Why Do Stars Fall Down From The Sky

"Frankfurt, as in Germany? What the hell...?"

"We're expanding our route network in Europe. I'll be making evaluation flights for a few months, but there's a possibility I could end up based over there."

"Dear God."

"And just think...I'll be flying in and out of Tempelhof, too."

"Oh, you're full of all kinds of good news, aren't you?"

"I think I'm going to get my promotion to captain, but with this European thing that'd mean I'd be flying 727s."

"That's the little three engined one, right?"

"Yup. Great airplane, though."

"I thought you liked the TriStar."

"I do, but it's not a short haul airliner."

He nodded. "I guess you're right, of course. Moving around like that...a family would never work out."

"I'm not ruling it out. I am not, however, going to rush into a marriage with Genie -- or anyone else, for that matter."

"You may be right about that, but don't underestimate that girl, or her love for you. She's not the type to give up so easily."

I shook my head. "As soon as she understands I'll never move back to Highland Park she'll lose all interest in me. Again."

"You're too cynical."

"You might be right, but actually I kind of doubt it."

"What's going to happen to Carol?"

"If this latest effort fails, then palliative care."

"Dear God. What did she do to deserve a life like this?"

"Good question. Why don't you ask him when you see him."

"God damn atheist..." he muttered.

I laughed just a little at the unintended ironies within that statement. "Have you ever considered hooking up with Deborah?"

"What? Are you serious?"

"She's still cute, and I bet she could clean your clock."

"And you need to get your mind out of the gutter, young man."

I held up my hands in defeat. "Okay...if you say so."

"Do I look like a cradle-snatcher to you?"

"No. You look lonely. And I've seen the way you look at her."

"Balls!"

"Use 'em or lose 'em, Old Man."

"Yup. It's high time I kicked your ass. You ready?"

"No. But I bet you can't eat another oyster..."

+++++

I flew back to Kansas City to finish up transition school, but I stayed with the L-1011 in order to remain flying our trans-Atlantic routes out of Boston, and after I made captain I bought a place on Louisburg Square in the heart of Beacon Hill. Four bedrooms, too. Just in case. Grandfather flew up for a visit and he liked the place. I heard Genie and her husband had reconciled after I left, and I smiled at the convenience of her ability to accommodate the bastard after he'd cheated on her, but mainly because I hoped things would work out for Tom.

I made one more trip to Dallas to visit with Carol's treatment team at Timberlawn, and they advised she had reached the limits of what they considered possible, and while they recommended hospice as a near term option I wasn't yet ready to go there. Just the idea that a physically healthy thirty-something year old could go into hospice to die by starvation was just too much for me. Still, when I considered Carol's description of life in her hallucinatory world was simply overwhelming, about all I could do was ask myself what I'd want her to do if I was in her place. It was impossible, at least emotionally impossible for me to process, and I drove back to the house in a funk.

Later that afternoon I met grandfather and Deborah at the country club, and after my morning at Timberlawn I enjoyed their apparent happiness. I told him I planned to put the house on the market while still here in town, and he wasn't surprised -- again, he was just a little sad. I wasn't surprised when the house sold just days after the listing posted, but it was a bittersweet parting of the ways, a final goodbye to the life I had once known -- and turned away from.

I resumed flying the TriStar out of Logan on the Paris--De Gaulle run once again, only now from the left seat. I figured that when I got too lonely I could always count on Ellen to cheer me up, and somewhere along the way I started studying medieval art and architecture. I was soon carrying a camera everywhere I went, shooting roll after roll of Kodachrome as I walked around Paris, and I suppose life might have gone on like that indefinitely...

...until one night, when I'd just returned from Paris I listened to a voicemail on my answering machine. The call was from a Detective Ben Barnes, with the HomicideDivision of the Dallas Police Department; his voice was hard as steel, and asked that I please give him a call.

"As soon as possible," he added -- as an after thought...

+++++

Barnes painted a pretty graphic picture over the phone: Carol's bed at Timberlawn a ragged, blood-soaked mess, the mattress and pillow shredded by a long blade kitchen knife. But it turned out that there was one problem, and it was a biggie: there was no body. Anywhere. And now they had lab results on the blood, and it wasn't human. In short, Barnes told me that it appeared to have been a 'staged' murder, and the old cop wondered why.

"Tell me about your sister," Barnes asked.

And I told him quite literally everything I knew about her condition, up to an including the recent discussions to place Carol in hospice.

"And you say you didn't approve that move?"

"No sir, I just couldn't...I'm not prepared to give up hope."

"Does she have any money?"

I felt a cold chill. "Yessir, actually quite a lot, but it's held at Northern Trust and isn't easy to access. In her case she would need my written permission to even get a dollar from the account."

"And no one has been in contact with you about her holdings?"

"No sir, no one."

"This is weird," Barnes sighed, lost in thought. "Well, let me know if anyone tries to get in touch with you..."

I told him I would, then I called Northern Trust to check on any suspicious activity and there had been none. Next I called my grandfather. He'd been distraught for several days about all this, but he didn't know what to do.

"There's no way anyone could get at her money, is there?" he asked.

"Not without my consent."

"Could anyone fake that?"

"Doubtful. And I just talked to Cheryl at Northern Trust; they'll be extra vigilant now, more so than usual, and she won't authorize a thing without first talking to me in person."

"Pat? What if she was kidnapped? What if they try to hold her for ransom?"

"Well, unless they have a shitload of Thorazine on hand they'll have their hands full. Not sure they'd be able to manage her for more than a few days..."

"But, what are you saying -- that they'd kill her?"

"Let's not jump to any conclusions, Paw-paw. No one's tried to contact me yet, and I assume no one has tried to touch bases with you..."

"No...no...not yet..."

"Well then, it's a mystery, that's for sure..."

And that word, mystery, suddenly popped to mind, flashing in bold red lights. Mystery? What about that word was suddenly so important?

Mystery?

Agatha Christie? Agatha Christie -- mysteries?

Carol had been addicted to Christie's novels in high school and had studied her life and works in college, at SMU, and I remembered her talking about the author faking her death and disappearing for a few weeks, and there'd been a later novel where the protagonist faked her own death...and as it had been set in ancient Egypt it had been Carol's favorite.

Oh holy shit.

Could she have been faking schizophrenia? For almost ten years?

No way. No fucking way. I simply couldn't wrap my head around that one, but...yet...something was most definitely up, only now, and quite suddenly, I thought that Carol was probably behind it all.

"Paw-paw?" I said. "Do you remember Carol's infatuation with Agatha Christie?"

"The writer? Now that you mention it, yes, I do."

"I can think of two incidents Carol mentioned where the writer faked a death..."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"So wait a minute...are you saying you think Carol might be behind this?"

"It's a theory."

"Pardon my French, but -- shit!"

"Yup, that's the first word that sprang to mind. She told me once that Christie disappeared for a couple of weeks when she found out her husband had been cheating on her...drove her car out to a quarry and parked it next to a deep water pit. Just enough hints to implicate her husband, too. I remember that much about it."

"You gonna call that detective?"

"I think I'd better."

"Well, I'll be a suck-egg-mule," the old man said, and I had to laugh at that one.

"One of these days you're going to have to tell me what that means."

"Hell if I know. Your great-grandfather used it when he saw someone he hadn't seen in a while."

"Your father?"

"No, your grandmother's. He worked on the Texas and Pacific Railway, he was a civil engineer. Laid out tracks, designed bridges, that kind of thing."

"He's the one who lost an arm, right?"

"Yup. Settled on a farm outside of Sherman, found oil in one of the pastures. He taught you how to draw when you were about four..."

"I almost remember that...drawing bridges...he helped me draw a bridge."

I could hear the old man smile, even over the phone. "That's right. Your dad always said that was a big deal, why you went into engineering. You never can tell, I guess."

"Geesh, I haven't thought about that in years..."

We shot the breeze a little after that then he rang off, and I called Barnes at the police department and told him of my latest suspicions, and a while later the idea of building bridges popped to mind. Agatha Christie and building bridges.

What the hell? What could that mean?

+++++

My routine on flight days was simple. Sleep-in late and have a small breakfast, dress and head to the airport -- Logan -- and check-in at the dispatch office in Terminal E then head out to the gate. Assuming the equipment was there, I'd drop off my flight bag in the cockpit then check in with the ramp agent on the ground, go over fuel load-outs and check tire pressures with him before I made my first walk around the aircraft. The flight attendants would usually be working in the galleys by the time I made it back into the aircraft, and I'd start programming the necessary waypoints into the INS, or inertial navigation system, a tedious routine that demanded absolute concentration. After all three INS systems had been programmed and cross-checked, the Flight Engineer and I would go down and do a more in-depth walk around, and after we returned to the cockpit the First Officer would go down and make sure the fueling was complete and then bring a copy of the load-out back up the cockpit. When the passengers were called, one of us, usually the FO, would step into the forward entry and do the obligatory 'Meet & Greet' -- saying hello to passengers as they stepped aboard, before they made their way aft to their assigned seats.

A few weeks after my Agatha Christie revelation I found myself posted at the entry doing the Meet & Greet, and first to board were two elderly women, both dressed in black, and both rather frail looking -- and one had an old book in hand. Ellen, working as the senior flight attendant that evening, helped me get the two old women to their seats, which happened to be Row 1 on the starboard or right side of the First Class cabin, and when I helped the frailest looking woman into her window seat I just managed to look at the woman's face.

And I saw Carol's face. Heavily made up and wearing a wig, but it was Carol lurking behind a Cheshire Cat's grin.

And her seat mate, and I assumed her partner in crime, was none other than her psychiatrist, Dr. Amy Stottlemeyer, also equally well disguised.

Carol then handed me a book, Agatha Christie's 'Death Comes As The End', and as I looked at her she pointed to a small envelope in the book she'd used as a place marker and she smiled, said "Thank you so much," in a stilted patrician British accent before she turned dismissively and looked out the window.

"My pleasure," I said to a grinning Amy Stottlemeyer. I noticed then that the two were holding hands, and that they were looking most pleased with themselves.

Now at a complete loss, I walked back to the cockpit and opened the book to get the envelope, and breathlessly read Carol's message before I put her 'gift' in my flight bag. I then contorted my way into the captain's seat while doing my level best not to laugh out loud, but I think only the years of discipline I had by then accumulated allowed me to focus on my duties during that flight. I do recall the usual seven hours seemed to last about a week.

I met them at the baggage carousel, but Ellen ambled up and asked if I was going into the city. I told her I would meet her in the lobby of the Crillon at six and she sighed then walked off in a huff. The two old ladies looked like expectant owls just then, their eyes fixed on mine, waiting for the obvious next question.

"So, ladies," I said as I turned to address my fugitives, "what can I do for you this fine morning?"

"Help us find a place to live," Carol said.

"Someplace with a nice view," Amy said. "And a big bathtub," she added.

And yes, I knew just the place.

+++++

A few months passed, autumn fell and winter assumed her rightful place in the sky, and a light snow was falling on the ramp outside Logan's International Terminal as I finished my walk-around the TriStar. This was to be another momentous flight, my first time flying Grandfather -- ever. He'd always hated flying and did so only when absolutely necessary, and as this vacation was absolutely necessary he was up in the Ambassador's Club lounge nervously waiting for his flight to be called.

I of course stood in the entry to perform the evening's Meet & Greet, and there they were, Mr. and Mrs. Denton Healey, walking down the Jetway together. I shook his hand then leaned in to give Deborah a peck on the cheek, then I turned my attention back to my grandfather and his nervous gaze.

"There's no way something this big can fly," he growled as he took in the hundreds of seats. "Pat! This thing is positively huge!"

"It is, a little."

"This is a long way from Addison Airport, you know?"

I looked at him with all the love I had in my heart. "I'd have never made it here without you."

He looked at me and nodded, then he stood aside and made way for Genie and Tom -- and now I was indeed shocked and speechless.

"We're on our way to our wedding reception, Patrick," my grandfather said. "Surely you'd expect my daughter-in-law to be in attendance?"

"Oh yes, I see your point," I said, as Tom walked up to shake my hand.

"Think you could show me around the cockpit?" the boy with the glowing eyes asked.

And I nodded. With a surprised smile, I think. "Yes, I think we can manage that."

Genie of course looked radiant and I knew when I looked into her eyes that it was pointless to resist this life any longer. My destiny -- and her's too, I assume -- had been written in the stars so long ago that not one among us would dare question such a thing.

Coda

Poor Grandfather was beside himself when he saw Carol waiting for us in the lobby of the Crillon, and I feared this might be the shortest reunion possible -- but no, he was made of stronger stuff. He always had been, in case you didn't know that by now.

We sat together that evening, all of us, getting caught up over dinner. Carol was writing and Amy was painting and both had resumed their affair with the piano, and Grandfather couldn't wait to hear them play Debussy.

He had come a long way, I guess you could say. From growing up on a farm outside of Sherman Texas to eating caviar in the Palais Royale on Christmas Eve, from driving the first automobiles to watching men walk on the Moon. He watched Carol and Amy and felt their love, all our love, really, and I doubt any grandfather had ever been happier. Carol took the newlyweds back to the Crillon, leaving me to walk with Genie and Tom through the palace gardens. I stood between them and held their hands and we talked about simple things like love and family as a gentle snow started to fall, and once I thought I heard my father calling my name; I looked up and for the life of me the snow looked like stars falling down to hold us in his embrace.

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