Wings in the Dark

by Michael Murphy

  We drew close enough to see a man facedown on the floor beside Amelia’s plane, a pool of blood spreading from his head.

  A guard who didn’t look old enough to shave held up one hand and stopped us at the entrance. “That’s far enough, folks.”

  He was young, but old enough to make eyes at Laura. I gave him a break in case he was a fan of sequins. I explained that we were friends of Amelia.

  The kid looked apologetic as he told us his sergeant ordered him to keep everyone out.

  Laura stared open-mouthed at the dead man on the floor. “Jake, you can’t…we can’t…get involved in this.”

  I wasn’t going to argue. I wanted nothing more than to turn away and get back to the Mambo Club and the champagne we left chilling at our table. However, there was a dead body a few feet from Amelia Earhart’s plane, and she’d asked for our help.

  A part of me was still a gumshoe and wanted to learn why someone would murder a man right by Amelia’s plane. “We won’t, sweetheart, but we can’t just take a powder. We have to talk to Amelia first.”

  “Laura, Jake.” Amelia ran to the entrance and hugged Laura. She stepped back to admire Laura’s gown. “I’m so sorry we disturbed what must have been a special night.”

  She addressed the officer. “It’s okay. They’re friends of mine.”

  The cop looked helplessly to his colleague guarding the black Cadillac, but the older cop turned away. The kid rubbed the back of his neck. “I…I guess it’d be all right.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I assured him, as if my opinion would carry any weight when it came to Honolulu PD procedures.

  With obvious reluctance, he stepped aside.

  A fresh coat of paint on the metal walls of the hangar couldn’t hide the smell of oil, gasoline, and rubber. Tires were stacked along the back wall next to a half-dozen blue metal drums. Dwarfing everything was the single engine Vega Amelia had piloted across the Atlantic almost three years earlier.

  In spite of Laura’s hesitancy, the scene piqued my curiosity. I surveyed the interior like I used to when I was a gumshoe.

  A silver-haired Hawaiian in a three-piece gray suit and matching fedora was clearly in charge. He wore the granite-jawed no-nonsense look of a lead detective. Near a door in the back of the hangar, he was talking to a mechanic, someone I first took to be a young man. A second glance told me the mechanic was a slender blonde in her mid-twenties, dressed in loose-fitting mechanics’ coveralls and a baseball cap. Puffing on a cigarette, she was answering the detective’s questions while studying the surface of the plane, no doubt checking to see if it was damaged by gunfire, just like a meticulous mechanic would.

  The detective seemed like a pro, hardly the kind who’d welcome Laura and me to his crime scene.

  Putnam hung up the phone and pumped my hand. “Thanks for coming, Jake. Laura.”

  He hadn’t changed much. He was the grandson of George Palmer Putnam, founder of the prominent publishing company. G. P. Putnam’s Sons became one of the major rivals of my publisher, Empire Press. Although the man had been polite, he always seemed to find a way to get a dig in about my publisher, saving his best zingers for my editor, Mildred. Normally, I would have set him straight when we first met, but I didn’t want to cause any problems between Laura and Amelia.

  Putnam had advanced beyond publishing. He was an author and explorer. He rubbed shoulders with Lindbergh and the explorer Richard Byrd, but Amelia was his real prize. He was ten years older than she was, sophisticated, dapper, and loaded. A man who always seemed to be in charge.

  He kissed Laura’s cheek. “You look fabulous. I’m sorry to bother you two on your honeymoon, but with Jake in town, I didn’t know who else to call that I could trust.”

  He trusted me? I nodded toward the body. “What happened?”

  Amelia glanced at the dead man. “We’re…I’m not certain. I was in the cockpit, going over a postflight checklist. I dozed off, something I’ve learned to do on really long flights. I woke up when I heard two loud pops, then another. By the time I climbed out, whoever shot him was gone. George came in seconds later. When we realized he was dead, we phoned the police. After they arrived, George called your hotel and found out you’d gone to a club.”

  “When you heard the loud pops, did you think they were gunshots?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Then why didn’t you stay in the cockpit?”

  Amelia let out a sigh. “I was afraid someone shot George.”

  The frown on Laura’s face told me she didn’t like the tone of my questions, but the cops would ask Amelia the same things. “Of course. Did you see anyone leaving the hangar or hear anyone drive away?”

  Amelia shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Putnam led me away from the two women and lowered his voice. “I didn’t like the attitude of the homicide detective, the way he questioned Amelia. They’re treating her like a suspect. You can imagine what’ll happen if the papers get ahold of this.”

  “They will. You know that more than I do.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I think I can keep a lid on this for a few days.”

  “A few hours, maybe.”

  “You’re right.”

  The press wasn’t the real problem for Putnam or Amelia. A man’s body found in a hangar alone with Amelia might not be enough to make her a suspect, but it would arouse the suspicion of any detective. Putnam was the type few people had the guts to say no to, but my promise to Laura came first. “You don’t need me. You need a lawyer.”

  “I need someone experienced and discreet to find out why an important Hawaiian businessman was murdered next to Amelia’s plane, who did it, and why, without drawing much attention.”

  Did he want coffee with that order?

  “Jake, if we were in the States, I’d have other options, but you’re my only hope.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his damp brow.

  I was in a real jam. Amelia Earhart was a legendary pilot and the most famous woman in the world. Her accomplishments were symbols of hope in a country struggling for its survival. And I had more than patriotic concerns. Putnam was a powerful man in the publishing industry. If I turned him down, there would be consequences.

  I hadn’t been a licensed dick in years, though Laura and I had both become involved in criminal investigations—but things were different now. We were married and ahead of us was the life together we’d always wanted. “Maybe I can make some calls and find a detective who knows this city better than I do.”

  “I’ve been making calls, damn it!” He regained his composure. “You used to be a detective. I’d like you to dig into this. You might not have noticed”—he glanced toward Amelia—“but the police think Amelia might have shot him.”

  “Mr. Putnam…”

  “George.”

  George? We weren’t friends, and I wouldn’t let him pretend we were. I doubted reason would work with a man whose wife was a suspect, but I had to try. “Laura’s an actress and I’m a writer. I can take a look at the body and give my observations, but I can’t get involved in investigating the murder.”

  The man’s eyes never left mine. “That’s your final answer?”

  “It is.”

  “Then beat it. I have more calls to make.” He headed for the desk and picked up the phone.

  I rejoined Laura and Amelia and took another look at the crime scene. The dead man lay facedown. His arms were pointing toward the hangar opening, as if he’d been shot running away from the plane. There were two visible wounds, one in the center of his back and a bloody mass of hair and bone on the side of his head, where a pool of blood had formed on the concrete floor. The only obvious clue was the toe of a footprint in the blood beside the man’s head.

  Amelia wore two-toned saddle shoes with light-colored heels and soles. “Is that your footprint?”

  She lifted her right foot, revealing a dark stain on the sole of the shoe. “I bent down to see if he was still alive.”

  I
t’s never a good idea to leave a bloodstained footprint at a crime scene. “Ever seen him before?”

  “Of course. He’s Hank Kalua, a fun-loving, hard-drinking sort; also a prominent Hawaiian businessman. He led the group that contacted George last summer and asked us to make the attempt to cross the Pacific. His real name is Haku, but he prefers the Americanized version of his first name. Anyway, they put up a prize of ten grand for the first person who crosses the Pacific from Hawaii to California. He’s also a politician. Get a few drinks in him, and he’ll talk about how he’s going to get statehood for Hawaii.”

  Not anymore he won’t. The death of a man of his stature and Amelia Earhart…crap would soon hit the fan. “So, Kalua and his friends wanted to give aviation a boost, increasing tourism and trade and lining their own pockets?”

  “And bring a ton of jobs to the Islands,” Laura added.

  She was right. “Sure.”

  “Jake.” Putnam held up a telephone. “It’s for you.”

  I crossed the hangar. I didn’t like the look on his face when I took the phone. Who was on the other end? “Jake Donovan.”

  “Jake, listen to me.” It was Mildred, my editor at Empire Press. She sounded even more agitated than usual. “I don’t like getting calls at three in the morning.”

  Putnam called Mildred? “You shouldn’t have answered.”

  “Don’t even try to be funny. On the other end of the line was the old man.”

  Putnam stood with his arms folded, watching my conversation. General Pershing in pinstripes.

  “The old man received a call from George Putnam. He doesn’t like being awakened in the middle of the night any more than I do. He wants you to help George Putnam.”

  I stared at Putnam. He stared back.

  “Mildred, we’re on our honeymoon.”

  “Do we have a bad connection, because I can hear you just fine. The old man doesn’t want you to help Putnam. He insists on it. This involves Amelia Earhart, you know.”

  “I get the picture.” I also knew there was no sense arguing, not if I wanted my books published by Empire Press or any New York publisher. Putnam was that influential. The squeeze tightened, making it tough to breathe. “Tell the old man I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Mildred’s sigh of relief came through five thousand miles away. “This will be good for your career, Jake.”

  Unless I discovered Amelia Earhart murdered her chief financial backer, or the killer shot me. “Goodnight, Mildred.” I handed the phone to Putnam.

  He hung up. “I don’t expect you to like this.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  Chapter 5

  The Kid in the Three-piece Suit

  How could I tell Laura I had to break my promise to stay away from police business? I crossed the hangar, avoiding the detective, who’d finished interviewing the blond mechanic and was talking to a young man in a three-piece suit, who I hadn’t noticed before.

  Laura appeared to be keeping Amelia calm, but my wife jumped when I touched her arm.

  “Sweetheart, we should talk.”

  We stepped outside, away from the two policemen, the one smoking next to the black Cadillac and the young man guarding the entrance. Laura and I stood beneath a light a few feet from the hangar’s open door.

  “Sweetheart?” Laura looked me in the eye. “I don’t like the look on your face.”

  I didn’t try to sugarcoat it. Laura wouldn’t want me to. I told her about the squeeze George put on Mildred and how I’d agreed to investigate the murder.

  Laura walked away for a moment and stood with her back to me. When she returned, she was angry, but not at me. “You had no choice really, but we’ll be careful.”

  “We?”

  “You think you’re going into this alone? What am I supposed to do while you’re off chasing down a bad guy? Darn your socks?”

  “But, sweetheart…”

  “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me. I can’t let you prowl around in a strange city. You need my help.”

  I glanced toward Amelia, who appeared to be arguing with her husband. “What if we discover she fired the shots?”

  “Oh, Jake.” Laura chuckled. “This is no time to joke. Amelia would never do a thing like that.” She walked past me and entered the hangar.

  I followed. “I’m just saying.”

  Laura and I approached the body. Laura seemed to look at the deceased differently now we were involved. As Amelia and George joined us, I studied the body again. The back of his jacket contained a hole about twelve inches below his shoulders, an entrance wound.

  I stood with my back to the plane, facing the open hangar door. If Amelia was telling the truth, she heard three shots. I crossed the hangar. In the doorframe was a thick circle in dark pencil lead, drawn by the cops, no doubt.

  In the center of the circle was a bullet. Three shots had been fired. One struck the man in the back, one missed and struck the doorframe, and one struck him in the head.

  I glanced back toward Amelia’s airplane. I didn’t like where the evidence was leading.

  Any detective would conclude the shooter was someone standing beside the plane. The only person who had remained in the hangar was Amelia. If the suspect were anyone other than Amelia Earhart, they’d already have her at the station, grilling her for answers.

  The dead man wore a tailored suit and expensive, spotless shoes without a single smudge mark. I bent down and rubbed a finger along the toe of one shoe. The end of my finger contained a thin layer of fresh shoe polish. I removed a handkerchief from my jacket, wiped the polish from my finger, and stuffed the cloth back into my pocket.

  I stepped back and considered his appearance. The man wore fancy duds, as well as a fresh shoeshine, to visit an aircraft hangar. He’d come to impress someone important, someone like Amelia or George, but they both denied knowing why he was there.

  A shout from the detective broke the quiet of the hangar. He approached with a scowl on his face, like he wanted to throw the whole lot of us in jail. Unlike homicide detectives I’d dealt with, the man wore a tailored suit, and a five-dollar haircut gave his thick silver hair the distinguished look of a politician.

  I extended my hand to the detective. “My name is Jake Donovan, and this is my wife, Laura. Laura Wilson.”

  When the detective ignored my hand, Putnam took charge. “Jake, this is Detective Henry Tanaka from the Honolulu Police Department. Detective, this is Jake Donovan. He’s a licensed detective.”

  My detective license expired after I moved to Florida five years earlier, but Putnam, a master promoter, was dubiously promoting me to detective.

  Tanaka raised an eyebrow. “In Hawaii? How come I haven’t seen you before?”

  I shook my head. “Not in Hawaii.”

  After a quick check of Laura, his eyes narrowed. “I know who you and your wife are, Mr. Donovan. You’re a mystery writer. You looking for material for your next book or publicity for saysyour wife’s next movie?”

  Laura looked like she wanted to sock him.

  Back in the day, I was used to handling local police who objected to my presence. “I have no intention of interfering, Detective. Mr. Putnam merely asked for my assessment of the crime scene.”

  “The last thing I need, Donovan, is a couple of Hollywood types involved. There’ll be enough publicity when the papers get ahold of this.”

  Another reference to Laura and me as a Hollywood couple. I swallowed my pride, “Detective…”

  A man in a rumpled suit and thick wire-rimmed spectacles jumped from the open door of the Lockheed plane. He removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Not a thing, Detective.”

  He had to be Tanaka’s partner. The look they exchanged confirmed the obvious. The detective suspected that Amelia Earhart had shot Kalua. Tanaka’s bespectacled partner had searched her plane for the murder weapon.

  I’d read that script before. The cops were just trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle toget
her even if they couldn’t. The phone call to the Mambo Club had been accurate. Amelia Earhart and her husband needed our help.

  Amelia finally seemed to understand the fix she was in with the cops.

  Tanaka snatched my handkerchief from my jacket pocket and showed me the black polish on the cloth. “If you don’t want to disturb the crime scene, why did you touch the deceased’s shoes?”

  I didn’t want to help Tanaka. He suspected Amelia, but the detective had me boxed in a corner. “Before coming here, the deceased stopped for a shine.” I showed him the end of my finger.

  Tanaka tossed me the handkerchief, which I stuffed back in my pocket. Then he showed me the black smudge on his thumb. “I saw that too. Why don’t you tell me why that’s so important?”

  I shrugged. Tanaka understood the importance of Kalua’s appearance in an airplane hangar.

  And he’d drawn the same conclusion as me, no doubt.

  To my surprise, his tone softened. He smiled at Amelia. “Because of my respect for Miss Earhart and Mr. Putnam, I’ll give you five minutes, Mr. Donovan. After that you have to leave so my team and I can finish what we started.” He tipped his hat to Laura. “Miss Wilson.”

  Putnam followed Tanaka. “Jake’s a former Pinkerton detective and ran his own agency in Queens.”

  Tanaka glanced toward me. “We’re not in Queens, Mr. Putnam.”

  He nodded to his partner, who approached from the plane. “Pete, make sure Mr. Donovan and Miss Wilson take a powder in five minutes. Not six.”

  “Right, boss.”

  I had little interest in the kid seated on a stool in the rear corner of the place who didn’t look like he spent much time in airplane hangars. I wanted to talk to the blond chain-smoking mechanic before we left. She looked like she lived here.

  I didn’t want Pete listening in on the conversation. He couldn’t follow both Laura and me around. I winked at Laura, who nodded and took Amelia by the arm. To my relief, Pete followed them.