Chapter 260

• Sheriff Clarkson wasn't wrong about how the media behaved once the details got out. What started as a sympathetic tale of a small community hit with an enormous tragedy, the loss of nine husbands and fathers, soon became a sick and twisted morality play. Initially the victims of a tragic accident, the members of the suburban neighborhood Gentleman's Club were soon exposed for their 'sinful' activities. Graphic footage from a hidden camera was leaked to the press showing the men enjoying their carnal appetites in a VIP room at a nightclub the night before the crash with prostitutes. Some of those young ladies were victims of the same flight and it was discovered that at least three of them had been reported as abducted. It was discovered that the plane was operating as a Mile High Club service, a flying orgy for wealthy businessmen.
• One member of the gentleman's club hadn't been on the flight. Larry Wilson, a psychologist with a fear of flying in small planes had backed out at the last minute when he saw the converted party jet. He watched it crash from the back seat of the waiting limo where one of the ladies had stayed behind with him to give him his own special party. The young woman lost her best friend that night. Having been abducted herself and forced to work as a prostitute by the men who ran the parties, she was sufficiently paranoid about her own limited life expectancy she used the chaos to slip away in the dark. She met and waved down the police on their way onto the airport's tarmac. She directed them to where her abductors were and offered to give testimony about them and the parties they threw in exchange for a ticket home. The police swooped in and captured the group with Larry. The story leaked.
• The press camped out at end of the street where the local police had set up a gate to keep them out of the street. It had the unfortunate side effect of trapping the residents in their little pocket neighborhood. The first four houses in the block had to endure the noise and lights of the press encampment and none of them had lost someone.