Skyhook

NINE TUESDAY, DAY 2 SHILSHOAL MARINA BALLARD, WASHINGTON

Gracie O’Brien parked her silver 1982 Corvette in the marina parking lot and turned off the engine as she listened impatiently to the fellow law associate on the other end of her cell phone. The call had lasted all the way from 4th and Broad in downtown Seattle to her parking place, and he was still droning on.

Twenty minutes of jabbering for two minutes of content! Gracie grumbled.

She adjusted the headset connected to her cell phone. “Jeff? Hey, JEFFY? Yeah, sorry to yell. Look, I understand the problem. I’ll be in at six in the morning and we can hash it out then, if that’s okay with—”

The other lawyer began again, but she was ready for him.

“JEFF! FIRE! EARTHQUAKE! BAGELS!”

“Wha… what?”

“Just checking your hearing. Don’t you ever breathe between sentences? I couldn’t get an edge in wordwise.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told,” he replied.

“Tomorrow, Jeff. Give it a rest for tonight.”

She waited for acknowledgment of the ungodly report time before ringing off and extricating herself from her gleaming sports car.

The ’Vette had been her first big indulgence after landing the job with Janssen and Pruzan. A $105,000 starting salary made it more than possible. She’d always wanted a Corvette. “Tom Cruise and me!” she’d told April countless times since the movie Top Gun had become her favorite rental.

“We both feel the need for speed.”

“Gracie, he rode a motorcycle in Top Gun.”

“Doesn’t matter. It went fast, like a ’Vette.”

“Look, Corvettes are, what, fifty thousand?”

“New, yes. I’m talking a pre-loved ’Vette,” Gracie had explained, sounding hurt. “This baby’s six thousand, one owner, perfect silver paint… and all mine.”

“What do you mean, ‘all mine’?” April had asked.

“I already wrote the check. I knew you’d approve.”

That was a year before, and her only regret in the intervening year was having too little free time to drive it — plus the two-hundred-dollar speeding fine she’d earned by blowing past a Washington state trooper at somewhere over 110 miles per hour.

“He actually asked me for my pilot’s license,” Gracie had laughed when telling April the next day.

“Oh, no. You didn’t?”

“Of course I did! I pulled out my private pilot’s license and handed it to him. Your dad would have been proud.”

“I’m surprised you’re not calling from the county jail.”

“He actually started laughing.”

“But he still wrote the ticket.”

“Yeah, and I batted my eyes and thought sexy and everything, just like you taught me, Rosen. I keep telling you, it doesn’t work with me.”

“That’s because you keep talking. It wrecks the mood.”

Gracie chuckled at the memory as she pulled her briefcase from the front seat, closed the door, and paused to rub a smudge off the window before heading for the boat she called home.

The Corvette had elicited enough of a yelp from April, but Gracie’s maverick decision to buy and live on an expensive yacht north of the downtown Seattle area had stunned her whole extended family.

“Is it safe to do that?” April had asked.

“It’s safe, and it’s calming, and I’ve got earnest money on a ten-year-old fifty-eight-footer with a great master bedroom, salon, galley, and everything for about the price of your Vancouver condo.”

Gracie paused now at the entrance to her slip, admiring the lines of her ship, as she liked to call it. It was a fifty-eight-foot Carver, moored stern-in to the dock.

She closed the gate behind her and walked the twenty yards to her floating home, unlocked the door and tossed her briefcase onto a chair before putting her headset back in place to call April. She punched in April’s cell number, rolling over the details of their last conversation. That had been hours before, and while Arlie and Rachel were obviously doing fine physically, the news that NTSB and FAA representatives had shown up for an interview had worried her for the past two hours — and the silence from Anchorage wasn’t helping.

“Hello?”

“Where are you, Rosencrantz?” Gracie asked.

“Just leaving the hospital. I was going to call you, Gracie,” April said. “I think we’ve got a problem.” Her voice was tense as she related the details of the contentious interview and the attack by the FAA inspector — as well as Arlie Rosen’s angry response.

“You’re kidding? Our captain came unglued?” Gracie asked in alarm.

“Completely. Name calling and all. If the FAA man wasn’t already intending to cause trouble — and he obviously was — he’ll be hell for leather to do so now. He came in with a chip on his shoulder.”

“Okay, I need to find an air-law specialist, and fast. Someone with experience defending pilots from the FAA.”

“Gracie, you think this is going to come back to bite Dad?”

“Well, you tell me. Did the FAA guy mention alcoholism?”

“Yes.”

“Did he accuse the captain of flying drunk, and say he was going to recommend what they call ‘certificate action’?”

“Yes. In so many words. He didn’t say ‘certificate action,’ but he meant it.”

“Then we’ve got a big, thumping, hairy problem. How are they otherwise?”

“In a bit of a daze. I don’t think it’s hit Dad yet that his baby’s lost. He loved that Albatross so much.”

“That may be the least of his problems.”

“He’s going to want to find a way to salvage her, but when an airplane’s been immersed in salt water—”

“April, I need you to focus now. Tell me as much as you can remember about the details of that interview, and exactly what the captain told those guys.”

“I’ll e-mail it to you in a few minutes.”

“What, your notes?”

“No. I recorded the whole thing digitally, and as soon as I get to the hotel — I’ve booked a room at the Anchorage Hilton — I’ll e-mail it to you. I loaded the program on your laptop when I bought this recorder last month.”

“Oh. I forgot. Cool. But, you mean you can e-mail it directly from the recorder itself?”

“No. I’ll use my laptop.”

“Your laptop? You have your laptop in Anchorage?”

“Of course.”

“You mean you took the time to grab your computer along with your girl kit when you left Vancouver?”

“Gracie, that’s what I grab before I pack the girl—” She stopped abruptly. “Why am I repeating that? You know I hate that phrase, ‘girl kit.’ It’s just stuff to make me feel good and look good.”

“Yeah, I know. So, how long will your folks be staying in the hospital?”

“Overnight, at least.”

“Okay, now, how are you doing?”

April sighed audibly. “Oh, I’m close to tears of mixed relief and grief. Thank God they’re okay, but who needs this, y’know? Lose the airplane, get the FAA after you… not a fun thing.”

“Can you take a few days off to get them back home to Sequim?”

“Yes, but I’ve got ships coming in I have to meet in two days. Dean will be here in the morning. You’re going to look for a lawyer?”

“Aside from the one I’m looking at in the mirror? Yes. In the morning, first thing. Is it okay if I call the captain and Rachel? Are they up to it?”

“They’d love to hear from their terminally cynical surrogate daughter.” April gave her the bedside number. “Gracie, Dad wasn’t drinking. You know that, right?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“Those were pretty ugly accusations.”

“Hang in there and have faith, April. Really. We’ll get it fixed, you and me.”

“Think so?”

“Hey, that’s what kids are for.”