Flight Dreams (29 page)

Pandemonium. The crowd’s whispers explode into whoops of dismay. Reporters scribble ecstatically—
this
is the stuff they’ve been waiting for!—and a veritable cloud of chalk dust rises over the heads of the sketch artists. Hank Ferret screams his objections. Judge Ambrose hammers over the din. And Humphrey Hasting sits with his mouth agape—a numbed, quivering blob in a bow tie.

When a semblance of order has been restored, the judge asks, “Can you substantiate this charge, Mr. Manning?”

“Indeed I can,” says Manning. Everyone in court listens, engrossed, as Manning recounts the events of the day when he received the letter. He points out the
Post’s
watermark on the stationery. He notes certain tendencies in Hasting’s writing style—including overuse of the word “modicum.” He explains the distinctive little E’s typical of old newsroom typewriters, adding, “Mr. Hasting once told me at a party that he writes all his stories on ‘an ancient Underwood.’ I’m certain, your honor, that if you impound his typewriter and examine its type, you’ll find that it produced the letter in evidence.”

Judge Ambrose instantly dispatches two deputies to the
Post
building to confiscate the machine, making the order official with a pound of his gavel.

A hush falls over the courtroom. All eyes turn to Humphrey Hasting, who hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken. He peers at the judge for a moment, then shifts his gaze to Ferret, to Manning, to Roxanne, then back to the judge. Moments pass. Silence reigns. The room closes in on him.

“
No
,” wails Hasting,
“it wasn’t signed!”
He flails both arms at the heavens. “You can’t prove it—you can’t prove a thing!”

In a comfortable chair in a little stucco house in Assumption, Helena Carter listens to Hasting’s outburst on the radio. Abe, the greatest of all champion Abyssinians, lies curled in her lap. Abe’s tail, tipped with hairs of purest black, just touches his brick-red nose. The cat’s slow, easy breathing gently parts the black tuft of fur with machinelike regularity.

The woman sits perfectly still, except for one of her thumbs, which strokes Abe behind the ears. She is the picture of contentment, but her mind is troubled. She hears the uproar that now fills the courtroom. She hears Judge Ambrose hopelessly gavel for silence. She hears the words of an announcer describing the scene. She hears the churning of her own brain, burdened for days with the decisions she must soon reach.

“Your honor!” Hank Ferret’s voice barks through the mayhem. “I most strenuously object to Miss Exner’s line of questioning. I
demand
that the witness’s testimony be stricken.”

“Overruled!” the judge blasts back at him. Then, in a civil, normal tone, he asks, “Miss Exner, have you any more questions for this witness?”

“No, your honor.”

The judge asks Ferret, “Well, counsel, I suppose you’d like to cross-examine.”

Soft-voiced but eager, Ferret replies, “Indeed I would.” There is a moment’s quiet while the lawyer approaches the witness stand. “Mr. Manning,” he asks, his tone suggesting that a new thought has occurred to him, “do you feel, as you implied by your testimony, that it was somehow improper for the
Chicago Post
—which happens to be your employer’s principal competitor—to name suspects in the Carter case?”

“It was highly improper,” says Manning, “to publicly accuse a man without evidence—even if motivated by the so-called ‘public interest.’ That’s not the function of journalism.”

“I see. Could you share with us, Mr. Manning, your more highly
evolved
philosophy of journalism?”

“It’s not a philosophy, but simply a matter of definition. The reporter’s job is to report the news—not to make news. He deals only in facts, striving to report them in a concise and intelligible manner. It is the reader’s task to understand those facts and to interpret them.”

“But we don’t always have the facts, do we, Mr. Manning? Sometimes we have to rely upon our beliefs.”

“Not in news reporting. Beliefs are always personal, usually meaningless, and sometimes dangerous. Beliefs are never knowledge. By their nature, they refute knowledge and dismiss facts.”

“Come now,” clucks Ferret, as if he has trapped a child in a ridiculous fib, “are you trying to tell us there is no room in the world for belief or trust or …
faith?
Do you never act on a hunch?”

“Of course I do—sometimes we’re forced to. When we don’t have sufficient facts that would allow us to act on the basis of knowledge, we must make decisions and take actions based on our best judgment. That’s acting on a hunch, a ‘belief.’ But my point is this, Mr. Ferret: When I’m stuck with a hunch,
I don’t write about it.
”

A stir of muted voices affirms that the crowd in the courtroom has been swayed by Manning, but Ferret presses on. “It’s easy to point the finger, isn’t it, Mr. Manning? But fingers point both ways, you know. You have upbraided Humphrey Hasting for accusing Arthur Mendel in his columns, yet I distinctly heard you say of Mendel, ‘He is innocent.’ Isn’t that a
belief
on your part? Haven’t you acted on a hunch in so judging him?”

“No.” Manning’s voice is clear, his manner resolute. “The innocence of Arthur Mendel is not a belief on my part. It is knowledge.”

“Oh,
really?”
says Ferret with a sneer. “Do, please, enlighten us with the precious facts that enable you to make such a judgment.”

Manning pauses before answering. “For seven years I have reported details suggesting that Helena Carter is not dead, but has disappeared of her own willing. No one else has followed this reasoning or drawn this conclusion. Now I
tell
you: The woman is alive. This is a fact—but those who would profit from her death are no more likely to accept facts than they are able to understand reasoning.”

Ferret says, “What makes you so certain that Mrs. Carter is alive?”

Manning replies, “I could tell you that Helena Carter has not been murdered. I could tell you that I’ve recently seen her, sat with her, spoken with her at length. I could tell you all these things, but you wouldn’t believe me. I could swear to these things, but you’d accuse me of perjury. I could tell you precisely how I know the things I know. But I won’t.”

Ferret says slyly, “A wise decision. No, Mr. Manning, I wouldn’t believe you. Yes, I’d accuse you of perjury. If the things you said were true, there’d be no need for this hearing today. If your words were true”—Ferret breaks into loud laughter—“you’d be a very lucky, rather
wealthy
man!”

The crowd laughs nervously with Ferret, shifting its fickle allegiance. Judge Ambrose raps his gavel, and the disturbance is quickly quelled.

“Your honor,” says Ferret, his voice still shaky with waning spasms of laughter, “I believe the ‘credibility’ of this witness has been sufficiently demonstrated. I have no further questions.”

The judge addresses the assembly: “Ladies and gentlemen, these proceedings have taken far longer than planned. It’s well past my lunchtime, and Mr. Mendel has yet to testify. To the parties who have an interest in Mrs. Carter’s estate, it is important that we resolve these matters before New Year’s Day, so we will meet again tomorrow afternoon, December thirty-first, at one o’clock. At that time, Mr. Manning, you will substantiate your fantastic claims to Mr. Ferret, or you will be held in contempt of this court. We stand adjourned.”

At the sound of the gavel, background jabber fills the room, and the hush-toned announcer begins his needless summary of what the listening audience has just heard.

“Excuse me, Abe,” Helena Carter tells the cat as she lifts him from her lap and sets him on the floor next to her chair. She rises, crosses the room, and switches off the radio. When she returns to the chair, Abe leaps into her lap and resumes his nap, bearing no apparent grudge for the intrusion.

The woman gives a chesty sigh as she settles back with her thoughts. She tells herself that Mark Manning’s life has been threatened as a result of her soul-searching escapade. She thinks of Humphrey Hasting—a man she does not know, but instinctively dislikes—and feels a pang of sympathy even for him, aware that his wrongdoing was inspired by an overzealous response to her disappearance.

She thinks of her sister and Arthur Mendel—my dear, yes, Margaret and Arthur—soon to be questioned in court, like
criminals.
What effect would that have on them, especially after living through the uncertainties and the bleak suspicions of the past seven years? Arthur has been a steadfast friend of the family for over thirty years. And Margaret—well, that indiscretion was long ago forgiven—she’s still the little sister, and she’s going through hell.

It’s gone too far, Helen tells herself. It’s gone on too long. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.

She knows what needs to be done. She must speak to her brother, Father James McMullen, and she knows when to do it. The priest sent a note to her today, asking her to come to the church tomorrow morning—
early,
at five o’clock—to celebrate with him “a private Mass of thanksgiving for the good fortune that is about to befall Assumption.” Odd, she tells herself. The first Mass of the day is normally at six. Why is it so important for them to be alone? Just as well, though—their discussion is not apt to be pleasant.

Secure in her thoughts, she rolls her fingers under Abe’s chin and ponders the conclusions she has reached. Abe purrs.

“
No
,” wails Humphrey Hasting,
“it wasn’t signed!”

At home on a mountainside in Phoenix, Neil crouches before his television set, watching an evening news report of the Houseman Trial. Earlier, at work, he tried to follow the live radio coverage, but he was busy today, and the constant interruptions made it difficult for him to make sense of the disembodied voices. He wanted to close his office door, clear his desk, and just
listen,
but an important project was still overdue—Manning’s belated Christmas present—and he had to hustle to get it finished in time for the four-thirty FedEx pickup. It will arrive tomorrow morning—something to perk up Manning’s day before things get ugly in court.

Neil sits cross-legged on the floor now, no more than three feet from the picture tube. “You can’t prove it—you can’t prove a thing!” The recording of Hasting’s outburst continues to play while a sequence of chalk drawings flashes on the screen, depicting the dramatic moment as a smidge more dramatic than it actually was.

Neil watches vacantly as a panel of “law and journalism experts” analyzes events of the day’s hearing. They all agree that as far as Manning and Hasting are concerned, the results of tomorrow’s court session will surely “make” one of them and “break” the other. They then play the portion of Manning’s testimony in which he hints that he has recently talked to Carter herself.

One of the panelists comments, “It seems to me that Mr. Manning was indulging here in a bit of gaming with Hank Ferret. Manning stated, after all, that he would not swear to his outlandish claims concerning Mrs. Carter—shrewdly avoiding the possibility of perjury charges, yet at the same time managing to tantalize both Ferret and Judge Ambrose. What did Manning
mean
by this cryptic exchange? I’m afraid that’s anyone’s guess, but one thing is clear: It is now presumed with near certainty that Mrs. Carter has been dead since her disappearance seven years ago, so it’s unlikely that Manning meant for us to take literally his claim of having spoken with her. Perhaps he has had a mystical experience. Perhaps he is himself clairvoyant or has spoken with the deceased heiress through the aid of a medium. I doubt if we shall ever know the exact meaning of Mark Manning’s words.”

Neil
knows the meaning of Manning’s words—they can be taken literally, at face value, with no hidden message whatever. These idiots on TV have been told point-blank the answer to this whole trumped-up mystery, and they don’t even have the presence of mind to recognize it. But Neil knows that Manning is right, that Manning would not expect anyone to accept his words on faith, that Manning must have a plan. Neil certainly
hopes
that Manning has a plan—because at this moment his prospects appear chancy at best.

Neil leans back, supporting his weight on his elbows, and breathes an impatient sigh. The news program ends, followed by a Fox Network jiggle rerun from the pre-beefcake era, beloved by the masses for its wet T-shirts, sniggering innuendo, and precocious smart-mouthed kids. But Neil is not aware of the show. Not even the noisy, strobe-flashing commercials are able to steal his attention and penetrate his thoughts.

Neil tells himself, Mark has been gone from Phoenix for only two days. Now, without him, the four days we spent together seem like the compression of a lifetime—as though we were always so near, as though it could never have been any other way, as though nothing could ever change. But things
have
changed. Mark is gone. We’re going to think things over. We’ll torture ourselves with a separation intended to clear our minds and make our true desires known, unclouded by momentary passions or the urgency of lust. These things take time. These things take a level head. Infatuation is a poor foundation for decisions that change a person’s life. We’ll have to endure this a little longer. Another month? Perhaps a year? And then what? Either I go to him or I stay—in a month or in a year or not at all.

The waiting no longer makes sense. Neil knows his mind. He knows what he must do.

“Oh,
Daddy!”
yells the busty adolescent on the screen. She’s been helping wash the family minivan, and now Daddy’s getting tricksy with the hose.

Neil snorts a derisive laugh. With his toe, he reaches up and punches the button that blackens the screen.

T
HE EARLY-MORNING AIR IS
cool, almost frosty. A few minutes before five, Helena Carter steps out of her house wearing a bulky cardigan to protect herself from the chill. She will soon leave this climate, and she likes the idea of strolling outdoors in a sweater on a dark winter morning. Besides, the church is only two blocks away. She is a vigorous woman—a brisk walk will do her no harm.