by BROWN SANDRA
“He did?”
“She was here barely an hour. She saw Howard alone for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, then she and Dent left.”
“Dent was still with her?”
“He flew her down.”
“They seem to be fairly chummy.”
“Much to our dismay. I can’t imagine what she’s thinking.”
“She probably thinking he’s a superstud. Just like Susan did.”
Olivia said nothing in response to that, probably because she was offended by the very idea and couldn’t bear to consider the implications.
“They flew back to Austin late last night,” she continued. “I don’t know what her hurry was, why she didn’t stay over until this morning at least.”
“Did you ask her?”
“She told me that Howard had sent her back to do something for him, but when I pressed her on it, she was evasive. When I asked Howard about it, he brushed it off as being unimportant.”
“Well, then—”
“But I think they’re keeping something from me, and I’m afraid.” She began to cry.
“Mother, don’t do this to yourself. You’re reading something into nothing. You’re exhausted and overwrought, and in your present circumstances, who wouldn’t be?”
“Everyone’s dancing around the issue.”
“What issue?”
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed raggedly. “That’s just it. I feel like I’m the only one not in on the joke. I hated that you and Bellamy had drifted apart. I’m thrilled that you got together. But what was so urgent that she left her dying father and went to see you now? What did you talk about?”
“We caught up on each other’s lives. She met William. I told her about the restaurants, congratulated her on her book’s success. It was like that.”
“Why are you lying to me, Steven? Bellamy herself told me that she went to see you to talk—as adults—about that Memorial Day.”
He lowered his head and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose until it hurt. “All right, yes. Bellamy wanted to hear my perspective of events because apparently there are things she doesn’t know.”
“I don’t understand her preoccupation. Truly I don’t. It’s ancient history.”
“Not to her it isn’t. It’s very much in the present.”
“Do you think that’s healthy? For any of us?”
“No.”
“So what did you tell her? Did you tell her—”
“That I had pimped for Susan that day?”
“That’s a horrible thing to say! About your stepsister and yourself.”
“How would you put it?”
“Not nearly as crudely.”
“Well, I didn’t tell Bellamy about it in any terms.”
“There’s no reason why you should have. Boys and girls have been using go-betweens since there were boys and girls. Susan wanted to dance with Allen Strickland, and she asked you to deliver the message to him. It had tragic consequences, but, at the time, it was an innocent action, something that any typical teenage girl would have done.”
Except that Susan wasn’t typical and was by no means innocent.
He’d never shared with his mother or Howard the horrible secret of what was happening in his bedroom most nights, but he had admitted to them what had happened at the barbecue.
“If it was all that harmless, Mother, why did you and Howard want me to keep it from the police?”
“All we said was that if Allen Strickland didn’t make a point of it when they questioned him, you shouldn’t volunteer it. It wasn’t germane.”
“Detective Moody might have disagreed.”
Surely he would have wanted to know how manipulative Susan was and that it was she who had initiated the encounter with Strickland.
“Over there, in the blue shirt, standing next to the oaf with the long mustache. I think they’re brothers. Be sure you tell the right one. God forbid that drooling cretin comes over here instead.”
“I’m not going to tell them anything.”
“Steven . . .”
“If you’re so hot to dance with him, go ask him yourself and leave me the fuck alone.”
“Steven sa-id fu-uck. Steven sa-id fu-uck.”
Her taunting singsong had made him feverish with anger. But she knew that, and she used it.
“Of course you only say the word, you don’t do the deed. Because you’re scared.” Leaning close and putting her lips directly to his ear, she whispered, “But I know you want to. I know you want to with me. I know you want to right now.”
When he tried to move away, she blocked his path. “You go tell that guy I want to dance with him, or I’ll tell Olivia and Daddy that you got jealous of Dent and came into my room while I was naked and tried to rape me.”
“Rape you? That’s a laugh.”
“Who do you think they’ll believe?” She gave him a look that said she was capable of finessing it any way she wanted, and he knew she could.
Burning with hatred of her, he had approached Allen Strickland on her behalf.
As though reading his mind, his mother said gently, “That boy had been ogling her all day, Steven. He and that brother of his. Sooner or later Allen would have worked up his courage and asked her to dance without any help from you.”
“Possibly. But the fact remains that he did have my help.”
“Please don’t dwell on it and upset yourself. Although I know it’s difficult to put that day out of your mind when you can’t get away from Bellamy’s book. It’s everywhere. Even here in the hospital’s gift shop.”
“The horse has left the barn, Mother.”
“Yes, but I thought that when she stopped the publicity, things would die down. Instead we’re on the front page of that wretched tabloid again. Dent Carter has insinuated himself back into our lives, Bellamy is like a woman obsessed, and I can’t help but feel that this mysterious mission she’s on for Howard has something to do with it.”
Steven jumped in before she could work herself into another crying jag. “Mother, the only times in your marriage that Howard has done something behind your back was when he was shopping for a fabulous gift or planning an extravagant trip. If he sent Bellamy on a secret mission, it’s to do something that will spare you further heartache.”
“My heart already aches, Steven.”
“Cancer is cruel.”
“So is the irony.”
“Irony?”
“Howard and I have had a near-perfect life together. It was marred by a single tragic event. Yet now, when our time together is about to end and we should be reliving blissful times, it’s Susan’s murder that’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind.” Her voice cracked. “And why?”
Quietly Steven said, “Low Pressure.”
Chapter 17
The state senator’s plane was already on the tarmac when Dent and Bellamy arrived at the airfield.
Gall took one look at Dent’s battered face and scowled. “Who the hell did that?”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“Not what I asked.”
“I’m going to call Olivia. Excuse me.” Bellamy went into the hangar and took out her cell phone.
Dent motioned toward the airplane. “Decent of him to make it available to us. Last night and today.”
“I told you, he wants you to get used to it. He called early this morning, wanting to know how you liked her. Says he hopes you’ll become so enamored with flying it you’ll go to work for him.” He clamped down on his cigar. “ ’Course if he could see you now, he might change his mind.”
“Not now, Gall.”
Dent bypassed him as he made his way into the hangar and went over to his own airplane. “How’re the repairs coming?”
“Replacement parts are ordered. Some were promised by the end of the week. Others will take longer to get.”
Dent gave the wing of his airplane a pat, then went over to the computer table and sat down. “Have you checked out the airport in Mars
hall?”
“Its got two runways. One’s five thousand feet. Plenty long enough.”
As he and Bellamy left Haymaker’s house, Dent had placed a call to Gall, asking him if the senator’s airplane was still available and, if so, to get it ready for flight. He’d also asked him to look into the county-owned airport in east Texas, three hundred miles from Austin.
While he methodically went through his preflight routine, Bellamy was pacing the concrete floor of the hangar, her cell phone to her ear. He wondered who she was talking to. Her conversations with Olivia never lasted that long.
After filing his flight plan, he signaled to Bellamy that they were good to go. She ended her call and went into the hangar’s restroom, although the head on the two-million-dollar airplane was much nicer. She’d probably be too modest to use it during flight, though.
Dent, hoping to smooth things over with Gall after being so brusque with him earlier, approached the workbench where the older man was tinkering with a piece of machinery. “Thanks for helping out on such short notice.”
Gall just looked at him, waiting for an explanation for the sudden trip, which Dent felt he deserved.
“From Marshall, we’re driving on to Caddo Lake. It’s near—”
“I know where it’s at.” Gall gave his cigar an agitated workout. “Going fishing?”
“In a manner of speaking. Detective Moody, now retired, lives on the lake. He’s agreed to see us. And I don’t want any flack from you about it.”
Gall stopped chomping his cigar, removed it from his mouth, and pitched it toward a trash can, which he missed by a foot. “Flack,” he said with disgust. “How ’bout me giving you some common sense? Something you seem to have a shortage of these days. In fact, you haven’t acted like you have a lick of it since you got attached to that lady, who belongs to a family that damn near ruined your life. You show up this morning looking like Rocky. You’re on your way to see a man who you once vowed to kill. You’re packing. And I’m not supposed to give you flack?”
“How’d you know I was carrying a piece?”
“I didn’t. Till now. Jesus! You’re taking a pistol to a meeting with Moody?”
“Will you calm down? I’m not going to shoot him. We’re just going to talk to the man. He’s no threat to me anymore. He’s old, in bad health, reportedly on his last leg.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have my sources.”
“He’s got his sources,” he muttered. He hitched his chin toward the wounds on Dent’s face. “Who beat you up?”
“The redneck I warned you about.” He gave Gall an abbreviated account of the attack.
“Did he cut you bad?”
“It’s okay.”
“You see a doctor?”
“Bellamy took care of it.”
“Oh, and she’s qualified to do that, I guess.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Gall. I swear.”
“You report it to the police?”
Dent shook his head. “We were afraid it would make the news. Bad enough that Van Durbin staked out my apartment last night, and he didn’t even know about the knife fight.”
“Van Durbin see her there with you?”
“He got pictures.”
If Gall’s scowl was any indication, nothing Dent told him had won his approval. “Back to the redneck—he have a name?”
“I think it might be Ray Strickland, Allen’s brother. But that’s only a guess.”
“Why would he come after you?”
“Retribution, maybe.” Dent raised one shoulder in a shrug. “That’s the best Bellamy and I could come up with.”
“Bellamy and you.” He snorted an expletive that Dent hadn’t heard since leaving the military. “Dent, why are you doing this?”
“I told you why.”
“Exoneration. Once and for all. Okay, I get it. But what? The shit your life is in isn’t deep enough? You need this to top it off?” He gave Dent no time to defend his actions. “You could get yourself killed. What good will vindication do you if you’re dead? As for her, do you think she’d want to partner with you if she knew—”
“She knows.”
Gall, shocked silent by Bellamy’s declaration, turned quickly to find her standing behind him.
“I know he was in the state park, quarreling with Susan shortly before she was killed. I saw them. My memory of it came back last night during a heated argument.”
Gall swallowed noisily and for once seemed at a loss for words. “Well . . .”
She smiled and even reached out and laid her hand on the sleeve of his coveralls. “I know you lied in order to protect Dent. Your secret is safe.”
“You’re not going to tell Moody?”
“I’m more interested in hearing what he has to tell us.”
“Speaking of which,” Dent said, “if we don’t get there soon, he may change his mind and refuse to see us.”
They went outside, but before they boarded, Dent drew Gall aside. “This redneck guy, whoever he is, means business, Gall. Watch your back.”
“Don’t worry about me, Ace.”
“I’m not. I’m worried about me.”
“How so?”
“I plan to hurt him for what he’s done to Bellamy and me. But if he hurts you, I’ll have to kill him.”
“Who were you talking to for so long?”
Bellamy had accepted Dent’s invitation to sit in the cockpit, and, despite her complaint about the discomfort of the headphones, she’d put them on and plugged in so they could communicate.
Staring at the horizon, she released a weary sigh. “Dexter. My agent. He had left twenty or more voice-mail messages, the last one threatening to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if I didn’t return his call. So I did.”
“And?”
“He’d seen Van Durbin’s column yesterday. It’s created renewed hype. He thinks I should reenter the arena and ramp up the publicity. I said no. The book has already climbed two spots on the best-seller list without my having to do anything. Dexter says that with just a little media coverage, it could go higher, stay longer. The movie deal would get sweeter. Et cetera. I said no. Again. Emphatically.”
“Will they be dragging the East River for his body?”
She laughed. “When I left New York, he threatened to jump from the Empire State Building. He hasn’t yet.”
He exchanged several transmissions with air-traffic controllers when they were passed from one’s airspace to another. The cockpit controls were as alien to her as the surface of Neptune.
When he was free again to talk to her, she asked, “How did you ever learn what everything is for?”
“I learned it because I have a very healthy respect for gravity. The ground is always there, trying to pull you down. It’s the most important thing to keep in mind.”
“Why are crashes usually attributed to pilot error?”
“Because they make the last mistake, and it’s hard for them to defend themselves or explain their actions if they’re dead.”
“That’s terribly unfair, isn’t it?”
“Can be, yeah. Pilots aren’t infallible. They screw up. But typically a crash is caused by a series of mistakes or mishaps. They stack up, and that’s what the cockpit crew is left to deal with. Have you ever heard of the Swiss cheese model?”
“I think so, but refresh me.”
“In order for a catastrophic event, such as a plane crash, to occur, a sequence of events precedes it. Think of these separate factors as slices of Swiss cheese lined up one behind the other. If any one of the holes in them doesn’t align with the others, the series of events is changed or curtailed, and a catastrophe is prevented.”
“But if all the holes line up—”
“The door is open for disaster.”
“The pilot’s mistake is the hole in the last slice of cheese.”
He nodded. “Say an airplane mechanic has a fight with his nagging wife, goes out and gets drunk, and is hungover at work
the following day. During a preflight check, the first officer—co-pilot—spills his coffee over an electronic panel, which could result in its shorting out.
“He reports it, this mechanic is called to come and replace it. He doesn’t feel good to start with, now he’s working under pressure, knowing that the clock is ticking, and that everyone on board is disgruntled over the holdup. To make matters worse, the weather is deteriorating, and they want to get this bird out of there before the worst of it moves in, stranding passengers and crew for hours longer.
“The panel is replaced. The mechanic signs off on it. The captain and co-pilot are aware of the storms, but, between them, they’ve threaded a needle like that many times. They taxi, the tower clears them for takeoff, they check the radar one last time, and off they go.
“At about a thousand feet, they encounter some heavy turbulence. In an effort to get them out of it, the ATC instructs them to turn left. The captain responds. But as the plane goes into the turn, it gets struck by lightning, which in reality doesn’t cause an accident, but it can make things hairy.
“So now, the plane is in a steep left bank, flying in turbulence, trying to climb out of heavy rain and hail, at night, because the flight was delayed on account of the panel replacement. When . . .” He paused for dramatic effect and glanced over at her.
“When the fire warning for the left engine sounds and lights up red. The captain reacts immediately and does exactly what he’s been trained and conditioned to do for years on a 727. He pulls the fire warning lever, instantly shutting down that engine.
“What he doesn’t know is that he’s responded to a false warning. It sounded because it had grounded out after the coffee was spilled on it, which went unnoticed by both pilots and the mechanic. The turbulence, or the lightning strike, something, caused it to go off at that critical moment. The captain’s quick action to correct an emergency, which didn’t exist, actually created one.
“Remember, the plane was already in a left turn. Well, you never turn into a dead engine because the opposite one accelerates the plane into an even steeper turn. Wings quickly go vertical. Nose goes down. The airplane is doomed. Everyone onboard dies.
“But who do you blame for the crash? The captain made the last mistake. But you could also blame the clumsy first officer who spilled his coffee, or the mechanic who failed to notice that the fire warning had been damaged along with the panel he’d replaced. You could blame his wife for being a nag and driving him to drink the night before, making him feel like dog shit and not nearly as sharp as he normally would have been. You could take the blame all the way up to God for the crappy weather and that particular bolt of lightning.