Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

“Fucking say something, Jack.”

I clapped Caine’s shoulder and grinned at him.

“Happy day, Eric. Oh, happy day.”

CHAPTER 123

COLLEEN’S FRIEND MIKE Donahue and I were at Santa Monica Airport, where I kept my Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

I’d told Donahue that I’d flown with Colleen a few times, and that she’d taken over for me when we were in the air. She had done a couple of loop-the-loops and had shrieked with laughter every time.

Now Donahue wanted to do it too.

We ducked under the wing, and I said to him, “It’s not like you see in the movies, like flying a plane is a step or two over driving a car. In a plane, you control the mixture of fuel and air that goes to the engine, you monitor exhaust temperatures, you reset the compasses. It’s ninety-nine percent procedure and checklists. A minor screwup on the ground means something entirely different when you’re in the air.”

“Like what, for instance, Jack? No. Don’t tell me.”

“For instance, you forget to put the gas cap on. Gas just

vaporizes out of the tank. Your plane turns into a glider, and you don’t want that.”

Donahue pointed, said, “Is that the gas cap?”

“Yes.” I smiled at him. “The cap is secure.”

We finished the walk-around, and I gave Donahue a leg up to the cockpit. I got into the pilot’s seat, strapped in, and adjusted Donahue’s headset so that we could talk and he could hear my conversations with the control tower.

I was cleared to taxi to the active runway, and Donahue stared straight ahead, unblinking, as we rolled.

We stopped at the end of the taxiway and I went through another checklist, reported to the tower, and began my takeoff. As always, because of the way the propellers turned, the aircraft pulled to the left, so I gave it some right rudder as I built up speed.

I watched the airspeed indicator, and when we got up to about sixty, I came back a touch on the yoke.

The nose angled upward and we climbed. And I exhaled.

It was a beautiful evening. The sun was going down, leaving a luminous band of sky-blue and pink along the horizon. I headed west and took us out over the ocean. Colleen used to call out the many hues of blue and green as the water went from the shallows to the deep.

I told Donahue that right here, at this altitude and distance from land, was where Colleen liked to take the controls.

“I’ll think of her flying,” Donahue said to me, “but I’ll just be a passenger.”

“Maybe you’ll fly some other time,” I said.

I took the plane into the clouds, and for a few moments there was nothing to see but condensation wicking across the windshield. Then we were above the castles in the air, and for a passenger and the pilot too, it was easy to put motors and magnetos and gas caps into the back of your mind, just feel the magic and the majesty of flight.

Donahue was smiling broadly as we sailed above the pastel-colored cotton balls of cumulus, and then his voice came to me loud over my headset.

“I changed my mind,” he said. “I’d like to take a turn at the controls, boy-o.”

I told Donahue how to do a loop-the-loop, and he did as I said. He pulled lightly up on the yoke. The plane climbed straight up, curved, and flew upside down. Donahue screamed in a very manly way, then yelled into the mic, “This is what we call ass over teakettle.”

His laughter almost popped my eardrums.

Donahue completed the loop and we were heading west again. He took his hand off the yoke and reached out to me. I matched his palm with mine, and we looked at each other, grinning like fools.

Our way of saying good-bye to our dear, sweet friend Colleen.

CHAPTER 124