I cleared my throat to get her attention. When that didn’t work, I took the magazine from her hands.
“Hey!” She looked up in annoyance. “Gimme that back.”
I closed the magazine and placed it out of her reach, then leaned across the counter and turned off the Walkman.
She glared at me. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting your attention.”
With a sigh, she removed the headset and laid it on the counter next to the Walkman cassette player. “We don’t have any cars available. Try Hertz or Avis.”
“I don’t need a car.”
“Oh, returning one? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll get my father. He needs to, like, check it over. You know?”
“I’m not returning a car, either. I’m a Private Investigator.”
Her eyes widened. She leaned forward, and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Really? You’re, like, a detective? Like in the movies? Do you carry a gun? Have you, you know, ever shot someone?”
I held up my hand like a traffic cop, hoping to stem the flow of words. “I’m looking for someone. I believe he rented a car from you nine or ten days ago.” I took a business card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “I’m helping out the Stowe police, and would appreciate your cooperation.”
She took the card from me, holding it gingerly as though she was afraid it would bite. “Atlantic City? You’re, like, a long way from home.”
I swallowed hard to choke down my impatience. “Yes, I am. And the sooner I finish my investigation, the sooner I can get back.”
She took the hint, shifting smoothly into business mode. “Let me get my father for you. I was away on winter break for a couple of weeks, and just got back last night.”
My card in hand, she disappeared through a curtained doorway, and was soon replaced by a short, stubby man with a shock of unruly gray hair the consistency of a steel-wool pad. His brown, corduroy work pants were held in place by both belt and suspenders, and his red, plaid, flannel shirt was open at the neck. He walked up to the counter, placed my card on the surface, and rested the palms of his gnarled hands on either side of the rectangle of cardboard. “What can I do for you, Mister?” He glanced down at the card, then looked up squarely at me. “Mr. Dickens?”
“As I told your daughter, I’m working with the Stowe Police Department on a kidnapping investigation. I’m looking for information on a customer of yours. A Mr. Tyler Wilkins.”
“Uh-huh.” He held out his hand. “Your credentials?” I took out my PI license and showed it to him. He examined it with care, and emitted a skeptical grunt. “Suppose you know this license is suspended,” he said, his expression daring me to deny it.
“It was due to be reinstated a couple of days ago, but I haven’t been home to collect my mail.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, Mr. MacTavish, you’re welcome to verify my credentials with Captain Laporte of the Stowe police.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mister. And my name isn’t MacTavish. It’s Cutler. Curtis Cutler. I bought this place from MacTavish a few years back. Didn’t see any point in spending money to repaint the signs.”
“How about it, Mr. Cutler? Can you tell me anything about Tyler Wilkins?”
“Uh-yup. Give me a minute to pull his file.” He turned and called out to his daughter, “Mindy, I need the file for that Wilkins guy. The one the police were wanting to know about.”
“While we’re waiting,” I said, “can you answer a question or two about Wilkins?”
“Mebbe.”
My billfold was still resting on the counter, and I saw his eyes drift in its direction. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, laid it on the counter next to my business card and returned the billfold to my pocket.
Cutler’s hand slid over to the twenty. He picked it up, held it to the light, and checked the serial number against a list taped to the wall behind the counter. Satisfied, he folded the banknote in half and slipped it into his breast pocket. I watched the performance with a raised eyebrow. “Nothing personal,” he said with a wink. “Can’t be too careful. What do you want to know?”
“For starters, did Wilkins reserve the car ahead of time?”
“Uh-nope. He was a drop-in. Said the car rental agency he’d reserved with had messed up, and he needed something in a hurry.”
“Was he alone?”
“He came into the office alone, but there was another feller pacing outside, waiting for him. Best I can tell you, they went off together.”
“Didn’t you go outside with him?”
“Uh-nope.” He shook his head. “Cold night. I just handed him the key and told him where the car was parked.”
Mindy slipped through the curtained doorway, handed a manila file folder to her father and disappeared as silently as she had come. Cutler laid the folder on the counter in front of him, his hand resting on it.
“Don’t suppose I could have a look at the file?” I asked.
“Mebbe.” His other hand patted the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. The pocket that held the folded twenty-dollar bill. With a sigh, I retrieved my billfold from my pocket and extracted a pair of tens. I placed them on the folder next to his hand and waited. The corners of his mouth twitched into what I took to be a smile of satisfaction. When removed his hand from the folder and picked up the two sawbucks, I reached for the file.
While Cutler was engaged in his routine of checking the banknotes, I skimmed through the information in the file. I thought about asking for a photocopy of the rental agreement, but I was running low on cash. Instead, I rummaged around in my pockets for a scrap of paper and jotted down the salient points. Wilkins had rented a blue 1981 Chevrolet Citation, Vermont plate number KN537, on February 11th. He paid cash in advance for a two-week rental. The photocopy of his driver’s license showed him to be a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. I knew the Stowe police had found his license when they went through his pockets, but I copied down the number and expiration date anyway before closing the file and sliding it back across the counter to Cutler.
“Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything odd you might have noticed?”
He thought about that for a while before gifting me with a slow nod. “Mebbe.” I held my breath, expecting a request for yet another twenty dollars, but he surprised me. “There was something I wondered about.”
“Yes?”
“Uh-yup. This Wilkins feller said he was here for the skiing. He asked me where he could buy some gear.” He shook his head slowly. “Bothered me at the time, but I told myself it wasn’t my business. Seems to me, though, that someone who flew all the way from Nevada to Vermont for the skiing would’ve brought his own gear with him.”
“Mebbe.” I waved a half-salute in farewell. His answering guffaw followed me out the door and back to my car.
Chapter Thirteen
I started the car and let it idle, waiting for the heater to kick in. As the frost on the windshield began to thaw, so did my brain. I sat for several minutes, thinking about my next move. I had confirmed what the Stowe police already had found out. Wilkins/Zyklos had rented a car in Burlington. The only new piece of information was that a second ‘feller’ was with him. Hardly worth the hour’s drive.
I turned off the engine, closed my eyes, and tried to put myself in the place of the kidnappers. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment snatch. On the contrary, it was choreographed, and had the smell of deep pockets underwriting the caper. Zyklos arrived a full ten days ahead of the target date, giving himself plenty of time to become familiar with the area, and to sort out all of the logistics. If he had come by car, where was it? Did his accomplice, that mysterious second ‘feller’ who waited outside in the cold at the car rental agency, use it as the getaway vehicle? Somehow, that scenario didn’t feel right. Zyklos most likely had flown in, I decided.
Where would Zyklos have stayed for the nine or ten nights between his arrival and Artie’s abduction? There were dozens, perhaps hundr
eds, of hotels, inns, B&Bs, and vacation rental cottages within an hour’s drive of Stowe. Let the police handle that part of the investigation, I told myself. They have the manpower to go door-to-door.
What about the perp’s getaway plan? If Zyklos and his accomplice had arrived by plane, it would make sense for them to leave the same way. Would they have taken the boy on a commercial flight? Not likely. It was too risky. A private plane, perhaps? My eyelids sprang open, and I sat up straight. Morrisville-Stowe Airport was capable of handling small jets like the Lear that Susan had chartered for our emergency flight. I started the engine, put the car into reverse, and then stopped. It didn’t make sense. Why would Zyklos fly into Stowe, then come all the way to Burlington to rent a car? I shifted into Park, shut off the engine and went back inside the rental office.
Cutler was still behind the counter. “Car problems, Mister?”
“No, but I have a question. Do private planes ever fly into Burlington airport?”
“Uh-yup.”
“Do the passengers go through the main terminal, or is there a separate building?”
“They have their own terminal.”
“How do I get there?”
He rubbed the nape of his neck. “Turn right out of the parking lot, go about 1,000 feet, then make a left onto Aviation Avenue. It’ll lead you directly to High Flight Aviation.”
A few minutes later, I rolled into a sparsely populated lot, and parked the car up against a snowbank near the entrance to a squat, precast-concrete building with very few windows and not a single redeeming architectural feature. I got out of the car and scanned the parking lot, which held no more than a half-dozen parked cars. My eyes came to rest on a snow-topped, blue car sitting by itself in a far corner of the lot. I walked over, detouring around the icy patches scattered randomly over the plowed surface. I could feel my pulse quicken as I approached. The vehicle appeared to be, it was, a blue Chevrolet Citation. I retrieved my scribbled notes from my pocket and checked the license plate. The number matched.
Turning on my heel, I picked my way across the lot and entered the building. The interior layout was as utilitarian as the exterior. My footsteps echoing off the bare, concrete walls, I walked across the cavernous space to an unoccupied counter marked High Flight Pilot Services. A sign on the wall behind the counter read ‘Ring bell for service.’ I tapped the bell, and a man wearing a yellow safety vest over a heavy wool turtleneck sweater appeared. A High Flight Aviation security badge identifying him as Jerome Robbins dangled from a chain around his neck. “ Can I help you with something?” he asked.
I looked him over. He was fifty-ish, his short-cropped, red hair turning gray. His face was weathered and his hands rough. “My name is Damien Dickens,” I said, handing him a business card and flashing my PI license. “I’m looking for a missing boy. He’s about 12 years old, 4’8” tall, with hazel eyes, and sandy hair. His face is roundish, and his hair tends to fall into his face. He was last seen wearing ski clothes: a red jacket, close-fitting black ski pants, and downhill-ski boots. Seen anyone like that in the last couple of days?”
He ran his hand over his scalp, frowning in thought. “It’s possible,” his voice trailed off and he shook his head. “I really couldn’t say for certain.”
I decided to try a different tack. “Do you get a lot of private charters here?”
“Quite a few,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“Do any of the planes and pilots stick around, waiting on their clients?”
“Not as a rule. People who can afford to leave a private plane and a pilot sitting idle for several days typically opt for ritzier destinations, I imagine.”
“So, how does it usually work? With a private charter, I mean.”
“Well, most folks who charter a plane will fix a date with the charter outfit for the return trip. It’s kinda like arranging for a taxi or limo to pick you up at a specific day and time. It might not even be the same plane or the same pilot doing the return trip. Depends on the outfit’s scheduling.”
“So, Jerome, just to be sure I understand, a chartered plane never hangs around waiting for the client?”
He started to reply, then paused to scratch his head. “Now I think about it, there was a plane parked in one of our hangers for several days recently.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe it was there for maintenance.”
My pulse quickened, but I managed to keep my voice matter-of-fact. “How recently? Is it still here?”
“Give me a minute to check on that. Wait here.”
I cooled my heels, waiting for Robbins to return. There was a large ledger lying open on the countertop. I was about to yield to the temptation of browsing through it when he reappeared, accompanied by a desk jockey sporting a tweed jacket, gray trousers, a cream-colored shirt, and a brown-on-brown patterned necktie done up in a half-Windsor knot. He sized me up through a pair of washed-out, blue eyes magnified by the strongest set of eyeglass lenses I had ever seen. “My name is Dobbins,” he said. “I understand you are inquiring about a charter.”
I introduced myself, went through the ritual exchange of business cards, and asked whether there was some place we could talk. He invited me to follow him, and we walked across the open floor space to his office. He told me to take a seat, closed his door, and settled himself behind his desk.
I gave him an overview of the situation. “I’m working for the missing boy’s family, in cooperation with the Stowe police. I believe at least one of the suspects may have arrived by private plane. He rented a car from Scottie MacTavish’s down the road from here. The rental car is now parked outside this building, in a far corner of the lot.” I leaned forward in my chair. “This could mean one of two things. Either the suspect dumped the rental car in your lot and drove off in a different vehicle, or he left town the way he arrived. By plane.”
Dobbins swiveled his chair around to a credenza piled with papers and books. Pulling open a file drawer, he took out a ledger and placed it on his desk blotter. “This is our master log book. Give me those dates again, please.”
“The car was rented on February 11th. The boy went missing on Sunday, February 20th.”
Dobbins opened the book to a page marked with a blue ribbon. His lips moved silently as he ran his finger down the ledger sheet. Turning the page, he repeated the process, his finger stopping two-thirds of the way down. Inviting me to walk around the desk and look over his shoulder, he explained, “This plane arrived the afternoon of 11 February. The pilot requested a full maintenance check. Said he had to wait for his passenger anyway, and this was as good a place as any to conduct his scheduled maintenance. He parked the plane in one of our hangars, and we went through his checklist over the course of a couple of days. He paid extra for us to keep the plane in the maintenance hangar until his client was ready to leave. Said he wanted to protect it from the elements.”
I followed his finger as he traced along the line in the ledger. “Am I reading this correctly? He left Sunday night?”
“That’s correct. The flight was logged out at 2147 hours. 9:47pm.”
I had more questions, but they would have to wait. “Is there a phone I can use?” I asked.
“Pay phones are on the west wall of the terminal.”
I walked over to the bank of pay telephones and placed a collect call to Susan. “Is Laporte there yet?” I asked, brushing aside her questions.
He must have been listening in on an extension. “That you, Mr. Dickens?” he asked. “Any news?”
“I found the rental car.” I recited the make, model and plate number to him, and described exactly where the vehicle was parked. Laporte double-checked his notes while I waited, confirming the information matched the report he had received. Once satisfied, he told me he would ask the Burlington police to send a team to take charge of the vehicle. Then he asked whether I had found out anything else.
“Not sure yet,” I replied. “I still have some checking to do. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know som
ething more.”
Chapter Fourteen
What next? A low-pitched rumble from my mid-section reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I grabbed a couple of coffees and a box of doughnuts from the Duncan’s Donuts kiosk next to the restrooms and returned to Dobbins’s office.
I stuck my head inside his office door. He was on the phone, but cleared a space on his desk with a sweep of his free hand when he saw what I was carrying, and motioned for me to take a seat.
I demolished a couple of doughnuts and drank half a cup of coffee while I waited for Dobbins to finish his call. At last, he replaced the receiver on its cradle, reached for his cup of coffee, and chose a double-chocolate with sprinkles from the depleted selection of doughnuts. He leaned back in his chair with a self-mocking smile. “I always was a cheap date. What else can I help you with?”
I paused to bite into a sugar-coated jelly doughnut. “I need to learn as much as possible about the plane, including the names of the crew members and of any passengers. Where the plane came from, and where it was going when it left here on Sunday.”
“You think the kidnapped boy was on that plane when it took off?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine. I’d like to speak to anyone who might have seen something, or who had any contact with the pilot.”
“Some of the information you want will be found in the flight plans. The pilot would have checked in at the counter to close his inbound flight plan on arrival, and would have filed an outbound plan before departure. Jerome Robbins, who you were talking to earlier, will have copies of those. I’d suggest you check with him while I look through the duty roster to see whether there is anyone around today who might have spoken with the pilot or seen his passengers.”
Robbins was speaking into a walkie-talkie as I approached his counter. He acknowledged with a ’10-4’ and replaced the device on the countertop before greeting me with a nod. “Mr. Dobbins wants I should show you the flight plan log, and he told me to answer any questions you might have.” Pulling a ledger from a shelf beneath the countertop, he dropped it onto the flat surface with a thud, opened it, and used a moistened index finger to turn its pages. “Mr. Dobbins said you were interested in a plane that arrived February 11th and departed on the 20th?”
The Gold Dragon Caper: A Damien Dickens Mystery (Damien Dickens Mysteries Book 4) Page 7