by RP Dahlke
"You got no sense of direction, do you, Cuz? How do you ever find where you're goin' in that Ag-Cat? Here's a hallway, bet you ten dollars it leads to the outside." Pearlie gestured for me to follow. As she reached for the knob, the door opened from the outside.
The man coming in was of medium height and build, brown-eyed, brown hair, and in his forties by the creases radiating out from his eyes. His white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hands clean, and too nicely dressed to be somebody who worked on airplanes. He eyed Pearlie and smiled widely. No wedding band on his left hand either, which set Pearlie to wiggling like a happy puppy.
"Lucky me, two beautiful women in one day. To what do I owe the pleasure, ladies?"
I leaned around Pearlie and put out my hand. "Lalla Bains of Bains Aero Ag. I need to ask you a few questions about a pilot we hired earlier this year?"
"Bains, Bains? Oh yeah, that Bains," he said, a light coming into his brown eyes as they strayed back to my cousin. "Let's take it into my office," he said, motioning us back the way we came.
He cleaned the paperwork off a couple of wooden armchairs and invited us to sit. Satisfied, he went behind his desk, and with a groan lowered himself into the chair, then popped up again. "Sorry, this bum knee acts up and I forget my manners. Got it in Afghanistan, and I've been on my feet too long today. I'm Don. I guess I own the place, or what's left of it. My dad's heart finally gave out, poor old guy." He sighed, dragging his eyes off Pearlie. "I heard about your pilot. Someone came by a couple of days ago… his card is in the desk somewhere." He sat down again and rummaged through a top drawer.
Impatient to help, I jumped right in. "Was that Marshal Jim Balthrop?"
"Yeah, that's him," he said, relieved to be able to shut the drawer again. "Nice enough fellow, but I couldn't help him."
"Your dad made an agreement with the feds to give Arthur Einstein the training so he could get his journeyman's ticket. And because we were in the middle of the season and desperate for help, we took him."
His chair squeaked as he leaned back. "Miss Bains, I'm sorry, but you're preaching to the choir, here. I knew my dad was in trouble with the IRS, so I'm not a bit surprised he would make a deal with the feds. Not that it did any good. Everything here," he said, waving his hand around the shabby interior, "will go up for auction next week. I'm only here long enough to make sure his personal effects don't go with the sale. I didn't know your pilot, and besides, I heard his wife was arrested for killing him."
I declined to confirm the news. "My company's reputation could've been damaged because your father chose to fake his training. If you weren't already going out of business you'd be hearing from my lawyer."
He wiped a hand across the back of his neck. "I'll ignore that. So, at this late date, what else can I possibly do to help you?"
"I think someone in your dad's outfit ratted him out."
He did a doubtful shake of his head. "There're only two guys left, and both of them are doing inventory for the auction. One is in that big Quonset hut, and the other one is working in a poled hangar where we keep the parts."
He put his hands on his desk, and with a groan, pushed himself upright and limped around the desk to shake my hand.
Pearlie waved me off. "I'll wait here."
As I closed the door, I could hear her say, "Fly cropdusters? Oh, no, not me. I wouldn't get near one of those dirty ol' things, but I do have a nice Cessna 185. Flew it out here from Texas for my older cousin's wedding. That was her just walked out the door. So what do you do besides clearing out your poor ol' daddy's estate?"
Maybe Pearlie could find another potential husband besides Mad Dog.
I found the first guy on the list, Clark Sullivan, in the Quonset hut, a clipboard in one hand and a cigarette dangling off his lip. He looked pleased to have an excuse to stop whatever it was he was doing.
I stuck out my hand and told him I was looking for friends of Dewey Treat. The guy put down his busy work and took a drag on the cigarette. "Can't help you. Didn't know the guy that well. Maybe Alvin would know more."
This was pretty much the same answer I got from the owner's son. "Is he the other guy who works here?"
"Yeah, ask him about your pilot. They used to drink together after class. By the way, all of us will be looking for work after today. You know of any work for a good A&E mechanic, I'd sure like to hear about it." He wrote down a phone number and I took it without telling him we were also as good as gone, and headed in the direction of the open hangar.
Alvin had the look of a weasel; small, close-set, watery eyes of some indeterminate color behind owlish glasses. His nose was sharp, his feet tiny. I don't know what it is that makes me think a man who has tiny feet would be a liar, but there it was, and I could see him as a guy who would sell out my pilot. But when I asked him about Dewey, he backhanded his mouth with a greasy paw against a jaw-popping yawn.
"Sorry, not enough sleep lately," he said, excusing himself for the yawn. "Didn't I see you talking to Clark a minute ago?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm the owner of the aero-ag company where Dewey Treat last worked. I'm told you were friends with him?"
"Who said that?"
"Him," I said, pointing in the direction of the Quonset hut. "He said I should ask you about Dewey Treat."
"Sorry, ma'am, but I wasn't one to spend time with the students, too busy fixing whatever they break."
I looked at the carburetor on a bench, then at the grease on his hands. "You're the mechanic?"
"The one and only."
Maybe the guy simply liked to brag. "Clark said…"
He shook his weaselly little head, his sharp nose lifting as if smelling a rat. "Yeah, I know what Clark says." His mouth slipped into a lopsided grin of amusement. "That lie and the one about him being a war pilot in Afghanistan gets him a bit of action at our local watering hole. You need to ask Clark about your pilot."
"Clark. Not you?"
He turned his head to the side, peering up at me from behind his thick glasses and laughed that I'd been so easy to fool. "Didn't you see a bar about a mile back? You had to pass it on the way in. Their two cars were parked out front every night."
"Every night? My pilot was a newlywed."
"Every night but weekends. I couldn't tell you about weekends. I don't work then. And, like I said, I didn't socialize with the students."
I pulled the phone number out of my pocket Clark had written down for me. "Is this even his phone number?"
The weasel held out a greasy hand, and I noticed the arms were corded with muscle that reached up all the way to his shoulders in the gray T-shirt. Lifting heavy engines can do that, or maybe he was working on his image in a gym. He read it and chuckled. "Nice of him to give you my phone number."
I nodded, hanging on to my growing irritation, and apologized for the bother.
"No bother, miss," he called, as I backtracked for another round with the lying bastard, Clark Sullivan. He must've seen me coming because he veered away from his path to the office, and jogged for a shiny new cobalt blue Ford F-150.
I caught up as he was starting the engine. He ignored my window tapping and put the truck in reverse. I grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was locked. And before I could react, he stepped on the gas. I tried to let go, but my engagement ring was stuck in the handle. Thinking I was being obstinate, he punched the gas and dragged me, struggling and shouting alongside his truck. He twisted the wheel over and I went flying in the opposite direction, which fortunately broke the stranglehold on my ring, leaving me in a filthy heap on the ground.
He jerked the truck into forward, and fishtailed out of the parking lot.
I staggered into the office, where Pearlie was sitting on the edge of the flight school owner's desk, laughing at something he'd said. She uncrossed her very curvy legs and tilted her blonde head at me. "What on earth have you been up to now?"
I ignored my cousin's waspish tone and asked the owner's son if I could use his bathroom to wash up. He
pointed at the door I'd earlier mistaken for an exit. When I was as clean as I was ever going to be, I came out and caved into a chair. "It seems that Clark Sullivan knows more than he's willing to say about my pilot."
"Should I call the police?" the owner's son asked. "Did he hurt you, Miss Bains? "
I held up my ring finger, which was now red and swelling. "I don't think it was intentional, but he still wasn't willing to stick around. By the way, he got into an expensive-looking truck. Is that new?"
"Couldn't say. I haven't been here long enough to know what the guys drive, but I'm shocked, truly shocked. Let me get you some ice for that finger."
Pearlie reached out and patted his arm. "I'll get it, sugah. I saw the fridge in your storage room." Her Good Samaritan act would also keep him from making a fuss over me.
Chapter Sixteen:
I promised the new owner of the flight school I'd take my suspicions about his father's employee to the authorities and asked one last favor. "Would your dad have kept Burdell Smith's home address?"
Anxious to get the two troublesome women out of his office, he rummaged through his dad's old-fashioned Rolodex and came up with the card.
"Please, take it," he said, shoving the card into my hand. "I certainly won't need it."
I thanked him, handed my car keys to Pearlie, and insisted she drive.
"This better be an automatic." She examined the pedals and column shift lever." I could use a cushion. How do you see over this huge wheel, anyways?"
"It is an automatic. Later on the cushion. Now drive."
"Keep your shirt on. This will take some getting used to." She adjusted the seat up for her shorter legs, pulled the rearview mirror down to check her lipstick, then up again to eye level and squealed.
"What?" I swiveled around to look out the back window.
She laughed. "Boy, howdy, those dang tail fins are so big I thought someone was following us already."
Now buckled up, she looked over her shoulder and carefully backed out of the yard, shifting into drive. "So, where we going? You mentioned a bar down the road, you want to stop there? Yes? No? Why're you so quiet?"
"I'm thinking."
"So think out loud. I'll tell you if you're on the right track or not." Pearlie swerved to miss a pothole.
"That truck Clark was driving," I said, "had to cost thirty-five grand if it was a dime, and so new it didn't have a fingerprint on it. Well, except for mine."
She smacked the steering wheel. "Bought a new truck with the bribe money he got for selling out Arthur to his bosses."
"The mechanic, the real one, said he saw Arthur and Clark's cars at the bar every night."
''What'd'ya wanna bet he killed Burdell too? Dirty rat!"
"He left in an awful hurry, that's for sure." I rubbed at my sore ring finger. "I told Caleb the feds wouldn't be able to get anything out of these people and I was right. Jim Balthrop didn't get that Clark was Arthur's drinking buddy, either."
"Wait. Drinking buddy? You said Arthur was diabetic—he had a death wish or what? We're coming up on the bar, yes or no?"
I had to wonder what Burdell Smith's story would be when I called, but all I got was an answering machine. This is Burdell Smith's old home for cranky cropdusters. It's strictly B-Y-O-B here, so leave your name and number and I'll put you on the waiting list. "Burdell's place is only a half-hour from here. Let's go see if he's home."
I opened the rusted screen door to Burdell's house. A note was tacked to the peeling white paint of the door. I'm out at the pond. Follow the path to the willow trees and bring worms or beer.
We didn't bring beer or worms, but I was determined that Burdell tell me if he had accepted a bribe that got Arthur killed. We took the path to the pond, and saw his lawn chair lying on its side, a tackle box spilled of its contents.
"Burdell?" I called, hoping he had stepped behind a tree to pee.
"Lalla—I—I think—you see that over there?"
"Where?"
"By that willow tree yonder."
In the lacy shadows, a colorful plaid workshirt, the kind favored by fishermen, hunters and cranky old cropdusters wallowed beneath a lowering branch. With the discarded fishing rod, I climbed out on a thick limb and snagged the shirt, pulling the body around so I could see the face. Sadly, I recognized my father's old friend. My dad and Burdell had the same bushy gray eyebrows, only Burdell now sported a bloody hole at the base of his neck.
I shimmied down off the tree, dropped the fishing rod, and wiping away the tears threatening my vision, flipped open my cell. Looking for a signal and finding none, I flipped the cell closed. "Let's go back up to the house. I can't get a signal here."
Then I looked back at the body silently waiting in the shallow end of his fishing pond. "Goddammit, Pearlie, I can't leave him here like this. Wait here."
I climbed back up the tree limb, and using the fishing rod, snagged his shirt and towed him to the shore. Then Pearlie and I got a hand under each arm and pulled him out of the water. I couldn't bear to turn him over. It could've been my dad lying on the ground, his grey hair wet and stuck to his head.
Pearlie was breathing heavily through her mouth. "Is—is it really him, your dad's friend?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "I'm afraid so. Come on let's go call 9-1-1."
If only I'd chosen to come here before going to the aero-ag school, maybe this wouldn't have happened, or maybe we would've been found face down in the pond along with Burdell. I vowed if I ever found out who killed him, I wouldn't wait around for the police.
We trudged uphill to the house, and I opened the screen door and turned the knob.
"Shouldn't his house be locked?" Pearlie asked.
"Burdell is like most of these old-timers, never locks his doors. If it were up to my dad our house would still be unlocked."
I walked over to the phone on an end table next to a twin of my dad's Barcalounger. It depressed the hell out of me. How was I going to tell Dad someone had shot his best friend? And for what? The old boy didn't have anything valuable to steal. No big screen TV, and no fancy car or fishing boat, either.
There was a small package addressed to my dad on the table. This would be his monthly exchange of a paperback novel. I put it in my back pocket, thinking I'd give it to my dad when we got home.
With a heavy heart, I picked up the handset of his old-style black phone to call the police.
An inside door swung open and out of it stepped the braggart from the aero ag school. Clark! The son of a bitch. I flexed my fingers and felt the bruise along my ring finger where it had gotten stuck in the door handle of his new Ford F-150.
He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him, which I hoped would work in my favor. He was so fixated on me he didn't notice Pearlie glued to the wall behind him. Not that I expected much from my cousin. She was rooted to the spot, her hands clapped over her mouth to keep from screaming.
Unfortunately, he had the gun he'd used to shoot Burdell in his hand and raised it to aim at my head. "Put down the phone Ms. Bains."
I flicked a glance at Pearlie, hoping she would remember that little pistol she carried in the bag she had hanging on her arm. I chanced a reminder. "My friend has a gun on your back."
"Oldest trick in the book," he said, holding out his other hand. "Give me the phone, or put it down. Come on, lady. I don't want to hurt you."
"Like you didn't hurt Burdell Smith?" I said, putting down the phone. "Why'd you do it? What'd that old man ever do to you?"
He frowned, opened his mouth to say something, but Pearlie chose that moment to come out of her trance. Instead of pulling her gun out of her bag, she screamed.
Clark whirled around at the sound and got the full force of one chubby little blonde launching herself at him. I leaped on to his back, hoping the two of us could bring him down. We weren't enough to knock him off his feet and Pearlie fell off, but I hung on like a limpet, and we lurched around the room, knocking over furniture, lamps, and chairs.
Pearlie got up, climbed on to a couch, and launched herself at him again, battering at his head with her purse. Too bad she didn't remember she had a perfectly good gun inside.
Her aim seemed to improve, and every now and again the purse connected with his head or a shoulder, and I thought maybe that gun was going to do some good after all. Instead, it only seemed to infuriate the guy.
We struggled and fought, me on his back trying to get a strangle hold on his neck, him jerking me around like one of those mechanical bull rides, Pearlie screaming, tossing books and magazines at his head. We staggered around like this for a few more seconds until he slammed me into Pearlie and knocked us all into the wall. Pearlie and I slipped down on to the floor to lie dazed and exhausted. Pearlie's dress was bunched up around her bottom and my shirt was hanging half off.
He stood over us, his gun pointed at me. Then his angry face altered into a leering grin. He reached out and jerked Pearlie to her feet. Looking her up and down, he licked his lips. "Fights always make me horny, and lucky me, I think I'm holding the cure. You, skinny bitch, get up," he said to me, and gestured for me to pick up a wooden armchair.
He pushed Pearlie away from him. "There's a roll of duct tape over there. Get it, cutie, and tie her up," he said. "Hurry and make it nice and tight. I don't want any interruptions to our party."
I didn't have to ask what he had in mind for Pearlie. It was the after I was worried about.
Pearlie was slow and clumsy at the task, submissive, docile, and not at all like the Pearlie I knew. I could only hope this was an act.
But then, my cousin didn't have much practice with killers. I suppose it would only be natural that she would try to please him. It's part of our genetic makeup—do what the man says and he won't kill her. Unless you were someone like me, who had run up against not one, but two killers in the last two years, who knew there would be no bargaining for our lives, no chips left to play in this game. I knew I would have to find that tiny window of opportunity that might save our lives before it was too late.