The Reluctant Detective

by Finley Martin

  And anyone who saw Delia sitting on that bench at that moment would have thought her a bit odd, too, as well as old, perhaps even tottering on the brink of senility, all because she was chuckling to herself. And rather loudly, at that.

  It was a long couple of miles from Ben’s Lake back to the farmhouse in Iona. Delia drove her car at exactly five miles below the posted speed limit. Whenever a troubling number of cars piled up behind her, she pulled over onto the shoulder and waited for them to pass. During one of her pull-overs, she conversed with Jacqui.

  “Did you enjoy the fishing?”

  “It was great, Aunt Delia, but the fish stopped biting.”

  “Did you put fresh bait on your hook?”

  “Do you mean the worms?”

  “Of course, the worms. What else would you use?” Delia drew back, thinking that she may have sounded crankier than she had intended.

  “I thought the worms were kind of yucky. I didn’t think a fish would really like them.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you didn’t bait your hook. Is that it?”

  “There was a bit of hot dog bun on the dock. I used that instead.”

  “I see.”

  “And what made you think that would be a treat for a brook trout?”

  Jacqui explained about the tourist who asked how the fish were biting. She told him, and he suggested the bread for bait. Delia seemed to recollect him and one or two others who wandered by the dock.

  “What else did he say?”

  “Not much, just wondering where I was from, and my favourite part of the Island, and where my mom worked. Just small talk. You know.”

  “Small talk, eh?”

  “Yeah. Like he didn’t know where the nearest store was. I told him I didn’t know.”

  “It’s half a mile down our road.”

  “Yeah, I forgot. So I told him I was on vacation with you. Then he went to ask somebody else.”

  “Well I hope he doesn’t get lost. It’s easy to get turned around out here.”

  “He won’t. That was him that passed us.”

  “Now how could you possibly know that?” she asked incredulously.

  “He had a silly hat on. One of those straw ones to keep the sun out.”

  “Hmmmph,” said Delia.

  Delia turned onto the Iona Road and crept past a string of modest hills and valleys until she passed the general store just short of St. Michael’s Church. Two vehicles were parked in front, a white cargo van and a grey Buick sedan. Delia pulled into the long driveway in front of their house. Her car rumbled over the crushed gravel roadway. In her rearview mirror she saw a grey sedan drive slowly by. She also noticed the silhouette of a straw hat worn by the driver.

  34

  Dit turned into a wide driveway along the airport road. He swung around toward the direction of the fading RF signal and intended to re-enter the highway when Anne jumped half out of her seat and shouted in his ear.

  “Stop!”

  Dit flinched, and the van screeched to a halt.

  “Wait here!” she said, leapt out of the van, ran through the door of the building behind them, and up to a counter in the reception area. A sign over the desk read: North Vision Air, Looking to the future in flight. “I want to rent a plane,” she said to the startled clerk, “right now!”

  “Of course. What kind of trip are you planning?”

  “Local.”

  “And how much flying time do you want to book?”

  “A few hours. The afternoon.”

  “What kind of aircraft did you have in mind?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  The quizzical look spread over the clerk’s face. He continued to fill out the registration. “And of course I’ll need to see a current pilot’s license,” he added.

  “I don’t have one. I need someone to fly it for me. Sorry, I should have explained.”

  “I’m sorry, too. We have a couple of planes to rent out, but we have no pilots available on such short notice. I could make some calls. It might take an hour or so, but I can’t promise anything.”

  Anne pulled her wallet from her bag and showed identification. “I’m a private investigator. I’m on an important case. I need something now. Is there any other way to get a plane in the sky quickly?” An urgency permeated her words.

  “I only deal with commercial flights for Vision Air, but we do offer services and security for privately owned aircraft. Check out back. You might find someone to help you out there.”

  Behind Vision Air’s building Anne saw eight or ten small aircraft – Pipers, Cessnas, two gliders and what looked like a home-made single-seater – but no one was in sight, and most of the planes were tied down. She made quick strides down one row and then down the other. No one. She returned to the Vision Air office and, as she opened the door to enter, a man was leaving. They collided.

  “Excuse me,” they both said at the same time.

  Anne stepped back to let him pass. “Are you a pilot?” she asked.

  “I am,” he replied.

  “I need a ride,” she said. The pilot seemed surprised at her boldness, then amused.

  “I don’t ordinarily pick up hitchhikers,” he said. “People say that could be a dangerous practice.”

  “Do I look dangerous?” Anne held her arms outstretched and slowly turned around.

  “Ted Bundy didn’t look dangerous either. Just out of curiosity, why do you need a ride?”

  Anne explained briefly that she was a private investigator. She had someone under surveillance, lost the signal, and hoped that an aerial sweep could regain it.

  “As it happens, this being a beautiful Friday afternoon, I’m playing hooky from work. No obligations. No plans. Not even a date on the horizon for this evening. So I’d be happy to take you on a whirlwind tour of the Island.”

  “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver, but don’t dwell too much on the date thing. This is strictly business, and I’ll pay you for the time and fuel. Besides, I may just turn out to be too dangerous for you.”

  “You really don’t look dangerous.”

  “Neither did Irma Grese.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “They called her ‘the Bitch of Belsen.’ You know, the concentration camp. She made Bundy look like a college prankster.”

  “They say ‘forewarned is forearmed.’ So I shall be especially careful,” he concluded.

  The pilot did a slow walk around his plane, his pre-flight check, while Anne hurried back to Dit’s van and revealed her plan to take the receiver into the cockpit and try an aerial surveillance.

  “Are you coming?” she asked him.

  “Not a chance. This is as far off the ground as I go. I don’t like heights,” he lied, at the same time thinking, how in hell does she think I’ll get into a plane.

  Dit didn’t try to talk her out of it, though. This investigation meant too much to her and, though he knew that her effort had little hope of success, he didn’t want to discourage her. Still, he had to give her some tech advice or she’d be washed up before she started:

  “Use the suction cups to fix the antennas to the plane. You won’t find enough steel for the magnets to attach to, and they probably won’t withstand the wind velocity outside the fuselage. So mount them inside, high on the side windows, and don’t mix them up. There’s a left one and a right one. Left one has a blue mark, right one red. And be sure to face them forward. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “You’ve got my cell phone number. If you hit a snag, phone.”

  “Right. Thanks, Dit.”

  Anne popped the short antennas off the roof of his van, grabbed the big black box, and ran back to the plane. The pilot was waiting with the passenger door open. He gave Anne a hand up the step to the wing. Gingerly she made her way over it a
nd into the cabin. He passed her the RF box, headphones, and antennas, and, before he came around the plane to the pilot’s door, she had fastened both antennas in place.

  “Buckle up.”

  Anne fumbled with the seatbelt while the pilot started the engine. It was a single engine plane, a Piper Cherokee. He let it warm up and adjusted the fuel mix; he flipped switches for the beacon light, instrument panel, and radio. Then he eased his feet from the brakes, and the plane moved toward the end of a runway like a jittery mare. After the tower radioed clearance, the pilot pulled the lever to lower flaps, opened the throttle, and, when his feet lifted from the brakes, the plane lurched ahead as if it had been catapulted. The engine came to life with a roar that made Anne’s eyes grow wide. Her fingers clutched the receiver with a desperate grip. The wheels rumbled on the tarmac; they bumped twice, then the plane lifted. At that moment, Anne felt a sensation that the plane was losing speed, about to stall. The pilot drew back the control yoke, and the plane began its steep ascent into a deep blue sky.

  Several silent minutes passed before Anne felt exhilaration supplant her fear, and wonder displace her consternation.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the pilot.

  “Yes,” said Anne.

  “Sometimes the sight of it all makes me want to quote poetry.”

  “Can you?”

  “I believe I can… ‘slip the surly bonds of’ something something…,” he said. They both laughed.

  “If I knew that I was going to have such an attractive and talented guest aboard, I would have thumbed through my old high-school poetry book to find the correct quote and properly impress you.”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “You really don’t know who I am , do you?”

  Anne stared at him.

  “Anne Brown, am I that forgettable?”

  “The cologne seems familiar but, as they say in some classy old movies, ‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir.’”

  “Then let me introduce myself. I’m Michael Ryan, attorney-at-law. We almost had lunch together earlier this week. I was sitting with Dick Clements and a Somerville fellow at Her Majesty’s Pleasure when you arrived. I was just leaving.”

  “Yes… yes, I do recall you now, and I’m sorry for not remembering, but you have to believe me when I tell you that this week has been… a real dog. At the time we met I was preoccupied with something, and later in the week… well, I won’t go into that, but today I feel good about myself if I can remember my name.”

  “Well, I’m finding myself a bit disoriented, too. Which direction do you want to head?”

  “Let’s try westerly and see what happens.”

  “Westerly it is,” he said, and began a slow bank.

  Anne began to feel more comfortable in the plane. She leaned back and settled into her seat. She flipped the power switch for the receiver, slipped on the headphones, and waited for luck to whistle her in the direction of her missing valise, and, she hoped, her mystery Client.

  As the port wing dipped, Anne saw Charlottetown. It seemed smaller from the air, neater, brighter, cleaner. Houses looked like playthings. Cars looked like specks, ants scurrying along well-worn trails hauling useful bits from here to there. Victoria Park, where she often jogged, was a ribbon of green, and beyond it was the harbour, a deep navy blue, flecked with white sails and streaked with feathery-thin wakes of fast-moving vessels. In the grand bay beyond, an oil tanker stood at anchor waiting for the harbour pilot. Farther off lay Northumberland Strait. Its waters looked almost black, and a hint of cloud-like grey on the horizon was all that suggested the mountains of Nova Scotia.

  As Anne took in the scenery through the side window, she also took a closer look at Michael Ryan. He looked to be a man of about forty. His brown hair was blond enough to look like he spent more time at the beach than he did dusting off obscure precedents for clients’ cases, and there was just a trace of white over his ears. He had a confidence about him. Superiority or confidence? She didn’t know. Even as he flew his plane, though, he wore the air of a commercial pilot with ten thousand hours in the cockpit. Anne hadn’t decided yet whether his self-assurance was an admirable asset or a corrupting flaw. But he was good-looking. Very. And she hoped that she hadn’t blushed when he started his charming routine. But…

  “I’m picking up something,” she said. “And I’ve got some action on the needle.”

  Michael Ryan had been heading west and following the south coast of Prince Edward Island. Route 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, led in that direction, too. Anne directed Michael to track along the TCH. Then she called Dit on the cell phone and filled him in.

  The grating, static-like sound heard earlier on the earphones began to resolve itself and grow clearer. The needle floated twenty or thirty degrees on either side of dead centre, but Dit said that was normal for a vehicle navigating around bends in the highway.

  Knowing that they had a real chance of tracking the Client to his lair, Anne’s hope and confidence returned, but forty miles out of Charlottetown, past the villages of Crapaud and Borden and Bedeque, the needle suddenly snapped to the left.

  “Michael, bank left. He turned off somewhere.”

  The plane banked left toward the water. The needle remained pinned on the left side of the dial.

  “I don’t understand. Has he turned around?” She picked up the cell phone. “Dit, something’s gone wrong.”

  “It’s okay. Nothing to worry about. Tell the pilot to do a three-sixty. When you’re lined up with the Trans-Canada highway, tell me what you see.”

  After the plane had made its full circle, the needle returned to dead centre or close to it.

  “It’s back on track now. What happened?”

  “You passed over the top of the signal ... over the top of the car. It’s going to happen again soon. Get ready for it. Go through the same manoeuvre, and advise the pilot to reduce speed. Try to keep behind him. Maybe you can even identify the specific vehicle if traffic isn’t too thick… I’m heading in your direction in the van. I’ll meet up with you when you nail down exactly where you’re going.”

  Anne explained what happened to Michael. He understood and reduced speed as much as he could. Then he flew a meandering pattern back and forth across the highway so as to keep behind the vehicle. Anne kept her eyes on the cars and trucks on the TCH, as well as on the direction finder. Eventually, Anne noticed the needle swinging like a compass point toward a blue pick-up each time the plane crisscrossed the highway. She had pinpointed the elusive vehicle as well as its mysterious driver.

  With visual contact they were able to keep close surveillance. They tracked the pick-up to the city of Summerside and followed it to a pair of wharves along the waterfront. They circled the city and the waterfront until Dit arrived fifteen minutes later. He located the truck on the ground, made the license plate number, and headed for Slemon Park airport where Michael and Anne were waiting.

  Anne watched Michael top up his fuel tanks. Then they walked inside the terminal building. A pot of coffee steamed near the counter where Michael paid his fuel bill. They grabbed two paper cups and took a window seat facing the runway.

  “I never would have guessed that you were an investigator,” he said.

  “Oh?” she replied in mock surprise. “Why is that?”

  “When I think of a detective I picture Mike Hammer or Dirty Harry. You know, grisly faced mutts with fists that look like clubs.”

  “I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”

  “No, no, no. I don’t mean that. You didn’t disappoint me. It’s just that you’re different.”

  “Stop it now. Compliments like that will make me blush, Sir.”

  “I guess I’m not being too clear, am I?”

  “Dick Clements said you were a great litigator. Can’t see how he reached that conclusion from what you’ve sai
d so far.”

  “So, you do remember me from that day at Her Majesty’s Pleasure,” he retorted.

  “A few things are coming back,” she said. “Rather fuzzy, though.”

  “Understandable. Let’s start with a clean slate then. I’m Michael Ryan. I’m an attorney. I love dogs, ignore cats, sail boats, and fly planes. You?”

  “Pleased to meet you, Michael. I’m Anne Brown, private investigator with Darby Investigations and Security. I love old movies, I admire unambiguous heroes, I adore my daughter, and despise men about town.”

  “I’ve always had a weakness for straightforward women,” he said.

  “And I have a special fondness for an honest man,” she said. “Was Mrs. Ryan straightforward?” she added.

  Ryan looked stunned, then offended, and then sad in rapid sequence.

  “She was… until about two years ago,” he said.

  “What happened?” Anne had to ask the question, but she really didn’t want to. She felt that what had been a fun and playful banter was taking a nosedive into a place she’d rather not go.

  “She passed away… breast cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Michael stood up and walked a few steps toward the large window fronting the runways. A small plane was making its approach. It seemed to float. Its wheels touched down. It took one, small, skidding bounce and disappeared out of view. Anne thought she could hear the plane strike the tarmac, but the sound came from somewhere else, behind her. She looked around. Through the front window of the terminal she saw Dit’s van. It had ground to a halt on the hard-packed driveway outside.

  “I’ve gotta go, Michael,” she said scooping up her surveillance gear. “Thanks. Send a bill to my office. I insist on paying for the fuel and time. Okay?”

  “Not a chance. It’s on the house. I was out for a joy-ride anyway. But maybe we could chat again some time.” It was a question.