Manner of Death

by Stephen White

  We grabbed a cab outside the terminal and she said. "The Mirage, please." to the driver.

  "How was your flight?" I asked.

  "My flights are always good,” she said, as she swiveled on the seat to face me. "This guy? Who may have killed Amie? I don't know about you, but I'm working under the assumption that from now on, he's following one of us. It's probably not literally true, but still, better safe than sorry, right? I'm hoping it's me he's following today, not you, there's no way he could have stayed with me today. You bought your ticket at the gate, right? No reservation?"

  "That's right."

  "Good."

  I was occasionally looking past Sawyer out the window of the cab. I hadn't been to Las Vegas since I was a teenager, and I found myself as distracted by the glitz as I was by Sawyer and her paranoia about being followed. Las Vegas seemed to be an odd mixture of age and youth, and so was Sawyer. Yes, she had put on a few pounds, but mostly the years had made her appear less brazen.

  Not Las Vegas, though. This new Las Vegas was as brazen a place as I'd ever seen.

  I think she felt me hesitate at the edge of the casino, she reached back and took my hand, leading me far into the interior of the huge space, she looked around for a moment, finally selecting two stools at a five-dollar blackjack table, she directed me to the end seat on tha right of the crescent-shaped table.

  She laid a hundred-dollar bill in front of her. I pulled out my wallet and decided to limit my contribution to the Las Vegas economy to twenty dollars.

  "The whole casino is under surveillance all the time. I have a friend who works here, at the Mirage, in security. I don't think he's here— our adversary— but if he is, we may get a record of it."

  "What kind of record?"

  While the dealer exchanged our bills for chips. Sawyer raised her chin toward the ceiling. "Video. Every square inch of this floor is monitored every second of every day. My friend is watching us right this minute, he's going to keep an eye on the rest of the floor, see if anyone else is watching us too."

  She placed a chip on the line. I did the same.

  "You know how to play?"

  "I know the general idea."

  "Good, the rest is easy. I'll teach you."

  For the next twenty minutes, she did. I lost a few hands, won a few hands, hit a couple of blackjacks, and mindlessly cashed in another twenty, she nursed her stack of chips into almost two hundred dollars. I was impressed.

  I was also perplexed. I didn't know why I was sitting in the casino at the Mirage on a Saturday afternoon playing blackjack with an ex-lover.

  "Sawyer?"

  "Mmm."

  "What are we doing here? More to the point, what are we going to do about this maniac and these two ex-FBI agents?"

  Sawyer seemed to be ignoring me as she focused on her hand. I wondered if she was counting cards. Finally, she decided to split a pair of tens, without looking over at me, she said, "You know who it is?"

  "No." I said. "I don't. You do?" I was relieved that she might have figured out the puzzle.

  "I’ve been thinking that it might be one of two guys, wendy had a patient, an angry, angry young man. Remember him? I think he was in oil and gas. What did they use to call themselves back then? Land man, is that it? Yeah, I think he was a land man. Kept announcing at Community Meeting how much our 'imprisonment' was costing him. Does he ring a bell?"

  The dealer graciously added an ace to the first of Sawyer's two tens and a jack to the second. Sawyer cleaned up twice as the dealer busted. I'd been sitting conservatively on an eight and a six and won my hand and a tip bet I'd left for the dealer. I now had eight five-dollar chips in my pile, which meant I was even. Cool.

  I didn't recall the patient of Wendy's that Sawyer was talking about. I said. "The man you're describina doesn't sound familiar. Sounds like it could have been ten different guys. Twenty."

  "Okay. Let me describe him a little bit more, he was young then. Mid-twenties, and little, smaller than me, about five-five, five-six, and— oh, oh— his hair was as red as these chips, and he kept a pocket comb with him all the time, was always combing his hair."

  I nodded, the comb did it. "I remember him now, he wore madras, right, had nothing but madras shirts? Wasn't he picked up by the police on ‘-70? If I'm remembering the incident correctly, he was on the elevated portion, wasn't he? Near the Stock Show, wandering around? Claimed he was looking for oil? Had some ritual about kneeling in front of the mileage markers?"

  "That's the guy. When they found him he was barefoot, otherwise totally dressed in Bronco orange. First-break schizophrenic, wendy got him stabilized on Thorazine right away, the good news was that the Bronco garb disappeared and we got treated to the madras, the bad news was that we all had the misfortune of viewing his underlying personality disorder. Not a pretty sight."

  It didn't feel right. I shook my head. "I don't see it. Sawyer. Let's say it's him and he's psychotic again. If that's the case, he's not stable enough to pull this kind of thing off. Let's say his psychosis is under control. Even after his thought disorder disappeared, he was impulsive, just a little firecracker, right? I’ve been thinking that we should be looking more for a depressed guy. Or a paranoid character disorder, maybe even a high-functioning obsessive-compulsive. Something like that."

  "Maybe you're right about the little oil and gas guy, Alan. But I'm not sure I agree with you diagnostically. I don't think we should rule out psychotics. It could be somebody with a severe thought disorder or even a severe mood disorder, for that matter. What about a bipolar who's well controlled on lithium? Or just a manic who cycles slowly? You know, someone who only kills his doctors during the manic phase?"

  She was making an interesting argument about patients with mood disorders. "You're making a good point." I acknowledged. "I hadn't thought about a slow-cycling manic. But I'm not convinced the oil and gas guy is the type we should be looking for. You don't think we should consider Travis, do you?" Travis was the patient of Arnie's who had attacked Sawyer with the pocketknife.

  She shook her head. "No, he's too crazy and too impulsive."

  I pushed my chips forward and stood up. "Would you mind cashing out. Please? This is too distracting for me. Let's get a beer or something. Your friend can follow us with his cameras, right?"

  Her eyes lit. "Almost anywhere,” she said.

  At her suggestion, we settled into a booth in the coffee shop, she ordered a Cobb salad and a Diet Pepsi. I ordered a turkey sandwich on wheat bread and a beer, she hadn't even glanced at the menu. I said. "You come here a lot?"

  She shrugged. I wondered if she was appraising my words for the weight of judgment. I, too, wondered if there were any stray ounces there.

  "What's a lot? I gamble to relax, get away. I come here sometimes— to Vegas. I go to Reno and Tahoe, too, I'm pretty good at blackjack, not quite so good at poker. Good enough that it's cheap entertainment for me."

  All these years had passed and there were a thousand things I wanted to know. Our food arrived in minutes; the casino kitchen didn't want its customers spending any unnecessary time away from the gaming floor. I swallowed a bite of my sandwich and asked. "Are you married? Involved with someone?"

  The tiny lines around her eyes and mouth softened and smoothed out. "There's a guy I see in L.A, and a judge in San Francisco. But not seriously: no. I did marriage. I did it twice."

  "And twice is enough?"

  She didn't respond, she cut a big piece of romaine into tiny little pieces and went to work on a sliver of hard-

  boiled egg.

  "You know. I didn't know you were married when I met you. You never said anything."

  She placed her silverware down and lifted her napkin to her lips. "Technically, I wasn't."

  "Okay. I'll try to be more precise. I didn't know you had been married when I met you."

  She lifted her fork and speared a cherry tomato, she swallowed once even though there was no food in her mouth, she raised her chin, stretched her n
eck back, and closed her eyes.

  I couldn't fail to be assaulted by memories. Moments before orgasm Sawyer did this same thing, a throaty groan would complete the picture.

  When she looked back down at me, tears were in her eyes. "I can't do this now. Not with you. Not yet. I'm not ready to go back there. Let's just deal with murderers, okay? I do that every day."

  "I'm sorry if I intruded on something. Sawyer. I didn't mean to upset you."

  "It's okay. You don't know about any of that. I never.., anyway. I don't know. I'm sorry: too."

  I changed the subject. "Why don't you tell me who your other candidate is? You said you had two people in mind."

  She had turned her attention to a pair of televisions above the bar. One was tuned to CNN, the other was a college football game. I couldn't tell who was playing, without looking over at me, she said. "You remember a patient of mine named Elly? You saw her for me, on a consult."

  I smiled. "Of course I remember Elly. You don't suspect her, do you?" Elly had been an eighteen-year-old girl when she was admitted to the unit for depression, anorexia, and suicidal ideation, she'd been Sawyer's patient, but I'd done a psychological testing battery on her.

  "God, no."

  Sawyer remained focused on the TV. I tried to remember whether she was a football fan.

  She said. "But Elly's the reason we can't cooperate with Simes and Custer on a patient roster."

  I tried to make sense of the connection, but couldn't. "I don't get it."

  "Elly's full name, if you recall, was Eleanor Trammell. Since then, she's married, her name, now, is Eleanor Ward."

  I followed Sawyer's gaze up to the television screen, the CNN logo flashed across the screen. I wasn't getting it.

  "Eleanor Ward," she said. "CNN? Ring any bells?"

  "Oh." I said. "That Eleanor Ward." Immediately I saw the face in my mind. Eleanor Ward was one of the regulaa anchors on Headline News. "You know. I always thought that woman looked familiar, but I'd never made the connection."

  "No reason you should have, her hair color is different, and she's gained twenty pounds."

  The mention of weight helped me recall the details of why Elly Trammell had been hospitalized. "Your point is that if her history— I mean her psychiatric history— was made public, it could really screw up her life, couldn't it? Professionally?"

  Sawyer moved her attention from the television back to her salad, she said. "Professionally. Personally. You bet it would, there are probably a dozen more people like her, too, Patients who were on the unit back then whose lives would be turned upside down if we revealed their names and what they'd been through. So we're on our own, we can't sacrifice all those people to help those two feds."

  "Ex-feds."

  "Oxymoron. It's like ex-Catholic. Or ex-shrink."

  "What are you implying? That some learning can't be overcome?"

  "Yes. I am saying that I believe there are some things in life that change people forever. Some things you can't get over, that's exactly what I'm saying."

  "I don't know about that. But I'm not going to argua with your conclusion, we can't give them a patient roster. No, there're too many unknowns."

  She glanced back up at the televisions. "Good. I'm glad we're not going to fight about that."

  "I do have a cop friend in Boulder whom I trust a lot, he'll do what he can to help us out. I've explained everything to him already."

  "We can't give him names either, Alan."

  "I know that, he knows that. Don't worry about him. So who's your other candidate?"

  "Actually; I was thinking of one of my own patients, a young, angry borderline guy who I didn't like very much, he spent half his time on the unit in isolation, screaming at somebody or another. I think his name was Romewicz or something like that. But in coming up with him. I've been focusing more on the anger than the capacity for planning. I think you may be right. It may be better to look for who would be capable of it first, and look for motive second."

  I said. "Wait a second__ "

  "What?"

  I touched my index finger to my temple. "Do you remember the guy— what was his name— everyone on the unit called him D.B, he was Amie's patient, I think. It was a relatively brief admission, he was—"

  She smiled and her eyes sparkled with confetti. "I remember him, he was the guy who said he would tell us the identity of D. B. Cooper if we let him off his sevenry-two-hour hold so he could go back to work, he even announced the deal during Community Meeting, asked for takers."

  "Yeah."

  "He was admitted that weekend we were ..." Her voice faded away; cushioned by memory.

  I finished her sentence. "In Grand Lake."

  "Yes, we were in Grand Lake."

  I smiled at the memory. "I'm trying to remember whether I met him or not. Did you meet him?"

  "We met him, we were back in time for Community Meeting the day he was discharged, we both met him."

  I couldn't get a mental picture of him. "Has that guy ever been found? The hijacker. I mean? D. B. Cooper?"

  Sawyer shook her head. "You know. I don't think so."

  Like most Americans. I'd been fascinated by what D. B. Cooper had managed to do in ‘97’.

  On Thanksgiving eve of that year, a man using the name Dan Cooper purchased a ticket with cash and boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 305, bound from Portland to Seattle, the man who called himself Dan Cooper was later described by flight attendants as a polite, shy: middle-aged guy who was dressed in a dark suit and a tie, he sat in his assigned aisle seat in the middle of the plane and generally attracted no attention to himself until he handed a note to one of the young flight attendants, informing her that he was hijacking the airplane.

  His demands included a highly detailed request for ransom and, curiously, four parachutes.

  The plane landed in Seattle, where it was delayed for refueling, for delivery of the $200,000 in twenties that Cooper had demanded, and for delivery of the four parachutes. Cooper permitted the paying passengers to deplane and chose two flight attendants who would stay aboard as hostages.

  After once again taking off, the plane flew south under flight conditions dictated by the hijacker, the route Cooper specified was an indirect, slightly westward, slightly looping path toward a refueling stop in Reno. Nevada, with an ultimate destination of Mexico City.

  Cooper ordered the pilot to fly the Boeing 727 unpressurized at an altitude often thousand feet or less, with the landing gear in the down position, he specified that the flaps should be at fifteen percent, and that the airspeed should not exceed one hundred and fifty knots.

  Cabin records indicated that fourteen minutes into the flight. Dan Cooper hit the lever that lowered the airstairs at the rear of the 727, the only commercial aircraft in use in the United States with stairs that extended from the stern of the plane, approximately ten minutes after lowering the stairs, somewhere over the wilderness drainage of the Columbia River just north of Portland. Oregon, Cooper slipped into one of the four parachutes, climbed down the lowered airstairs, and jumped into the rainy night with his ransom strapped to his chest.

  He would never be seen again.

  D. B. Cooper became a certified folk hero.

  Dan Cooper— whose name was later mistakenly reported by the press to be D. B. Cooper— had accomplished the first criminal hijacking ever to take place in U.S, airspace. To this day, he remains the perpetrator of the only successful hijacking ever to take place above U.S, soil.

  Almost ten years later, in ‘980, two kids playing on the northern shore of the Columbia River recovered $5,800 of Cooper's marked booty. Despite extensive efforts, searchers found no more of the loot and no trace of the parachute. Cooper's body was never discovered.

  I asked, "What was his real name? The patient who said he could finger D. B. Cooper?"

  Sawyer said, "You know, I don't remember. I'm trying to remember the stories. I think he said that ha worked at— what's that place called west of Denver, where they m
ake nuclear weapons?"

  "Rocky Flats, that's right, he said he worked at Rocky Flats. His thing was that he was complaining that he was going to lose his security clearance because he'd been hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. What did he do there? Do you remember? Was he a scientist of some kind?"

  "No. I don't— Wait, he was in security, wasn't he? Didn't he tell everyone he carried a gun at work?"

  "Yes, and he told us that D. B. Cooper was someone he worked with at Rocky Flats, and he insisted that he had proof."

  We puzzled about other ex-patients for most of an hour, the fishing felt futile. None of the candidates felt right. Sawyer and I agreed that it was possible that the patient we were trying to identify might be someone neither of us knew well. Like the man unit staff had nicknamed D.B.

  After a poignant silence grew into more than a minute, she said she had to get back to the airport.

  We grabbed a cab outside the casino and she directed the driver to someplace called Desert Aviation.

  At the unfamiliar destination. I felt a familiar feeling, with Sawyer. I was, and always had been Just along for the ride. "Where are we going now?"

  "That's where my plane is, after you drop me off, the cab can take you back over to United."

  "You have a plane? You flew here yourself?"

  "I do. I did. I travel all over the state every week to prisons and courts, the plane helps keep me sane. My schedule would be psychotic without it."

  "Something else I guess I didn't know about you."

  "I didn't fly back then, during the residency. It's something I learned about ten years ago from my father, the plane was his. When he began to develop glaucoma, he gave it to me. Flying has turned out to be another one of my relaxing things."

  "Your job must be stressful, all these relaxing things you do."

  She glanced at me sideways before resuming a tense stare out the side window. "Stressful enough. I guess." She paused. When she resumed, the volume was barely above a whisper. "But in my life, alan, it's not the hurricanes or the tornadoes I worry about anymore. It's the volcanoes."

  "What— ?"

  She managed a small smile. "Think about it."