“What about him?”

“Where was he interviewed?”

“I think his interviews were done in his office. Why do you ask?”

“I’m checking procedures and guidelines.”

She didn’t reply to that and asked me, “What new information has come up, and what do you need from me?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss what new information has come up. And what I need from you are some clarifications.”

“Such as?”

“Well, for instance, I need an update on your relationship with your gentleman friend.” And his name.

She looked a little annoyed or exasperated and replied, “I don’t know what relevance that has now, but if you must know, I haven’t been involved with Bud since that happened.”

Bud. “But you see and speak to him.”

“Now and then. We run into each other at parties, or at the club. It’s unavoidable and awkward.”

“Oh, I know. I run into my ex-wife and ex-girlfriends all over Manhattan.” I smiled, and she smiled in return.

She asked me, “Have you spoken to him?”

“No. I wanted to speak to you first. He’s still at the same address?”

“Yes. Same address. Same wife.”

“Same job?”

“Same job.”

“Would you know if he’s in town?”

“I think so. I saw him at a Labor Day barbeque…” She looked at me and said, “When I see him… I don’t know why…”

“You don’t know what you saw in him.”

She nodded. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“It never seems to have been worth it afterward. But at the time, it seems like a good idea.”

She smiled. “I guess.”

“You’re probably disappointed that he gave your name to the FBI. You think he should have protected you.”

She shrugged and said, “I don’t think he could have. They were very persuasive… almost threatening… but a stronger man might have…” She laughed and said, “I think he held out for about three minutes.”

I smiled and said, “Well, don’t be too hard on Bud. He was doing the right thing as a citizen.”

“Bud does what’s right for Bud.” She thought a moment, then said, “If the FBI had come to me first, looking for him, I’d have probably done the same thing. But it’s what happened afterward that made me realize he was…”

“A wimp.”

She laughed. “Yes, a wimp. And a coward-and not a gentleman.”

“Why?”

“Well… for instance, I wanted to come forward and contact the FBI about what we’d seen and videotaped. He didn’t. Then he told the FBI, after they’d found him, that it wasme who didn’t want to come forward. It was just awful… he wasn’t exactly comforting, and he was thinking only of himself.”

“He must be a lawyer.”

Again, she laughed, a soft, throaty sound. I think I was establishing a rapport, which might be the right way to go. The other way is intimidation, but Jill Winslow had undoubtedly been the subject of that five years ago and had probably built up some resentment.

I touched the scab on my chin, and Jill Winslow said, “That looks raw. Do you want something for that?”

“No, thanks, I soaked it in salt water.”

“Oh… how did that happen?”

“I was jumped by assassins in the casbah in Aden. That’s in Yemen.” I added, “Just kidding. Actually, do you have a Band-Aid?”

“Yes. Just a moment.” She stood and went to a cupboard, removed a first-aid kit, and came back to the table with a Band-Aid and some antibiotic ointment, which she gave me.

I said “Thank you” and smeared some of the ointment on the scab, then took the Band-Aid out of its wrapper. She stood there, as though she was considering helping me place it, but I got it on.

She sat down and said, “You need to keep that clean.”

She was a nice woman, and I liked her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to like me in about ten minutes. I put the Band-Aid wrapper on the table, and she glanced at it.

I stayed silent for a while, and finally she asked me, “Why do you want to know about Bud, and my relationship with him?”

“There are some apparent inconsistencies between your story and what he said at the time. For instance, tell me what happened to the videotape after you watched it in your room at the Bayview Hotel.”

“What didhe say?”

“You tell me.”

“All right… after we watched the tape,he insisted that we erase it. Not me. So, we erased the tape, and left the hotel.”

This was not consistent with what good old Ted had told me. But it was all coming together now. I said to her, “I’d like you to take me through this in some detail. Okay? You left the beach, and on the way back to the hotel-what?”

“Well… I looked through the viewfinder on the video camera, and I saw what we’d recorded… the aircraft exploding…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It was just awful. Awful. I never want to see anything like that again.”

I nodded and looked at her as she stared down into her coffee cup. I had the feeling that she might have been a different woman five years ago. Probably a little happier and maybe more spirited. What had happened on July 17, 1996, had traumatized her, and what happened afterward had disappointed her and made her resentful, and perhaps fearful. And then there was Mark Winslow, whose face I could see behind the windshield of his Mercedes. And she was still here, five years later, and she knew she’d be here for a long time. Life was a continuing series of compromises, disappointments, betrayals, and what-ifs. Now and then, you get it right the first time, and more rarely, you get a chance to do it over and get it right the second time. I was going to give Jill Winslow a do-over, and I hoped she took it.

She seemed composed again, and I said to her, “So you saw the explosion through the viewfinder.”

She nodded.

“And Bud was driving.”

“Yes. I said to him, ‘Pull over. You have to see this,’ or something like that.”

“And he said?”

“Nothing. I said to him, ‘We have the whole thing on tape.’”

I sat there for a while, wanting to ask. And not wanting to ask. But I was here to ask, so I asked, “Did you see the streak of light on the tape?”

She looked at me and replied, “Of course.”

I looked out her bay window, which faced the backyard. There was a big slate patio, then a swimming pool, then about an acre of landscaped gardens. The roses still looked good.Of course.

I poured myself another cup of coffee, cleared my throat, then asked her, “And this streak of light was not a reflection of a stream of burning fuel on the water?”

“No.” She added, “I saw the… whatever it was rise from the ocean… I mean, I saw it inperson, before I saw it again on the videotape.”

“You were standing on the beach?”

She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I was sitting on the beach, and… I saw this streak of light rising into the sky… I said something to Bud, and he sat up and turned toward it. We both watched it as it rose, then a few seconds later, there was this huge explosion in the sky… and pieces of burning debris or something started falling… then this huge fireball started to fall… then, maybe a minute later, we actuallyheard the explosion…”

This was not quite what Mr. Bullshit Artist had told me about what this couple had seen. But I wasn’t exactly shocked to discover a major discrepancy. I said to her, “The report I read said you were still making love on the beachwhile the plane was exploding, and it was thesound of the explosion, about forty seconds later, that caught your attention.”

She shook her head and said, “We’d finished making love. I was sitting”-her face flushed-“on top of him, looking out to sea.”

“Thank you. I know this must be uncomfortable for you, and I’ll only ask those kinds of details if I need to.”

She nodded, then said, “It was very embarrassing five years ago answering these questions, and describing it all, but I’m over it now… It’s almost as though it didn’t happen, or happened to someone else.”