by Peter Parken
Shelby laughed. “That’s very funny. In their “investigation” they didn’t even talk to the lone survivor—me. What kind of investigation is that?”
“Well, it’s the NTSB—who do you think the courts will believe—you or them?”
Shelby rose from her chair. “Don’t you want the truth? And I don’t even see why this makes a difference to your suit. As you said, it’s a ‘slam dunk.’”
Dwayne stood up, too. “It complicates things a bit—it indicates that maybe there was another intervening cause of what happened, which, if that’s the case, Strict Liability might not apply. Which means we’d have to prove negligence instead.”
Shelby was dumbstruck. “You mean you’d actually have to do some work? To get at the truth? Is that what’s bothering you? You’re afraid that you may not be able to prove that Flying Machines Inc. was negligent? Hey, here’s a brainstorm for you—if they weren’t negligent, they don’t deserve to be sued and they don’t deserve to go bankrupt! Sounds like you’d rather have an untruth in your case, just so you can get your ‘slam dunk!’”
“It’s a complication we don’t need. Why don’t you just sign the form and let me take it from here? I promise I’ll raise the issue with the NTSB.”
Shelby chuckled. “Oh, you—who can’t even get my name right—you’ll promise me, will you? How’s this for a suggestion—you talk to the NTSB first and get it straightened out. Then I’ll sign a document that has a statement in my own words. How’s that for a plan?”
The bald and fat little lawyer grimaced. Then he muttered, through clenched teeth, “Don’t even give it another thought, Shelly. We can win this lawsuit without your testimony. No point in getting yourself all worked up. It looks like you’re doing fine—you don’t need to have this horrible memory dredged up for you again.”
He then tore up the document that Shelby was supposed to sign and pointed to his door. “Have a lovely day.”
Chapter 12
Nate awakened with a start. He could feel his heart pounding and sweat had soaked his pajamas right through. He shuffled into the bathroom, stripped off his wet clothes and towel dried his hair, which was plastered to his head from the perspiration.
It hadn’t been a nightmare—more like a brainstorm.
Since he was sleeping alone now he didn’t have to worry anymore about waking Stephanie when he had his sudden brainstorms. And he got brainstorms a lot—and, like now, most of them in the dead of night. At other times, they would creep up on him when he was daydreaming. Maybe because his mind was at rest? And maybe, as psychologists liked to say, dreams are just the brain’s way of attempting to resolve the unresolved. Usually in bizarrely abstract ways.
Nate had awakened to the vision of a fist in front of his face. Just a fist, nothing else—and it was someone else’s fist. A right-handed fist, and he knew it wasn’t his because one of the fingers had a very large distinctive ring—kind of like a Graduation ring…or a Super Bowl ring.
He donned his dressing gown and wandered down to the kitchen. Poured himself a glass of milk and then stretched out on the couch in the living room. Sipping his milk while picturing the fist in his mind, he began pondering what the dream meant. It was so specific that it had to be meaningful. Meaningful to something that was going on in his life, and right now there was an awful lot going on.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. There had to be a message in this vision—it had to be a clue to something. And if history was any indication, Nate’s brain would figure it out fairly quickly. He was confident of that. It was just the way his unusual brain worked. Over the years, he had come to understand its workings very well indeed.
His concentration was disturbed by soft footsteps. Then the voice of his wife. “You can’t sleep either, I see.”
He allowed his left eye to wander over in her direction. She was coming out of the kitchen with a glass of juice in her hand.
“No—too much on my mind, I guess.”
Stephanie sat down in the chair opposite him. She let out a big sigh, and then spoke in a soft melodic voice. “What happened to us, Nate?”
Nate just shook his head.
She took a slow sip of her juice. “Did we just lose ourselves?”
Nate stretched his legs out on the ottoman. “I don’t know, Steph. I think we just grew apart, and probably didn’t really know each other as well as we thought we did. We wanted different things, that’s all.”
She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, resting her chin on her fists. “I still love you, Nate.”
Nate shook his head. “No, you don’t, Steph. C’mon, you have to face the facts. People who love each other don’t fuck other people. I’m not angry about that anymore—it’s just a statement of fact. I wasn’t the right one for you—or I just wasn’t enough for you. Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
She started crying. “I just made a mistake. Why can’t you forgive me?”
Nate frowned at her. “Steph, you made the same mistake at least twice. That should tell you something. It’s best for both of us if we move on. And let’s be honest here—we haven’t been in love with each other for many years now, even before you fooled around. So, maybe your mistakes are partly my fault. My detachment might have chased you to other men. I dunno, maybe I got too busy with work and didn’t put the effort into our marriage as much as I should have.
“And I let it drag on—I didn’t pay attention to you, and I didn’t try to fix it either. I kept promising myself that I had to do something about our marriage before I made a big mistake like you did—but I kept putting it off, kept finding other things to distract me. So, I just put up with you being in my life, when what I really wanted, I guess, was to have you out of my life. I didn’t face it head-on like I should have.”
“That’s a pretty cruel thing to say, Nate.”
“What? Crueler than fooling around on me?”
“I was drunk when those things happened.”
“That’s a weak excuse, Steph. All booze does is give people the courage and the recklessness to do what they really wanted to do in the first place. And then it becomes a convenient excuse for bad behavior. You know that, I’m not telling you anything revolutionary here.”
“No, it wasn’t that way.”
“Sure it was—you know it was. Now you’re just doing what I did for so long—not facing up to the truth. We’re both at fault here, and there’s no point beating ourselves up over it.”
“I love you.”
Nate pulled his legs back off the ottoman and leaned towards her. He spoke slowly and softly.
“Steph, you don’t love me any more than I love you. You love our lifestyle, we both do. We got too comfortable and didn’t pay attention to the things that should have been more important. We didn’t pay attention to our souls.
“But don’t worry—you’ll be well taken care of. I won’t give you a hard time about anything. I just want out—I need to start over and perhaps spend some time being by myself for a while.”
Stephanie’s face suddenly clouded over. “Well, what’s going to be left over to take care of me after the lawsuit? There will be a lawsuit, won’t there?”
Nate sighed. “Yes, there probably will be. And the company has liability insurance, so we should be well protected.”
Her tone hardened. “But the business will probably fail, won’t it? You’ll have no problem starting over—you’re an engineer. But I have no education or skills at all. What am I going to do?”
Nate chuckled. “I think I’m starting to understand why you started this conversation off by telling me that you still loved me.”
Stephanie went silent, glared at him for the longest second, and then walked over to stand in front of the living room window. She stretched out her slender arm and shook her tiny fist towards the sky. “God, I hate you for what you’ve done to us!”
Nate looked on impassively at her pitiful little drama. But then, all of a sudden, he got the most ex
traordinary feeling in the pit of his stomach. A rush of excitement! At that same instant the answer he’d been waiting patiently for all night—actually in the form of an image—displayed itself in his brain.
He jumped to his feet. “That’s it!”
Stephanie whirled around. “What?”
Nate rushed off in the direction of his bedroom. “No, it’s not about you. But, thanks to you, something you just did brought it all back.”
*****
Shelby parked her car in a parking lot just off L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. This was the office of the National Transportation Safety Board. She had a meeting in about five minutes’ time with a senior official by the name of John Fletcher. The most senior investigator at the NTSB and the one who had personally conducted the rather quick investigation of the Black Mamba tragedy.
It had taken her a couple of days to actually get through to him. His calls seemed to be selectively screened—but once she finally identified herself as the lone survivor of the Black Mamba, she was able to connect. They talked briefly and he agreed to meet with her. He seemed nice, at least over the phone.
After only a few minutes wait in the reception area, a tall gray-haired man came out to greet her. He leaned towards her and held out his hand.
“Hello Ms. Sutcliffe. I’m John Fletcher and I’m very pleased to meet you…and I must say I’m also extremely pleased to see you looking so alive and healthy!”
Shelby smiled politely and shook his hand. She gulped when she realized what an important thing it was that he had just said. She was alive, and glad to be. And so far she hadn’t been feeling any of the ‘survivor guilt’ that she had feared would creep up on her. Being a nurse, she had seen that reaction in many of her patients over the years.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Thanks so much for agreeing to meet with me.”
He motioned with his hand in the direction of his office and they walked together down the hall. Shelby thought: What a difference between this true gentleman and that slob of a lawyer I met with. She decided that John Fletcher was one of those rare people whom you liked instantly. He had that special chemistry. Maybe it was his infectious smile or the gracious way that he had greeted her. He didn’t do it in melodramatic fashion—didn’t refer to the horrifying aspect of the accident—he just simply told her that he was glad to see her alive. He made her feel instantly comfortable.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t get through to me the first few times you tried. We get so many enquiries from crackpots who are upset and vigilant about various accidents. We have to be so careful.”
Shelby smiled at him—which was an easy thing to do with this John Fletcher gentleman. She thought he looked just like Cary Grant. He had that look about him that was captivating. John would be everyone’s ideal of how the perfect grandfather should look and act. A classy man, for sure. She noticed the wedding ring on his left hand and guessed that his wife was a class act as well. How could she not be?
He led her into his office. She noticed that it was just a modest room, with furniture that looked like it had been bought at the local budget store. Quite a contrast to the egocentric opulence of Dwayne Feinstein’s office.
John poured Shelby a cup of coffee and then sat down in the other guest chair beside her. Shelby was impressed—he didn’t sit behind the desk, which always formed a natural barrier to good conversation. He made it more informal and personal by sitting beside her. She knew she was going to like this man.
“So, tell me, how is your recovery going?”
Shelby looked down at her hands, feeling a little self-conscious. “I’m doing fine. Remarkably, nothing was broken. I was just battered and bruised.”
John smiled his Cary Grant smile. “That’s great. What an ordeal for you—it’s hard to imagine. How are you feeling about it all, though?”
Shelby smiled back. She didn’t want to talk about how she felt—she’d been doing her best over the last couple of weeks to bury her feelings. Her dreams at nighttime exhausted her, constantly reliving it over and over again. She tried not to think about it while she was awake.
Keeping busy helped. Even meeting with that sleazy lawyer had helped. And being here, ready to confront John Fletcher about the NTSB report, was also helping.
“Mr. Fletcher…”
“Call me ‘John.’”
“Okay…John. You can call me ‘Shelby.’ I’ll get right to the point because I know you’re a busy man. I visited with the lawyer who filed the Class Action lawsuit against Flying Machines and Adventureland. He wants me to join the action and testify.”
“Yes, well, that would be the expected thing. Your testimony, I mean. And…I would expect also that you’ll join the action?”
Shelby shook her head. “Not yet. I needed to get some things clarified first.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“It seems to me that the lawyer, Dwayne Feinstein, could care less about what really happened. He wants to hang Nathan Morrell and his company out to dry. He’s relying on something that’s Greek to me, something called ‘Strict Liability,’ which means he won’t have to worry about who was at fault.”
John rubbed his forehead. “That is how that legal principle works. He’s correct.”
“Well, to my understanding, it doesn’t work that way if there was possibly something else that caused the accident.”
“That’s true—if there was a contributing cause, then the only alternative left for him is to prove negligence.”
Shelby glared into Cary Grant’s eyes, and she had no doubt in her mind that he could see into her soul—see her confusion and frustration. “You didn’t bother to interview me. You prepared your report without even talking to me.”
John stared back.
She persisted. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”
He averted his eyes for just a second. Enough to make Shelby uneasy.
“It wasn’t deemed necessary.”
Shelby was starting to feel the same anger that she had felt in Feinstein’s office. “Wouldn’t it be necessary for you to know that the lap bars didn’t deactivate upon impact with the broken track? That it wasn’t the jackknife that caused them to pop open? The lap bars actually unlocked at least a second or two before the impact—I know that for a fact. I pulled up on it. And I’m the only one alive who can tell you that. If you had bothered to talk to me you would have known that.”
John was rubbing his forehead with both hands now.
“John? Are you okay?”
“Yes…yes. I just have a bad headache.”
“I have some aspirin in my purse. Do you want one?”
“No…no, it’s okay. It’ll fade in a bit.”
Shelby paused for a second, then continued. “Your report stated that the lap bars came unlocked upon impact. And that’s just not true. Something caused them to open before the train hit the split in the track. Isn’t that a fact that’s worth investigating? You have to admit it’s weird. Why would that happen? Why would both of those things happen within mere seconds of each other?”
John glanced at his watch and stood up. “Shelby, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I have another meeting starting in about five minutes.”
Shelby stood as well. “Are you surprised at what I’m telling you? Does this alarm you at all?”
John walked over to his door and opened it.
“Thanks, Shelby, for coming here to tell me what you did. I’ll take it under advisement.”
She walked to the door. “What does that mean? I don’t know what ‘advisement’ means with something as serious as this.”
He smiled thinly—no longer looking like Cary Grant. “Goodbye, Shelby. Nice to have met you. Good luck to you.”
Chapter 13
They were all there when Nate walked into the conference room. He was a bit late, but he knew they’d forgive him. He had a great relationship with his entire management team—a group of people who were the most tal
ented he’d ever had the pleasure of working with.
He took his seat at the usual spot—head of the table. To his immediate left was his best friend and Vice President of Mechanical Engineering, Tom Foster—the one who’d experienced the hell at Adventureland right alongside him. And the one who he also now knew had a paralyzing fear of heights.
Next to Tom was Jim Watkins, Vice President of Finance. Anchoring the end of that side of the table was Robin Gilchrist. Robin was Vice President of Legal Affairs, and she was one of the best legal minds that Nate had ever met.
On Nate’s right sat Ron Collens, Vice President of Electrical and Systems Engineering. Next to him was Ralph Woods, Vice President of Marketing. The last seat on the right side of the table was occupied by Helen Lacombe, the company’s Vice President of Human Resources. She had a challenging job—the company’s 600 employees were feeling very unsettled with what happened at Adventureland. They were naturally concerned about what the future of the company was going to look like after such a devastating setback.
Nate opened his file folder, took a quick glance at his notes, and then spoke to the group. They were all silent, no doubt wondering what he could say to make such a disaster look better. Lipstick on a pig?
Nate wasn’t sure he could tell them anything to make them feel better—time would just have to take its own course. But, he was their leader and he knew that whatever it was he was about to say would either dash their spirits or lift them.
Luckily, Flying Machines Inc. was a private company. There were no external shareholders to be concerned about, nor financial regulators that they would have to account to. In addition, being a private company, their financial statements didn’t have to be disclosed to anyone other than the folks around the table.
The executives were the shareholders—they were all Nate’s partners, although he held controlling interest. Fifty-one percent gave him control, although he seldom had to swing his weight around with this group. They usually arrived at a consensus on everything that was decided. But in the event that there was a stalemate—which was rare—Nate would make the call, and his partners always respected his right to do that.