"May I have your attention please," a voice cracked over the plane's intercom. "This is the captain speaking. We've just been informed from ground control that we have a gate hold situation. There's a thunderstorm passing through the New York area. We are hoping this will not be long, and we will keep you informed."
"Shit!" Jack exclaimed to himself. He gripped his forehead with his right hand, using the balls of his fingers to massage his temples. The anxiety and lack of sleep were conspiring to give him a headache. As a realist, he began to contemplate what would happen if he did not make the wedding. Laurie had given him more than a hint. She'd said she'd never forgive him, and he believed her. Laurie was frugal with promises, and when she made one, she kept it. Knowing that, again begged the question in Jack's mind whether he'd stayed in Boston as long as he had more from an unconscious wish to avoid getting married than to solve the Patience Stanhope mystery. Jack took a deep breath. He didn't believe that was true, nor did he want it to be true, but he didn't know for sure. What he did know was that he wanted to get to the church on time.
Then, as if in response to his thoughts, the intercom came back to life. "This is the captain again. Ground control has reversed themselves. We are ready to push back. We should have you at the gate in New York on schedule."
The next thing Jack knew was that he was jarred awake by the plane's wheels touching down at LaGuardia Airport. To his utter surprise, he had fallen asleep despite his anxiety, and to his embarrassment, he had drooled a little. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, scraping against the stubble on his chin in the process. With the same hand, he felt the rest of his face. He was in need of a shave and even worse for a shower, but a glance at his watch suggested that neither was possible. It was twenty-five after twelve.
Shaking himself like a dog to get his circulation going, Jack ran his hands through his hair. This activity evoked a questioning expression from the businessman, who was plainly leaning into the aisle away from Jack. Jack wondered if that was ostensibly additional evidence of his need for a shower. Although he'd donned Tyvek protective coveralls, Jack was aware he'd not showered since he'd done an autopsy on an eight-month-old corpse.
Jack suddenly realized that he'd been tapping his foot at a frenzied frequency. Even when he put his hand on his knee, it was hard to keep his leg still. Jack could not remember ever being quite so agitated. What made it difficult was having to sit still. He would have preferred to be out on the tarmac, running alongside the plane.
It seemed to take forever for the plane to taxi to the terminal and then agonizingly slowly ease into the gate. When the chime sounded, Jack was up out of his seat. Pushing past the businessman, who was getting a bag from the overhead bin, garnered Jack yet another disapproving scowl. Jack couldn't have cared less. Excusing himself, he managed to worm up to the front of the plane. When the door finally opened after what seemed like an interminable wait, he was the third one off.
Jack ran up the jetway, pushing past the two people who'd deplaned before him. Once in the terminal, he ran toward baggage claim and out on to the street, which was steaming from a recent downpour. By being the first passenger from the Boston – New York shuttle, he'd hoped the taxi line would be nonexistent. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The Washington, D.C. – New York shuttle had landed ten minutes earlier, and a portion of its passengers were waiting for cabs.
Unabashed at his assertiveness, he cut to the front of the line. "I'm a medical doctor, and I'm in an emergency," Jack called out, rationalizing that both were true, just not related. The people in the line wordlessly regarded him with a touch of irritation, but no one offered any challenge. Jack jumped into the first cab.
The driver was from India or Pakistan, Jack couldn't tell which, and was on his cell phone. Jack barked out his address on 106th Street, and the taxi accelerated away from the curb.
Jack checked his watch. It was now eighteen minutes before one o'clock, meaning he had only forty-eight minutes before he was due at the Riverside Church. He sat back and tried vainly to relax, but it was impossible. To make things worse, they hit every traffic light just getting out of the airport. Jack looked at his watch again. It seemed to him unfair that the second hand was sweeping around the dial more quickly than usual. It was already a quarter before the hour.
Jack began to question nervously if he should go directly to the church and forgo the pit stop at home. The benefit would be he'd be on time; the disadvantage was that he was dressed a step below casual and needed a shave and a shower.
When the taxi driver was finally finished with his cell phone call and before he made another, Jack leaned forward. "I don't know whether it would make much difference, but I'm in a hurry," he said. Then he added, "If you would be willing to wait at the address I gave you, there would be an extra twenty-dollar tip."
"I'll wait if you'd like," the driver said agreeably, with the typical charming Indian subcontinent accent.
Jack sat back and reattached his seat belt. It was now ten minutes before one.
The next bottleneck was the toll on the Triborough Bridge. Apparently, someone without a fast lane pass was in the fast lane and couldn't back up because of the line of cars behind him. After a horrendous cacophony of car horns and shouted expletives, the problem was sorted out, but not before another five minutes was lost. By the time Jack reached the island of Manhattan, it was one o'clock.
The only benefit from Jack's mounting anxiety was that it effectively stopped his obsessing about Alexis and Craig and the disaster that was about to begin. A malpractice trial was bad; a murder trial was god-awful. It was going to put the entire family in an unrelenting, many-year-long torment with little possibility of a happy outcome.
To the driver's credit, he managed to get across town rapidly by knowing a relatively quiet street through Harlem. When he pulled up in front of Jack's building, it was quarter after one. Jack had the taxi door open before the vehicle came to a complete stop.
Jack ran up the front steps and dashed through the front door, surprising some workmen. With the building under total renovation, the dust was an unmitigated disaster. As Jack ran down the hall to the apartment he and Laurie were temporarily occupying during the construction, billows of it rose from the debris-strewn floor.
Jack keyed open his apartment door and was about to enter when the construction supervisor caught sight of him from several floors above and yelled that he needed to talk about a plumbing problem. Jack yelled back that he couldn't at the moment. Once inside, Jack tossed his carry-on onto the couch and began stripping off his clothes. He left a trail of apparel en route to the bathroom.
First he took a glimpse of himself in the mirror and winced. Heavy stubble blackened his cheeks and chin like smudges of soot, and his eyes were red-rimmed and sunken. After a quick, internal debate of a shave or a shower, since he hardly had time for both, he decided on the shower. Leaning into the tub, he turned on both faucets full-blast. Unfortunately, only a few drips emerged: The plumbing problem was obviously global to the building.
Jack turned off the faucets and, after splashing himself liberally with cologne, ran out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. He pulled on underwear, then put on his formal shirt. Next came the tuxedo pants and jacket. He grabbed the studs and cuff links and jammed them into his pants pocket. The black pre-tied bow tie went into the other pocket. After jamming his feet into formal shoes, his wallet into his back pants pocket, and his cell phone into his jacket pocket, he ran back out into the hall.