The plane had crashed two months before—close enough in time that images of the catastrophe could still be easily retrieved from the memory bank, but distant enough that they had receded just out of reach of everyday consciousness. The stories and articles from the Internet had reminded me of the details.
An Air Sentinel B777, almost brand new and operating as flight 634, had completed most of its journey from Miami to Quito, Ecuador, when it had dropped from the radar screen at 2046 local time. The next time it had been seen was several days later when rescuers finally made it to the crash site on the side of a mountain north of the city.
When the clip stopped, I restarted it and this time looked for the neon orange flags used to mark locations of human remains. They were hard to see, but they were there. I ran my finger over the rough diamond surface of the ring John had sent, and wondered which flag marked the spot where Belinda Culligan Fraley’s remains had been found.
Chapter Fourteen
I almost hadn’t recognized him without the combat gear, but Jack Dolan had been the only patron at Big Pinks who was not crowded under a big striped awning in a hubbub of eating, drinking, chatting, and smoking. Relaxing in the sun in a billowy, short-sleeved cotton shirt and baggy shorts, he had seemed younger than I had perceived him the night before, when his weathered voice, the glints of silver in his hair, and perhaps the whiff of paternal concern had put him in his late fifties. Maybe it was the huarache sandals, or the fact that he still had all his hair, which wasn’t as long as I’d suspected, but neither was it meticulously tended, private investigation being one of those professions where tonsorial maintenance was optional.
He sat forward in his chair, took off his sunglasses, and studied the diamond ring. “How do you know,” he asked, “that it came from the crash site?”
“I told you about the Gemprint thing where—”
“Gemprint I understand, and I believe you when you say the ring belongs… or belonged to this Fraley woman. What I don’t understand is how you knew she was on the airplane.”
“That part was easy. I went online and pulled up a list of the deceased. She and her husband, Frank, were both on Air Sentinel 634 when it went down. They died along with everyone else on board.”
“Why would you think to do that?”
“Because the logbook is from Air Sentinel. Air Sentinel had a terrible crash a few months ago. The logbook is damaged in a way that is consistent with a crash. Bobby Avidor is involved in selling bad parts. This Fraley woman had died recently. It was a theory that seemed to make it all fit together.”
“How do you know she was wearing this ring when she died?”
“I don’t have proof that she was wearing the ring. I don’t have proof of anything. But I believe the logbook came from the crash site, and if the logbook came from the crash site, wouldn’t you have to think the ring did, too?”
It all came out too fast and with a higher acid content than I had intended, and I was immediately remorseful. Not smart to piss off the one guy I thought could help me, especially since he’d done nothing to deserve it. But my left ankle was bigger by half than my right, I was on the downside of a three-hour-old adrenaline rush, and I had really expected him to be more enthusiastic… okay, impressed by my discovery. I wasn’t sure what to make of my own reaction. Maybe I was trying to compensate for screwing up the night before. Trying too hard.
He stared at me, and I couldn’t read anything in his eyes except that they were brown. And intelligent. “I think you’re right,” he said.
“You do?”
“I’m testing your theory. Is that all right with you?”
“Ummm…”
“That’s a technique we investigators use. Asking questions for understanding. An alternative approach would be for me to simply assume that you’re right. Maybe you’re always right, which means we don’t have to investigate at all. I’ll just wait for you to tell me the answer. That would be easier, of course. And quicker.”
A grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth, but a gentle one, making it all right for me to smile at myself. When I did, he started to laugh. He was making his point without making me feel stupid, a technique that I thought I might need to brush up on. He held the ring out for me, and I took it.
“Okay,” I said. “All right. I don’t know that Mrs. Fraley was wearing this ring, but I made that leap, perhaps an incautious one, but one that I think is logical given all the other circumstances. I suppose I could call the family and try to find out.”
“There you go,” he said. “Now tell me about the car that followed you.”
I told him about the kidney red car that had chased me around the parking garage, and, from the tone of his inquiry, flunked the investigator lesson on being tailed. No license plate. No description.
“Kidney car,” he said, putting the glasses back on.
“Not much to go on,” I admitted.
“We’re going to have to work on that. But in the meantime, what do you think all this means?”
“I think the crash might have been caused by a bad part, that Avidor was involved, maybe with the guy you’re chasing, and that the logbook is some kind of proof.”
“Of what?”
“Of the cause of the crash.”
He sat back, stuck his legs straight out, crossed them at the huaraches, and clasped his hands together on his belly. It looked like his thinking pose. “That could be one explanation,” he said. “If your friend McTavish found out about it, that would be a motive for murder. Do they know the cause of the accident yet?”
“Officially, they’re still investigating,” I said. “It’s only been a few months. But I’m wondering if they already suspect something, because of the way that Sentinel maintenance manager reacted in Boston.”
“Is it an NTSB investigation? Or the Ecuadorans?”
“Ecuador called in the NTSB.”
“Good,” he nodded. “That’s good. Now I’ve got a question for you. You said you talked to Pat Spain over at Miami-Dade.”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you give her the logbook? For all you know, it’s evidence. Why didn’t you hand it over to the detective working the case? That’s what most civilians would do.”
“I almost did. I took it over there to give it to her. But then I got this feeling that it wouldn’t have… not that she wouldn’t have done the right thing, but that it wouldn’t have helped John, or John’s family, for her to have it. I feel responsible to them, and it seemed at the time that it was better for me to have it than for her to have it.”
“You thought you could do more with it than she could?”
There was a delicate but unmistakable emphasis on ‘you.’ “I’m saying even if she could do more with it, I would.”
“Subtle distinction.”
“It didn’t seem subtle at the time. Detective Spain had a theory and she seemed to be happy with it. She didn’t seem interested in discussing alternative scenarios.”
“Because something is obvious,” he said, “doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“I know that. But I also knew John, and her theory doesn’t make any sense.”
“You said something about his brother last night. What’s that all about?”
I told him.
“You know,” he said, starting slowly, “one reason cops can do what they do is because they bring an objective point of view to proceedings. Sometimes people crack. Sometimes it’s the people who’ve worked the hardest and the longest. I’ve seen it over and over. Sometimes you don’t know people as well as you think you do.”
“If you’re saying I have a personal stake in this matter, you’re right. And if you’re saying you think the good detective should have the logbook, I’ll take it to her. But I don’t believe John was involved in a drug deal. Not for his brother. Not for any reason. He was a good man and he worked hard for everything he ever got.”
He looked up into the awning, studying the undercarriage as if
he wanted to see how it worked, what held it up. I couldn’t see behind the shades but I felt a crack in his resistance. I saw it in the tilt of his head, in the way he pressed his fingers together. A bubble of anticipation started way down deep, but I kept it in check.
“Let me talk to Patty on my own,” he said. “I know her from when I worked at the Bureau. She might tell me things she wouldn’t tell you.”
The bubble turned to a rush. “You worked for the FBI? Where?”
“Mostly down here, but I spent time in the New York office. Why?”
“Because John made a call to the FBI from his cell phone while he was down here.”
His interest level was rising steadily. “Was it the main number?”
“Yes. Is there a way to trace his call to a specific agent, or are we stuck with a call to the generic Feds?”
“Not traceable. The only way we could—” He stopped, smiled to himself, and shook his head.
“The only way we could find out who he called,” I offered helpfully, “is for you to ask around at the FBI and see what you can come up with.”
He let his sunglasses drop down his nose and peered at me over the rims. “I didn’t say I’d do that.” He paid the check and stood up. “Let’s walk.”
Walking slowly and at a distinct list to the left, I followed him down a small side street, past a pile of rebar that would turn a quaint old hotel into a featureless new condo development. We crossed another street and went through a park the size of a postage stamp where dogs inspected the grass, looking for their spot, and people with sand on their feet stood in line at public restrooms and changing booths. We went over a grassy swale, onto a wooden boardwalk, and there it was. I took in a deep breath and enjoyed my first real look at the ocean since I’d been there.
“Nice,” I said, leaning against one of the plank railings.
It was more than nice. It was as if someone had lifted the lid off of the world, had opened it up to air it out, to make space for the uncoiling of the neighborhood, of the city, of the continent into the wide-open, endless repository known as the Atlantic Ocean.
He leaned next to me, and we stood side by side, looking out to sea. “It’s nicer without the smoke.”
It was true. The light from the sun was dulled by the haze of smoke, but the heat was full force, and it felt good on my arms and my face after the long winter in New England and the long night in a Florida swamp. I felt my own uncoiling inside. Jack must have felt it, too.
“The man your buddy went to meet,” he said, “is named Jimmy Zacharias.”
Jimmy Zacharias. J.Z. I squinted into the sun and smiled. “What is the case you’re on?”
“Jimmy killed two men.”
“He killed two men and he’s still walking around in the world?”
“He’s responsible for the helicopter accident that killed them.”
“Oh.”
The muscles in his forearms tensed. “Just because he killed them with shoddy maintenance instead of a hollow point bullet doesn’t mean he’s any less responsible. And it doesn’t make it any less criminal.”
“I agree with you. I just had a different image in my mind is all. Who’s your client?”
“The insurance company for the manufacturer of the helicopter. Both widows are suing, but the manufacturer had nothing to do with this. This accident was caused by bad parts or bad maintenance or both.”
“I assume Jimmy worked on the helicopter.”
“One of his shops refurbished it and did some follow-up work. He has a financial interest in a handful of repair stations in the area. That’s how he launders his dirty parts.”
“Are you talking about FAA-certified repair stations?”
“No one would do business with one that wasn’t certified. That’s the whole point. He finds a business that seems perfectly legitimate, usually one that’s in trouble and needs cash. Then he slowly starts to mix the bad parts in with the good. He dummies up the paperwork, and that shit flows right on through and into airline operations and inventories all over the world.”
“Don’t these stations get inspected on a regular basis?”
“Some of these repair shop guys know a lot more than their inspectors ever will. A lot of them were mechanics for Eastern and Pan Am. And when he does get into trouble, Jimmy just changes the name of the place and gets recertified. He ran one station under four different names that I counted.”
“Where does he get the bad parts?”
“Wherever he can. From people like Avidor who steal for him. Jimmy was in the military, so he has access to a lot of military surplus. He has his own aircraft recovery and salvage business. That’s what you saw last night. He also keeps an eye on the junkyards. He’s not above doing a little strip-and-dip.”
“Strip-and-dip? Do I even want to know?”
“He gets scrapped parts from the junkyard, cleans them up, paints over the corrosion, dummies up the paperwork, and sells them.”
“Painting over the corrosion,” I said, “that must be the dip part.”
“You’d be amazed at how good they look with a new coat of paint.”
“Jimmy sounds like a real peach.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said.
“Why isn’t he in jail?”
“He’s smarter than your average swamp rat, and what he does, it’s hard to prove.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to prove what Jimmy did on this helicopter accident?”
“I don’t know. We’ve just identified the part that caused the crash. It’s pretty badly damaged, but we’ve got metallurgists and mechanics and engineers looking at it. If we can demonstrate that it’s bogus and tie it back to Jimmy, then we’ve got him.”
“Tie it back how?”
“Maintenance records, purchase orders. The logbook. In this business there is always a paper trail. It’s required. It’s just that the paperwork is sometimes forged. But I have a feeling about this. I think we’re going to get him this time.”
“This time?”
“If there’s no legitimate paper trail, I’ll find someone to flip on Jimmy. That’s why I’ve been watching him. I wanted to see who he’s working with these days. The parts business tends to be a closed community. Jimmy and I, we know lots of the same people.”
“And now you know Avidor. Maybe he’ll turn out to be a talker.”
“Maybe so.”
We drifted into an easy silence. I watched a group of noisy volleyball players and realized for the first time I hadn’t seen many children around. I looked as far as I could see from one end of the beach to the other. There was not one small person in sight.
“Look, Jack, I really would like to work on this with you. I can scrape together ten thousand dollars from my retirement accounts. That’s all I have to spend on the whole deal, including my expenses. So here’s my pitch: You take my case and I’ll give you all of the money that’s left when we find John’s murderer.”
“We?”
“You and me.”
“Together? That would be highly unusual.”
“Do you really think I’m going to sit around the pool reading Vanity Fair and drinking Cuba Libres while you’re out doing all the scut work?”
“Cuba Libres?”
“Isn’t that what you people drink down here?”
“Not since 1954. Don’t you have a job? Some place you have to be?”
“That’s a long story, but what it comes down to is this is where I have to be, and that is my deal.”
“Why are you so adamant about this?”
“Will knowing that make a difference in your decision?”
He gazed out over the turquoise waves and seemed to give the question serious thought, which I liked. “It might.”
“John and I got involved in something together at Logan. The truth is I got involved and he decided to help me.”
“What was it?”
“My predecessor there, the woman who was the general manager before
me, had died. That’s why the job was available for me. The police thought she’d committed suicide and that was the company line. The people who knew her couldn’t accept that she had killed herself, and it turned out she didn’t.”
“Murdered?”
“By a ramper. One of her own employees.”
He smiled lightly. “And you got involved?”
“He was my employee, too. I inherited him.”
“Ah.”
“I could have left it alone. Things in Boston had been left alone for a long time by a lot of different people. But there was something… I felt that I knew this woman—Ellen was her name—even though I’d never met her. We had a lot in common, and I couldn’t let it go until I had figured out why she had died.”
“Did you figure it out?”
“Yes.”
“And John helped you?”
“He provided me with information from the ramp that I never could have gotten without him. Things I had to know to understand what had happened to Ellen and why. He warned me a few times. Even though I was a member of management, he took my side against his union brothers. These were people he’d worked with side by side for years. Some of them he’d known since they were kids. And they weren’t happy about it. No one’s ever stood up for me like that.”
“That’s important to you, is it? Having someone stand up for you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the murderer?”
A cold wave passed through me, the same one I always felt at this point in the story. “The man who murdered Ellen died.”
“How?”
“He was chasing after me on the ramp. There was an accident and he died. Horribly.”
He turned slightly, enough to see my face when he asked, “And you feel bad about this?”
It was my turn to stare at the shimmering ocean. “Sometimes.”
He held out his hand. “Let me see that ring again.” I gave it to him and he studied it, turning it slowly. “I’d like to see this piece get back to the family it belongs to. It looks as if it might be important to someone.”
“And I’d like to find out who killed my friend. If it was Jimmy and we can prove it, maybe we both get something good out of the deal.”
The Alex Shanahan Series Page 48