Balloons Can Be Murder: The Ninth Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  We found a table for four among those scattered around the big ballroom. While the others continued to talk flight strategies for the next morning, I munched my salad and realized it was the first thing I’d eaten since having toast this morning.

  “How are your record attempt plans coming along?” Sara asked Rachael. “I heard that someone—” A brunette with spiky hair and a jacket full of pins bounded up to Sara and interrupted. Hugs and greetings went around the table and it became obvious that the Haineses were certainly popular among this crowd. Rachael maintained a reserve that seemed typical, and nothing more was said about her upcoming altitude attempt. Most of these pilots from all over the world obviously hadn’t seen the Albuquerque papers, yet. Maybe she’d done a better job of keeping it quiet than I’d realized.

  By eight o’clock the crowd began to thin and it struck me that we would all be up by four o’clock in the morning. A wave of fatigue rushed over me at the idea.

  I said a quick goodbye to Rachael, and she confirmed our plan to meet at the field in the morning. I located my car again, headed home, and was in bed by eight-thirty. As I closed my eyes it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard from Drake all day.

  Chapter 7

  What goes up must come down. It just doesn’t necessarily come down anywhere near its takeoff point. In the world of hot air ballooning, this is especially true, I’m discovering. This partially explains why I found myself hunched in the bed of Rachael’s champagne colored pickup truck, frozen hands jammed under armpits, waiting for the sun to warm up enough to have an effect on my poor body that had been functioning, if not awake, since an ungodly hour of the morning. When that first digit on the alarm clock is a three . . . well, we won’t go there.

  No sensible person subjects herself to this pre-dawn, frosty adventure when the sun had barely cleared the top of Sandia Peak just minutes ago. I guess the bigger question is why nearly fifty thousand people from more than a dozen countries would do the same. Why would national TV, local radio, and nearly every travel magazine in the world send its glamour people out to an open field before dawn, in a place that half of them don’t yet recognize as part of the United States? I took a deep breath, leaned my head back against the cab of the truck, and really opened my eyes at last.

  Against the backdrop of New Mexico’s incredible blue firmament somewhere around six hundred multicolored globes hung like bobbing Christmas ornaments, decorating the city sky so beautifully that it made my throat tighten. Around the perimeter of the launch field, heavenly smells of coffee, frying bacon, and freshly roasted green chile wafted through the air as vendors began tantalizing the crowd with breakfast. Rachael’s important passengers showed up promptly and presented satisfactory ID. I would ride along with the chase crew. The reporters from Aviation World and People were Grayson’s idea of those who garnered premium seats on this, the opening Saturday of the ten-day Fiesta. The story of the first high altitude record to be attempted from Balloon Fiesta Park, during the world, duc-s largest gathering of balloons, pulled media worldwide. I just wished we’d known about the threats in time to chill the publicity machine a bit.

  Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s other New Mexico women had set world ballooning records for altitude, distance, and duration. But these were relatively low-key events, known only within the aviation community until after the fact, and then receiving little more than local news coverage. Rachael’s high-power brother had seen to it that her aviation record attempt made the headlines well before it actually happened. With connections in politics, media, and Hollywood, Grayson Fairfield arranged it so the world would be watching Rachael’s record attempt. Whether she wanted it that way was another story. The fact that her life was on the line didn’t affect Gray’s obsession with the limelight.

  I’d spoken to her briefly before the flight this morning and sensed that she simply wanted to concentrate on the task before her. The hovering media people seemed an irritation. She wouldn’t even address the death threat. I shifted my position in the back of the truck, keeping her balloon—the red, white and blue Lady Liberty—in sight. If someone decided to take a shot at her, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it from here.

  Contrary to what most people might think, a bullet hole through the fabric envelope won’t bring down a balloon. The shooter would have to be pretty damned accurate to hit the pilot from close to a mile away. Rachael had instructions to fly high and land quickly. Sketchy as it might be, that was our plan for now.

  The truck hit a bump, as we shifted from dirt road to paved street. The jouncing ride smoothed considerably, and Justin and I adjusted our collars to keep the chill wind off our ears and necks. Four more crew members rode inside the plushy Chevy extended cab pickup, but I’d opted for the outside slot with its better visibility.

  Lady Liberty was well ahead of us now, altitude about three thousand feet above the ground, floating somewhere over the North Valley. Sam drove like a bat, sailing through cordoned off intersections, making his way toward Lady. Although the crowds attending the Fiesta might be stuck in traffic for hours, it was crucial that the crews be out of the melee and near their balloons when they landed. Radio contact and the foresight of the Fiesta planners in routing crew traffic in and out by restricted exits accomplished this with amazing smoothness. I shifted position, leaning against the cage of the inflator fan, making sure I kept Rachael in sight. So far, so good.

  “You ever crewed before?” Justin shouted over the roar of the wind as we picked up speed on Paseo del Norte.

  “Yeah, once. But it was a long time ago,” I told him. “A friend took me on a flight. It sure wasn’t anything like this.” I nodded upward, indicating the masses of color overhead.

  “Fiesta’s special, huh?” he said. “You can’t describe it to anybody. Gotta be here.”

  “That’s for sure.” I’d been stupid not to bring my camera. Being disgruntled at playing ineffective bodyguard was no excuse to miss out on the fun part of this adventure. I hoped Ron’s kids were maxing out on funnel cake and breakfast burritos.

  A horn that played La Cucaracha blared behind us. Justin grinned at the other crew and flipped them the bird. “Crew from Scarlett’s Dream,” he explained. “Their chief’s my roommate at UNM.” In the other truck a passenger raised a beer can. Ballooning is one of the few activities in the world where they break out the booze before eight a.m. When you’ve been up since three-thirty, eight o’clock feels almost like lunch time. The red truck blazed past us.

  Lady Liberty seemed suspended over the Rio Grande. Sam pulled to the side of the busy six-lane and waited. Rachael’s plan was to catch the wind out of the south-southeast and ride it to the west side of the city, with a landing near the town of Rio Rancho where there was more open space and plenty of roads for the crew. Unfortunately, her mandate to stay high put her into the prevailing westerly and it was holding her pretty much stationary. She’d have to descend a bit to get back on track. I duck-walked toward the cab of the truck and tapped on the back window. Four heads turned. Sam stepped out and walked back to me.

  “Sam, does Rachael know to keep the radio chatter to a minimum?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we talked about that before.” He kept his voice low. “So far, we’ve kept it pretty quiet. And she knows to use only general information.”

  “Good. I think she’s safe for now. The worst time will be when she starts to land.”

  “Yeah, a seventy-foot-tall ball of red, white and blue isn’t exactly easy to hide.” His eyes sparkled when he smiled. Although he remained wary, gone was the gruff demeanor from a couple of days ago.

  I followed his steady gaze over the river. Rachael had maneuvered into a wind that carried her to its western banks. Sam slipped a tiny digital camera from his jacket pocket and zoomed in on the view of Lady Liberty poised over the vivid green cottonwood trees at the river’s edge. After clicking off three shots, he chuckled. “Sorry, I guess that toy is like Rachael’s kid. Her walls are covered with photos a
lready.”

  “Is Rachael using Lady Liberty for the altitude record or does she have some other . . . something custom made for that?” I asked.

  “Yep. Lady’s doing it with her. Course, she’ll have extra fuel tanks, oxygen equipment, parachute, bunch of other stuff you don’t normally take on a flight like this.” He nodded upward, indicating the sky full of balloons, each at a different altitude. “Looks like next Sunday’s the day. Unless the weather patterns change.”

  I tried to think ahead to what I’d heard for the prediction. Since weather played such a big part in our own helicopter business, Drake and I watched it constantly. As I recalled, there was a front coming through mid-week, clearing after that. Next weekend should be ideal.

  From the cab, radio static crackled. Sam leaped forward with a giant step and reached in through the open window. I heard voices blended with static but couldn’t make out the words.

  “Shit!” Sam yelled, flinging his door open. “Sit down, everyone!”

  I’d barely planted my butt when he yanked the gearshift. The truck zipped into traffic with a screech of rubber. I stared down the expanse of the Rio Grande. In the distance, Lady Liberty appeared to be falling from the sky.

  Chapter 8

  Four sets of eyes stayed glued to the balloon, which had lost over twenty-five hundred feet in altitude by now. Sam divided his attention between the radio and the road, while I watched all of them.

  “Why’s she coming down so fast?” asked Justin, hunched beside me in the bed of the racing pickup. “That doesn’t look normal. She usually waits till we get right below her.”

  It didn’t look normal to me either, the balloon’s shape was now elongated into a long, inverted teardrop. It still held air, but there was something decidedly strange about Rachael’s maneuver.

  Sam took the exit at Coors Road too fast and we veered toward the embankment. Luckily, it held and he whipped into the traffic lane between two startled motorists. The car behind us slowed to accommodate the move and the one ahead of us slipped to the right, giving us a clear path. One thing about Albuquerque drivers—they may drive with their heads in dark places ninety percent of the time, but during Balloon Fiesta they become extremely polite. Realizing the critical relationship between chase crew and balloon, our drivers extend every courtesy to those trucks flying the distinctive Chase Vehicle flags. Sam made the best of it and raced north on Coors, barely making the light at Rio Rancho Boulevard. Fortunately, the police are also somewhat forgiving at this time of year.

  Justin and I held on for dear life, unable to keep the balloon in sight because of the wind in our faces. I caught one glimpse of her just above the treetops, still at least a mile away. What the hell was going on?

  At Southern Boulevard we were forced to stop for a red light, the police not being quite that accommodating. Through the back window I could see that Sam had a cell phone to one ear and the radio microphone near his mouth. He clicked something on the cell and dropped it into his lap. I chafed at the fact that I was stuck here in the back, not knowing what was happening. Had the killer managed to get to Rachael after all? Had he engineered some malfunction in her fuel system or burners? Where was she now? The balloon had completely disappeared behind the trees and buildings.

  “The park,” Justin said, as the truck roared to life again. “Ronnie just shouted back that we’re heading for the park.”

  I couldn’t think of any park out here but trusted that they knew what they were doing. Two minutes later Sam turned beside a small industrial warehouse complex, pulled alongside the building, and—amazingly—there was a small park hidden back there. Completely out of sight from the road and most of the neighboring buildings, the balloon lay, sadly flat now, on the grass. The wicker gondola was on its side, nothing abnormal there, but what caught my eye was a body lying on the ground. I leaped over the side of the pickup the second we stopped and raced toward the prone figure.

  It wasn’t Rachael. I nearly crashed into her, kneeling beside the reporter from Aviation Week, who was lying on the grass clutching at his left arm. His face looked gray and his mouth clenched in a grimace of pain. Someone was holding a wide sheet of paper above him to keep the sun out of his eyes. The reporter from People stood off to one side, scribbling notes furiously.

  “Are you okay?” I panted in Rachael’s ear. She nodded. “What happened?”

  She stood up and backed away from the little crowd that had gathered.

  “Passenger started having chest pains. They came on so suddenly, I couldn’t think what else to do but land. Sam called an ambulance.”

  Sam walked over and put his arms around her. Sirens blared, nearby.

  “I think I should ride to the hospital with him,” Rachael said. “I don’t think he knows anyone else in town. I should try to call his office.”

  “You go,” Sam said. “We’ll get everything handled here.”

  An ambulance pulled into the park, its sirens winding down with a slow moan. Two EMTs jumped out and hauled an equipment kit over to the victim. As they worked over him, Sam rounded up the chase crew and issued quiet orders.

  Like a well-oiled machine, they went to work bundling the voluminous nylon fabric into a neat column. Within minutes, they’d unhooked the connection cables, stood the gondola upright, and backed the truck up to it. By the time four of the crew had stuffed the hundreds of yards of fabric back into its storage bag, the basket was in the truck, inflator fan re-stowed, and everything neatly secured with tie-down straps.

  Sam kissed Rachael at the ambulance door and she stepped in. The vehicle was rolling before she sat down. I scanned the area. The few curious bystanders dispersed as soon as the ambulance left, and our crew were standing around waiting for instructions.

  “Okay, everyone,” Sam announced. “Everything’s going to be fine. Let’s get back to the field.”

  The People reporter took the front seat, so Justin’s buddy Ronnie joined us in the back. They chatted while I allowed myself to wind down. Relief flooded me. Thank goodness Rachael hadn’t been hurt. I felt an increased respect for this determined lady who took the time to see to her passenger’s comfort and safety, while under threat herself and while planning her own world-record flight, barely a week away. As our truck wound its way back to Rio Rancho, I spotted a news truck from Channel 7.

  Back at Balloon Fiesta Park, life went on in happy pandemonium. Once the six- hundred-plus hot air balloons left the area, other activities took over. A parachute team from one of the military forces had just spot-landed, one after another, in a center bullseye.

  I managed to find the obscure spot where I’d parked my car, retrieved it and headed toward Presbyterian Hospital. Just inside the ER entrance I ran into Rachael.

  “Thought you might need a ride home,” I told her.

  She fumbled a minute for an answer. The early morning and disorienting trip to the hospital was beginning to show. “I think Sam was planning to come,” she said. “But I’m not really sure at this point.”

  “Give him a call and save him the trip. Getting out of the balloon field right now is not fun.”

  Once she’d settled the arrangements with Sam I suggested that we find some coffee.

  “Sounds good,” she said, “but not here.”

  “How’s the passenger doing, by the way?”

  “As we suspected, heart. He’ll be okay and his wife is on the way. Nothing more I can do here.”

  We decided to grab coffee at the Pancake House and headed that direction. Traffic on the streets wasn’t bad at all; half the city was probably still at the Fiesta activities. At a corner table, with a carafe of steaming brew between us, I decided to put forth the idea that nagged at me since Rachael’s sudden landing.

  “You know Ron and I are concerned about all this publicity. We can’t seem to get your brother to realize that the exposure is probably not a good thing.”

  She toyed with a paper napkin, alternately twisting and smoothing it. “I know. I can’t
get that through to him either.”

  “What if one of these journalists is doing this to create a story?”

  “Trying to kill me? Isn’t that taking it a bit far?”

  “Only if they actually do kill you. But the threats, the escalating danger. Makes for great press coverage.”

  “So far they haven’t covered that part of it.”

  True. “I don’t know, maybe it’s a dumb theory.”

  Our waitress came back to see if we wanted to add actual food to our breakfast. “Hey, you’re the lady from the paper,” she said, giving Rachael a good look for the first time.

  I groaned inwardly. But the article last evening only showed the balloon. There was no photo of Rachael. “What paper?” I asked.

  She held up one finger and hustled away to the cashier’s station. Came back a few seconds later with a newspaper in hand.

  “See? Front page.” She thrust the paper toward Rachael.

  Yep, front page. A nice publicity photo of Rachael and a headline. LOCAL BALLOONIST OBJECT OF DEATH THREAT.

  Rachael dismissed the waitress and we both stared at the story.

  “How did they know about this?” I growled through clenched teeth. My mind raced. “Only a few people know about that note. You, me, Ron, Sam, the police, and your brother. Any guesses who leaked this?”

  Her face had gone white. “But, why?”

  “Publicity. Isn’t that what he’s all about right now?” I fished for answers. “Either that or some unscrupulous journalist has taken it upon himself to create the biggest story of the year. They’ve been caught trying to throw presidential elections, why not create a fake death threat for a local celebrity?”

  I caught sight of our waitress standing to one side, whispering behind her hand to two others.

  “We need to get out of here,” I told Rachael. She stared at the center of the table, uncomprehending.

  I tossed some money on the table and took her elbow, reaching for the newspaper at the same time. Outside, I buckled her into the passenger seat of my Jeep and headed to my own side. By the time we’d come to the freeway entrance, she’d turned from a zombie into a livid mass of anger.