The Gold Dragon Caper: A Damien Dickens Mystery (Damien Dickens Mysteries Book 4)

by Phyllis Entis

  Desperate to escape, she jerked her leg up, and felt her knee make contact. With a loud groan, he collapsed on the floor. Curled into a fetal position, he writhed in agony, clutching at his groin. Millie sprang across the room, grabbed the discarded P-trap and struck him on the side of the head. He slumped, unconscious, and she ran for the door, her heart hammering. As she reached for the handle, she heard a key turn in the lock, and the sound of voices just outside the room. She ducked into the closet and slid the door shut, leaving a tiny opening through which she could see and hear.

  “Boss?” a voice called out. “Boss? What happened?”

  Millie watched as two men ran over to where Turpin lay still. They knelt down, their backs to her. The door leading to the hallway was open. This was her chance. She crept from her hiding place in the closet, ran out of the room, and sped down the corridor to the emergency staircase as though chased by a flock of demons. She half ran, half tumbled down the stairs, and burst through the emergency exit door onto the sidewalk, setting off alarms in her wake. Propelled by adrenaline and blind instinct, Mille raced north on Casino Center Boulevard, ignoring the startled stares of pedestrians and drivers.

  She ducked into the rear entrance of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino and came to a halt, winded. The lighting was dim, and she leaned against a wall for support as she waited for her eyes to adjust. She stumbled down a wheelchair ramp into the casino, her legs rubbery, and barely able to support her. The noise and cigarette smoke overloaded her exhausted brain. The room began to spin and, with a quiet moan, she slid to the floor.

  Millie opened her eyes. A hotel security guard and a Las Vegas police constable were standing over her, their faces grim. “Get up,” the constable told her. When she didn’t react, the constable gestured to the security guard. Standing on either side of her, they placed their hands under her armpits and lifted her from the floor. “You’re coming with me,” the constable said. “You can sleep it off in the drunk tank.” He draped her arm across his shoulders, holding it with one hand, and put his free arm around Millie’s waist, half-carrying her as he walked her outside to his patrol car. Disengaging himself from her, he loaded her into the back seat of the car and drove to the downtown precinct jail. “Got a ‘drunk and disorderly’ for you,” he told the booking sergeant as he handed Millie over to the jail’s Matron. “No ID. You’ll have to log her as a Jane Doe until she sobers up.”

  Part Three

  Promises to keep

  Chapter Twenty-six

  February 23, 1983

  Warrenburg executed a smooth take-off, followed by a rapid climb to his planned cruising altitude of 43,000 feet. Once he leveled off, I unbuckled my seat belt and joined him in the cockpit. As I slid into the co-pilot seat, he pointed toward a headset dangling from a hook beneath the instrument panel. I adjusted the cushioned top strap to fit my head, and positioned the padded earpieces over my ears. His voice sounded as though it was coming from inside my skull. “Ever sat in the cockpit of one of these before?”

  “This is my first time,” I said. “I’ve flown in a Cessna, but never in the front seat of a baby like this. Is it yours?”

  He snorted a laugh in reply. “I wish! It belongs to a consortium of about a half-dozen New Jersey companies, including Sutherland Enterprises. I’m the senior pilot on call whenever one of the members needs the plane. There’s another pilot who subs for me when I’m on vacation or otherwise unavailable.” He stroked the leather cockpit trim with the fondness most men reserve for their wives or girlfriends. “She’s a beauty, don’t you think?”

  He busied himself with the radio and the controls for the next several minutes, then removed his hands from the yoke and leaned back in his seat. “She’s on autopilot now. She’ll fly herself most of the way, unless we encounter a weather system. I’ve routed us away from major airports, and we shouldn’t encounter much traffic at this altitude.” Warrenburg gave me a penetrating look. “My passengers don’t usually come up front unless they need something special, Mr. Dickens. I’m at your disposal. What can I do to help?”

  I told him what I had learned about the DC-3 and its pilot. “The flight plan Zachary Smits filed when he left Burlington indicated his destination to be Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. Is there some way to find out whether he landed there? And, if so, whether he’s still there? Or did he simply refuel, file another flight plan and leave?”

  “What makes you think he might not have landed at MSP?”

  The constant pressure from the headset was starting to irritate my ears. I took a moment to make an adjustment before answering. “I’m trying to think like the kidnapper. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to be noticed. I would be inclined to avoid large, commercial airports where a DC-3 would look as out of place as a Wright brothers’ plane.”

  “Let me try something,” Warrenburg said. “I have an old buddy who works for Twin Cities Aviation, the FBO at MSP.” Noticing my puzzled expression, he explained that FBO stood for ‘Fixed Base Operator,’ an airport’s General Aviation aircraft service center. “I’ll see whether the FBO at Bader Field can patch us through to MSP. We’re too far away to raise them directly.” He keyed his microphone and explained to the radio operator in Atlantic City what he needed. With my headset, I could hear both sides of the conversation. We waited as the operator patched a phone line into his radio set and placed a long-distance call to MSP.

  We heard the phone ring once, twice, three times. I was starting to wonder whether anyone was on duty, when a gruff voice answered, “MSP-Twin Cities flight desk. Swenson speaking.”

  Warrenburg flashed me a thumbs-up. “Hey, Swede,” he said.

  “That you, Curly?” I turned to look at Warrenburg’s buzz-cut. He caught my raised eyebrow and shrugged. “What can I do for you, pal?”

  “I need some information about a charter that was slated to come through MSP recently. A DC-3.”

  “Can you give me the date and tail number?”

  “Wait one.” Warrenburg said. I reached into my pocket and handed over a copy of the flight plan the DC-3’s pilot had filed in Burlington.

  “That plane didn’t land here,” Swenson reported after a few minutes of delay. “There was nothing in our log, so I checked with the tower. The pilot requested a diversion to Fleming Field. As you know, that’s in South St. Paul, about ten miles from here as the crow flies.”

  I motioned from my mouth to the microphone, letting Warrenburg know I wanted to speak. “Mr. Swenson, my name is Damien Dickens. I’m a private investigator, on the trail of a missing kid. Is there any way you can find out whether the DC-3 landed at the other airport, and where he went from there?”

  “Well…”

  “It’s a matter of life and death, Mr. Swenson.”

  “Wait one.” We sat in silence for the better part of ten minutes before Swenson came back on the line. “Okay, I just spoke with our desk at Fleming. The DC-3 made a refueling stop there. While it was on the ground, the pilot filed a new flight plan. Destination was given as BDG. Blanding, Utah.”

  “Thanks, Swede,” Warrenburg said. “I owe you a drink next time I’m in town.”

  Swenson chuckled. “A drink, hell. You owe me a night on the town for this one.”

  “Ten-four, pal. Thanks again.” Warrenburg double-keyed his mike, signaling Bader Field to end the call before turning to me. “So your hunch was correct. He’s heading for Blanding.”

  “And so are we,” I replied.

  Leaving the pilot to request the necessary change to our flight plan, I returned to the passenger cabin to check on Hershey. He was curled up on one of the seats, and appeared to be sound asleep. Deciding to follow his example, I buckled my seat belt, tilted the seat back until it was almost horizontal, and closed my eyes. Although the whine of the engines penetrated the cabin, the sound was muted by the insulation in the hull. Soothed by the steady hum, I dozed.

  Warrenburg called me to the cockpit when we were about an hour outside of Blanding.
Susan was on the radio, asking to speak with me. I went forward, slipped into the co-pilot’s seat, and donned the headset. Following Warrenburg’s instruction, I pressed the ‘Talk’ button on the steering column. “This is Dickens,” I said. “Over.”

  I heard Susan’s voice over the radio static. “Damien, this is Susan. Can you hear me?”

  I asked what was up.

  “I have some news for you about the boarding pass stub,” she said. “It’s from a US Air flight. Pittsburgh to Burlington. The airline wouldn’t release the passenger’s name, but they did tell my travel agent that the person assigned to the seat was a male, traveling alone. His itinerary originated in Las Vegas. By the way, there was no return reservation. It was a one-way fare.”

  Millie would have found a way to finesse the passenger’s name out of the airline, I told myself. More than ever, I resented the emotional hold her brother had over her.

  “Call Laporte,” I told Susan. “Explain about the boarding pass and give him the details. The airline will release the passenger’s name to the police. If Laporte asks why I didn’t tell him about this before, explain that I forgot about it until after we had left Stowe.

  Susan said she would bring Laporte up to speed, and I asked her whether there was any news on Duke Zyklos

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ll ask Captain Laporte when I speak to him. One more thing you should know. Turpin cancelled our meeting. I received a call from his secretary, telling me he was out of town. No other explanation.”

  I could hear the frustration in her voice. “Has there been any further communication from the kidnappers?”

  “Not a peep. I’m trying to decide whether to sit tight here in Atlantic City, go back to Stowe, or fly out to Vegas. I need to deal with the problems at the Henderson plant.”

  I told her what we had learned about the DC-3’s revised flight plan, and suggested she stay put in Atlantic City until I had a chance to follow the Blanding lead. “We’ll be on the ground in less than an hour. I’ll phone you with an update from there.”

  After telling me she would spend the rest of the day and evening catching up on paperwork, and could be reached at the office, Susan signed off. Declining Warrenburg’s offer to remain in the cockpit during landing, I returned to the main cabin. I preferred not to see the pavement coming up to slap me in the face at twin-jet speed. Hershey was panting. Landing wasn’t his favorite part of flying either. I sat next to him, buckled up, and rested my arm across his back for comfort. His and mine. “We’ll be on the ground soon, boy,” I told him, “and it will be time for you to go to work again. We need to find Artie.” I was hoping the DC-3 was still on the ground at Blanding airport, and that we could persuade the pilot to let us check out his plane. If Artie had been on board, Hershey would know. And I’d be able to use that knowledge to pressure the pilot into revealing the kidnapper’s identity and his hiding place.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  We glided to a smooth stop on the parking apron near the lone building, a long, low structure, unadorned except for the faded lettering spelling out ‘Blanding Municipal Airport.’ Hershey and I waited for Warrenburg to complete his shut-down routine, then followed him down the fold-out steps to the pavement. I squinted in the bright light of the early afternoon sun. We had gained two hours of daylight. It was 3:30 back east, but only 1:30 here in Utah. I looked around as we crossed the pavement, but there was no sign of a twin-propellor plane. The only aircraft in view were a few single-engine Cessnas and Pipers. Warrenburg pulled open an aluminum-framed glass door marked ‘Entrance’ and held it as Hershey and I walked inside.

  The interior of the building was dimly lit. I willed my eyes to adjust to the flickering light emanating from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures as I followed Warrenburg over to the Flight Services desk. Once he completed the formalities of closing his flight plan and had arranged for refueling, I identified myself to the desk jockey and asked to speak with the manager.

  “That would be me.” He gave me an appraising look, his brow wrinkling above a pair of thin, sand-colored eyebrows and washed-out blue eyes. “The name’s Brady. Jared Brady. How can I help you?”

  I returned his look, measure for measure. “Is there someplace private we can talk?”

  “What’s wrong with right here?”

  I looked around. Except for us, the building appeared to be deserted. “Suits me,” I said with a shrug. “Here’s the situation.” As I gave him a capsule summary, his face elongated, his frown creating deep creases on either side of his mouth.

  “Zack flew in Monday morning. Cleaned out the plane, refueled and took off for Vegas.”

  “Did he close out his flight plan with you?” Warrenburg asked.

  Brady retrieved a 3-ring binder from a shelf below the counter, and flipped it open. “We put the most recent records on top,” he explained for our benefit. “Don’t get many flight plans filed here. The recreational pilots fly VFR mostly. They’re not required to file a plan.”

  “VFR?”

  “Stands for ‘Visual Flight Rules.’ This is Zack’s form, right on top.” He turned the binder around for me to read. “It was an unusual route for him. Minneapolis to Blanding.”

  “In what way was it unusual?”

  “Well,” Brady said, “except when he’s flying supplies for the National Guard, Zack mostly does short-hop charters for one of the Vegas casinos. He’ll ferry a group from Salt Lake City to Vegas, pick up a group in Vegas heading home to LA or San Diego, pick up a group there to bring to Vegas. Shuttle runs. Comes back here a couple of times a month to take a few days off. Can’t imagine what he was doing in Minneapolis. It’s way off his beaten path.”

  “Was he carrying any passengers when he arrived on Monday?”

  Brady shook his head. “Not so far as I know. If there were any, they never left the plane.”

  “Mind if I have a look at that flight plan?” Without waiting for a reply, Warrenburg reached for the binder and pulled it closer to him. He peered at the form, removed his cap and scratched his scalp. “This seem odd to you?” he asked Brady. “Look at the departure time from Minneapolis.”

  Brady turned the binder around and examined the hand-printed notations. “That is odd.”

  “What?” I almost shouted in my frustration. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a huge discrepancy in flight time,” Brady replied. “Zack departed Minneapolis late Sunday night. He didn’t land here until 8:17am Monday. Doesn’t make sense. At its cruising speed, a DC-3 shouldn’t take more than 5 or 6 hours to make that flight, even with a headwind.”

  I looked from Brady to Warrenburg. “You’re the experts. What do you think happened?”

  “Either he wrote down the wrong departure time,” Brady replied, “or else he decided to set down somewhere for the night. Don’t know why he wouldn’t have just spend the night in Minneapolis in that case.”

  “Does Smits often make that kind of error? Entering incorrect information in a flight plan, I mean?”

  Brady shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Zack’s a careful pilot, Mr. Dickens. I’ve never known him to make that type of mistake since I’ve worked here. And I’ve been managing this place more than ten years.”

  I grunted an acknowledgment, frustrated that the DC-3 was out of reach. “When do you think Smits is likely to return to Blanding?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” Brady replied, “but based on my experience, I’d say not for a week, at least.”

  “And he cleaned out the plane before he left?”

  “That’s right. I saw him haul a green trash bag out to the dumpster bin.”

  “How often is the bin emptied?” I tried to damp down a rising bubble of excitement. Maybe we hadn’t hit a dead end after all.

  “Every Thursday morning, first thing. You’re not thinking of dumping all that trash on my tarmac, are you?” Brady frowned.

  “If I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes to find the boy I’m looking for.
If he was on that plane, his scent might be on an item in the trash. My dog will be able to identify it.”

  Brady looked from me to Hershey and back again. “Suit yourself,” he conceded with a shake of the head. “The dumpster bin is at the far end of the parking apron. I’ll expect you to tidy up after you complete your search.”

  I led the way to the dumpster, Hershey on leash at my side, and Warrenburg bringing up the rear. Clambering over the lip of the large, corrugated-metal bin, I found myself waist-deep in green trash bags. One by one, I tipped the bulging bags over the side and into Warrenburg’s waiting hands. By the time we were done, my arms were aching, and my feet were slipping in a layer of accumulated slop covering the bottom of the bin. I hoisted myself back out of the dumpster and looked at the double row of twenty trash bags. There was no way to tell which bag had come from the DC-3. We would have to check each one.

  Kneeling on the pavement at one end of the front row, I undid the twist-tie and spread the first bag open. One by one, I worked my way down one row of bags while Warrenburg, following my example, took care of the bags in the other row. Once all twenty bags were untied, I went over to Hershey, unclipped his leash and told him to ‘find Artie.’ With a bark and a whine, he trotted over to the nearest bag, and stuck his head all the way inside. After several seconds, he drew back, casting me a worried look. I pointed him to the next bag and urged, “Hershey, find Artie!” The second bag also was unproductive, as were the next dozen or so. Then, in the fifth bag of the second row, he found something. With a muffled bark, he pulled his head out of the bag, something dangling from his mouth. Hershey walked over to me, dropped the item at my feet and sat, tail wagging, with what I could swear was a smile on his face. I praised him as I bent over to examine his find. The ski mitt had no identifying marks on it, not even a brand label, but it was about the right size for a boy’s hand.