April camping in the national forest and listening for frogs. This might not sound like much of a spring break until you realize that my little sister had stayed behind with our grandparents. A week with nobody croaking except the frogs was going to be sweet.
The Conecuh National Forest is in Alabama on the Alabama/Florida line about fifty miles northeast of Pensacola, and I think we were flying over the Conecuh when I saw what I saw out the airplane window. The pilot had already announced our descent into Pensacola. They told us to fasten our seatbelts and put up our seats and trays. The flight attendants were collecting cups and peanut wrappers, and I had my face pressed against the glass watching out the window. My dad and I were in the next to the last row, far enough behind the wing that I had a good view of the ground below. Well, not the ground so much as the tops of trees. Lots of trees. Lots of the same kinds of trees with a carpet of emerald green tree tops that seemed to go on and on forever. It was kind of a shock to my eyes when the trees opened up around a small lake. And there at the lake were these three people pushing a vehicle of some kind into the lake. I say “people” because at the time I didn’t know they were Carl Morris and his two brothers. I say “vehicle” because I couldn’t tell whether it was a car or truck or what.
“Dad, look!” I screamed. “Look! Look!”
I leaned back in my seat so he could see out the window.
“The thickest carpet of pine tops I’ve ever seen,” said my dad.
“Longleaf pines,” said my mom from the seat in front of us, “an incredibly rich and diverse habitat for all sort of wild critters.”
“No,” I said, “didn’t you see it? Those people down at that little lake . . .”
“Lake?” said Mom.
“What lake?” said Dad.
I undid my seatbelt and stood up. “Did anybody on this plane see that small lake down there in the trees?” I called out.
Heads turned throughout the plane; nobody spoke up. Dad pulled me back down into my seat. “Fasten your seatbelt,” he commanded at about the same time the flight attendant showed up.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” the flight attendant demanded, “and I’ll have to ask you to please refrain from yelling.”
“I witnessed a crime,” I said, “at least I think it was a crime. You’ve got to make an announcement. Maybe somebody else on the plane saw it.”
Dad leaned over me and looked out my window. “Pensacola Bay,” he said.
“No, back in the trees,” I said.
“I have to prepare for landing,” said the flight attendant. “When we land you can tell your story to the police at the airport. Do not stand up again until we come to a complete halt at the terminal gate.”
“You’ve got to make an announcement,” I said. “Get on your intercom and ask who else saw it. There were people, three of them, pushing a car or a truck or something into the lake.”
The flight attendant was already gone to the back of the plane. My guess was, and I was right, he was not going to make any kind of announcement about a car or a truck or something being pushed into a lake.
3
Mom thinks I’m crazy; Dad’s sure of it. I have to hand it to them, though they respected what I said I saw and took me right up to the first police officer they spotted after we got off the plane. She listened with one hand resting on her gun and then looked at my parents as if to say, “Is this kid crazy or what?” Instead, she said, “Anybody else on the plane see it?”
Mom and Dad shook their heads.
“Wait here,” said the officer.
She left us standing. “Wait here,” that’s all she had to say, and I don’t think anyone of the three of us moved an inch. Was it the badge? Was it the uniform? Was it the gun? What is it about a cop that makes people, most people, do exactly as they are told? I don’t know, and the truth is I wasn’t thinking about it then.
I was thinking about three guys—yeah, I figured they were guys—pushing a “vehicle” into a lake somewhere in Florida.
She wasn’t gone long. She returned with the pilot, the co-pilot and my friend the flight attendant.
She said, “This young man witnessed a possible crime in progress, and perhaps you can help us determine where we need to start looking.”
“You, sir,” she said to the flight attendant, “did you note the time when the young man created a disturbance on the airplane?”
Maybe it was the badge, maybe it was the uniform, maybe it was the gun: the flight attendant swallowed hard before he answered, “No, ma’am.”
The pilot spoke up, “How long after I called for flight attendants to prepare for landing?” he asked.
“A minute, maybe two . . . or three,” replied the flight attendant.
“At three hundred miles an hour, a minute or two or three covers a lot of ground,” said the pilot.
“Actually,” said my dad, “it was a minute and a half.”
Okay, at this point I need to say that my dad is a little weird. If he says “a minute and a half” he means one minute and thirty seconds. He does not mean one minute and twenty-five seconds. He does not mean one minute and thirty-five seconds. He means one minute and thirty seconds. I’ve seen it all my life, and I still don’t know how he does it. It must have something to do with the fact that he is an astronomer. Somehow, someway, he’s just tapped into whatever it is that makes time go by as the world turns around in space.
“A minute and a half?” asked the policewoman.
“Ninety seconds,” said my dad.
“And you know this how?” said the policewoman.
My dad shrugged his shoulders. He doesn’t know how he does it either.
“He’s an astronomer,” I said.
The pilot seemed to think that was a good enough explanation. “That would put us somewhere over south Alabama,” he said.
“Somewhere?” asked the policewoman.
“Probably about fifty miles to the northeast of here,” said the pilot. “Lots of pine trees up there.”
“Longleaf pine,” said my mom.
4
My dad doesn’t believe in coincidences. According to the dictionary, a coincidence is an event that looks like it might have been arranged by somebody even though it happened by accident. In other words, a coincidence just happens. According to my dad, a coincidence cannot “just happen” because nothing in nature “just happens.” It’s because he’s an astronomer, a scientist. He sees everything as having a cause. Cause and effect. My dad says if things “just happen” there is no reason for science, because the goal of science is to discover what makes things happen. I don’t know about all of that. What I do know is that I just happened to be looking out the window of an airplane that just happened to be over the Conecuh National Forest when I just happened to see three guys pushing a vehicle of some kind into a lake that just happened to be visible among the longleaf pines. And, oh, by the way, the Conecuh National Forest “just happened” to be where we were going
The Pensacola policewoman contacted the Covington County, Alabama Sheriff’s Department and told them what this kid on an airplane “happened” to see as he flew over their area. She made arrangements for