The Name of the Rosé

by Christine E. Blum

  “Is that a big deal to conduct?” I asked, thinking back to all the tedious testimony I watched in the O. J. Simpson trial.

  “No, but it will take about a week for the results to come back. I’d like to hang on to the fish until we’re done.”

  I saw Marisol’s mouth open and quickly shut it and turned her to face the pool.

  “Look at all those pretty fishies, Marisol. Don’t you just love them?”

  “With tartar sauce I do.”

  “Shelly? Come in,” squawked her radio.

  “I’m here, Angelina. What’s up?”

  “The giant sea bass are a bit lethargic today and the kids are getting restless. Do you think you could send down some delectable crustaceans?”

  “On their way.”

  Shelly walked over to a freezer and pulled out a bag of shrimp. “This will just take a minute,” she said to us.

  We watched her walk down some concrete steps that were partially submerged in the water. She started strategically tossing in shrimp around the edges where she must have known the bass were hiding.

  “I’m taking my fish home with me.” Sunny, happy Marisol was gone.

  “No, you’re not. And now it’s your fish?”

  “Yes, I am. I promised Augie.”

  “Since when do you keep any of your promises?” I realized I was raising my voice.

  “Since I’m in charge of the fish.”

  “You know the cops removed the heroin, right?”

  “Still takin’ it.”

  Splash.

  I’d been so engrossed in arguing with Marisol that I hadn’t noticed I’d let Bardot’s leash slip out of my hand. And true to form, she dove into the tank to retrieve a shrimp Shelly had tossed in.

  Over the loudspeaker, I could hear the commentator say, “We seem to have a new species of dogfish,” over the squeals and cheers from the kids.

  “Shelly, what is going on?” came an angry voice on her radio.

  Bardot emerged with shrimp in muzzle and climbed a couple of steps before shaking water all over Shelly.

  “She’s no service dog, is she?” Shelly looked up at me, furious.

  “She saved that shrimp, didn’t she?” Suddenly, Marisol decided to get involved.

  “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. Just let me know who I should explain this to. I don’t want you to get in any trouble.”

  “I think it’s best if you get your dog out of here as quickly as possible, Halsey. I’ll call you when I have the test results.”

  “Of course. Come on, Marisol.”

  “I want my fish.”

  “You’ll be sleeping with the fishes if you don’t follow me right now,” I said, dragging her to the elevator.

  CHAPTER 9

  The next morning, Jack and I walked over to the Santa Monica airport in the hopes of springing a surprise visit on Rusty. I’d called Jack when we got home last night to let him know Bardot needed a training refresher course. I thought he’d never stop laughing when I described Bardot the diving dog’s escapades.

  We checked in with Officer Leo, supervisor at the police substation, and he offered to come along to ensure there wasn’t any trouble.

  “Thanks, Leo, but I’m afraid seeing you would just make Rusty very quiet and uncooperative. Have you had any issues with him in the past?” This man had a proud barrel chest and a generous ability to listen.

  “Rusty has always stood on the periphery of any real infractions, but I suspect he’s pulling the strings in the background. He wasn’t always like this. As a kid, he was gung ho about aviation and becoming a pilot. But some bad luck gave him an attitude that was probably always beneath the surface. Such a shame.”

  “I agree,” said Jack. “Where would we find Rusty at this time of day?”

  Leo walked out a side door to the observation deck overlooking the runways.

  “See that hangar across the way? We keep supplies and have a workshop housed in there. Rusty treats it like his own private office. You’ll need to look in the back corners, but that’s where he’ll be. I’ll drive you around the field; you can’t just go walking across two runways.”

  Off we went in an open-air golf cart.

  We thanked Leo for the lift and entered the space. I don’t know why these hangars feel so creepy to me, but this one was no exception. The outside sunlight only stretched about ten feet into the cavern, and after that it was black as pitch. It was hard to gauge how deep the structure was.

  “Hey, Rusty?” Jack’s voice echoed and was followed by silence.

  I took out my cell and turned on the flashlight app. It got us about another four feet of light.

  “Rusty?” I tried, thinking of the bees/honey approach.

  We heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked and froze.

  “We just want to talk, buddy,” Jack said, slowly moving in front of me to form a human shield.

  I really should marry this guy.

  We heard a deep hum of power as big ceiling lamps illuminated at the back of the hangar.

  “Over here,” said a voice.

  Jack gave me a signal to stay behind him and follow. Just like Leo had suggested, we found him in the far-right corner at a workbench. We approached with our hands up.

  “Whoa, what’s that for?” he asked, seeing our surrender posture.

  “You have a gun?” Jack asked slowly, lowering his arms. “We heard one cock.”

  “No. Why would I have a gun? And who’s we?”

  “That would be me,” I said, appearing from behind Jack’s massive torso.

  His look of surprise seemed genuine.

  “I’m Halsey and this big fellow is Jack. We’re trying to help our friend, Jimmy. He’s the guy who discovered poor Jonas’s body.”

  Rusty pushed back his straight, sandy-blond hair from his eyes but otherwise showed no emotion. He was tan, on the thin side and looked much more like a middle-aged surfer than a pilot. He stood frozen in place, unsure of his next move or ours.

  “We were hoping you could tell us a little about Jonas.” Jack settled down on a bench along the back wall, hoping to show we only came here to talk.

  I watched as Rusty’s shoulders relaxed.

  “I don’t know what happened to the kid. Pretty scary stuff,” Rusty said, opening a folding chair for me.

  I’d have to remember to tell Marisol to pass along to his mom that he hadn’t forgotten his manners.

  “Was Jonas involved in any substance abuse you know of, Rusty?” Jack asked.

  “Doubtful, but you never know.”

  This guy is just gushing with information.

  “What was Jonas like? Was he from here originally? Did he want to fly? Is that why he signed on to work for you?” I hoped this would focus his responses.

  “He didn’t just work for me, he worked for the airport. Management hired him. Not sure where he’s from originally, but there’s one thing I do know.”

  “What’s that?” This was like pulling teeth.

  “That kid loved flying. He couldn’t wait to get his license. But his impatience was going to bite him in the butt. You can’t rush the steps.”

  I looked at Jack. We both knew that Rusty was speaking from experience.

  “On the day of Charlie’s crash, who was working here to receive incoming flights?” Jack picked up the questioning.

  “I was supposed to be. I came in to process the cargo that had been delivered the night before. But something I ate had just chopped me off at the knees. I was hurling every few minutes and couldn’t even keep water down. I noticed Jonas poking around back here and decided to let him take over. There were only a few planes scheduled for that day. I figured it was okay.”

  “Do you regret that decision now, given the accident on the runway?”

  “Hell no!” Rusty glared at Jack. “That tarmac was clean when I left. It wasn’t possible for anything to cause an accident. It was pilot error, plain and simple. Those guys just never want to admit they make
mistakes, especially the old dogs.”

  He picked up a socket wrench off the worktable and threw it across the room.

  “I got stuff to do. Is that it?”

  Jack nodded, taking my elbow to steer me out of harm’s or temper’s way.

  “Just one more question,” I said, and both men groaned.

  “Who owns that gorgeous yellow Pietenpol? I just love it!”

  He paused for a moment and stared at me.

  “No clue,” he said and walked away.

  * * *

  On the way home, we stopped at Spitfire for a quick lunch. We both ordered the special, blackened fish tacos.

  “It seemed pretty clear to me that Rusty was holding a lot back from us, which makes me even more suspicious.” I was trying to nibble daintily but failing miserably.

  “Yes, but the question is why? He seemed pretty twitchy, almost a little spooked. And not by us. When we settled down to talk to him, he seemed to relax a bit.” For each bite of taco, Jack used one paper napkin to mop his beard. I realized I’d never seen him eat corn—

  “You think someone else was back there?” I asked.

  “Or had just paid him a visit. Once he flipped the lights on, it would have been hard to remain out of sight.”

  “But not impossible. You still sure that was a gun we heard being cocked, Jack?”

  “One hundred percent.” He took his last bite and thought for a minute. “But maybe the gun wasn’t for us. He could have been pointing it at the person who had paid him a visit, and the sound we heard may have been the gun being decocked.”

  He was right, of course, making this an even bigger challenge to decipher.

  “I think we need to divide and conquer. Rusty swears there was nothing left on the runway when Charlie landed, and he has no reason to lie. He said he’d gone home sick and left Jonas in charge. If anything was there, he could blame Jonas.”

  “Correct, so why’d Charlie make such a big deal out of it? Pride, maybe? It’s sad to think his flying skills are waning.”

  I nodded. It was starting to seem that the runway crash was a catalyst to setting everything that happened afterward in motion. If I could figure out what caused it, I’d have a lot more pieces to the puzzle.

  “Did you catch Rusty saying he’d come in early to unload cargo from the night before? I wonder what that was. Do you think you could find out who flew in at that time and from where, Jack?”

  “Consider it done. We’ll solve this, Halsey.”

  “We’d better do it soon. So far, we’ve come up with nothing to prove Sally and Jimmy are innocent.”

  “We haven’t found anything to prove they’re guilty either.”

  “Dear Jack, the glass half-full attitude only works at Wine Club.”

  He grinned and gave me a kiss.

  “Babe, I’ve got to boogie. I’m running a clinic in less than an hour.”

  “Go. I’ve got this.”

  I got another kiss and watched him leave. On the way out, he ran into Britt, and they chatted for a minute. I signaled my server for the bill.

  “Hi! I just met your gorgeous boyfriend.”

  “I saw. How are you doing, Britt?”

  “I’m good. How are Sally and Jimmy? Did everything get cleared up?”

  “Not yet. I’m afraid Jimmy’s still on the hook with the police. But Charlie’s on the mend, and he went back home to San Diego today. Peggy’s throwing a Wine Club this afternoon to celebrate having the house back to herself. You should come.”

  “Charlie’s from San Diego . . . I can’t do Wine Club today.”

  That was awfully emphatic.

  “Britt, are you going to work today?” asked the manager on duty. “You’re already forty minutes late and we’re about to get hit with the lunch crowd.”

  “Oops, got to go. Nice seeing you, Halsey.”

  Britt doesn’t seem like the type to be late . . . and didn’t she say she had these two days off ?

  * * *

  The afternoon was nigh, and just like feeding time at the zoo, a new energy was radiating over Rose Avenue. Five women heard the call and stopped whatever they were doing. It was time for Wine Club.

  “He swears on a stack of Bibles he hit something on that runway,” Peggy announced while giving me a generous pour of Norton Reserva Chardonnay from Argentina.

  The heat wave was gone, so we gathered in her living room, where she had the plantation shutters perfectly arranged so we could see everything happening on Rose Avenue, but no one could see in.

  Peggy’s pristinely clean house shows off her four kids and twelve grandkids, as seen in the framed collage of photos that hang on her wall. She still lives in the house she got married in on Rose Avenue.

  As the story goes, the night Peggy became a widow, she and her husband, Vern, were throwing a dinner party. Thankfully, he slumped over peacefully at the table and went to heaven. Everyone stayed while the coroner came and, after, slowly started to leave. Reportedly, Peggy asked where everyone was going. Vern would never want to break up a party! They drank until dawn, telling story after story about him. A flag flies at Peggy’s house every day and comes inside at dusk, homage to Vern’s Air Force career. The days were getting longer, so the Stars and Stripes were still in the honor position on the front of Peggy’s house. I smiled at the thought of that devotion, and then glanced at Sally, who sat quiet and withdrawn. It reminded me how urgent our mission had become.

  “Let’s assume Charlie did hit something, and we’ll keep working on what and how it disappeared later. Peggy, did Charlie tell you anything about the ice cooler, where he picked it up, what he was told was inside?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, blowing on a pig in a blanket before popping it in her mouth.

  She very quickly made a wide O with her mouth and fanned the opening with her hand. Aimee ran into the kitchen for a glass of water. The rest of us were poised to dial 9-1-1 or hand her a napkin to spit the little heat bomb into. She finally chewed and swallowed.

  “Here, honey,” Aimee said, handing her a tall glass of H2O.

  “What am I going to do with that?’ Peggy stared at her.

  “Cool down and soothe your mouth.”

  “I’ve got wine for that. Charlie said he’d heard about the seafood delivery just before takeoff. He told me a waiter from the Mexican restaurant on the airfield at Montgomery-Gibbs brought it to the plane. He didn’t get the guy’s name, but I’ll keep bugging Charlie until he does. Some of us may need to make a trip down there.”

  “I think you’re right about that, Peggy. Jack and I paid Rusty a visit this morning. He didn’t tell us much, but he did mention that the morning of the crash he came in early to deal with some cargo that had arrived overnight. Maybe the two shipments are connected somehow. Jack is working on tracing the cargo and I’m going to solve the runway issue no matter what.”

  Thinking back to the hangar gave me a chill, and I shook visibly.

  “Something else spook you about that meeting, Halsey?” Peggy had her spy hat on.

  “I’m trying to convince myself I didn’t hear what I heard.”

  “What’s that?” Mary Ann looked at me, concerned.

  “When we entered the hanger, it was pitch black inside. Jack called out Rusty’s name, and from the deep back end we heard a gun cocking.”

  “Oh dear Lord.” Aimee slumped down in her chair. “I hope you ran right back out.”

  “Actually, Jack moved in front of me in case any bullets went flying, and we explained our visit. Rusty relaxed enough to turn on the lights. He said he didn’t have a gun. Jack suggested we could have heard a gun being decocked and maybe it was meant for someone else.”

  “Did you manage to get a good look around back there? See anything we can pin on the egg-suckin’ dawg?”

  I shook my head at Sally.

  “Then the hangar’s also probably worth us paying a visit to in the near future,” Peggy said, impaling a wine cork.

  Aimee stood.r />
  “I can report on the seafood served at Spitfire Grill.” Aimee picked up the ball. “I don’t know if this is good news or bad, but they’ve been buying from the same warehouse in Long Beach for years. Even for special dinners, that’s where the fish is sourced. Britt was amazing in how fast she got the information for me. She’s such a honey.”

  Peggy and I exchanged looks as she passed around a tray of cream-cheese-stuffed Bugles. Peggy really kicked it old school when it came to appetizers. I wondered how much we could trust Britt’s intel, but it was easy enough to check. She’d be risking a lot if she was lying.

  “I’m so happy I can finally contribute,” Mary Ann piped in. “As I said before, these small municipal airports aren’t subject to the same security measures that the larger ones are. The key is to follow the noise restrictions, and if you’re flying a plane like Charlie’s, as long as you fly VFR, the FAA doesn’t require you to file a flight plan.”

  “VFR?” I asked.

  “Valid flying registration?” Sally suggested.

  “Very fine ride?” Aimee proffered.

  “Visual flight rules. It means the pilot can see out of the plane to navigate, avoid hitting other planes and maintain a desired altitude,” Mary Ann clarified. “Hal, who covers this type of thing at the Times, tells me there are no customs checks, and unless the authorities have prior knowledge of suspicious cargo arriving, people land their planes and take whatever they have onboard on and off as they please.”

  “Wow, that leaves room for a lot of slippery business.” Sally shook her head. “Maybe I will start getting my prescriptions from Mexico, at least some of them.”

  Mary Ann’s cheery expression fell at the thought of that, and she sighed.

  “I may have some information on the medicine part of Charlie’s delivery, but I don’t want to say any more about it right now until I run down some leads.”

  We all stopped eating and drinking when Mary Ann dropped that intriguing nugget.

  “Come on, tell us what you’re thinking,” Peggy teased her.

  “No,” I said, “I think it’s best we keep to what we know. Mary Ann will tell us when she’s ready with solid information.”

  I then took them through my trip to the aquarium, which lifted their moods immensely, less for any discoveries I’d made but more for Bardot’s comic relief. I certainly have a story to pull out if I’m ever stuck in an elevator.