The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “My theory is that after Marla confronted Albert about the rigged assay, Albert and Tony argued. Tony knew the ore he sent to the lab wasn’t good. But he never thought anyone, least of all his girlfriend, would complain, after the splashy success the firm had had with Medigen.”

  The general turned the windshield wipers from constant to intermittent, but kept his eyes focused straight ahead. “Continue.”

  “So say they argue. Tony goes to Albert’s house, says he wants to talk. What do they talk about? These two men had tried to run a scam before, with their cashmere-yarn-and-goat-cheese enterprise. Maybe Albert thought they were going legit, once they’d scored with Medigen. But Tony, I now believe, wants with the mine to take their enterprises one level deeper, and he’s in too far with the Eurydice to go back. Maybe Albert doesn’t have time to disagree before Tony knocks him unconscious. I don’t know what he used. Tom’s told me even spraying someone with a can of engine starter fluid would do the trick. Anyway, once Albert is out cold, Tony works fast, packs up all Albert’s stuff so it looks as if he’s left town. Takes him up to the Eurydice, waits until he comes to, and then tortures him until he gets Albert’s half of the combination to the safe containing the gold ore. Then Tony kills him. But Tony can’t take the gold then. If he does, even Captain Shockley, who knows about the gold and the safe, could figure Tony’s responsible for Albert’s murder. But iŁ by some remote chance, Albert’s body is discovered in that first week, Tony, who’s still around, can say, Marla did it, she was mad at Albert, wasn’t she? Everybody knows that.”

  The general muttered, “That guy is such a son of a bitch.”

  I went on: “Shockley did go up to the Eurydice after Albert disappeared, but without jurisdiction he didn’t take the risk of going in. In any event, Tony always planned to have Marla take the fall for him. She knew too much about assays, and was too insistent on knowing the truth, to be easily shut up. But if she was busy defending herself she wouldn’t have time to try to reconstruct all that he had done. Especially if it looked as if she murdered him in a jealous rage, after she supposedly killed his partner. Royce figured on covering all his bases. It was a foolproof scheme.

  “He gets his blood drawn by his girlfriend the med student. A Vacutainer tube has a blood preservative in it: You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week, sometimes two, and it won’t coagulate. And he has ten days.

  He buys the bald cap. He fakes some of Albert’s identification, which Tom is always telling me is fairly easy to do or get done. Then on Monday after the party, he tries to withdraw the cash from the partnership account. He can’t get it that day, but he gets it on Tuesday, when he proceeds to charm the teller and then strangles her so she wouldn’t identify him. Now he’s got three and a half million in cash, plus two hundred-thousand in gold from the mine safe. After all, why leave it behind, when it’s so easy to make someone else look responsible for the theft and murder?”

  I took a deep breath. “He persuades Marla to move up the fishing trip they planned. He pretends to be interested in investing in restaurants, the new venture for Prospect Financial Partners. He leaves his fancy watch at Marla’s so it’ll look as if he didn’t mean to be absconding permanently. And now we know how he staged his whole fake stabbing and drowning death.

  Unfortunately, he spotted Macguire Perkins, so he let him have it, too.”

  “Macguire’s lucky Tony didn’t kill him,” the general observed grimly.

  “Macguire’s strong,” I replied with a smile, “that’s one of the reasons he’s such a good catering assistant. He probably gave Tony a bit more muscle than he was expecting.”

  “Sounds like you were a bit more than Tony was expecting, too,” Bo said with an answering smile.

  “Yeah, I guess all of us might have been. Especially Jake. When Jake scented Tony up at the mine and howled, that was what let him know we’d really found him.” I paused. “Tony always wanted something from me. And from other people, too, like his old girlfriend Eileen Tobey. He felt as if we owed it to him.”

  The general furrowed his brow. “Owed him what?”

  “Oh, attention. Contacts.” I could remember Tony’s persuasive smile, the charming twinkle in his eyes. Know any rich doctors? Guess not. Dentists? No. Plumbers? No. How about pilots?

  Pilots. Yes, I knew one. One unemployed ex-Braniff captain who had received a FedEx delivery last week of navigational maps. I had been the one who told Tony about Sandy Trotfield. I had told him, too, that Trotfield’s wife – the one with the money – invested in art, but she might want to get into venture capital. Tony appeared to be interested in them as clients, but nothing more. Albert had even given them a cookbook. But I knew something else that I’d learned when the Trotfield’s had booked me for last week’s party: Sandy Trotfield was due in today from Rio de Janeiro. It was my guess that it was Sandy Trotfield whom Tony Royce had been waiting for. Sandy Trotfield who had. acted so angry when the cops had invaded his kitchen. Sandy Trotfield who could fly Tony Royce out of the country without attracting attention, and be paid handsomely for his efforts. All this I told the general. I looked out at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, offering a rare glimpse of a Wedgwood-blue expanse. The fast-moving front appeared to be passing through. Could this actually be happening? Could the sun truly be appearing, like Eurydice after a lengthy stint in the underworld?

  The general groped under his seat for the cellular phone, found it, and punched in the numbers L told him.

  “Yes,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Alexander Trotfield? This is Investigator Beauregard Farquhar of the Furman County Sheriffs Department. We have a fugitive, a murder suspect, a man we believe has contracted you to fly him out of the country? Name of Anthony Royce. We need to know everything about your contact with Mr. Royce.” He listened for several minutes, then gave me a thumbs up. “Furman County Airport? When? One-thirty. Your Citation. Which hangar?” Bo waited while Sandy talked. “Mr. Trotfield,” Bo said urgently, “you may keep this appointment with Mr. Royce. But tell him there’s been a delay. Do not act alarmed. When I arrive, please introduce me as your copilot. We will meet you at the hangar. Yes, the sheriff’s department will reimburse you for all the expenses you incur. Thank you for your cooperation.” He pressed a button to disconnect.

  I said breathlessly, “Do you think he believed you?” General Bo glanced at the clock on the dashboard and grimaced. “I’ve got an hour to buy a bomber jacket and find some dye to rub through my hair, just in case Royce got a glimpse of me at the mine; which I doubt.” He reflected. “Did Trotfield believe me? I don’t really care. The one I have to do a good acting job for is Royce.”

  I shivered. Sandy Trotfield wanted to be reimbursed for his time and effort. What a joke.

  “Hey,” said General Farquhar. “You better trust my acting ability, too. I’m going to need to talk my way close enough to Royce to snag him.”

  “Oh, yeah? And where am I going to be?” The general’s face was grim. “Nearby. Holding my gun.”

  22

  “No,” I said quietly. “I’m not using a gun. I’m calling Tom.”

  Bo’s glance was chilly. “You’d better not have him bring those two cops who arrested Marla.

  “Don’t worry.”

  I called; once again, Tom was not at his desk. I almost screamed with frustration, but instead left a two-sentence message on his voice mail: “The armed and dangerous person you seek is attempting to leave the country from the Furman County Airport this afternoon. We need help to catch him at Hangar C-9.”

  By twelve-thirty General Bo Farquhar and I had made two stops. The first was a sporting goods store in the foothills, where the general bought a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. His prominent chin held aloft, he scanned the outerwear racks as if he owned the place, and had just stopped in to pick up a new outfit in which to circumnavigate the globe. I saw him flash his thin-lipped, much-knowing smile at the female sales attendant, who predictably melted. How would he pay for his
purchases, I wondered. There was probably a kidnapping charge outstanding against him, and any credit card use was sure to be traced. Well, if we were successful in trapping Tony Royce, we could worry about Marla’s prison break and its consequences later.

  “All I need now is a Navy pilot to give me grief,” the general mumbled as we pulled up to our second stop. “They do get their noses so out of joint when a nonflyboy wears a bomber jacket.”

  I grinned. “I do believe Navy pilots are the least of our problems, sir.”

  General Bo grinned. He was loving this. But I suddenly felt the weight of what we were about to do. The sheriffs department was twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes from the airport. I judged we were a little less than half an hour away. This was all wrong. When I couldn’t reach Tom, I should have called someone else at the sheriffs department and come clean. But thinking about Shockley made me shudder. I just want to see him and Arch again, I thought. And maybe even Jake.

  We zipped along toward the airport. Since Furman County is mostly mountainous, the people who built the airport had been at some pains to find an area large and level enough for hangars and a runway. They’d eventually paid a rancher a staggering sum to move his herd of cattle to eastern Colorado. The starry-eyed airport builders had proceeded to divert a local brook, destroy two prairie dog villages, and pave over an elk migrating area while smoothing the rancher’s fields. Then they’d failed to build hangars and purchase computers that were even close to within their budget range. The airport had not been profitable, and the resultant wrath of environmentalists and downgrading of the airport’s municipal bonds had provided juicy material for The Mountain journal for several years.

  “Hangar C-Nine,” the general muttered as we came down the incline to the south gate security fence. “Now if we can just… oh, for Pete’s sake.” He stopped the Jeep. Ahead of us a dozen cars stood motionless while a tow truck pulled a station wagon out of a large pool of rippling water. “What the hell – “

  I craned my neck. “Flooding. No one’s going in or out of the south gate for at least a quarter of an hour.” I pointed. “That’s the brook that used to go through the ranch.”

  “What ranch?”

  “The ranch that used to be where the airport is.”

  He wheeled us in a U-turn. “Is there a north entrance to this godforsaken place? We need to find another way to C-Nine.”

  At my direction we raced up the state highway until we came to a sign for the small northern entrance to the airport. Like its southern counterpart, the north entrance road also sloped downward to our right.

  “Ha!” exclaimed the general, triumphant. He careened the Jeep onto the road and accelerated down the hill. Just as quickly, he braked and stared at the road ahead. “Holy Mother of God.” Hangar C-9 was up a hill to the right, about a hundred feet away. But the security gate and fence were underwater, claimed by the fast-rushing, no-longer-diverted brook. On the far side of the fence, the roofs of two cars were barely visible above the swirling, muddy torrent. “Damn this rain. How are we ever going to get around that?”

  I sighed. “Fly.”

  Of course, I didn’t think he’d take me literally. But I should have remembered who I was talking to. Bo turned the wheel sharply and gunned the Jeep off the road. Up and down we rocked, with Bo keeping a sharp eye on the water. Finally the road took us past the perimeter of the airport property. Abutting the highway was a small cliff that rose above the original brook. Over the centuries, the water had cut through the stone, so that on the far side of the brook, perhaps fifteen feet away, was another cliff. Bo expertly piloted the Jeep off the road, then brought-it to a stop at the bottom of the hill that led up the cliff.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not,” I replied. “Remember the last time you and I were together on a cliff over water? With all the moisture in the rock, we could easily precipitate another slide – “

  “So you’re just willing to let Marla go back to jail for, killing this guy who’s about to split forever?”

  “There must be another way – “

  “There isn’t. I could take a tank over that cliff: We’ll make it, Goldy.”

  What other choice did we have? “We’d better,” I told General Bo.

  His face set with determination, Bo pressed the accelerator. The speedometer needle soared upward. My breath seemed permanently caught in my throat. We raced to the edge of the cliff, and then suddenly, we were airborne. My heart beat out the seconds as we flew through the air. Oh, Tom, I’ll never, ever get involved in crime again. I’ll –

  We landed with a thud on the opposite cliff. But before I had a chance to express relief, there was a deafening roar behind us. I twisted around and experienced a sight that was familiar, but still terrifying: rocks and dirt disintegrating in a landslide. Where there had been two cliffs and a picturesque brook, there was now a landfill created by an avalanche of dirt.

  “Damn,” murmured the general as the Jeep hurtled through the only nonflooded gate into the airport. “I just got kicked out of the Sierra Club.”

  Hangar C-9 was a large, pale green building with no cars parked outside. The general scanned the area, then said, “I want you to drive over to C-Seven, leave the Jeep in back. Royce might have seen this car when he ran out of the mine.” He paused, his face as serious as I had ever seen it. “Goldy, I’m going to take this guy out. I don’t want you involved. Watch for him from outside. Call in the troops if things get rough. I don’t mean Tom, I mean the whole damn sheriff’s department. Trotfield said his plane’s a small jet, a Citation with the numbers four-eight-two-six Golf. I’ll go into the hangar at the front. You watch for Royce or Trotfield from out here, then come in after me only if you don’t see or hear Royce. If you do see or hear him, call the cops as quickly as possible. Last resort. With any luck, though, we’ve got at least fifteen minutes before they arrive.” He checked the Glock. “Got that?”

  I protested feebly, “Isn’t the hangar locked?” “A numbered security lock, and I got the code from Trotfield. Don’t worry. You just do your job, and I’ll do mine. Okay?”

  I nodded and drove the Jeep to C-7, where I parked in back. The weather was finally clearing; where were all the pilots? Probably waiting to come in through the south gate. I scanned the road to C-9 for a dark green Explorer, and saw none.

  I could not let the general undertake this alone. There had to be something I could do. I hopped out and sidled along the back of C-8. I listened and waited. Not a sound. I knocked on the door to C-9 and felt dizzy when the handle turned.

  The barrel of the gun was pointed straight at me. “Goldy, for crying out loud,” the general said amiably. He quickly holstered his gun inside his new bomber jacket.

  “I want to help.”

  He glared at me, then pointed. “Go stand in the office behind that Gulfstream. Stay where you can get a good look at the Citation without being seen. Don’t turn the light on. Check for a phone. And please, don’t get involved… .” His head turned sharply to a sound that hadn’t reached my ears. “Here he comes. Move.”

  I scooted into the office and scanned the space quickly. In the corner of the office was a shovel. I picked it up just as I heard Tony’s all-too-familiar voice. “Excuse me? Who are you?” he demanded of General Bo. “How did you get in here?”

  “I’m Trotfield’s copilot,” Bo announced genially. “Came in by the north gate. Glad to meet you, Mr. Royce.”

  No time to close the office door; it would make too much noise. Through a crack in the blinds, I saw Tony stride in wearing chinos and an expensive red leather windbreaker. His hair was perfectly blown dry, his mustache was evenly clipped. He was carrying a metal briefcase. The general gave Tony a huge smile. I gripped the shovel.

  “Now all we need is Sandy,” General Bo persisted in a jocular voice. “He’s got the approach plates for Ordaz International, and our flight plan is already filed in the county’s airport computer. Are the cars coming through the sou
th gate pretty smoothly now?” He really appeared to be enjoying this. He even made a mock salute, before he turned and trod smartly toward the plane.

  “It’s not too bad. Look, we have some bags,” Tony announced in a voice that indicated he expected the copilot to fetch them. But when General Bo continued I toward the Citation, Tony followed. He asked mildly, “You been Sandy’s copilot before? How do you think he looks with that new beard?”

  The involuntary, incredulous grimace on the general’s face as he turned back to face Tony sent nervous ripples up my skin. But Bo instantly wiped the look off and assumed the same easy tone. “Oh, I thought he looked better – “

  But it was too late. Royce had tested Bo and he’d failed. The metal briefcase sailed up toward the general’s head and caught him offguard. Bo flailed backward awkwardly and went down with a thud. He grabbed for his gun, but Tony ran forward and kicked itout of his hand. The heavy gun skittered across the hangar floor.

  Oh, God, help me, I prayed. I raised the shovel and leapt for the office door. Tony trotted toward the hangar entrance. When I called his name and started to run toward him, Tony hesitated, his mouth open, stunned to see me. The caterer, of all people. And armed… .