Dead in the Water

aircraft mechanic?”
    “Yessir, I am. I done my training in Miami, and Iworked in Fort Lauderdale for eight years before I come home to St. Marks.”
    “How long had you done mechanical work on Chester Appleton’s airplane?”
    “For eleven years.”
    “The same airplane?”
    “No, sir; Chester bought this one six years ago.”
    “Was the airplane in good condition?”
    Harvey Simpson straightened in his seat. “Yessir, it certainly was. I did an annual inspection on the airplane last month; I always kept it right up to snuff.”
    “What about the port engine?”
    “That was the newest of the two. I installed it eight months ago, and it only had five hundred and ten hours on it.”
    “How long is an engine good for?”
    “That one was rated for two thousand hours.”
    “So Chester had only used a quarter of its expected life?”
    “That’s right, sir.”
    “At the time of the annual inspection, did you find anything wrong with the engine?”
    Harvey Simpson opened a plastic briefcase and removed a book. “I got the engine logbook right here,” he said. “There’s a list of what I done to it.”
    “My question was, did you find anything wrong with the engine?”
    Simpson consulted the logbook. “I found two exhaust brackets broken. That’s a common fault; vibration weakens the metal. I replaced both brackets. The compression on all the cylinders was in the high normal range; that’s a pretty good indicator of the health of theengine. All the airworthiness directives and service bulletins were up to date on it.”
    “We have heard testimony that the engine caught fire; can you think of anything that might have caused this to happen?”
    “No, sir,” the man said emphatically. “I did a fifty-hour inspection on the engine three days before the crash—that includes an oil change—and there wasn’t nothing wrong with it.”
    “What, in your opinion, could cause an engine fire in that airplane?”
    “Leaking fuel would be about the only thing, sir, but I checked all the fuel connections during the fifty-hour inspection, and they was all tight.”
    “Nothing else could have caused the engine fire?”
    “Well, a bad exhaust leak, maybe, but there wasn’t no exhaust leaks, either.”
    “So you have no explanation for the engine fire?”
    “No, sir, I don’t, and believe you me, I’ve done some considerable thinking on the subject. If I had the engine back and could inspect it, I might be able to tell you what caused the fire, but…”
    “Quite,” the coroner said. “Does any member of the jury have any questions for Mr. Simpson?”
    A tall black man stood up. “I’ve got a question,” he said.
    “Go ahead and ask it,” the coroner replied.
    “Harvey, Alene Sanders, who got killed in that crash, was my wife’s sister-in-law. What I want to know is, who’s going to pay for killing her?”
    Simpson shook his head. “I don’t know, Marvin. Chester didn’t have nothing but that airplane and his house.”
    “What about insurance?” the man demanded.
    Simpson shook his head again. “Chester stopped paying the insurance last year. Said it was too much, it was going to break him.”
    The man shook his head and sat down. Stone shook his head, too. That answered Harley Potter’s question.
    “All right, then,” said the coroner, “the jury can retire to consider their verdict. I won’t recess for another fifteen minutes, because I don’t think it’s going to take long.”
    The jury retired, and everyone stood up to stretch. Stone turned to find Hilary Kramer of the Times and Jim Forrester of The New Yorker in the row behind him.
    “What brings you two here?” Stone asked.
    “Nothing else to do,” Kramer replied. “Not until your case begins. I’ll file a short piece on the crash. You happen to know anything about the Manning woman, Stone?”
    “As a matter of fact, I had a call from a lawyer in Palm Beach. She left an elderly mother—no other family.”
    “No insurance for the mother, either,” Kramer said, jotting down some notes. “Got the mother’s name?”
    “Marla Peters; a widow and retired actress.”
    “Address?”
    “No idea.”
    “The lawyer?”
    “Harley Potter of Potter and Potter.” He looked at Forrester. “I don’t see you taking any notes, Jim.”
    Forrester grinned. “I’ll clip Hilary’s piece; it’ll all be in there. It’ll be no more than a marginal reference in my piece.”
    “I guess not,” Stone agreed.
    “What was