by Lee Baldwin
“Couldn’t he have thrown the chute away, after he got into the front?” Stacy nods yes, that could be right.
“You do know Mr. Cicero Clay is a convicted felon, on parole,” the other one says.
At this point one of the kids speaks up. He was the wing runner when we took off and saw me hook the towrope. He tells them I wore no chute when I got in. Tall Detective gets his info.
“Yah, we know about that,” Stacy goes on. “Clay took his basic glider instruction here twenty years ago, he’s been a flight instructor with us for ten years. We trust him, we’re glad to have him back.” Stacy’s tone indicates she disbelieves my involvement in any crime. I shoot her a grateful look. She looks like she wants to go on, but stops herself.
The CHP guys thin out, shaking their heads as they turn back to driving practice. I don’t fit the mold of somebody to arrest, for the moment at least. Although I’d now have to admit I’m guilty of murder, I’m keeping quiet about my duel with Roswell. The detectives lift themselves from the cramped cockpits, staring at me critically. I resent their prejudice. I’m a private citizen minding my own business, a victim even, and as soon as they find I’m a con, they want to slap on the cuffs. For about the hundredth time, I’m itching to just disappear. I was innocent, damn it. At least as charged.
“So you’re saying the man in front jumped out deliberately,” one of the detectives says to Stacy.
“Look at the fact that Clay saw a chute disappear into the clouds,” Stacy replies, spreading her hands. “It was no suicide. The guy wearing the chute was the one who tried to hurt somebody, not Clay. There is no way anyone in the rear seat could stop that from happening. The canopy goes away, the front pilot falls out. Gone. No warning, no time to react. There was Clay, upside-down, in a glider that wouldn’t fly. We don’t train for suicide leaps. And look at the guy’s logbook. Roswell. Hundreds of glider flights. He was a pro pilot. He knew what he was doing. Look for him over there you’ll find him.”
“He didn’t need a stunt lesson,” I throw in.
“Unless this is fake, like a fake passport.” Tall Detective looks again at Roswell’s logbook, fetched from the flight line when the discussion began. Page after page of hand-written entries, flights all over Europe, North America, Hawaii.
“Yah,” I add, “and he wasn’t showing his parachute when we took off. He was wearing a bulky coat. He intentionally concealed the chute. He was sweating.” I don’t mention my high-speed dive, the collapse of Roswell’s chute, my guess that he’s dead on a distant hillside.
“Suppose I buy that,” Short Detective says. “Then why would someone want to kill you?”
I can think of a few reasons, but have no intention of opening that kind of convo. Anyone from that part of my life would probably just shoot me, if they aren’t dead or in prison. I keep my face blank, shaking my head. “No idea,” I reply.
Short Detective looks at Stacy, then at me. “Do you have anything that can verify where this happened? We need to start a search.”
Stacy turns to me. “Was it turned on?”
I nod. “Every flight.” From a Velcro flap of my parka I lift out my GPS unit. “This records the glider’s position, altitude and speed for the entire flight. It’s still recording.”
Tall Detective takes the small unit from my fingers. “How do we see what it says?”
“We have a computer in the office with the software,” Stacy tells him. “Come with me and I’ll download the flight trace and print a copy.”
Short Detective checks his notes, looking at me. “If you think of anything...”
I wave the white card the man hands me. “Right.”
The plainclothes cops turn away. I am fuming at the rotten luck. I’ve kept my nose hyper-sanitary not only through three years in prison but my entire parole. So now they have new reasons to mess with me. I didn’t do it. I have a life, dammit, and it doesn’t include sitting still for this.
Jason, the senior flight instructor, turns to me. Behind the oversize dark glasses, his face is impassive. “What is it you do in case of an accident?” To me it sounds like a flight school pop quiz.
“Notify the NTSB.”
“Under what regulation?”
I think for a second. “Article two, I think. If any required crew member becomes unable to carry out his duties.”
Jason nods. “That will do. Got the number?”
Tiredly, I wave my phone and walk toward the fence. Several students begin to push the glider back to its tie-downs. It will be a long roll.
I slip through the wire fence and start back alone, walking the dusty road that borders a cornfield. My El Camino, parked with other cars near the gliderport’s blowing parachute, is a small dot in the distance. The long walk gives me time to call the regional National Transportation Safety Board office in Gardena, California. I have to wade through the same incredulous reactions all over again, first with the admin, then with the base supervisor. Finally the names of the Hollister detectives, the CHP sergeant, and my instructor rating convince the NTSB people that my report is credible.
At long last the call ends, with promise of follow-ups by mail and phone. An NTSB investigator will be in the area tomorrow, to overfly the accident site and interview witnesses. I promise to be available.
I’m nearing my car when Stacy returns from the flight office. A paper in her hand flaps in the stiff breeze. I take it from her fingers. My GPS flight profile. The plot shows outlines of main topographic features, faint lines of latitude and longitude, and a wiggly orange trace, the path the glider followed over land. There is also an altitude trace. I stare incredulous at the peak of the last loop. I can almost see the glider hesitate at the moment of Roswell’s jump. There is also the spin, the recovery, and the plunging dive that had cast Roswell to his final reward. Oops. I’ll need to cook a story about that part.
“My unit?” I ask.
Stacy shakes her head. “They’re keeping it to download on their own. Evidence.”
“Figures.” I turn to my car.
Her voice from behind me. “Clay?”
I stop. She is looking at me kind of funny. “Just between us, is there anything...”
“Stace, I don’t know. He jumped. He wanted to kill me.”
She looks at me a long moment. Watching her face, my mind serves up a sampling of private things we might have said to one another, if prison had not interrupted that budding friendship years ago.
“Alright, then.” She sighs, turning back. Sadly I watch her go, her every step a stab of wretched defeat.
I’m settled in the El Camino’s tattered seat when a dark car rolls up, trailing clouds of dust on the rutted dirt. The car’s windows are opaque black. Two men in suits get out. One stands beside my door, motioning me to roll down the window. He pulls out a Federal ID case.
“Cicero Clay? We’re DEA. We need to talk to you.”
Oy.
So that was a while ago. Two hours to be exact. Because of my various past lives, cover stories and lies, I am never sure when talking to DEA or local law enforcement what they’re after. But in this case I am safe. They aren’t here to talk about a certain grow operation. Just want me to walk them through, again, every detail about today. Then they have to go through all the steps of my so-called former crime, leading to my arrest for drug possession, which I again insist I’m not guilty of. They shrug that one off with matching contemptuous smirks. I hate that more every time I see it. I had nothing to do with any dope. Directly. I was a fast driver with some electronics skills, carrying only money.
They go through everything. E-V-E-R-Y thing. But this time they focus their drug-besotted views to ransack every step of my flight with Roswell. Was I transporting any contraband? How much money was onboard the aircraft? How many pounds of drugs will the aircraft carry? And so forth, to which I keep pointing across the field where the K-21 sits tied up under a blue tarp. No propeller, see? No motor. Flying gliders is an art form, see? Not like a taxicab, you d
on’t get in a sailplane and commute to Mexico. Completely dependent on the weather. Not like a powered aircraft, see? Besides, I don’t have power training.
...et cetera, all to no avail.
Finally, what gets them off me is my probation appointment. Gotta drive all the way into San Jose, and it’s getting to rush hour. So now after all that, including a flatbed trailer loaded with bridge parts trying to smear me at the Highway 880 exit, I am sitting in this institutional hallway on West Hedding in company with the usual run of luckless characters who, like me in certain ways, have been strapped to the wheel of life in various uncomfortable positions. I see a dude from my old lockup, guy who’d been in for smuggling and minor racketeering. We notice each other but don’t make eye contact. What’s his name, Salermo? I regularly see guys here I’ve crossed paths with, or know about. Small world? Nah. All your local felons come through here.
A clerk pokes her head out a door and calls, “Cicero Cassius Clay.”
A woman glances up with a smirk at the name. I return a threatening glare as I walk by. For the millionth time I make a mental note I’m getting it changed. Not only that, I plan to disappear. I’m pointed into an office where I sit in front of a polished wooden desk. The chair is uncomfortable, smaller than it needs to be. The name placard says H.R. Harrison. Mr. Harrison is not with us at the moment, so I take a deep breath and look around.
Wait a minute. This Harrison’s a woman. I can tell.
First, under the desk there are some girly-type running shoes. Second, a few post-it notes on the desk have flowing curlicue handwriting. So I cool my jets for what seems a long time. Finally the door opens.
I turn to look but only see the back of someone. Well actually it’s a pleasant view. While she leans against the door jamb talking to someone in the corridor, I have a chance to take in the slim fit of her tailored slacks and the womanly posterior pointing my way.
She has carefully-styled dark hair, smooth skin, dangly earrings with light pinkish stones. On top she’s wearing a custom jacket which fits her well, and almost hides her shoulder holster. Slim waist, I can tell she works out. She is talking in a stage whisper to someone outside in the hallway. Can’t hear much, but what I do pick up suggests one of her parolees is having a very bad day. The woman she’s talking to compliments her new jewelry, to which she responds with an easy laugh, it’s only costume. That laugh is creepily familiar, but I don’t place it. Yet.
I get a chance to think maybe my parole status is looking up. My previous parole officer is a grizzled old Japanese guy who chain smokes, so maybe he’s died since my last weekly visit. He must’ve thought throwing me all sorts of little speed bumps was fun and appropriate. However I have to say that he was cooperative, because I’ve kept my parole tidy and there is not one single thing anybody can fault me on. I am due to be off pro in another seven months and I’m totally looking forward to that day. So I am ready for a well-deserved frequent flier upgrade.
Woman shuts the door, walks around the desk and sits. I’m just taking in her pleasing face when my nutsack goes into involuntary contractions for the third time today. I know who this is. Apprehension rises further when she lifts her face and looks at me coldly. A flat, dead stare from heavy-lidded eyes. She knows me, too.
And I know her. Damn. I haven’t seen her in 20 years, but we were best friends in high school, mostly below the waist. But I lost track of my classmates after leaving school, owing to the fact that my dad died before grad and my mom became very ill.
Now this striking woman levels her dark eyes and regards me with open disdain. I try to hold my gaze steady as the thought goes through my head that will define this moment in all its nefarious glory:
Oh. Fucking. Hell. It’s Montana.
My new parole officer is no promotion. This is a ticket to the innermost circle of Hades.
“Cicero Cassius Clay,” she says, not quite looking down at her laptop. I try to remember what terms we were on when we parted company. Boyfriend-girlfriend at one time definitely. We’d been all over each other through senior year, then she became unavailable and later I heard she’d gone away. Had one letter from her. Ah, those quaint days before e-mail, on paper in an envelope. No return address, just a light perfume, nothing about I miss you, just some rambling sorry-for-her-lot-in-life spiel with no detail, vague regret. I saved that letter for a while. I’d been missing her back then.
Nice jewelry, earrings and a gold chain set with pinkish sparklers around her neck. Too big for diamonds, maybe fake ones like she said. No wedding ring, which surprises me for a second. And then again it doesn’t. For around 38 she’s still a knockout, but the vicious gaze she aims at me now reminds me there are other sides to her personality. If you can call it that.
She looks at her laptop. I have a second to watch her dark eyelashes flick as she scans my file. She leans back in her high swivel chair and gazes at me coolly.
“Hollister Homicide says you tried to kill someone today. Is that right?”
I look back at her without expression, thinking cops must go to school to act like morons. Everybody in the system tries to bait you into a lie if you are the slightest bit bent. I’m counting, if I go through this with her, how many times will it be today I’ve tried to explain glider flight characteristics to a cop?
I summon all my wit and eloquence for a deft reply.
“No.”
She scowls at me with haughty disdain, like she’s waiting for a bug to crawl off her plate.
I sigh and continue, trying to be brief. “My student jumped out all by himself. He had a parachute. I did not. It was only by great good luck I was able to keep from crashing. He wanted to kill me.”
While this is coming out of my mouth I’m watching her eyes and wondering when she’s going to cop to the fact that she knows me. Up to now she’s acting like we just met. She’s watching me intently, waiting. I’m waiting too. I don’t have anything to say right now.
“I know more about you than what’s in this file,” she says, looking at me coldly. “Suppose you just tell me why you’re here.”
“Okay Montana, let’s cut the pretense.” Her eyebrows ratchet up as I utter her high school nickname for the first time in at least 10 years. Friends had occasionally asked about her, but after I got set up on this bogus rap and did a three-spot in the can, I haven’t exactly schmoozed with my high school crowd.
“You do know more than what’s in my file,” I tell her sternly. “And you better be talking to me off the record about that for reasons you well understand. Why am I here? This is my regular weekly appointment. With you, it turns out. Why are you here? Why was my case moved from Officer Yamamoto? How long have you been a parole officer?”
“Parole Agent,” she spits out. “Agent, not Officer. There’s a difference.”
It dawns on me this is her career now. I can see she’s really proud of her position, and I’m curious to know how she got to this point. She and I did risky and illegal things when we ran together in school. Part of me feels like congratulating her. But the other part, the 98% part, says forget it.
“I need to ask you the same question,” I say coolly. “Exactly why am I here? I have been letter-perfect every day of my parole. I intend to keep it that way till I’m out of the system.”
She laughs from the side of her mouth. It’s not a friendly laugh, but the way her eyes sparkle takes me back for a sweet second to warm summer nights long ago. I roughly shove the beguiling memories aside.
“You’ll never be out of my system,” she practically snarls.
I don’t blink but I take a beat to contemplate that she uses ‘my’ instead of ‘the.’ She could’ve said ‘my’ because she feels a certain ownership for the parole system. Or, she could’ve said ‘my’ because she still feels a connection to me. Looking at her now, I recall how once I was so hooked on her. I begin to remember why, in semi-lurid detail.
Watching her face I can almost see similar thoughts parade through her mind. For an ins
tant I notice a hesitancy that tells me whatever she believes she holds over me, she knows that I hold the same over her. And given my career as a felon, and hers as the well-regarded public official, she has much more to lose. Kid stuff back then, but what I could say now would be taken very seriously by her management. I speak up, letting impatience into my voice.
“Care to tell me why I’m here?”
She waits a beat. For the moment she can’t meet my eyes and looks blankly at the laptop. I begin to recall things about Montana from back then, the way she is. I didn’t know what a narcissist was in those days, but today I’m clear that she is one. Her mental self-image is about power, and being attractive. It was the lure of power that first pulled her away from me, a powerful older man when we were in high school. She totally believes she is better than other people. In the last few minutes I’ve been reminded twice that she doesn’t understand that other people have feelings. She appears tough-minded and unemotional, but I know she’s easily hurt. And if that happens, oh boy. Hell hath no fury.
Her eyes come up and that beautiful face is different. When she speaks her voice is not so snarly.
“This meeting is routine, as you say. However, when a parolee is found at a crime scene the Parole Agent has to intervene. I took your case from Yamamoto for that reason. We’re going to have weekly meetings until this matter is cleared up. Any discrepancy we’ll see you back on the tracker.”
Please, not the anklet again. Yamamoto wrote me up twice simply because the damn things lose contact above 2500 feet. If flying is your living, the tracker is unemployment. It near cost me my job at the gliderport a year ago, before I was able to explain things well enough so they would listen. Stacy went to bat with Yamamoto and they took it off.
But Montana’s face is softer, her voice more feminine in tone, which tells me I’m starting to work on her. Which is a good thing. Up to a point. Control, I tell myself, not involvement.
“Okay I can accept that,” I reply. Now I have a question for her, the same one I’d pestered Yamamoto with the whole time I’ve been on parole. “You do know I was framed? I want to reopen my case.”