by Liz Turner
The Cessna was the smaller of the two planes, with room just for the pilot and a passenger in the cockpit. There was hardly space inside it for a full-blown physical fight. There was barely room for a third passenger in the back! But while the Turbo was larger, it was far more visible, not to mention noisy. She recalled the noise it had made as it loomed over the airfield that afternoon. If it took an evening flight directly over Warrenton, people were bound to have seen or heard it. Yet, no one had reported any such sightings. Was it possible that people wouldn’t have heard it? Hallie thought. The Cessna was definitely the stealthier plane. That’s the plane she would choose for any illegal dealings.
She swirled the red liquid in her glass, thinking of the blood pooling on the roof of that car outside the gentleman’s club. She shuddered. What happened in the sky that night? What was Tannen doing in a plane, and how did he end up getting punched out of his own aircraft?
Even though they had discovered so much more about the case these past two days, Hallie still felt like they were no closer to answers than they had been when Johnny had shown up at her house a few nights ago.
Staring at her scrawled notes and little drawings, she knew the key was in those planes. Something happened in one of them, and she needed to find out what. She began to formulate a plan.
When she was done, she jaunted to the telephone in her kitchen, feeling like she had more direction in the case than she had in the past few days. Jackson picked up, sounding both alarmed and groggy.
“Hello? What is it?”
“Sergeant! It’s Hallie Malone. I’ve got a hunch, and I think I know how to test it.”
Jackson groaned audibly. “That’s wonderful, Doctor Malone, but can’t you tell me in the morning? People our age need our sleep!”
“It can’t, I’m sorry,” Hallie grinned. “It needs to happen tonight.”
Hallie explained her plan. “Meet me at the flight school in an hour.” She hung up the phone. She could hardly contain her excitement—or nerves, depending on how optimistic she felt with each passing moment.
They were going to break the law. Sergeant Jackson was certainly not happy with her plan, but given the dead ends they kept running into, he was willing to give almost anything a shot, even though, if things went awry, his career might be on the line.
Hallie changed out of her nightclothes into black trousers and a loose-fitting, dark-navy sweater. She slipped on her comfortable brown loafers and carefully pinned her short hair out of her face. Lastly, she donned a dark blue knitted winter hat, pulling it low over her forehead, despite the rather warm fall weather. Looking in the mirror, she had to laugh at herself. If anyone saw her in this outfit, they’d think she was dressing like a little boy, rather than a middle-aged woman!
She eased her car out of the drive and made her way toward the flight school. The dark road seemed to go on forever, especially because Hallie couldn’t drive very fast, not being able to see more than a few feet in front of her vehicle. She didn’t want to be the hit-and-run victim of another rogue bakery van.
She rolled her driver-side window down. The air had the crisp feel of a climate on the brink of plunging into a different season. She looked forward to the autumn foliage that would be along this route in a few weeks. She vowed to return under less sinister circumstances. Tonight, she had to steel herself against her nerves. The night air, the empty road, the knowledge that she was treading fast into the den of a killer, all had her on edge. But, she reminded herself, the airport will be empty at this time of night. Night lessons wouldn’t occur at three in the morning, she was sure of that.
The headlights of her car illuminated the street before her, and she was careful to watch for the sudden bends in the road. Suddenly, a dark figure bounded in front of her, right in the path of her car! She gasped and quickly swerved into the bushes at the side of the street, her car stalling.
Hallie was shaking. It was just a deer, or— she forced herself to not let her mind run away with conjecture. She got out and walked to the front, leaving her keys in the ignition and her headlights on.
Shielding her eyes from the bright glare, she examined the hood. It was as she had suspected, the deer had not been hit. Thank goodness, she thought with relief. The last thing she needed was to be stranded out here with a crushed-in hood.
She peered into the darkness where the deer had come from, but saw nothing. She was certain he must have scampered off. Breathing deeply, she returned to her car and turned the key. A guttural noise emitted from the engine, but it failed to roar to life. Frustrated, she tried again, to no avail.
She was beginning to panic. She was out here on the side of the road in the middle of the night with no help passing by. Not to mention, there was a murderer somewhere in Warrenton. She shuddered. Stop it, Hallie. Take a breath.
She returned to the hood, this time, lifting it to view the engine. A stream of hot air hit her face as she leaned in. Too hot, she thought. The car must have overheated. Well, this is some luck. Checking her watch, she knew that Jackson would be worried if she wasn’t there to meet him at the airport at the agreed-upon time.
She thought quickly. She let the hood remain open and turned off the engine completely, even though it meant eliminating her only light. She decided to give the car ten minutes to cool down before trying anything else. Folding her arms in tight, she hunkered down in the driver’s seat and waited.
Finally, she checked the engine again. It had cooled considerably and was now cool enough for Hallie to place a finger on the metal. With fingers crossed, she re-inserted her key and turned.
A roar erupted from the hood. Hallie nearly started laughing with relief. After shutting the hood, she resumed the drive, this time being careful not to make any sudden stops or starts.
Once she spotted the bright runway lights, she switched off her headlights and slowed down to a crawl. She chose to park in a group of trees safely away from the small airport buildings, and near the entrance to the main road if for some reason she needed to get away fast.
She waited. Shortly she heard the low rumble of a car engine and saw the outline of a black hood creeping along the airport road. She flashed her headlights twice quickly. The car stopped, and the window rolled down.
“Doctor Malone?” Sergeant Jackson asked, a note of apprehension in his voice.
Hallie stepped out of her car and waved as he pulled in to park alongside her.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
Hallie nodded. “The only way we’re going to get the proof we need is to check out those planes ourselves. Something tells me Gerald is very… protective of his aircraft.”
“Alright then,” Jackson said. He mashed his cigarette stub into the ground to extinguish it. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 8
The Cessna
T he two made their way quietly across the five hundred feet to the airplane hangar where Hallie remembered the Cessna and Turbo were kept. Motioning to Jackson to remain quiet, she crept to the side door of the hangar and tried the door. As she expected, it was locked.
But Jackson took a small metal stick from his back pocket. “I came prepared,” he said, grinning. He began to work it inside the lock until they heard a click. “We’re in.”
“Since when do police officers know how to pick locks?” Hallie teased.
Jackson turned a mock frown on her. “You’d be surprised.”
They padded inside, being careful not to make any sound, as the smallest noise reverberated around the hangar. It was pitch-black inside; no windows meant not even the lights from the runway permeated through the darkness. After a few silent minutes of straining their eyes, Hallie and Jackson’s vision seemed to adjust enough to make out the hulking shape of an aircraft. Its large size meant that it was the Turbo. Perfect, Hallie thought. I remembered right. The Turbo and Cessna are in this hangar.
But when she looked around, besides the Turbo, she spotted only empty, black space.
“Where’
s the Cessna?” Jackson hissed, echoing Hallie’s thoughts.
“I don’t know,” she replied, bewildered. “Did they move it?”
Suddenly, a floodlight switched on outside, a sliver pouring in through the cracked door they had just entered through.
“What’s that?” Jackson wondered, panicky.
Hallie put her finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her as she crouched in the darkest part of the hangar. A shadow passed across the sliver of light at the door. Someone was out there.
Jackson regarded her nervously. He clearly didn’t like the idea of being caught trespassing on private property without a warrant. “Perhaps we should return in the morning and simply request to look at the planes, Doctor Malone….”
Hallie didn’t respond. When no shadow passed through the light for a minute, she jogged to the door and peered around the corner, only to jerk her head back in quickly. She tried to mouth the words without saying them aloud. The sergeant looked confused for a moment, then understood: Gerald.
Captain Tannen’s stepson was dressed in the same garb he had been earlier that day, clearly preparing for a flight. There was the Cessna, standing proudly outside the hangar, a crowd of cardboard boxes by her doors. Hallie watched as Tannen loaded the boxes into the Cessna one-by-one. How does he fit that many boxes inside such a small cabin? Hallie wondered. Something wasn’t right. After Tannen had loaded the last box, he trudged back to the small office building.
Now was her chance! Hallie sprinted as fast as she could to the plane and climbed aboard. It was painfully dark inside. She impatiently waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness again and fumbled around. Where were those boxes?
“Hey!” came a hiss.
Hallie whirled around. Had Tannen made it back that quickly? When she saw nobody there, she cautiously peeked her head outside the aircraft’s cabin to view the tarmac below. There was Jackson, fuming with anger.
“Doctor Malone,” he said. “They could be back at any moment! If you get caught up here snooping around in the middle of the night without permission, any case we could put together against them will be thrown out! Unless you have proof right now that they pushed the captain out of this plane, you’ll exit the aircraft immediately.”
“They?” she asked, perplexed.
Jackson nodded, agitated. “They are on their way back as we speak. Hurry before they get close enough to see us!”
Hallie began the climb down from the airplane. She saw, indeed, two figures approaching in the distance. Taking care to stay in the shadows as much as possible, she parked herself underneath the plane, out of sight.
“What are you doing?” Jackson hissed.
“I want to hear what they say when they get here! I want to know what they’re planning. Don’t you want to find out what’s in those boxes?”
Jackson looked as though he were about to protest, but when he saw the figures getting closer, he jumped next to Hallie into the shadowy underside of the plane. He was bent at a forty-five-degree angle to fit underneath, and even Hallie had to crouch a little.
She didn’t know much about planes, but she wondered why this one seemed to hang so low, despite being such a small aircraft. She thought back to her designs. Yes, the Cessna was quite deep compared to the much longer and wider Turbo, and, in fact, compared to most planes at the flight school. Suddenly, she reached up and lightly tapped with her knuckles on the bottom of the plane. Thump thump. It was hollow.
“Have you lost your mind?” Jackson whispered. “Stop that!” He yanked her hand down. “I can’t get a good view of Tannen and his accomplice. They’re up to something illegal, though, that’s for sure, going to fly at night with all the lights off around here. This sure isn’t any night-flying lesson. And I don’t want to be caught sneaking around if they’re armed!”
Hallie winced. She hadn’t thought of the possibility of facing guns. Nonetheless, she gave Jackson a triumphant look, whispering, “There’s a cache in the bottom of the plane! Like on commercial flights, for baggage.”
Jackson looked up at the belly of the plane, realization spreading over his face. “But I’m guessing they’re not hauling their luggage in there tonight.”
Hallie nodded, raising an eyebrow. Just then, voices became audible as Tannen approached. Jackson and Hallie stood, listening intently.
“Being out here in the night just makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs!” came a giddy female voice, followed by a trail of giggles. Hallie frowned. She didn’t recognize the voice straight away, but it seemed familiar to her. Is it someone I’ve met before? She doubted it, given that the voice was dripping with a syrupy southern accent.
Hallie could only see their feet. Tannen’s heavy boots and daintier female ones.
“Alright, alright, calm down now. This is a job, act like it.”
“But I thought you said I was the cutest thing you’d ever seen when I get all excited about stuff,” the woman said, clearly pouting.
Hallie watched Tannen’s boots step closer to the woman and surmised that he had kissed her. Now he said, more gently, “You are, darling. All I’m saying is we ought to get a move on here. This is an important trip.”
“Tell me you love me,” came the woman’s voice. When this request was met with silence, the woman repeated it, more loudly. “Tell me you love me or I’m not going anywhere with you.”
A sigh and then, “I love you, of course I love you! I’m just a bit preoccupied with this right now, alright?”
“Okay, okay. Of course, darling, I know you do. A woman just likes to hear it now and then. But—hello, hello, listen to me! What is the rush tonight? Doesn’t part of you just want to sit here under the stars, enjoy the night?”
“What is the matter with you?” came Tannen’s terse reply. “Let’s go.” Tannen began to climb up into the plane, but the woman didn’t follow. Hallie tensed.
“Are you coming or not?” he asked from the top of the stairs.
“To be honest, Gerry, I’m a little… nervous about all this after the night with the captain. And then with that sergeant sniffing around today, I’m just—”
Tannen interrupted her, booming, “Hey now, don’t have a cow! We do what we have to do! I said not to talk about that anymore!”
At this, the woman apparently began to cry; Hallie heard soft sobbing.
“Gerry, sometimes I think you don’t care about anybody! Not your father, not me!” the woman wailed. Hallie heard her trying to hold back some of her crying, in vain.
“Stepfather,” came the stern reply. There was a long moment of terse silence. Hallie looked at Jackson. He held up a hand, wait. Hallie understood. The couple might finally say something incriminating, admit openly to the murder of Captain Tannen.
“Listen,” came Tannen’s voice. He walked over to the woman, who was still crying. “I’m sorry I upset you, and trust me, I never wanted anything like that to happen, okay? But you know as well as I do that we had no other choice.” Silence. Tannen ventured, his voice wheedling, “Emily, darling. I need you. This whole operation needs you. Where would we be without your friends in Virginia? Where would they be without you?”
Hallie and Jackson dropped their jaws. That was why the voice had sounded familiar! It was Emily Sanders, the receptionist at the flight school! She must have been disguising her accent when they had spoken earlier. And Virginia. Of course, it was starting to make sense now. The illegal tobacco making its way around town was sourced in Virginia—probably from Emily’s friends there. Tannen and Emily were working together, Emily sourcing the tobacco, and Tannen providing the connections in New England for the customers. What an ingenious plan!
Hallie was itching to rush out there and demand that Jackson arrest them both. But she restrained herself. As much as Hallie knew the truth, they hadn’t yet admitted to anything, and arresting them now could result in their eventual release.
“Okay,” Emily sighed, finally drying her tears. The couple began to walk into
the plane. Hallie tensed. Were they going to take off? She and Jackson would be killed, run over by the back of the plane!
A low rumble was followed by a mechanical whirring noise. A blast of heat hit their backs. Looking at Jackson, she nodded. He agreed. It was now or never.
They burst out from under the plane and stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading into the cabin.
“Gerald Tannen, Emily Sanders, this is the police. Come out with your hands up!” Jackson shouted above the whir of the plane’s engine. No one came out. And then, the aircraft began to move.
Horrified that they were going to get away, Hallie climbed up the stairs, just as they were being pulled back up.
“Doctor Malone!” Jackson shouted, terror ringing through his voice. With a sudden burst of energy, he jumped onto the staircase and followed Hallie up into the plane. They felt the Cessna lift gracefully into the air.
It was dim inside the small cabin. Hallie squinted, trying to get her bearings and keep her balance as the plane climbed higher into the sky. Where were Tannen and Emily?
All of a sudden, a searing pain folded over her eyes. The top of her forehead was thumping painfully. What—she thought. “Umph,” she grunted, dizzy. She whirled around, trying to see Jackson, or Tannen or Emily, but the lights seemed to be turning off slowly. Then she was shrouded in complete darkness.
Chapter 9
The Plan
The floor vibrated angrily. The walls pitched to the left and right. Hallie felt a sticky substance under her head. Everything was dark. She tried to sit up, and a wave of nausea passed over her. Steadying herself as best she could, she felt around her body. No contusions, just the wound on her head. It had stopped bleeding, and it didn’t seem to be very serious, she concluded with relief.
Eventually, her eyes seemed to adjust to the darkness, and she made out her surroundings. She was still in the Cessna’s cabin. There was a door on one end, and she estimated that it probably led to the cockpit. She discovered Jackson, still unconscious on the floor. They must have knocked them both out.