Track of the Scorpion

by R. R. Irvine

  “The car ought to be cool enough by now to take you up on that.”

  They were about to drive away when Ross McKinnon hurried down the walk and knocked on the car window on Nick’s side.

  “There are some things I’d like to explain to you,” he said the moment she lowered the glass. “I’m due back at work right now, but maybe we could talk over dinner.”

  Nick glanced at Ken who shrugged.

  “I saw a Hilton near the airport, Mr. McKinnon. Why don’t we meet at seven?” Nick replied.

  CHAPTER 25

  With the Hilton Hotel in sight, Drysdale suddenly veered their rental car to the curb and stopped, his eyes riveted on the rearview mirror.

  “You can catch a sniffer that way sometimes,” he said. “Pull over when they aren’t expecting it.”

  “And did you?” Nick asked.

  Drysdale released his seat belt so he could look over his shoulder. “Not so you’d notice. If they were watching the McKinnon house, they could be ahead of us.” He shook his head. “I can feel the bastard watching us. I can sense him.”

  Nick looked for herself but saw nothing.

  “Let’s face it,” Drysdale went on. “You’re at risk, Nick, until we get everything out in the open.”

  “Not if I’m imagining things. Not if Mark Douglas went back to smoking cigarettes.”

  “Your prospector could have been an accident, that much I can buy. But your B-17 didn“t get up and fly away, and those were sniffers at my heels in Hawaii, not door- to-door salesmen. On top of which, it takes some heavy-duty bullshit to get a newspaper to retract a story, even if it is a lie, let alone the truth. So I say we keep moving. At least, I’ll keep moving while you stay over to talk to the junior McKinnon, who’s not quite what he appears to be.”

  “You noticed that too, didn’t you?”

  “If you mean his age, you’re damned right. The two of them are probably nut cases. So we’d better turn over some more rocks.”

  “I believed her.”

  Drysdale shrugged. “Maybe I do, too, but I’d like to find someone else to tell us what happened, someone with all their marbles on board if possible. Which means we have to come up with more names. That’s why I’m hopping the next plane to Alabama.”

  “I should be going with you.”

  “Don’t get ruffled, but this takes a man-to-man approach. Besides, I’m retired military, with full PX privileges. It’s easy for me to snoop around the base. You’d stand out, which is what I want you to do while I’m gone. Stay out in the open in public places.”

  “Stop worrying about me,” Nick said. “If someone wanted to come after me, there were plenty of chances out there in the desert.”

  Drysdale sighed. “I covered your back in New Guinea.”

  Nick laughed. “You and your headhunters. We never met one, remember?”

  “That doesn’t mean they weren’t there, just like the sniffer.”

  Nick kissed him on the cheek. “All right. You win. But call me from Alabama, and let me know your schedule.”

  He leaned over and kissed her back. “I’m already jealous of McKinnon.”

  “He’s probably married.”

  Drysdale shook his head. “In that case, that mother of his would have had another wall full of pictures, the wedding, the daughter-in-law, the works.”

  “McKinnon’s too old to be single,”

  “And too young to be who he’s supposed to be,” Drysdale reminded her.

  Ross McKinnon had a table waiting by the time Nick entered the dining room at seven o’clock. She’d changed into another of her Macy’s specials, a wraparound red-and-black poplin dress that would have been too heavy without the Hilton’s efficient air- conditioning.

  For a moment he didn’t appear to recognize her, though she could scarcely blame him. She hadn’t looked at all herself in the bathroom mirror upstairs. On some women a new dress and makeup, something Nick seldom used, created a sophisticated look. On her, Macy’s and Revlon were a lost cause. All she’d managed to achieve was a sense of looking as if she’d borrowed someone else’s clothes.

  As McKinnon rose to greet her, she realized that she felt nervous enough to be on a blind date. For that matter, the last time she’d been out with a man, other than at the Zuni Cafe, was her Dutch treat outing with Ben Gilbert. No wonder she was anxious.

  Don’t expect to catch a man if you spend your life digging in old graves, her mother used to harp. Strangely enough, Elaine had been right. Nick always felt more at home among the dead, the long dead.

  She seated herself before realizing that he’d been about to pull the chair out for her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “When I go out to dinner, it’s usually with my mother. At Lael’s age, she expects to be catered to. Liberation is something the Allies did in Europe and the Philippines, not the status of women.”

  “I appreciate courtesy, too, when my brain’s working.”

  He smiled. “You don’t look like the archaeologists on television.”

  “You should see me on a dig. Levis, an old T-shirt, and a baseball cap.”

  A waitress as efficient as the air-conditioning arrived to take their orders: Caesar salads, quiche with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes, and the house merlot.

  Holding up his glass, McKinnon said, “Here’s to dinner with a beautiful archaeologist who, I have a feeling, isn’t telling me the whole truth.”

  “Women never do, you know. It’s part of the mystery.”

  “Would you care to make an exception in my case?”

  Sipping her wine, Nick thought that over. Finally she said, “I seem to remember you were the one who had some explaining to do. That’s why you asked me to dinner. The truth is in your court.”

  He laughed. “In the funny papers, why is it that Lucy always pulls the football out from under Charlie Brown?”

  “That’s another mystery we women keep to ourselves.”

  He stared at her intently, his head tilted to one side. Then he grinned. “I have a feeling that you’d get along well with my mother. You’re both very cryptic at times.” His grin faded. “That letter you brought her, she’s already memorized it. It’s the final justification for her obsession. To her, Ross McKinnon didn’t die in the war. He came back to her twelve years later. He made love to her and she became pregnant. As far as she’s concerned the child is his, Ross McKinnon, Jr., me. As to who the man really was, I’ll never know. I doubt if Lael does anymore. So you see, the only father I’ve ever known is the one in her memory. The one you brought back to life today.

  “The reason I’m telling you this,” he went on, his eyes avoiding hers now, “is that I don’t want you to be misled by what my mother told you. She doesn’t live in the present. To her, truth is somewhere in the past. Her reality is September 1944, the last time she saw my father. She made love to him then, and I was born nine months later, not twelve years.”

  Pausing, he took a deep swallow of wine.

  “What about the telegram and medal?” Nick said. “Are they real or imaginary?”

  “As far as I know, they’re the real thing. I don’t think faking them would ever have occurred to her. There have been times, I grant you, when I wanted to find out. But what good would it do if I discovered that it was all a pretense?”

  “Except for the twelve missing years, is there something else I ought to know?”

  He shook his head. “I’m never quite sure about my mother’s world. It’s been that way since I was a little boy. She’s told me stories of my father’s missions during the war, right down to details she couldn’t possibly know. My guess is that a lot of her memories come from old war movies, greatly embellished, of course.”

  “I’m sorry. I might not have delivered the letter if I’d understood the situation.”

  “Don’t be. You made my mother happier than I’ve seen her in years. There are times when I envy her fantasy.”

  He blushed, something Nick found naively charming in a man h
is age.

  “Are you married?” she asked, bringing even more color to his face.

  “I brought a couple of women home to meet my mother once. One she scared

  off, the other became Lael’s instant disciple. I couldn’t marry someone like that. Reality may not be what it’s cracked up to be, but it beats 1944. Looking at you is proof of that.” Nick smiled at the compliment while thinking what it would have been like

  bringing men home to meet her mother. Unlike McKinnon, Nick had never taken such a risk. Elaine’s moods had shifted so violently from one day to the next, from the black hole of depression to the sun-searing, manic heights of Icarus.

  “What kind of work do you do?” she asked.

  “Nothing as interesting as looking for lost airplanes.”

  “Airplanes aren’t exactly my full-time job. Mostly I go on digs with my father, excavating Anasazi Indian ruins in New Mexico. Which reminds me, have you ever heard your mother mention New Mexico in connection with your father . . . her husband?”

  “It’s all right to call him my father. I do. Hell, he is as far as I’m concerned. And no, New Mexico never came up in our conversations.”

  “What about his secret mission?”

  “I know he was stationed in the Pacific. I’ve seen the letters for myself. He wrote to my mother from Guadalcanal and Midway Island. As for anything secret or even as interesting as bombing Tokyo, I think that’s just wishful thinking on Lael’s part. The way I understand it, by 1945 B-29s were doing most of the bombing over Japan, not B-17s. And yes, she’s fantasized about his secret missions, though mostly they belong in a John Wayne movie, if you ask me.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  He shook his head.

  Nick said, “You never did tell me what you do for a living.”

  “I think it’s your turn to come up with explanations,” he answered, “but I’ll go first if you like. I usually keep quiet about my work because it puts a lot of people off. I’m a district director for the IRS.”

  Nick laughed. “Archaeologists don’t make enough money to cheat on their taxes.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me what you and your friend, Mr. Drysdale, are really doing?”

  Nick took a deep breath. “I found a B-17 in New Mexico, with a scorpion painted on its nose and your father’s diary hidden on board. The crewmen’s bodies were there, too, though I wasn’t able to identify them.”

  His mouth dropped open.

  “Before I could excavate properly and arrange for identification and burial, lawyers showed up, and claimed the plane. The next thing I knew, trucks showed up and hauled it away.”

  “Do you think my father’s body was on board?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t find any dog tags.”

  “Are you saying those bodies were there fifty years, since the day my father wrote that letter?”

  “I think so, but I don’t have any proof.”

  “That pisses me off, my father—or any flyer—being left in the desert to rot. God, whatever happens, I don’t want any of this getting back to my mother. If her fantasy ever shatters, there wouldn’t be anything left of her.”

  “That’s a promise,” Nick said.

  He leaned across the table, staring into her eyes. “What are you going to do about that plane?”

  “Your father’s diary contained the names of all the crewmen. With luck I can trace them, though what good that’s going to do me, I don’t know. Still, it’s a start. My friend Drysdale is working on that angle right now, trying to come up with names and addresses.”

  McKinnon leaned back and chewed on his lower lip. After a moment, he grinned lopsidedly. “The IRS keeps track of everybody. If you need help locating those crewmen, let me know and I’ll bend a few rules if need be.”

  “I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble.”

  “I want my father buried.” He handed her a business card. “I want the right thing done.”

  “So do I,” Nick said, reaching across the table to shake hands.

  CHAPTER 26

  At first Nick thought the alarm clock had gone off. She blinked, had trouble focusing her eyes for a moment, then zeroed in on the clock radio’s glowing red numerals: 6:30 A.M. She’d programmed the alarm for 7:00.

  Something whirred. She switched on the bedside lamp and saw paper feeding from the Hilton’s in-room fax machine. Most likely, it was some kind of promotional material advertising breakfast. In which case, she’d call the desk and raise hell for disturbing her sleep.

  Once out of bed, the air-conditioning made her wish for a flannel nightgown. Goose bumps were climbing her spine as she read the printout. Ken Drysdale was on the other end, faxing her from Alabama where, she calculated, it was an hour later, the beginning of the military’s working day.

  I have narrowed the field, Drysdale wrote, to the 36th Fighter Training Squadron based near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The only other P-38 base in the region would have been at the extreme limit of their service range. In any case, the 36th has to be the right choice, judging by the hell that’s starting to break loose here because of my questions.

  What did he mean by that? she wondered. Gooseflesh spread from her spine to every nook and cranny.

  This fax is being transmitted without authorization. So there goes my retirement. In any case, I have the names of pilots in advanced training at the 36th as of January 1945. Joseph Abbot, Timothy Carlson, John Clay, Henry Eames, George Fuller, Richard Gilchrist, Gilbert Holcomb, Lawrence Knowles, William Nash, Jessie Peterson, Joseph Twombly, and Ira Weissman. I don’t have present-day addresses for them yet, but

  The rest of the page was blank.

  Dammit. She pulled off the bedspread and wrapped it around her. Why had the fax broken off? Surely nothing could happen to him on an air force base.

  Nick scribbled a note on hotel stationery—Ken, get out of there—punched in the origination number at the top of Drysdale’s fax, and transmitted her reply. After that, she sat huddled on the edge of the bed, watching the fax machine and counting off the minutes on the clock. When five minutes had crept by, she grabbed the phone. She had trouble getting an outside line momentarily, and then called long distance information to get a number for Maxwell Air Force Base. After that, it took three transfers to reach the public information office.

  “This is Corporal Miles.”

  “Pm trying to locate Master Sergeant Lewin,” Nick said. “He’s stationed there.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “Actually, a friend of mine, Ken Drysdale, was meeting Sergeant Lewin on your base. I’d like to speak to either one of them.”

  “Sergeant Lewin is on emergency leave.”

  “As of when?”

  “I’m not authorized to give out that information.”

  “Mr. Drysdale faxed me from your base just a few moments ago.”

  “What’s his rank?”

  “He’s retired.”

  “You must be mistaken. Only authorized, active-duty personnel may use military facilities.”

  “Mr. Drysdale is a retired master sergeant,” Nick said. “I can assure you that he’s on that base.”

  “I’ll transfer you to the visitors’ center,” the corporal replied.

  A moment later, a deep male voice said, “This is Lieutenant Murray.”

  Forcing herself to sound calm, Nick identified herself and explained her quest a second time.

  “I’ll have to check the visitor’s list.”

  “I’ll hold on.”

  “It will take some time.”

  “I have no intention of hanging up,” she told him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Five minutes later, still waiting, Nick carried the phone into the bathroom and began brushing her teeth. She had a mouth full of foam when Lieutenant Murray came on the line again. “Ms. Scott?”

  “Yes?” she managed.

  “I have no record of a Mr. Drysdale signing onto the base. Are yo
u sure you have the right name?”

  Nick swallowed her toothpaste. “He was there visiting a Sergeant Lewin.” “He’s on leave.”

  “So I’ve been told. Just tell me when he left and where I can reach him.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t help you on that.”

  At the sound of the dial tone, Nick clenched her teeth in frustration. Her stomach rumbled, objecting to the toothpaste. For a moment, she thought she was going to be sick.

  Shakily, she read the label on the toothpaste tube, fearing to find a Do Not Swallow warning. But there was no such disclaimer.

  “Relax,” she told herself. “You’re panicking.”

  She drank a glass of water to dilute the contents of her stomach, made certain the in-room hair dryer worked, then stood under the shower a long time, thinking over the situation. The worst Ken had done was break some damned military regulation by using the fax. Surely they wouldn’t arrest him for something like that. Besides, Ken would have sense enough to pay the line charges if it came to a confrontation.

  What then? Maybe they’d thrown him off the base and didn’t want to admit the fact to an outsider. That sounded like the military, all right. But why would they bother lying about it? Why would they say he’d never been there?

  Cover-up was part of the military mentality, Ken had told her often enough. Still, it didn’t make sense. Most likely, it was some mistake, some paperwork mix-up. Probably he was on his way to the airport. By this evening, they’d be at her apartment in Berkeley laughing about her panic.

  She sighed. That made sense. Even the military would realize the futility of locking the barn door after their secrets had escaped.

  So why did the goose bumps come back the moment she stepped out of the shower? Because they always did, she reminded herself. Even so, she retrieved the fax from the bedroom and kept it with her while she dried her hair. Her feeling of vulnerability continued until she was fully dressed and sipping what passed for in-room coffee, strong enough to set her teeth on edge and fuel her anger.

  If the military or anyone else thought she was going to back off, they had a big surprise coming. She’d raise hell, starting right now. She retrieved Ross McKinnon’s business card from her purse and called him at the local IRS office.