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milled about. George again showed his ID, and we were allowed to enter the lounge and go to the Jetway leading to the aircraft. I hung back as George conferred with a man wearing a tan raincoat, obviously someone senior. George turned to me. “He’s inside, in the cockpit,” he said. “Want to wait out here?”
    I silently debated for a few seconds before saying, “No, I’d like to come with you.”
    We walked down the Jetway to the aircraft’s main door where still another officer stood. George indicated for me to wait. I watched as he moved past the officer and disappeared into the flight deck. My wait for him to emerge seemed endless, although it must have been no more than a few minutes. He poked his head out and motioned for me to join him. Up until that moment, I’d been eager to accompany him into the cockpit, but I was now hesitant. His raised eyebrows said, “Either come or stay, Jessica. Don’t prolong this.”
    I joined him at the cockpit door and looked inside. The lighting was dim and diffused. But even in the shadowy illumination I saw the figure of a person in the left-hand seat usually occupied by the aircraft’s captain. Obviously, the body was that of Wayne Silverton, although I couldn’t see his face. George took a few steps into the area, and I followed. Now, the scene was clearer, and tragically real. Silverton’s lifeless form was slumped forward over the pilot’s control yoke, his weight pushing it fully forward. His head was turned to the right, his mouth open as though he was about to say something. His eyes were open, too. Had he seen the person who’d shoved the knife into his upper back? His eyes were clear, indicating he’d died less than eight hours ago. After about eight hours, the deceased’s eyes take on a cloudy, milky appearance. Of course, we also knew from the timeline that he’d been murdered more recently than that.
    The knife’s handle was black, as was its quillon, or hilt, the piece separating the handle from the blade, creating what looked like a small cross projecting upward from just below his neck. Blood had seeped from the wound through his white dress shirt; his suit jacket lay crumpled on the right-hand seat. His right hand rested on the thrust levers, which, when pushed forward, provided power to the jet engines, a plane’s equivalent of an automobile’s accelerator.
    I leaned forward to get a closer look at the weapon that had been used to kill him. Judging from the length of the handle, it was not a large knife. On even closer examination it appeared to be a switchblade, with a slot in the handle into which the blade could be folded. I also observed that whoever wielded the weapon had used considerable force. The hilt was pressed into the shirt’s fabric and the flesh beneath it.
    I stepped back to allow George to get closer. He placed his fingertips on the side of Wayne’s neck, then the palm of his hand. “Still warm,” he muttered. “He hasn’t been dead long.”
    A commotion from outside the flight deck caused us to turn. A coroner had arrived, along with two medical technicians in white lab coats.
    “Let’s give them room to work,” George said, and led me out into the passenger cabin. There was something surreal about the plane’s interior at that moment, all the empty seats that had so recently been filled with happy men and women having a good time while crossing the Atlantic as invited guests of SilverAir. I saw in my imagination people in those seats and wondered whether one of them had jammed the knife into our host. Hopefully—and it was the wildest of hopes—he’d been murdered not by one of his guests, but by a deranged stranger who’d come upon him sitting in the cockpit.
    Why was he sitting in the cockpit?
    “Why was he sitting in the cockpit?” I asked George.
    “Good question,” he said as we made our way back down the Jetway to the departure and arrival lounge.
    “Do you think he might have been moved there?” I