by Melissa Yi
I hit the flashlight on my phone, although my fingers were trembling.
Magda dug up a proper flashlight that we could have used during the pericardial window. She angled it over his shoulder. "I can see it too," she said.
"Looks like there's blood on the blade," said Tucker. "Okay. I'll leave it in situ, Dr. Sze."
Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.
When we turned around, the very tall black man and Linda were zip tying Mrs. Thatcher in the aisle. She didn't fight them. She met my eyes. "You're not a mother. If you were a mother, you'd understand."
Her words slammed into me before my tired brain worked out the implications.
"He hurt her daughter," I whispered. "Or her son." That kind of ferocity, to stab a man while he was already being subdued—that flared when someone defenceless was hurt or killed. "One of the movies Joel did—"
He nodded. "Probably."
“Come on,” said the black man, not unkindly.
Mrs. Thatcher nodded, but as she turned her back to us with her hands bound behind her, she twisted her right hand and tucked her thumb over her pinky so that her right index, middle, and ring fingers made a spiky shape in the air. Like three tines of a pitchfork.
Or a W.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. West!" I shouted to her back.
Her shoulders stiffened. She dropped the W. Otherwise, she didn’t acknowledge me. She carried on her procession to the back of the plane.
I stared up at Tucker in mute agony. Pornographers like Joel J and Staci Kelly—they made all the money and squatted in first class, while the rest of us, the people who slaved away for minimum wage, the permanent students—we were the ones getting raped up the ass. Yet only Mrs. Thatcher would go to jail, or even get the death penalty. "It's not right."
He folded me in his arms. We stood like wooden markers over a land mine, although in our case, we were human markers clotting up the aisle over the knife seat. I didn't want to cry. I hated the tears that spewed out of my ducts anyway.
I've encountered more killers than I care to count. But when I take them down, there's a sense of justice to it. They killed someone. They go to jail. We can live happily ever after.
Not today. “Her son was Holden West, the Montreal man who killed himself after he got HIV. It makes sense because we're flying to Montreal. Maybe Mrs. West was following Joel the whole time, trying to get close to him." My throat ached.
Tucker nodded. "Could be. I wonder how she got the knife. That looked like a metal blade, not plastic. She shouldn't have been able to get that through security. How did she—"
I sniffed hard. "People can bring guns through security. They only have to check them in their luggage and store them in a proper case. It wouldn't be hard to sneak it back out of your check-in items."
Tucker shook his head. I could feel his chin moving on top of my hair. "It still doesn't make sense. You did carry-on only, so you probably didn't notice, but as soon as you check your luggage, you put it on the weight scale, and they tag it and put it on a conveyor belt. You don't get to dig back through your checked luggage for your knife or gun."
"The police will figure it out," I said. "Her fingerprints will be on the blade, along with anyone else's."
"Excuse me," said a little voice.
Tucker stiffened, although his voice sounded as friendly as usual. "Hi, buddy."
Oh. The Portuguese kid with the iPad. "Yes?" I said, although I didn't detach myself from Tucker. We deserved a hug right now.
"I didn't get to show you my video."
I drooped. The last thing I needed was yet another video, especially after we'd already lived through Mrs. Yarborough calling down a thousand cocks on me, but Tucker said, "I'll watch it, buddy. Why don't you fire it up? Dr. Sze is a little tired."
"I'm okay," I said, and turned my head, still in Tucker's arms. It'll be a sad day when I'm too exhausted to open my eyes and take in a video, even though I'm not supposed to watch them with my concussion. I stared at it with half-lidded eyes.
Once again, the kid showed us a video of the Joel J takedown. This one was also from the front, which made sense because they were in row 14. The only difference was that the kid was lower down, more around waist and knee height. The adults had tried to get higher, standing on their toes or even on seats, in order to get a better angle, but it also meant that everything was filmed further away and darker.
This kid had gotten right down to the ground and shot through people's knees.
That was why he got the only clear shot of a woman with the knife in her hand.
The woman who wasn't Mrs. Thatcher.
37
I swore aloud. We hadn't exactly convicted Mrs. Thatcher, but we'd almost set a mob on her.
When all along, it had been Gladys.
Gladys, creeping up to Joel's side, struggling to hold on to the knife.
Gladys, her hand slashing at his armpit.
Gladys, her hand shaking so much that she—
She dropped the knife.
Mrs. Thatcher scooped it up.
Immediately afterward, the kid must have dropped his iPad. The screen blacked out.
My heart was still pounding. I could hardly talk.
I felt sick at the near-miss. I wasn't 100 percent sure that Mrs. Thatcher had stabbed Mr. Money, but she might have delivered the bigger wound off-camera. At the very least, she deserved to be zip tied at the back of the plane and properly interrogated. She was the last person with the knife, and the knife was at her seat. She was at minimum an accessory to murder.
But Gladys. Gladys had stabbed him first. And she'd gotten him in the armpit, which was a pretty good way to kill someone.
We had more than one murderer.
"Gladys," I said softly.
Her head snapped up from row 16. "He was trying to kill Giddy," she said right away. "I can't let him do that. I told you. I'd die without him."
I stopped for a second. She had said that. And yet, dogs die before their owners all the time. Does that mean she'd planned to commit suicide when he died? It was possible. People can die of heartbreak, and she loved him as much as some people love their spouses.
I don't judge love. I can't. Even so ...
"You can't stab people," I said softly. "We were stopping him already."
"Oh, no, you didn't. You think you were going to stop him?" She looked me up and down, and even though I was two inches taller than her, I obviously didn't measure up. "He kicked your boyfriend. He almost knocked you out. I had to take care of it."
Strange. We'd considered her feeble, but to Gladys, we were the incompetent ones.
Tucker zeroed in on the weapon. "How did you get the knife, Gladys?"
She flapped her hand at him. "From the guy."
"What guy?"
"The—I don't know his name. The one with the bags."
I frowned, but Tucker was ahead of me. "The baggage handler?"
My heart dropped. "The baggage handler who died? Mr. García?"
She shrugged. "I told you. I don't know his name."
"But how did you get his knife? You took a bus to the gate. The bus driver isn't a baggage handler." Post-concussion, I had trouble remembering all the details, and I needed her to tell us anyway.
She frowned. "I had Gideon, so they took me early. The bus driver was really mean. He got mad and started yelling at us about how ESA's shouldn't be allowed on flights. But I have anxiety—"
The whole fucking world knows you have anxiety, Gladys.
"—and he upset me so much that I had trouble holding on to Giddy and my bags ... "
I flashed back to her trundling on our plane with her dog. Yes, she wouldn't have been able to manage.
"So I dropped his leash, and he started running away. He's a dog. He needs to be free."
I caught a whiff of dog feces again and wished he were free some place else. "And then?"
"They all started chasing him and scaring him! That bus driver was the worst! He kicked the
other guy out of one of those baggage carts. He started chasing Gideon with the baggage cart. I thought he was going to kill him!"
That did sound horrible. But the knife, Gladys. Where did the knife come in? "So what did you do?" I asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
"One of those guys dropped a knife. I picked it up. The bus driver jumped out of the buggy, yelling at one of the other guys to take it, and I cut the seat belt. You're not allowed to drive without a seat belt. If he couldn't drive, he couldn't hurt Giddy."
I saw the scene in my head: the corpulent bus driver trying to mow down a panicky dog. Gladys, too out of shape to run, so weak that no one would hear her scream. But she could pick up a knife. And she could sabotage the vehicle.
"They didn't see me," she went on. "They were too busy yelling at each other and talking to their radios. I was trying to tell them that I could get Gideon back to me in no time. He loves his liver treats."
Yes. No wonder his shit stank. And it was telling that he'd come back for the treats, if not his owner.
"One of the other guys jumped in the buggy, even though the seat belt was broken! I told him it was against the rules, but I don't know if he even spoke English." She shook her head in judgment. The eternal anglophone lament. "He started to run down Giddy. I was terrified. He went much faster than the bus driver."
It must have been the baggage handler, who actually knew how to drive the cart, unlike the bus driver.
"He scared Giddy so much that he ran back to me. I held tight to his leash. And later, I gave him a liver treat. So everything was fine."
"You held on to the knife," said Tucker.
"Well, of course I did. How else was I supposed to defend myself against these crazies! They tried to run over my dog on the ground, and then another one tried to throw him out the window on the plane! Good thing I had my knife!"
"Gladys," I said softly, "the baggage handler died. He was thrown out of his cart without a seat belt."
Gladys frowned. "He shouldn't have driven so fast, then. I knew he was a fast driver. You should have seen him trying to run over Gideon!"
"Gladys." I controlled my anger. "He was driving fast because he was trying to make up time after you let your dog loose on the runway."
Gladys's scowl deepened. "There's never an excuse for driving dangerously. That's what a police officer told me last year, and he was right."
I wanted to shake her. "Gladys, did you see him die?"
"No, I didn't see anyone die. I was on the plane, and I didn't see anything."
"Gladys, you made him drive fast with no seat belt. He was thrown out of his cart. He probably died of head injuries. Didn't you notice all the ambulances and police cars closing down that part of the airport when they took you back off the plane?"
As I spoke, she curled around her dog. At last, she muttered, "No one would help me with my bags."
"Because a man died!"
Tucker put his hand on my arm. I tried to breathe more slowly and regroup. Gladys didn't understand. She would probably never understand. Yelling at her was as useful as screaming in outer space. But I had to add, "You kept the knife and stabbed Joel J."
"He was trying to throw my dog off the plane. He would have opened the door and killed us all! Sucked us into outer space!"
Slowly, reluctantly, pity flooded my body.
Gladys was messed up.
So was I.
She was defending the one she loved.
So did I.
If Joel had tried to kill Tucker, I would have executed him without a second glance, consequences be damned. And since he was a pornographer, I can't say I'd cry too hard.
Still, the saddest part was when they went to zip tie Gladys, and she said, "Can I bring my dog? I have anxiety."
38
We escaped to business class. I didn't want to hear Gladys crying, and the fecal smell was slightly better on the other side of the curtain. I needed to drink water and snooze until we landed, which the pilot assured us would happen in the next 35 minutes. Sure, sure.
Mr. Yarborough had opened his eyes. He wasn't speaking yet, but he could sit up. That was an improvement.
Pascale brought me orange juice, which was sour, but I needed the calories, so I downed it, plus a refill. Tucker sipped his apple juice more slowly. I couldn't help worrying about his post-operative stomach. Before I could ask him about it, Trina hovered by our seats.
"Sorry to bother you, but I heard Staci Kelly tell you that everything was always aboveboard on their productions. It's not true. They violated lots of safety codes."
I craned my neck up at her. Her skin seemed to be filled with light. It was irrational, but her beauty lifted my spirits. "You mean ... "
Trina turned away, not meeting my eyes. "We might not win a case against their production company. I didn't work for them recently. I don't know what's going on now."
I hardly dared to breathe, the moment was so delicate. Tucker silently set down his apple juice.
"I worked for them a long time ago. I figured they might have gotten better, and I didn't want to mess with them," she said.
That made sense. Trina was the world's biggest synth star. Why would she volunteer that she used to work in the sex industry, which would erase her entire conservative fan base, plus risk a libel lawsuit by the Terrible Two?
"The rules have gotten more strict, especially after Holden West died. Things should have improved." She paused. "Then I heard rumours that the opposite was true. They were getting more desperate for cash and cutting more corners."
That made sense. But rumours wouldn't prove anything, especially on someone as lawyered-up as Staci Kelly.
"So I looked into it," Trina murmured. "In 2014, Staci Kelly got in touch with Holden by telling everyone they wanted to help him with his new diagnosis, but once they got a hold of him, they told him he was disgusting, no one would ever touch him on-screen or off, his life was over ... "
I closed my eyes. I could hear them screaming in my head.
“He hanged himself," Trina finished.
That poor man. HIV is treatable. There was no reason for him to die like that, alone and scared, climbing up on a chair with a noose around his neck.
Tucker's voice was hoarse. "If we can't prove anything—"
"They filmed it. The whole thing. Them harassing him, them giving him drugs and liquor. Even the rope to hang himself."
Tucker's hand clenched in mine. I clamped down on it, tight.
"I haven't seen it myself, but one of my people got a hold of it. I hadn't decided what to do with it." She looked directly at me. "Until this flight."
I nodded. Death flight took on a different meaning now. Joel J and Staci Kelly had spent their post-Holden years flying away from death with every tool imaginable: wealth, surgery, drugs, drinking, vacations, movies.
In the end, death still won. Death always won.
"You'll turn it in to the police?" said Tucker, in the same gentle tone he'd used with Gideon.
"Yes. I was going to anyway." She stopped and swallowed.
Thank God. I don't believe in you, but thank God anyway.
"I don't know why they'd film it," I said, almost to myself.
Trina's eyelids sprang open. Her brown irises burned into mine. She said two words. "Snuff film."
"Don't—" said Tucker, but it was too late. I already knew that those were films showing an actual murder. Staci Kelly's voice tunnelled directly into my brain.
Snuff porn is a thing.
Killing people is another thing.
It did very well.
"They didn't release it," said Trina.
I breathed a little more easily. At least they hadn't profited directly from his death. At least they hadn't disseminated the images around the world. At this very moment, no one was laughing or jerking off as Holden West died over and over and over.
Trina turned her head away. "I think it was because it wasn't gory enough."
39
I crep
t back to Compton's former seat to talk to Mrs. West. She was in the middle seat, flanked by the guy in the red baseball cap and the tall, thin black man.
"So she'll go to prison for killing Holden?” said Mrs. West.
"I hope so," I said. I Hope so. I Hope Sze. As the words came out of my mouth, I realized it was, in my own way, a promise. I, Hope Sze, will do everything in my power to ensure Staci Kelly goes to prison.
Behind me, Tucker nodded. He was promising too.
"Good," she said. She glanced toward the bloodstained carpet, and I knew she was thinking of Joel J. Firestone. He was dead. His wife would be incarcerated. Their deaths wouldn't bring back her son, but she'd rid the earth of one of them, and the other would rather be dead than in prison.
"I'm so sorry for your loss." My voice dipped and broke.
Tucker placed one hand on each of my shoulders, supporting me, trying to absorb some of my pain.
Mrs. West stared at me from behind her glasses without blinking. "Thank you. My son is at peace now." After a moment, she added, "I think you and your young man are very good doctors."
I turned my head away. I couldn't speak.
I stumbled back to our seats.
When Tucker folded me into his embrace, I sobbed into his shirt. "The good people are going to jail."
Tucker stroked my hair. "She doesn't care about jail. She doesn't care what happens to her. As far as she's concerned, she avenged her son. That's all that matters."
I understood Mrs. West in my bones. I would be a mother like that, if I ever crossed that threshold. Right now, I couldn't imagine bringing a child into this world. After 14/11, every one of us seemed like a hostage to fortune. I couldn't afford to have my heart pulverized if and when something happened to my baby.
Tucker nuzzled my cheek and kissed my ear. "Hope, I love you. It's going to be all right. You remember me telling you about tikkun olam? The world isn't perfect, but our job isn't to make it perfect. You just have to repair one little piece at a time. We did that today."
Did we? I cried until my head ached even worse, and then I slept fitfully, leaning against him, as the engines rumbled. Subconsciously, I felt the change in pressure in my ears.