Stranded

by Alice Sharpe

  “I just have a feeling,” he said. “Well?”

  “I’m not sure. Alex, what in the world is this?”

  As she spoke, she lifted the recovered bottle of Vita-Drink whose label had long ago disintegrated. It was still damp although it had been laying in a towel. When she hefted it, her fingers must have slid on the accumulated goo that had attached itself to the outside. The compression of her grasping it produced a tiny spurt of the purplish fluid to hit her on the arm.

  “It’s one of your drinks,” she said, using the towel to wipe away months of slime.

  “Is it open?” Alex asked.

  She started to twist the cap. The pressure from her fingers released another tiny spout of fluid. “The cap is on tight,” she said, “but it’s got a leak.” By now they were all standing close to each other staring at the Vita-Drink. “You think this was drugged?” she added. “But the cap is still sealed.”

  Nate took his key ring out of his pocket and separated a tiny flashlight from the keys. He shined it on the bottle. “Squeeze it again, Jess.”

  She did so and yet another squirt shot through the air and hit Alex in the middle of the chest. “There it is, see? A tiny hole, up high on the shoulder of the plastic bottle.”

  “Maybe it deteriorated under the water,” Jessica said, though her voice hinted that even she didn’t believe that.

  “That’s the kind of hole a hypodermic needle makes,” Sarah said as she peered intently.

  “You were drugged,” Nate said, gripping Alex’s arm.

  Again Alex stared at the fluid. It looked so innocent.

  “Who knew you drank these when you flew?” Sarah asked.

  It was Jessica and Nate who laughed. “Everyone who knows him knows he’s addicted to these things.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it an addiction,” Alex said, but he knew his fondness for them was common knowledge at work, at home, at the airport—everywhere.

  Alex gently took the bottle and looked at the liquid through the clear plastic. “But I didn’t notice a different smell or taste.” He lifted his shirt and sniffed the spot the liquid had hit. He could detect no strange odor.

  “We need to have it tested,” Jessica said. “The police lab—”

  “No,” Alex and Nate said in tandem.

  “I don’t want to advertise I took anything off the plane,” Alex explained.

  “What about your logbook?” Jessica asked. The book was sealed inside a plastic bag.

  “That’s personal,” he said. “I left all the flight information for the feds to find. I don’t know if any of the log is readable anymore but like I told you, I don’t want some government lab worker going through my daily entries. Nor am I going to admit I took the drink. We’ll have to find an independent lab.”

  He’d been so quiet they’d all but forgotten that John Miter still stood nearby. He spoke up now. “I’ll get it analyzed if you want.”

  Alex looked him in the eye. He might not know a lot about Miter’s past—or frankly, anything at all—but he did have a good gut feeling about the guy. “You know of one?”

  Miter smiled. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Miter laughed softly. “Leave it to me,” he said.

  Nate caught Alex’s gaze and Alex could see he was unsure. After all, Nate didn’t know John. “I want a sample of it to take back to Arizona,” Nate said. “It’s better if we split it up.”

  “I agree,” Alex said.

  Jessica found a couple of small bottles of seltzer in the ice chest in which they’d packed their lunch, and poured out the contents. Alex transferred a third of the old vitamin drink to one empty bottle, a third to another, and handed them to John and Nate respectively.

  “You don’t quite trust me,” John said, his eyes glinting.

  “I don’t quite trust anyone,” Alex said, “though I deeply appreciate all the help you’ve been.”

  Miter’s gaze was direct and intense and, truthfully, intimidating, and then he smiled and took the sample. “Smart man,” he said, and laughing, checked the twist top.

  * * *

  AFTER THEY DROVE Nate and Sarah to the airport, Alex and Jessica continued on to the Machi house. It had been a long, emotionally draining day for both of them, full of highs and lows and discoveries. And yet Alex felt connected to his life in a way he hadn’t in longer than he cared to remember.

  He wasn’t as certain as Jessica that Lynda Summers’s death hadn’t been an accident. It didn’t seem to him the woman knew much about her son’s life even though he lived in her house. What threat could Lynda have posed for anyone unless she was into something herself that Alex knew nothing about? Why would someone murder her?

  Had she seen or heard someone that night Billy went missing?

  The coroner had said Billy was unconscious when he met his death. There was no proof Billy had ridden his bike to the drive-in. Tomorrow, Alex planned to drive the road between Billy’s house and his own, looking for someone who might have seen Billy late that night. Maybe he’d met his attacker along that road. Or maybe he’d made it all the way home and gone out back to the shed without checking in with his mother who it appeared slept in front of the television every night. Maybe Lynda had heard her son’s abductor.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you what the chief said when you called him this morning and told him you weren’t coming in today,” Jessica said as they pulled up outside a modest house in a forty-year-old subdivision. A few toys lay scattered across the front lawn while a couple of cars and a truck were parked in the driveway.

  “I told him I wasn’t feeling well. I admit I didn’t like lying to him. Frank Smyth isn’t as bad as I thought he was. I just had to do this today.”

  She smiled at him. “You don’t sound much like the job-first-at-any-cost cop I married, you know.”

  “Maybe I’ve finally grown up. There is nothing more important to me than you and our baby.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “But it’s even more than that,” he admitted. “Seeing my plane, listening to Nate, well, you know, the big hits the country has taken from foreign terrorists are terrible and frightening. But somehow, we rally afterward, we declare a common enemy, we convince ourselves, over time, that we can prepare ourselves, protect ourselves.” He stared straight ahead, then glanced at her.

  “This is different. These people aim lower and closer to the belly, if you know what I mean. Their goal isn’t massive loss of life, it’s loss of well-being, of the safety of doing mundane things or observing traditional events. It’s Americans going after other Americans. It’s power hungry people manipulating innocents into thinking with their adrenaline instead of their heads, listening to their fears instead of their consciences. They have to be stopped.”

  “I know,” she said softly. They were silent for a moment before she added, “Your friend John Miter is a little spooky.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t give him all that Vita-Drink. If I had to choose someone who might be in on a plot of some kind, I guess he would come to mind.”

  “He does look the part, I grant you that. But remember, I met him way before Labor Day last year and the fact that Nate and Mike and I got involved in that mall shooting and subsequently everything else was pure chance. Nate and I went to a mall because of a delayed flight with nothing on our minds other than finding something to eat in the food court. Mike told us he was there because he needed new jeans and they were having a sale at one of the stores. It was just chance.”

  “I’m still glad Nate took some of the water with him.”

  “And we have the bottle. Okay, let’s go talk to Tony.”

  Tony’s wife, Noreen, insisted they sit at the table and have a piece of strawberry pie, an offer neither Alex nor Jessi
ca felt inclined to refuse. She was as friendly and generous as her husband, balancing kids and home like a seasoned pro.

  Alex took out his camera, and while they ate pie, downloaded his pictures onto Tony’s computer. While Jessica helped Noreen clear away the dishes, Alex and Tony studied the photographs.

  “These are pretty clear,” Tony said, scanning the images.

  Alex used the tip of a pencil to point at the screen. “This is the cap,” he said.

  “Holy hell!” Tony murmured, leaning closer to study the image. “The safety twist wire is completely gone. And what’s that hole? Do you have a better picture?”

  Alex scrolled until they found one taken from a different perspective.

  “Yeah,” Tony said, touching the screen. “That’s the hole right there. Straight through the plug. Damn, I wish you could have brought it to me.”

  “I do, too.”

  Tony sat back in his chair. “Someone drilled the center out of the plug and replaced it with something else,” he said.

  “I know. What I don’t understand is why it lasted so long before it blew. If it was secure enough to get the plane in the air why did it suddenly give way?”

  “Maybe it was some kind of wax,” Tony said.

  “Wouldn’t it just melt when the engine got hot?”

  “Yeah, but it might take a while. Once it melted away, though, that would be it. The oil would leak out, the engine would seize—”

  “Which is exactly what happened.”

  “And they might have mixed in some other product that would delay the melting of the wax. There may be residue on the plug. If there is, the FAA will find it.”

  “But, Tony, how did the plug get there? You did the maintenance yourself and it’s not exactly an easy spot for someone to tamper with out on the field.”

  Tony ran a hand through his thinning hair and shook his head. “The FAA looked through all my stuff, checked inventory lists, the whole nine yards. There wasn’t anything missing that should have been there and that includes those plugs. I’d just received a shipment of five in that size, you know the Airtop brand in the red-and-yellow box. I’d used two of them, one on your plane and one on Vic Miller’s. The other three were all where they were supposed to be, just like everything else. I’ll have to review my records to see where they were all installed and make sure they weren’t tampered with, too.”

  Alex stood behind Tony, who sat in front of the computer, and stared at the images on the screen. He was still staring at them a moment later when Jessica slipped her hand into his.

  “Could Billy have switched plugs while you were eating lunch?” Alex finally asked. He felt Jessica’s grip tighten around his fingers.

  Tony swiveled in his chair and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it for a moment. Could Billy have taken out the plug you put in after the oil change and replaced it with this one?”

  Tony turned back around to the screen, studied the photographs, then turned back. “If you mean could he have physically switched out the plugs, I guess, sure, maybe. Let me think. I did that part of the checkup, took a break, came back and finished the maintenance.”

  “Does that include refilling the oil tank?”

  “It would have to. If anyone had tried to switch the plug after the oil was already installed, there would have been a big puddle on the floor.”

  “I can’t imagine Billy could do all that,” Jessica said softly.

  Tony looked back at her. “It’s not really that hard. He would have had to snip the safety twist wire is all, then take out the good plug and put in the drilled out one.”

  “So someone would have had to give him the doctored plug and pretty clear instructions?” Jessica said.

  “Yes.”

  “And instructed him exactly how to exchange it?”

  “Yes. All they’d have to do is Google it.” He swore under his breath. “He was acting odd that day. I should have known something was wrong.”

  “And just so we’re clear,” Alex continued, “if this is the way it happened, it’s possible you wouldn’t have noticed the switch when you came back after lunch, is that right?”

  Tony was quiet for a second, and then he shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t have noticed. I imagine the plugs looked exactly alike unless you were really looking for a difference and I was already finished with that part of the job.”

  “But how would someone have known exactly what plug your engine took?” Jessica asked.

  Tony answered the question. “Most of the Cessna 180s like Alex’s came with Continental engines. That would mean drains and equipment would differ from one year to the next. But if someone knew what year Alex’s plane was built, the rest wouldn’t be hard to figure and with the N-number on the tail, checking it out would be pretty easy.”

  So it could have been almost anyone, Alex thought as Jessica leaned her head against his shoulder.

  Tony once again ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t believe Billy would do this. He knew whose plane we were working on.” He looked back up at Alex. “What in the world did the boy have against you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said, then added, “Probably nothing.”

  Tony shook his head again.

  * * *

  BLUE POINT ROAD didn’t have a whole lot of residences within view of the highway. Places out here tended to sit back from the road a bit, some with heavily wooded areas between the houses and traffic. And one side of the pavement was nothing but a steep fall into a gorge.

  Working their way toward the Summers house, Alex and Dylan drove down five driveways. No one was home at two of them, one man had absolutely nothing to offer and the elderly couple at the fifth went to bed every night by nine o’clock, rain or shine.

  The last house looked as though it would present another no-one-is-home moment. The road was densely covered with arching trees and Dylan swore under his breath as some of the limbs hit his car. “I just got it back from the shop,” he complained. “Cripes, doesn’t anyone around here prune stuff?”

  This was the first time Alex had seen Dylan’s new car and it was a beauty. Built low to the ground, power seemed to ooze from under the hood. In many ways, the car was a perfect fit for the well-toned man who drove it.

  “How did you get the car back from Billings?” Alex asked.

  “I figured you can get a pizza delivered, you can get a car delivered,” he said.

  They finally reached the house and knocked at the front door. No response until a woman’s voice called from the back. The two of them walked around the well-kept cabin to emerge in a beautifully tended garden that boasted lush vegetable beds as well as walls of climbing flowers. As the growing season started late and ended early in parts of Montana, there wasn’t actually a lot of produce on the plants yet but even to Alex’s untrained eye, the vegetation looked lavish and healthy.

  The owner of the voice rose from where she’d been sitting on the side of a raised flower bed. It had turned into a warm day and she wore a skimpy T-shirt with a flowing cotton skirt and sandals. She’d piled her blondish hair atop her head where it tumbled over her eyes. Her voice was whiskey soaked and her expression was saucy. She was probably in her late forties and holding her own.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, the spade in front of her.

  “Excuse us,” Alex said with a swift glance at Dylan who was giving the woman his customary once-over that seemed to take a week. After introducing themselves, he explained, “We’re investigating the death of a man who lived up the street, Billy Summers. We’re hoping you might have seen or heard something late Saturday night, early Sunday morning.”

  “Heard something?” she asked, settling her hip against a potting bench. “Like what?”

  “Like a car passing or screech o
f metal or maybe you saw Billy on his bike?”

  “Oh,” she said. “No, I didn’t. I wish I could help. I know who Billy was. Sometimes he stopped by to see my garden. Not this year, not yet, anyway, and now I hear he’s dead, that someone ran over him. That’s too bad, he was a sweet guy.”

  “Thanks for your time,” Dylan said as he handed her a card. “If you think of anything, please give us a call.”

  Her assurances followed them back to the front yard.

  “She was holding up pretty good for an old broad,” Dylan commented.

  “Damn, man, keep your voice down.” Alex lightened his tone and added, “What in the world would a real woman see in a clown like you, anyway?”

  “Sticks and stones,” Dylan crooned.

  Once they hit the road, Alex pointed toward the Summers house. “Go that way,” he said. “Lynda Summers had closer neighbors we can interview.”

  “We already talked to them,” Dylan said.

  “They were questioned about her death. I want to ask them if they heard anything the night Billy disappeared. But, frankly, I want another look around the Summers place, too.”

  “You’re becoming obsessed,” Dylan said, but then he shook his head. “Sorry. After what you told me you found on the Cessna, of course you’re obsessed.” He poked Alex in the ribs. “I knew you weren’t sitting home sick because I drove by your place and no one was there.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I just doubted you were sick and thought you might need help of some kind. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to dive on the plane? You told that Miter guy.”

  “I just borrowed a plane from John,” Alex said. “If he knows anything else it’s because he always seems to know exactly what’s going on.”

  “I know. That’s what creeps me out about him.”

  “Anyway, it all came up kind of fast.”

  “I can read between the lines,” Dylan said. “You didn’t want the chief to blab it to his reporter pal.”

  “Something like that,” Alex said.

  “I still can’t believe Billy had anything to do with your crash,” Dylan said. “Frankly, the kid didn’t seem clever enough.”