Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [6]
“Roger. Three-three-seven rolling.”
Johnson advanced the throttles. The engines responded, the four-bladed props cut into the air, and the craft moved forward, gaining speed as she kept it glued to the runway’s white center stripe while monitoring the air speed indicator. The plane reached the predetermined speed for liftoff.
“Rotate,” Captain Sutherland said.
Johnson pulled smoothly back on the yoke and the ground fell away. In the passenger cabin, Jill Syms gave out an exuberant yelp. Wally Watson laughed. Hope took her daughter’s hand and squeezed. As often as she’d flown, she was never completely comfortable in a plane despite her mother’s good-luck necklace, and would be glad when they touched down safely at Reagan National.
Harry Syms sat in his company’s conference room with colleagues, as well as lawyers from the firm about to be willingly gobbled up.
“How’s the family?” he was asked.
“Great. Hope and the kids are in the air right now on their way to Washington. Her mom and dad live there.”
“Playing the bachelor game for a few days, huh, Harry?”
“Yeah.” He laughed.
“Nothing like a trusting wife.”
The comment nettled Harry but he didn’t respond. The idea of ever cheating on Hope had always been anathema to him. As far as he was concerned, he’d gotten lucky when he met and managed to woo Hope Martin into becoming Mrs. Harry Syms. And there were the girls. A man would be a fool to do anything to jeopardize a family like that.
A fool like him, he thought. One extra drink at the Chicago convention that impaired judgment, falling into that silly eye-gazing game with the stunning brunette attorney, full, red lips and lush figure, liking that she laughed at everything he said, enjoying touches on his arm and back. Another drink. Ending up in her hotel room. The mad, frantic shedding of clothes and the twisted sheets and the rapid rush and pleasure of it, followed immediately by a vision of Hope and the kids at home and what would happen if she found out and was this worth it and how can I make it go away and pretend it never happened and…
He was lucky Hope hadn’t walked out with the kids when, weeks later, that woman, whose name was Kay and whom he had been ignoring, called and demanded she speak with him. When his wife pressed her for identification, the lawyer shouted, “I’m the woman who slept with your husband in Chicago. Put him on!”
Real-life Fatal Attraction. Not much attraction left, possibly fatal.
When Harry came home from work that evening, Hope confronted him. “She’s demented,” Harry said initially. But Hope’s questions persisted, and Harry said, “Just a drunken fling. Stupid. God, I’m sorry. Believe me, it’ll never happen again.”
“So, where are we, Harry?” someone at the White Plains meeting asked.
“What?” Harry said. “Oh, sorry. My mind was somewhere else.” He pulled a thick file folder from the briefcase at his feet. “What say we get down to business? Be due diligent and all that.”
Hope Syms, too, was having similar thoughts about her marriage and family as the plane climbed. It passed low over cars on Highway 684 and continued in a westerly direction, its course dictated by air traffic control. The highway fell behind and the aircraft crossed the shoreline of Rye Lake. Beyond it was a larger body of water, the Kensico Reservoir.
Below, fisherman Al Lester’s reverie was interrupted by the sound of the Dash 8’s fully throttled engines. He looked up as the aircraft banked and passed directly above his canoe, its left wing dipping as though tossing a greeting. Lester mumbled something less welcoming in return. He continued to watch as the plane reached the far end of the lake and maintained its climb attitude over a vast, undeveloped wooded area to the south of the reservoir. He returned his attention to his fishing line, giving it a few jerks to prompt the lure into a seductive jiggling action. Then, he took a final look up at the Dash 8. What he saw stunned him, froze him, caused his hands