by Liz Turner
Upon examining him, she found that Jackson had suffered a blow to the back of the head. She drew in her breath and checked his pulse. Rapid, but steady. She was relieved. His head wound didn’t seem to be bleeding any longer either, but nonetheless she removed her knit cap and pressed it to the back of his head.
How long have we been flying? She wondered. She held her wrist up to one of the dim lights in the ceiling. It had been over an hour since they boarded the plane. If she had to guess, they were headed to Virginia.
She felt around the bottom of the floor. It was cold, metal, and smooth. But then, near the rear, she felt a small groove. As she traced it, she realized it formed a square. Pushing down gently, she heard it click and then spring open. A trap door! The cargo hold, she thought.
A small rope ladder descended into the small room underneath the plane. Hallie hesitated—there was no light at all that penetrated the hold—and then climbed down gingerly.
Feeling around, she got a hold on one of the cardboard boxes. But when she nudged it, it moved right away; it was as light as a feather. Prying it open, she discovered it was empty. Empty? She thought, at first perplexed. Of course, if we’re headed to Virginia now, they’re probably going to fill these up with tobacco!
They must have the stash of money somewhere. As she made her way around the small cargo hold, she only found more empty boxes, nothing that would hold a bunch of cash.
A loud groan came from the cabin. Hallie carefully climbed back up the staircase and closed the trap door behind her. She approached Jackson as he woke up.
“Sergeant?”
“Ah, Doctor Malone. I’m alright.” He tried to sit up and nearly toppled over.
“Easy, now,” Hallie cautioned. She helped him up.
“What in God’s name happened?”
“Tannen or Sanders clocked us both when we climbed into the plane. We’ve been in the air for an hour now.” Hallie was whispering; she wasn’t sure what Tannen’s plan was for them, and she certainly didn’t want to find out now. She needed more time to devise a plan of her own.
Jackson groaned anew.
“What is it?”
“My gun. They took my gun.”
Hallie was dismayed. She had doubts about overtaking the couple as it was, but adding a gun to the mix certainly didn’t help their chances.
Just then, the cockpit door opened with a loud creak and Emily walked out. She was pointing Jackson’s pistol at them with both hands.
Tannen’s shouted from his pilot’s seat, “Are they awake? I thought they were awake! Keep a close eye on them, Emily!”
Emily’s eyes narrowed obediently at Hallie and Jackson. The cockpit door clicked shut behind her. “Don’t you two move.”
Hallie nodded and sat down calmly. Jackson sighed and did the same. They both knew better than to challenge a person with a firearm.
Eventually, Hallie noticed Emily relax a little and took the opportunity to begin talking. “What is the plan here?” she asked, keeping her voice curious, not frightened. “You can’t push us out of the plane like you did Captain Tannen,” she said evenly. “Everyone would be onto you; the whole police force knows we’re working this case.”
Emily’s mouth twitched. “Something tells me that not a soul on earth knows where you were tonight. I’m not a police officer but I doubt that anybody with a search warrant would come in the dead of night to spy on two citizens. I think everybody would believe that you two had a terrible accident of some sort.” She sneered.
“Okay, suppose you’re right,” Hallie said. She felt Jackson stiffen beside her. “Suppose you kill us both and get away with it—like you did with Captain Tannen. That’s three deaths on your hands, Emily. I certainly wouldn’t want to live with that sort of guilt, but maybe I’m just a silly old woman.”
Emily’s eyes flashed. “No, I didn’t kill the captain. That wasn’t me.”
Hallie could tell that it was important for Emily to defend herself in this matter, so she kept her talking. “What happened then? If you didn’t kill him?”
Emily began talking eagerly. “We three—Gerry, the captain and me—were out for a flight in the evening. Just having some fun, that’s all I swear. The captain had opted to sit in the cabin so that I could have the copilot’s seat.” She paused, looking sad. “Then all of a sudden he comes roaring out of the cabin, mad as ever. I guess he had found a box we had forgotten to take out of the hold. It was filled with tobacco.”
“So, you pushed him out of the plane?” Hallie asked, goading her.
“No! He comes rushing up to the cockpit yelling about how he can’t believe we would betray him like this, selling illegal tobacco and all—” she stopped abruptly, apparently realizing what she had just admitted to. “Oh, hell. You two won’t live long enough to tell anybody anyhow. So, the captain gets really wigged out. And then Gerry tells him he has to shut up, that we’re making enough money doing this to expand the flight school, to set up a truly profitable, totally legal business. This is all just temporary, you see.” She spread her arms around the cabin in demonstration. “Anyway, we tried to calm him down, to make him see that we weren’t really criminals, just entrepreneurs. He refused. He demanded that we land immediately so that he could turn us in. He actually said, ‘I hope you understand why I have to tell the police.’ Can you believe that?” She cracked a grin for a second before it faded. “Gerry became really angry, and I don’t blame him, the captain was being so obstinate about the whole thing. Gerry yelled at me to take the wheel of the plane, so I did. And the next thing I know Gerry and his father are having a full-on brawl in the cabin! I know Gerry didn’t mean to start a fight, he just went back there to—to talk some sense into the captain. But I guess something must have happened. Because somehow the cabin door slid open mid-flight and the captain…” she trailed off. “It was an accident, he swore to me it was an accident.”
Emily stood for a moment in deep concentration, then she shook her head briskly and retrained the gun on Hallie and Jackson. “But now we can’t have it getting out that the captain died in this plane, you see? Everything will be ruined. We’re going to stop this tobacco business after we turn over the money to the farm in Virginia tonight and then get married and settle down. You two are the last loose ends.”
Hallie was stunned. Emily seemed to be becoming more unraveled as the flight went on. Hallie saw her change.
“It’ll never be over,” Hallie said gently. “Killing us will only make it harder to get out.”
“You can turn yourselves in, right now, and Hallie and I will tell the judge to go easy on you since you weren’t the one who killed the captain,” Jackson piped up.
Emily said nothing and tightened her grip on the gun. The three remained motionless for a few moments. Hallie tried not to feel despair at the situation. She darted a furtive look at her watch. It had been two hours since they boarded the plane. It was only a matter of time before they arrived in Virginia, which was, presumably, where Hallie and Jackson would be killed.
Hallie thought quickly, recalling the tension between Emily and Gerald back at the airport. She had an idea. Slowly, she began to speak in a casual manner. “I wonder why Gerald loaded up the hold with empty boxes for tobacco, if you two are closing down shop. Since you’re just turning in the money to the tobacco farmers, why would you need all those boxes for tobacco? You’re not taking any back with you, are you?”
Emily looked from Hallie to Jackson. “Why would you say that about the boxes being in the hold when there aren’t any?” she sounded desperate.
Hallie noticed her change in tone and took heart—maybe she was getting somewhere. She had to drive a wedge between Emily and Gerald if they were ever going to get out of this plane alive. “Because there are boxes there, Emily. I saw him load them in myself,” Hallie said quietly.
“You’re lying!” Emily spat.
“I can prove it. If you’ll let Sergeant Jackson go down and get one of the boxes, I’ll prove that I
’m not lying.”
Emily froze. Narrowing her eyes, she nodded silently to Jackson, and he found the hatch and went down. Moments later, he returned, an empty box over his head.
At the sight of the box, Emily’s eyes filled with angry tears, which she refused to wipe away, nor blink and let them well over onto her cheeks. Instead, she stared straight ahead, breathing heavily, lost in thought.
“Gerald was lying to you, Emily. He lied to you about ending the business; he lied to you about killing his father—that was no accident, and you know it,” Hallie said.
“No, No,” Emily said furiously. “He said this was it. The last payment and that’s it.” She shook her head.
“He’s just stringing you along, Emily. He needs your connections in Virginia to keep the trafficking ring going, and that’s why he’s telling you what you want to hear. But he’s a dangerous man…. If you don’t see that, then we truly can’t help you,” Hallie said gently.
At that, Emily’s face seemed to crack, and in a moment, she was sobbing. Jackson quickly wrenched the gun from her hands, which had fallen to her sides. Hallie gently moved her to a sitting position and tried to soothe her.
****
A short while later, Hallie felt the plane begin to descend. This was it. With Emily’s cooperation, Hallie and Jackson had formed a plan to get out alive and foil Gerald’s scheme.
“Emily, you got a handle on them?” called Gerald from the cockpit, the door still closed between them. Hallie nodded encouragingly at Emily. The young woman was still fragile, and Hallie hoped she could maintain the facade long enough.
“Yeah, I got them. They’re not moving,” Emily replied, her voice steady and her eyes fixed on Hallie.
“Good, keep them quiet until we sweep the area.”
Hallie’s ears began to pop as the descent grew steeper and swifter. She gripped a handle on the wall anxiously. Finally, the Cessna shuddered as its landing gear touched ground.
The aircraft roared onto the runway before eventually coming to a clean stop. Jackson nodded firmly at the two women, gun in hand. The three stood poised by the door to the cockpit.
The door opened inward, and Hallie and Emily immediately grabbed Gerald by his wrists.
“What the—” he protested. He stopped when he saw the gun pointed straight at his chest. Grunting, he added, “What’s going on? Emily?”
Emily was trembling now, and she looked to the floor to avoid meeting his gaze.
“Gerald Tannen, you’re under arrest for the murder of Captain Eli Tannen, and for trafficking illegal tobacco,” Sergeant Jackson said sternly.
At that, Gerald threw up his elbows, throwing Hallie and Emily roughly against the walls of the plane. He ducked and tried to exit back through the door, but Jackson was too fast, tackling him into the cockpit.
“Not so fast,” Jackson growled. He pinned the man’s arms behind his back and retrieved his handcuffs to fasten over his wrists.
****
The following hours were filled with numerous radio calls to the station back in Warrenton, explaining the situation that had unfolded. They had stepped out of the plane in Virginia to find that Tannen had indeed scheduled another tobacco pickup. Four men—Emily’s friends who owned the plantation—were waiting nearby with the shipment.
They were tanned and leathery, clearly farmers, and when Emily exited the plane, they smothered her with hugs. They had apparently grown up together. Emily cautiously explained to them that she was out of the business, and that if they didn’t want to be prosecuted along with Tannen for illegal tobacco trading, they should cooperate with Hallie and Jackson.
After an initial period of shock and confusion—along with several long, suspicious glances to where Jackson and Hallie stood guarding Tannen—the men seemed to understand that the situation as they knew it had changed.
“I didn’t sign up for murder!” squawked one of the men. He looked at Tannen incredulously. “Listen, Sergeant, all we were doing was providing a product for a hungry market up there in New England. I understand it is unlawful what we were involved in but, believe me, we had no idea Gerald would ever do something like this.” By the way he was standing in front of the group, it was clear he was the leader of the Virginia group.
“None of us knew anything would get violent, let alone deadly,” offered another, shooting pleading glances at Jackson.
Tannen didn’t speak; he was still handcuffed and held by the arms by Jackson, but the expression on his face was one of pure hatred.
Jackson nodded solemnly. “It’s a shame what people will do for a payoff.”
The testimonies of the four men proved to be enough to create an airtight case against Tannen, all before the sun was up. They were only too happy to spill Tannen’s involvement with tobacco after Emily informed them about the murder of the captain.
Sometime later, deep into the morning, a second small plane descended on the tobacco plantation: it was the Warrenton police force, there to fly Hallie and the others back to Massachusetts.
Chapter 10
Flying
A utumn was finally in full swing. With both windows rolled down, Hallie occasionally poked her head out the window and relished the swift air hitting her face. A month after the fiasco on the Cessna, Gerald Tannen and Emily Sanders were serving their time in the state penitentiary, Sanders with a reduced sentence for her brave cooperation that night.
They had stood trial just a few days ago. Hallie had attended as a witness to their confessions and also to share the story of her and Jackson’s kidnapping that night. It had been a full courtroom of onlookers. Captain Tannen had certainly been beloved, and the townspeople were eager to see justice carried out. The jury had only deliberated fifteen minutes before convicting. The guilty verdict had been met with a standing ovation. Hallie had been floored by the support.
Terry Martin had also been tried a week or so earlier as an accessory to murder. It turned out that, as Hallie had suspected, he had been told about the captain’s murder after the fact, and agreed to keep quiet and provide an alibi for Emily and Tannen for a piece of the tobacco-trading profits. He had been convicted, but with good behavior he would be eligible for parole in a few years.
Fortunately, one positive result of Tannen’s illegal dealings was that the whole illegal tobacco trading scheme in most of New England had been busted wide open. Tannen’s ring, particularly his connections with the Virginia farm, had proved to be connected to other illegal goods rings nearby. The Warrenton Police Force had worked with other Massachusetts towns to bring it down once and for all. There had been a lot of unhappy consumers in the end, but Hallie was hopeful that the legal tobacco trade would soon resume, and with that would come the eradication of unnecessary violence and shady dealings associated with the illicit version.
Hallie sighed with relief. She was grateful the whole ordeal was finally over. The case had been exciting, but she was getting too old to sustain these attempts on her life.
Now, she had the day off from the hospital, and she was headed to the flight school, having signed up for a lesson with the proud new owners, Captain Tannen’s niece and her husband. A few weeks ago, Hallie had received a pale envelope addressed to her in loopy yellow handwriting. Lydia and Lenny Shiloh had sent the newspaper clipping covering their purchase of the flight school and airport, as well as touching note thanking Hallie for her work in the case, inviting her out to enjoy the newly renovated grounds, and to, perhaps, take a flying lesson herself. Hallie had been reluctant at first, but she was so moved by the kind words that she agreed, and as the weather cooled, she remembered the stunning drive to the country—the thought had bolstered her enough to even agree to the flying lesson.
She hadn’t been wrong that the winding highway to the flight school would be beautiful in the fall. Today was especially clear and the air crisp. Oak and pine trees spread out from the road, their golden and red leaves glinting in the sun, the occasional leaf fluttering off the branch and settli
ng onto a growing pile. It was weather like this that reminded her why she had fallen in love with Warrenton in the first place.
As she pulled into the flight school grounds, she was stunned at how different the place seemed. The two small hangars had been dismantled, and in their place, stood a large new structure. A bright sign graced its walls, reading CAPTAIN TANNEN’S FLY-FOR-JOY FLIGHT SCHOOL.
Hallie parked near the office building. She got out of her car and stretched, facing the open fields where the runway had been paved. This is truly beautiful, she mused. When she made her way inside, she was greeted warmly by a woman about her age, wearing a long, bohemian-style smock.
“Doctor Malone!” the woman said, catching her immediately into a friendly hug. “We’re so glad you could make it.” She held Hallie at arm’s length, looking intently in her eyes with an expression of pure gratitude.
“It’s my pleasure,” Hallie replied. “The place looks wonderful!” And she meant it. Looking around the office, she could hardly recall the tension that had filled the place the last time she had been here. The large paper maps had been torn down. The walls had been painted a buttery white, and stunning photographs of aircraft, many of which Hallie recognized as the captain’s, were framed and hung tastefully around the room. It gave the room an inviting, soothing atmosphere.
“Yes, well,” the woman said. “We just couldn’t believe the word about the captain—that’s what we all called him as kids, the captain—and we thought we just had to do something with all this property, and this company, that was about to be auctioned off. What better thing to do than to dedicate it to the thing the captain loved more than anything? Flying.. and only flying,” she said with a knowing wink. Suddenly, the woman seemed to remember something. “Oh goodness me! I never introduced myself in person. I’m Lydia Shiloh, the captain’s niece. We spoke on the telephone.”