“Maybe Louis ought to take you,” he said in a quiet voice.
“I want you to take me,” she said. There was a sudden certainty in her tone. Harry halted as though he’d been shot, then looked at her. The expression on his face contained multitudes. She could make out confusion and anger, but she thought she glimpsed a hint of something else, too. In the next second the emotion was gone and his face had turned to stone again.
“Back so soon?” Louis called out to them, now that they were a short distance away. He had not taken his eyes off Ava and Harry for the entirety of their spin around the dance floor. The hesitation left Harry’s body and he calmly finished escorting Ava back to their friends.
“Yes. It was all I could take,” Harry replied, hooking a thumb in Ava’s direction. “This one will clobber your toes if you’re not careful.”
It was a joke, but Ava felt mildly stung. She was working on a sharp remark of her own when a young boy interrupted her. He ran up to them and tugged on Hutch’s sleeve.
“Hey, mister,” the kid said, “you’re the one who came into the Toscano Hotel with the dark-haired fella with the slick moustache earlier, ain’t ya?”
Hutch looked confused but realized the kid could only mean Earl.
“Yeah?” he said.
“He sent me to come getcha,” the kid reported. “He told me to tell you . . . he’s in trouble . . .”
By now the kid, a child of no more than eight or so, had everyone’s attention. The group of them exchanged a wary look.
“Oh, dear,” Cleo murmured. The wrinkle on her brow reappeared.
“Well, we’d better go see . . .” Hutch announced, and they all walked in the direction of the saloon.
27
Earl Shaw was often lucky at cards, but—unlucky for Earl—he didn’t always know how to quit while he was ahead. That night at the saloon inside the Toscano, after winning more money at poker than he ever had in his life, Earl proceeded to get tipsy. Once happily buzzing with a belly full of whiskey, he convinced himself his winning streak had surely not run its course. He began to bet more wildly, and as the night wore on, the players at the table changed; the middle-aged farmer who had lost a small fortune to Earl returned with a pair of thick-necked friends. Earl—by that point blurry with drink—paid little mind. When his winning streak gave way to the first few losses, Earl dug his heels in, irritable and eager to win it all back. His irritation grew as he continued to lose until finally it transformed into desperation, and before Earl knew it, he had not only lost all his winnings but had gambled away every last cent he was worth.
The terrible truth was, Earl had even bet away his livelihood. He had bet the planes with startling nonchalance, only to lose them in a single hand. He was drunk and was now trapped in a horrific nightmare. Sweating terribly, even in his stupor, he knew: He needed to send for help. Hutch was the last person he’d seen, the one to whom men usually listened. He promised the kid who’d been helping the barkeep all evening a dollar if he found Hutch and brought him.
When the group arrived, Hutch indeed did the talking. Inside the saloon, the room had acquired the stale atmosphere of a long night filled with numerous poker games. As Ava stood off to the side of the saloon with her mother, she noticed the wallpaper was stained and the room smelled like spilled beer.
“He placed them bets in good faith,” one of the thick-necked farmers argued, unmoved by Hutch’s appeals to leave the airplanes out of it and call it a draw. “He can’t go back on them now just ’cause he don’t feel like payin’ up.”
The wiry, middle-aged man who’d originally lost to Earl stood up from where he sat at the table, angry. “This fella was about to take me for all I’m worth, and you didn’t see me whining about fairness!”
As they went back and forth, tensions rose and fists clenched. Ava felt her eyes nervously roving over the men’s hips, looking to see who might have a gun. She said a quick prayer it wouldn’t come to that.
Hutch continued in his negotiations, even-toned and steady. He talked the men down from demanding payment in the form of both planes to demanding one of the biplanes plus all the money the flying circus presently had in cash.
Ava saw Louis and Harry exchange a look, the silent protest plain on Louis’s face. She knew Hutch was offering money that belonged to all of them, and Louis needed that money more than most, as he had been sending all of his shares back home to his family’s ranch.
“Without at least one plane, we’ve got no act anymore,” Harry reminded Louis in a low, confidential tone. “He’s gotta do what he can to save at least one . . .”
The deal was struck, with the men insisting the money be paid immediately. The biplane they were owed they would collect in the morning, once they found a pilot of their own to fly it over to the winning man’s property.
Earl kept a strongbox in his caravan and allowed the other members of the flying circus to stow their money and valuables in it—a necessary precaution when living life on the road. Hutch sent Ava to fetch the contents of the strongbox, and Louis and Harry accompanied her to keep her safe, just in case.
The three of them barely spoke as they ran this errand. Ava found herself full of mixed emotions: relief that the men wouldn’t be taking both biplanes; pity for Hutch, Buzz, Louis, and Harry, who all looked deflated—Louis, in particular; and anger. Ava felt a terrible anger toward Earl for causing all of this to happen.
When they returned to the saloon, they gave every cent they had found in the strongbox to Hutch, who in turn handed the money over to the farmer. Everyone watched glumly as they counted the bills and coins.
“You’re gettin’ a deal, I’ll have you know,” one of the farmer’s friends said.
No, Ava thought. Earl is.
To heap injury upon insult, Earl was still too drunk to walk without stumbling and falling every few feet. Hutch and Buzz had to hook a shoulder under each of Earl’s arms just to get him back to the campsite.
* * *
Later that same night, Earl snored inside the caravan as fireworks exploded in the sky. Hutch built a fire as the night’s cool darkness settled around them and Ava’s mother put on some hot cocoa.
The fireworks were quite pretty, brilliant bursts of green and red and white that pulsed in the sky like sporadic ethereal jellyfish. Ava, Harry, and Louis stared upward, abstractly admiring the show, but the mood had been irrevocably dampened. Buzz seemed bent on drinking his sorrows away. Hutch didn’t even pretend interest in the fireworks; he lay down and promptly put his cowboy hat over his face in order to sleep.
“What’ll we do now?” Louis muttered.
Harry shrugged. “We’ll have to come up with some way to do a decent stunt show using only one plane, I guess.”
“One plane instead of two also means half as many rides . . .” Louis pointed out.
“He’s right,” Ava said, newly alert with the realization. “What if we can’t give as many rides as before? That’s our bread and butter.”
“Maybe we can still sell the same amount; it’ll just take us twice as long,” Harry said, clearly making an effort to retain some optimism.
They were quiet for a few moments. Far off in the distance, the sounds of festive hilarity could still be heard in the town square, and in the opposite direction a dog howled, perturbed by the explosions in the sky.
“My brother’ll be sore,” Louis said, to no one in particular. He sighed. “Guy works awful hard to keep things running on the ranch. He didn’t approve of me runnin’ off with this circus, especially not . . .” Louis hesitated, then continued: “. . . especially not once he learned I’d be spending time with Harry.” He looked down at the flames of the campfire, avoiding eye contact with the others. “But things started to turn around between us once I started sending all that money home.”
Nobody said anything. Ava knew Hutch had just bailed out Earl with money th
at Louis couldn’t afford to forfeit—not if he wanted to make good with his family. She felt a genuine pang for him, and a fresh wave of anger toward Earl.
“Now when I tell Guy I ain’t got nothing to show for these past few weeks, he’ll just say that’s what I should’ve expected all along,” Louis concluded. “That this is what I get for affiliatin’ with the types of folks I done aligned myself with . . .”
They all knew: Louis didn’t mean Earl, or transient air show types in general. Harry, if he was insulted, didn’t show it. The three of them continued to sit around the campfire as the fireworks built up to a final frenzy of explosions, then petered out.
* * *
The next morning the farmer came to collect the rest of his winnings. He brought an old crop duster pilot with him, and together they took one of the biplanes, intent on flying it back to the farmer’s own acreage.
Ava watched. It was both tragic and ironic that Castor and Pollux were named for twins, she thought, and now they would be separated. Unlike with her Shakespeare play, Ava could find little comedy about it. Of course—in the play, the comedy had resulted from an unexpected reunion. Ava feared there was little hope of that for their own twins.
A preliminary inspection of the two planes revealed they were in equal condition, so the farmer and the old crop duster pilot flipped a coin to decide which one to take. Ava found she was slightly relieved that they took Castor. If they had to take one, she guessed she was glad they had not taken Pollux—the plane Harry had taken her up in for the first flight of her life.
28
Newcastle, California * September 19, 1943
Agent Bonner is certain of it now: He is being watched. Even alone in his room, he feels the prickle of eyes on him. During his first night in the boardinghouse, he thought he heard the sound of creaking outside his door. But now, on Sunday—his fourth night as a guest—he’s sure he isn’t imagining things. He’s heard the creaking all too often and all too regularly.
Yet again he hears a soft rustling, the groan of a floorboard. He suspects it is his hostess, spying on him. Or, at the very least, straining to listen to his every cough and twitch. He can’t imagine why she would spy on him, or what she wants, and yet he is sure she is.
Bonner has been restless all weekend, and Rosalind’s behavior put him further on edge. Over dinner, he tested her by letting Sheriff Whitcomb’s news about the punctured fuel line “slip,” aiming to gauge her reaction. He watched her face closely and glimpsed surprise, alarm, and . . . something else he couldn’t make out.
“Do you have any evidence to suggest who might’ve done such a thing?” she asked.
Bonner insinuated that he wasn’t at liberty to say, and watched as she began nervously fingering the collar of her dress. Did Rosalind have an inkling who the culprit might be? Was she protecting someone? Or was she simply unsettled to think one of her neighbors could do such a thing? No one relished the idea of sharing her hometown with a murderer.
She didn’t ask anything further and they finished the meal in silence. Afterward, Rosalind dutifully cleared the dishes. Bonner retired to his room. Outside his window the light was slowly draining from the sky.
Now Bonner reclines on top of the neatly made bed with a pillow stuffed behind his neck, flipping through his notebook, rereading details about the case he has jotted down. Late Friday afternoon, the airplane mechanic they called in from Sacramento verified the business about the fuel line. Several questions remain: How was it cut? With what? And by whom?
Bonner turns his attention to the other evidence in the case, specifically the bodies of the men who perished in the crash. Kenichi Yamada’s body was the less burned of the two and was positively identified by several people on the day of the crash. That much, at least, is straightforward. But even so, some curious details have emerged. Kenichi’s body showed signs of faint bruising, and bruising suggests healing, even if the healing was brief. This in turn indicates Kenichi acquired his wounds—or some of them, at least—before the plane crash.
Bonner recalls the bruises he spotted on Louis Thorn’s face when he went to his house on the day of the crash. Bonner is no expert, but the freshness of the bruises suggests the two men—Kenichi and Louis—acquired their injuries within the same general time frame. But why would Louis fight an old man? Even if Kenichi and Haruto Yamada had returned to their old property and confronted Louis Thorn and an argument erupted, it was far more likely that Louis would have had it out with Haruto—or “Harry,” as everyone in town called him. How and why would the old man get directly involved in some kind of fistfight? Most troubling was a heavy contusion very near Kenichi’s left temple; it looked as though he either fell down or someone dealt the elderly man a terrible blow to his head.
The other body—Harry’s—was severely burned. This presents another puzzle. Harry’s body suffered terrible fire damage, whereas Kenichi’s body was only singed. They were sitting in separate cockpits, but the cockpits were not so far apart as to account for the unequal distribution of fire damage. If the suicide theory did, in fact, hold true, then it was almost as if Harry had doused himself in gasoline before taking off. Why would someone do that to himself? Then there was the question of Harry’s uniform; while the body itself was charred, the uniform he was wearing was mostly singed in the manner that Kenichi’s body was singed. The clothing should not have survived as well as it did.
Added to all of this is the fact that one of the two men had to have been well enough in mind and body to pilot the biplane’s takeoff—airplanes didn’t do that by themselves. All signs suggested that Harry Yamada had plotted a bizarre, pointless suicide, but a suicide nonetheless. And yet, Bonner can’t stop thinking about the bruises on Louis Thorn’s face or about Thorn’s cagey reactions and transparent lies.
None of it makes any sense.
As Bonner flips through his notes, he hears the now-familiar creaking just outside his door. He freezes and suppresses his breath, listening. He feels his pulse quickening. Sure enough, the creaking comes again, and he is acutely aware of someone standing in the hall. The sound moves closer, and closer still. Is Rosalind thinking of opening the door this time? Bonner can hear her soft footfalls nervously shuffling this way and that, and swears he hears the meekest rattle of the doorknob moving under her hand. But ultimately the doorknob stops, and Bonner hears the soft groan of the floorboards as she takes one step away from the door. She has changed her mind.
Still holding his breath, Bonner finds he is oddly sorry to hear her go.
All at once, he leaps up, crosses the room, and reaches for the doorknob, yanking the door open. Just as he suspected, Rosalind stands only inches away from the doorway. She blinks in the abrupt light, startled and trapped.
“What do you want?” he asks gently.
To his surprise, she doesn’t budge from where she stands. She only shakes her head. Her wide, surprised eyes never leave his. They are full of a strange, exquisite sadness.
He has an urge to touch her, to put his hands on her shoulders. It is an impulse of tenderness and reassurance, similar to the urge he had on that first day, when she showed him to his room and lingered as though she wanted something from him—some kind of comfort or kindness, or even simple attention. Now Bonner begins to reach toward her but he stops short when he notices she is dressed for bed: A white nightgown hangs on her body, and her shoulders are bare. Bonner shakes himself.
“What do you want?” he demands again, this time more forcefully. His voice surprises him, a near shout. “Why are you watching me?”
Still no answer. She continues to blink. Her lips begin to move as though to speak, but no sound comes out. She is stymied, working to coax the words necessary to explain herself. To Bonner’s discomfort, she begins to tremble, shaking as though he’s abused her by shouting at her, demanding an explanation. She begins backing away, with tiny, mincing steps, down the hallway.
&n
bsp; “I’ve heard you lurking outside my room,” Bonner says, a faint hint of exasperation creeping into his voice. “I know you’ve been watching me. But I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you want. Why can’t you tell me? What is it? What do you want?”
Rosalind suddenly halts in her retreat. Her entire body tenses, and she looks at him with a kind of heated glare. Bonner feels a strange sense of shame, as though he has been the one lurking outside her door, and now she is about to chastise him for it.
But everything changes in the space of a second. To Bonner’s surprise, Rosalind lunges toward him. On instinct, Bonner feels his body ready itself for defense . . . until he realizes she is not attacking him. Her mouth is on his. Her skin is warm. He feels the breath moving through her body; within seconds it feels as though it is moving through his body, too.
As Bonner staggers backward, Rosalind staggers with him. Her hands fumble at his pants but never break their resolve. The two of them become a blur of tangled limbs.
* * *
Afterward, they lie together in Bonner’s creaky double bed. Rosalind’s dark curls rest in the crook of his armpit; her cheek is turned against his chest. Her eyes are open; he can feel her lashes periodically brushing against his skin.
Bonner has no idea what to make of this encounter. Mostly it was tender, but there was something almost anguished and violent in it, too. His thoughts roam the room, racing in a wide circle and returning to him again.
“How long . . .” Rosalind begins to say, but her voice catches in her throat and she gives a quick cough. Her voice has grown low and shy since their encounter. “How long do you think you’ll be in town for this investigation?” she asks.
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