Free Fool's Flight (Digger) by Warren Murphy Page B

gave up smoking not too long ago. It wasn’t like the old days but at least he seemed happy."
    "You think it was this Reverend Wardell?"
    "Steve said it was. He always talked about him, tried to get us to go with him to church. That was a laugh. I mean, Randy and I, we’re not your average church types, but I don’t know, if Wardell could bottle whatever it is he’s got, I’d buy some and take it every day."
    "Vodka’s the closest thing I know in a bottle. Mind if I help myself?"
    "No. Do mine, too. The change in Steve was really good to see."
    "But it didn’t last," Digger said.
    "How’d you know that?"
    "I don’t know. Your tone of voice or something. What happened?"
    "A few months ago, suddenly he became like edgy. You know how sometimes a guy’s been dry for a while without any problems, and then all of a sudden staying away from the booze really gets to be too much for him."
    "Do you think it was the liquor?"
    "No. He still wasn’t drinking. But he was edgy. He started smoking again. Thanks. Cheers, Abraham."
    They clicked glasses.
    "What about the night of the flight? How do you explain his taking off without you? You think his mood might have had something to do with that?"
    "I’ve thought about that every day since then and I don’t know. I just don’t know," she said.
    "Maybe something unusual happened that you just don’t recall. How about the passengers? What were they like?"
    "Stiffs. But it’s what you expect when you’re flying religious nuts. Actually, though, these were older than most. And usually people come on the plane for a charter and they’re partying. These people were, I don’t know, quieter, I guess. Some of them, I think, already had a whack on ’cause they were asleep as soon as they hit the seats. That’s normal though in charters."
    "None of them said anything to you?"
    "Nope." She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head and repeated, "Nope."
    "What about Batchelor getting sick?"
    "He was the last one on the plane. He’s always the last one on, even though the co-pilot’s supposed to be on first and do the slug work in the flight cabin. Steve never complained about it; he was that kind of guy. So Randy waltzes in late and sits down and he’s ready to go to work. Then a couple of minutes later, he got sick and started to throw up. Maybe he drank too much or smoked something or something. If he did, he didn’t tell me, but he didn’t look it."
    "Did he have anything on the plane?"
    "No. They’re too busy for anything like that. No." She sipped hard at her drink. "He had some coffee. Steve always used to tease me about the plane’s coffee, how bad it was, so he always brought a thermos and the first thing he did was pour some out. Randy’d always come in and drink some."
    "Why’d you take Batchelor to the lounge?"
    "Steve was worried about him. He told me to, in case he needed help. Steve trusted me to make a good decision and let him know, like, if Randy couldn’t fly and we’d have to get somebody else. The passengers could get along without me for a while so I went."
    "When did you find out Captain Donnelly had taken off?"
    "Randy vomited some and then he was okay. We got out of the lounge and went back to the gate but the plane was already gone."
    She started to say something else but the question popped into Digger’s mind and he cut her off. "What’d you do then? Exactly."
    "What was to do? We watched." Digger noticed that she seemed to twist uncomfortably in her chair.
    "You might have gone upstairs and told the traffic controllers."
    "We didn’t think of it," she said, but there was a sharp defensive edge on her voice.
    "Melanie, look. I’m not trying to get anybody in the soup. No government agency’s going to see my report. I’m really more like working for the airlines. I just want to know what happened. I can’t believe that neither of you thought of going up and trying to contact the plane from the tower."
    She drank some more of her