Keegan’s body flopped over the control column like an unwanted doll.
 
Over twenty men from emergency services were just standing around.
 
He went to open the co-pilot’s door.
 
A paramedic restrained him.

“Why aren’t you helping him?” Josh demanded.

“There’s nothing we can do for him.
 
He’s dead.”

Mark was dead.
 
Everyone could see that.

Chapter Twelve

Again, Josh was talking to the police.
 
He spent the next few hours at the aircraft crash site.
 
For reasons of safety, the police had manhandled him away from the wreckage although Josh wanted to stay.
 
The site had to be cleared, the crash area staked out and the downed plane screened off from prying eyes.
 

Still in sight of the screened plane, he explained all he knew about Mark and the aircraft’s history.
 
He also identified Mark’s corpse when it was finally removed from the Cessna.
 
The questions asked seemed to be coming from a long way away as if via an old transatlantic telephone line and he answered in the same fashion.

Images of Mark flooded Josh’s mind, alternating from the pilot’s dead body to their last conversation before he took off.
 
He thought about the check he’d given to Mark still in his back pocket.
 
The concept of profiting from the unpaid debt because his friend was dead plagued him.
 
Mark had no wife and Josh wondered whom he should contact.
 
He felt obligated to inform someone and repay the money he owed.
 
The only person he could think of was Mark’s sister.

Eventually, the police told him to go home and expect an investigation from the Federal Aviation Authority and National Transport Safety Board.
 
He didn’t do as he was told.

Josh drove back to Laguna and got to Bob’s house just after five in the evening.
 
Bob welcomed Josh in typical Bob weekend-wear—baggy shorts, a big tee shirt and Teva sandals.

“Hey, Josh, I was expecting you earlier.
 
C’mon in man.”
 
Bob ushered Josh into his house.
 
“Nancy said you called this morning, what’s up?”

“Mark Keegan’s dead,” Josh said.

“Dead?” Nancy asked, walking into the hall.

“Jesus.
 
How?” Bob said.

“He crashed our plane this morning, flying to Stockton.
 
All I know is he radioed the tower with engine problems and he’d attempt an emergency landing.
 
The last thing they heard was Mark screaming all the way into the ground.”

Nancy put a hand to her mouth.
 
She walked up to him and put a comforting hand on his arm.
 
“Oh, Josh, that’s awful.”

“I heard about a plane going down on the radio and thought nothing of it,” Bob said.

“What did Kate say?” Nancy said.

“I haven’t told her.
 
I was coming from the airport to here when I heard the radio report and I just knew it was Mark.
 
Can I call her?”

“Of course you can, man.
 
You don’t need to ask.”
 
Bob retrieved the cordless telephone from the living room and handed it to Josh.

“Can I get you something to drink, Josh?” Nancy asked.

“Anything cold would be good,” he replied and dialed his home number.

“I’ll give you a minute,” Bob walked into the kitchen where Nancy had gone moments earlier.

Kate picked up the telephone on the fourth ring and Josh told her what had happened to Mark Keegan.
 
The accident shocked and upset her.
 
She was also upset he had not come home first.
 
He apologized and promised to be home soon.
 
He hung up and went into the kitchen.

“How did she take it?”
 
Nancy handed him the lemonade.

“About as well you’d expect.
 
She’s not too pleased I’m here when I should be at home.”
 
Josh took a sip from the lemonade.
 
It was bitter but good.

“She’s not wrong, is she?” Nancy said.

“You make good lemonade, Nancy.”
 

“What are you doing here, Josh?” Bob asked.
 
“Weren’t you meant to be flying with Mark?”

“Yeah, I was, but I wanted to see you about your colleague, James Mitchell.”

“What about him?”

“Do you mind if we walk and talk?
 
I just don’t seem to be able to stay still.”
 
What Josh said was true, but he also didn’t want Nancy hearing what he had to say.

“Yeah, sure,” Bob said.

Josh took untidy gulps from his lemonade and placed the empty glass on the sink drainer.
 
“Thanks for the lemonade, Nancy.”

“Anytime, Josh.”
 
Nancy smiled, but her concern for her husband’s friend showed through.

They walked deeper into the housing development.
 
To Josh, the street was eerily quiet.
 
Sidewalks and front yards were deserted but signs of recent life did exist.
 
Freshly washed and polished cars sat in driveways with discolored patches like wet shadows where the dirty water once ran.
 
Discarded baseball bats and soccer balls lay strewn across freshly mowed lawns.
 
It was like a neutron bomb had gone off and he and Bob were the only ones left alive.
 
His nuclear test theory was swiftly dispelled when a couple of kids came running out of a nearby house.
 
A year or two older than Abby, they resumed kicking a soccer ball in the street.

Josh walked with his head down, staring at the oatmeal-colored, concrete sidewalk.
 
Bob walked alongside him looking forward with his hands behind his back.
 
Neither of them had spoken for several minutes.

Bob stopped walking.
 
“Josh, what did you want to know about James Mitchell?”
 

Josh took two more steps, stopped, turned and lifted his head to look at Bob.
 
“What do you know about him?”
 

Bob shrugged.
 
“Nothing really.
 
He’s an insurance agent with Pinnacle and is in California scaring up business.
 
He’s on the road with nothing to do most of the time.
 
I’ve been there and I felt sorry for him so I invited him to your party.
 
What’s wrong, did he piss somebody off?”

“Yeah, me,” Josh said.

“Shit, I’m sorry.
 
Bad idea-”

Josh cut Bob off mid-sentence.
 
“He drove me off the road.
 
And you brought him to my home.”

Bob’s expression changed in increments as he absorbed Josh’s words.
 
It was as though layers of surprise were torn off his face one by one until the pure expression of shock came through.
 
Bob walked forward and took hold of Josh’s wrist like he was a disobedient child.

“What are you saying?
 
That I knew this guy was the one on the bridge?” Bob demanded.

“I’m asking you what you know about him.
 
That’s all.”

“That’s all I know,” Bob said.

“Let’s keep walking.
 
I don’t want the neighbors listening,” Josh said.

They walked again.

“What makes you think he’s the one?” Bob asked.

“When you were leaving last night you and he were talking and he made the thumbs down sign to you.”

“That’s it?
 
That’s what you’ve based this guy’s guilt on?
 
Oh, come on Josh that’s a little thin, don’t you think?”

“He made exactly the same gesture.
 
No two people would do it that way.”

Bob frowned.
 
“Josh, you’re not convincing me, pal.
 
It still seems you’re reaching for something that isn’t there.”