Voodoo Daddy (A Virgil Jones Mystery) (33 page)

Murton walked over to the tractor and pulled a shovel from the side rack and stood next to the hole. Sandy and I walked over and I got down on my knees and placed my father’s bloodied shirt at the bottom of the hole. Then I stood back and watched as Sandy and Murton and Delroy wrestled the willow tree into the hole and filled the remaining space from the pile of dirt.

“Willow trees use more water than just about any other tree,” Murton said to no one. “I don’t know how I know that.” Then he looked away. I thought there was more he wanted to say, and I think Delroy thought the same thing.

“The ground water will soak tru the paper and into dat shirt, mon. Your father’s blood, it will flow tru dat tree just like it do your own heart, Virgil Jones.” I think it was the first time I had ever heard Delroy say my full name.

“It might not be much, but we had to do something,” Murton said.

Sandy sat down in the grass next to the tree, and after a few minutes, Murton and Delroy and I did too. Sandy took my hand and looked at me. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. If I had been just a little quicker….”

I cut her off. “We agreed we weren’t going to have this discussion anymore.”

The shine in her eyes sparkled a turquoise blue, the un-felled tears caught in her lashes. “I can’t help it, Virgil. I can’t get these thoughts out of my head. My father died saving your life, and I keep thinking that surely there must be some reason things turned out this way. I was supposed to save your dad, Virgil. But I didn’t. Don’t you see that?”

“No, I don’t. Amanda was after me. When Dad yelled out, he took a bullet that was meant for me, and one that probably would have hit you. He not only saved my life, but he saved yours as well.”

“And how am I supposed to live with that, Virgil?”

“The same way I have all these years. The same way I’m still learning how to.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“I’ll show you,” I said. “I’ll teach you. We’ll do it together.”

Sometimes though, at night, as we lay together under the sheets, I wonder if maybe our roles aren’t reversed, if maybe it isn’t me who is being led and taught, not just by Sandy, but by those people who have held a place in my life and still rent pieces of my heart as tenants in perpetuity. And when sleep does not come as it sometimes does not, I’ll get up and walk out onto my deck and watch the moon journey across the sky, its reflection set deep in the sheen of the black-watered pond at the back of my house. I’ll stand quietly and listen to the wind hiss through the leaves on my father’s Willow tree or the dull echo of semi tires as they snap over the expansion joints out on the four-lane. The sounds surround and comfort me, ground me in some way.

And after a while I’ll go back to bed and wrap my arms around the woman I love and remind myself it probably does not matter who is the teacher and who is the student, only that we learn how to live and love along the way. God has put us here, and when our time is over God will take us away on a calendar not of our own making, but one that benefits the continued growth of our souls. Everything in between is part of a timeline we think we control, though I doubt we do. In the end I think we simply ride the rails, safe in the belief of a master plan we only witness after the fact, if ever at all.

May 2012

Author’s note:

This story is a work of fiction, but it is based upon fact. In 1987 a military jet crashed into the Ramada Airport Inn, located right next to the Indianapolis International Airport. It was a horrific and tragic accident where lives were not only lost, but changed forever. Beyond that, virtually every single detail of this book is a product of my imagination. I have taken complete and total dramatic liberties and literary license to tell a ‘what if’ story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Oh, here’s one more thing you may find noteworthy…

One of the lives that changed that day was my own.

You see, I was there, at the airport, when it happened.

I had just been hired as a First Officer for the now defunct Britt Airways, a commuter airline that operated primarily out of Chicago, Illinois. When I say just hired, I mean exactly that. I was on my first official trip as a pilot for Britt. We departed Chicago’s O’Hare International airport and flew down to Indianapolis. Our passengers deplaned and shortly after, we loaded up with other passengers returning to Chicago. We had no sooner gotten everyone aboard when the unthinkable happened and the jet hit the hotel. I was in the middle of my speech to the passengers about how to fasten their seat belts, how to open the door in the event of an emergency, etc., when we heard a terrific boom. I exited the plane and looked across the tarmac and saw a huge plume of black smoke as it rose above the terminal building. The Captain of the flight, a fine and decent man by the name of Ron Miles, (who remains one of my best friends to this day) got on the radio and asked the tower controller what had happened.

After Ron exited the aircraft and informed me of the crash, he asked me if I wanted him to tell the passengers. I said, “No, I’ll do it,” and I did. I can still remember the looks on their faces. But more than that, it’s what happened next that I’ll never forget. Each and every passenger on board that morning listened to what I told them and then together, as a group, they stood and got off the plane. No one said a word. They just got up and walked off. When we taxied away from the terminal a short while later for our return trip to Chicago, with the exception of Ron and I, we did so with an empty airplane. I’ll never forget that day.

I was right there. And the writer in me always wondered…‘What if...’

I think that’s where really great stories come from. I hope you agree.

Thanks for reading…

Thomas L. Scott lives with his wife and children in northern Indiana. You may connect with Thomas on his website 
http://thomaslscott.com
or on Twitter @scott_thewriter