Flight of the Scarlet Tanager

by Bevill, C. L.

  Sometime between when they had dragged the boat ashore, and when they had climbed the bank of Lake Creek, scrambling up moss-covered rocks, and a muddy bank, one of the law enforcement officers had gone along each vehicle and turned off the lights and disengaged the motors, except the last one. Only the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department vehicle on the end had its motor running and its emergency lights blinking, in the event that anyone coming down from the highway above wouldn’t run into it in the dark.

  After Fitch made it a few feet down the narrow ditch at the side of the road, he crept up to the side of the vehicle that was facing away from the men gathered at the other end of the bridge. He remained in the shadows and worked his way up to the door, crushing gravel and dirt into the palms of his hands and into his kneecaps. One hand slowly, achingly reached up and tried the handle. His eyes opened wide. The handle clicked. The door was open.

  Fitch peeked over the top of the hood toward the men on the opposite side. Still in conversation. Still occupied. Some of them seemed to be arguing. Two men in sheriff’s deputy uniforms were on one side. Several men in suits were on the other side of the group. Dissension in the ranks, thought Fitch. Good. He reached out and held the button that allowed the light to come on in the car when the door was open, then fully brought the door back. Keeping his head down, he looked at the interior of the car. Keys in. Lights on. Motor running. Shotgun secured to opposite side of the vehicle. And the radio was on.

  It issued static then suddenly a woman’s voice came on and requested an update on Unit thirty’s location. A slightly irritated man’s voice, husky like a man who smoked too much, responded with, “Jesus, Jennings, I’m en route. That’s a ten-seventeen, in case you don’t remember. I’ll be there in five, maybe ten minutes.”

  The female officer responded with a mild, “Sorry, Gal. Those guys are out front, waiting in an Army sedan. They’re making me nervous.”

  Army sedan? thought Fitch. Uh-oh. I guess I’m in bigger trouble than I thought. Either Dad’s here or he sent someone. She said they’re making her nervous. Gotta be Dad. He’d scare the shit out of Godzilla. He scrutinized the group of law enforcement officials, his eyes level with the top of the dash, making sure that they were still in the same general position. One of them had taken a step back and appeared to be listening to the same ongoing radio message.

  “So what?” replied the irritable Gal, who Fitch thought must have been the officer who left the scene as they were pulling the fishing boat up on the creek bank. “They’re not God and Jesus Christ out there. They put on their pants one leg at a time like anyone else. Enough of this on the radio, tell the other officers to twelve-four if they need to converse this subject. Attention all stations, that’s a twelve-thirty-nine for all you men out in the field. That’s unit thirty-one, thirty-two, and sixty-four. All further communication this matter, is twelve-four. I repeat, twelve-four. Base, that goes for you, too. Ignore those guys and I’ll be there pronto. I’m out.”

  Fitch was mentally going over his numbers in his head. He’d read a book on police and radio codes and he remembered the codes, but not all states and agencies used the same codes. However, he could pull it off, if he could manage to sound a little shrouded with white noise. He glanced around the cab of the police vehicle for something he could use to disrupt the properties of the police radio. His eyes stopped on a pack of gum sitting on the dash. With a smile he plucked a piece out, discarded the gum, and wadded up the aluminum wrapper. He swiped it across the radio mike, and was pleased to find that it caused a realistic sounding white noise. The radio crackled alarmingly in protest.

  He slowly brought his head up. The men were still in a group. One of the deputies was angrily gesturing at one of the Feds. Then Fitch pulled the microphone down and keyed it. He said in his deepest voice, “Base this is...” He briskly rubbed the foil across the face of the mike, creating the same white noise that sounded like a natural disruption. “...Report of a twelve-twenty-eight. Repeat, a twelve-twenty-eight, vicinity Blue Lake Marina. Two subjects. One male. One female. A motorcycle is involved. Code ninety-nine. I repeat. Code ninety-nine.” If he was correct in his recollection he had just told them that two suspicious people, a man and a woman, had been sighted not two miles from here and that the officer reporting the situation considered it an emergency. All units respond.

  His eyes were level with the dash again; he was ready to drop the microphone and scramble for the side of the road if one of the sheriff’s deputies made a beeline for this particular vehicle. The men in the group froze for a moment and then began to scatter, headed for their respective cars. One of the deputies was rapidly pointing down the road that led to Suttle Lake and then went on to Blue Lake, about two miles further. The other man was diving into another sheriff’s department vehicle.

  The female deputy came back on, repeated the urgency of the matter, and then requested, “Twelve-five that identification, officer?”

  The deputy was waving the other men out, not waiting for the identification that base had asked for, not even questioning the call. The first vehicle took off, a blur of lights and sirens. The others followed as Fitch responded, cheerfully swiping the aluminum foil across the radio, “Problems with my....radio,” more white noise, “Unit thirty....” more white noise. He gave the mike an extra hard rub with the foil for good measure, “Please advise.”

  “Twelve-four the station, unit,” the deputy advised, and went out. Fitch thought, What the hell is a twelve-four, anyway? Was it use a phone instead of the radio? I read that book way back in grade school. He put the mike back into its receptacle and observed the deputy standing at the end of the bridge, who was, in turn, watching the lights of the other sedans disappear down the road. The man’s back was turned to the squad car and Fitch used his left hand to vigorously wave at Teddy, beckoning her to come to the police vehicle.

  She clambered up the ditch and opened the back door of the police vehicle, then threw herself in the back seat. Her arms came up to rest on top of the seat, noting there wasn’t a cage dividing the front from the back in this vehicle. “Told you,” she said triumphantly. “Think it would have worked even if you hadn’t used the codes.”

  Fitch shrugged. “I’m not sure if I used the right ones. The codes were the same, I think. But hey, they’re gone.” He grinned at her, rattling the foil in his hand, and then tossing it over his shoulder. “And we’ve got wheels again.”

  The deputy turned halfway around at the sound of the car door opening. He stood there for a moment and stared straight at his vehicle, not believing what he was seeing. Even from the distance that they were apart the pair inside the car could clearly see that the deputy’s eyes became as large and round as saucers. From the amazed expression on the officer’s face he might as well have been looking at the Easter bunny sitting at the wheel of his squad car with Santa Claus in the back seat.

  Fitch knew he had about five seconds before wheels started to click in the deputy’s head. He threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. The rear wheels threw a cloud of dust into the air and instantly obscured the scene directly in front of them.

  When the airborne cloud wafted away the deputy had galvanized himself into action. He lurched forward and started running toward them, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was waving his arms above his head as if to catch their attention, yelling, “Stop! Police! Stop!”

  “As if,” said Fitch mildly.

  Teddy watched the officer running as they shot up the road backwards. He was a younger man, who was vigorously pumping his legs up and down, attempting to catch them. Like a dog chasing a car, she seriously questioned what he thought he was going to do with them once he caught them, if he caught them, which, of course, he was not. It occurred to her to ask primly, “You think you can manage not to drive into a lake this time, Fitch?”

  Fitch groaned. “You’ve wounded me again. I mean, how many men do you know who can do all the things I can do, plus convince a police operator tha
t I’m one of the units?”

  Teddy nodded her head. “I gotta admit, Fitch. You’re one in a million.”

  “One in a billion, babe.”

  They rounded a corner and almost careened off the side of the hill. Teddy smothered a half-hysterical giggle. “Really, Fitch, can we turn around? I don’t want another swim in a cold lake.”

  “Just let me get out of the range of his weapon.”

  The space between the car and the deputy grew dramatically as Fitch gunned the motor, resting his arm on the back of the seat and looking over his shoulder to see where he was steering. Teddy watched the man trying to keep pace with them. He wasn’t anywhere close. “It’s kind of sad. He’s running up a hill and he thinks he’s going to keep up with us.” She paused as she correctly identified the look on the man’s face. “Oh, he just thought of his gun. Here it comes.” They went around a corner as the deputy slowed down to pull his weapon out of its holster. She couldn’t see the officer anymore.

  Brakes squealed and Fitch threw the transmission into drive, spinning the car around one hundred-eighty degrees. He stomped on the gas and another mass of dust and smoke billowed out behind the vehicle. Teddy looked over her shoulder, warily eying the debris-filled air, tinged red and blue by the flashing police lights. “You think he has one of those hand-held radios, Fitch? Because if he does...”

  Fitch held something up with his right hand, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. It was the officer’s handset. It had been left on the seat when he’d gotten out to converse with the federal agents. “Well, a lot of good that does him, left in the car,” she said insincerely.

  “That’s not nice,” Fitch declared, suppressing a wild cackle of laughter. “Just remember, when we get out of this, we’re going to have to explain why we did all these things.” The police car swerved onto the highway headed northeast, the end fishtailing slightly behind them, then straightening out. He started ticking things off on his fingers, which were firmly gripped on the steering wheel. “Why you shot a federal agent inside my house, why we didn’t we turn ourselves into the sheriff’s department, why we stole the Explorer from my neighbor’s house, gasoline from some poor sap in the middle of nowhere, why we eluded them at the prof’s house, um...”

  “Stole a fishing boat from Mr. Waldo Newman,” Teddy supplied helpfully. She leaned over the front of the seat and found the switch that turned off the flashing lights, turning it off.

  “Yes, exactly. And not only that, but we’ll have to convince them that we were in sincere danger of being murdered if we had done the right thing.”

  Teddy efficiently slid into the passenger side and sat sideways on the seat, looking at him. She touched the stitches over her eyebrow and made a little face. “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “Hey.” His voice became serious. “The guy in my house had a laser-sighted weapon targeted in the middle of my forehead, and he was smiling at me. He didn’t yell, ‘Police, freeze.’ He didn’t whip out his ID. He didn’t politely request my assistance in the matter. None of the above. I don’t need to be convinced. Some of those guys down there.” He pointed, indicating the police officers they had misdirected. “They won’t kill us. But we don’t know who’s on our side and who isn’t. And what’s worse is that the ones that are on our side, they don’t know that those guys could have a laser-sight pointed in the middle of their shoulder-blades.”

  Teddy fastened her gaze upon him. “And here I thought you hadn’t been listening to me.”

  “Keep listening to the radio, Teddy,” he instructed. Fitch seemed to be all feet. All lead feet. He stomped on the gas and kept it floored. He passed three cars, and a trailer being pulled by a huge, diesel Ford truck. All of them stared glassy-eyed out the windows at the county car racing by. On the curves he slowed to the minimum he could get away with.

  Keeping silent, Teddy watched the darkness pass by, shadows of trees faint in the yellow glow of the headlights. The road straightened out and it was almost five minutes after they had stolen the police car that the radio started to spout its magic. “They’re onto us,” she said.

  Fitch listened with half an ear. Angry voices chattered freely on the radio before one of them, by the sound of it, the same irritable sergeant, nicknamed ‘Gal’, angrily instructed them to zip their lips and rapidly issued a ration of police-encoded commands. Fitch thought about what he was hearing and said, “They’re instructing them to use telephones, instead of the radio.” He grinned briefly at Teddy. “They don’t want us to listen to them talking about us.”

  “Can’t imagine why not,” she said. “I’m not above listening to gossip.”

  “They’ll be calling in the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Department because well, there we go,” Fitch finished as they passed into the next county. There was a glimpse of a sign that announced they had just entered Deschutes County, and it was gone. “And probably the Sisters Police Department. Remember what I said about having a wild time?”

  “I seem to recall that you had a rambling comment of that nature.”

  “Rambling. You know I’d really like to show you how to climb a rock,” Fitch chuckled.

  “Climb a rock? I’m amazed at how easily you take this.” Teddy smiled back faintly.

  “Anyway, we went four-wheeling. We went rock-climbing. But I’ll teach you not to be afraid next time. Then motorcycling.”

  “Don’t forget swimming,” she interjected sarcastically.

  “And boating,” he added.

  “All we need now is a train,” she completed.

  “Uh-uh,” he said, cryptically. The car slowed down as more traffic began to show on the road. There were more houses along the sides, and more little roads opening up. “We need something a little faster than that.”

  “Uh, Fitch,” Teddy said slowly and suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

  “Yes,” cried Fitch happily. He turned off the main highway and traveled down what appeared to be a simple road. Several houses sat in the woods as they passed, their lights warm and inviting. Teddy looked around and he added, “I wasn’t sure if I could remember the right road. I was here once with F-Bob. He felt like doing something exciting, so I said...”

  Teddy saw the sign the same time as he finished his sentence, so she almost didn’t put a meaning to his words because her attention had immediately been diverted. It was a small sign, the letters carved out and painted white against a dark brown stain. Nothing fancy for this area, just a little airstrip for people with private planes to land. A hanger off to one side. A windsock off on the other end. A few cars in the tiny parking lot, and a dirt airstrip, with a row of lights that barely lit the way. The letters on the sign said Sisters Municipal Airport. And then Fitch’s words made sense. He had said, “So I said, ‘Let’s go skydiving, Bob.’”

  Her jaw gaped open as she looked at the scene that caused a flood of complete horror to run rampant through every inch of her body. The last plane she’d been on had crashed. If she had had her way she’d never go on another plane again in her entire life. A cold sweat erupted across her flesh and she turned the exact shade of the snow lying on top of the Three Sisters.

  Fitch put the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department vehicle behind the far hanger, parking it out of sight of anyone driving by, and put it into park. There were still a few irritated police codes emitting from the radio. Frustrated officers were trying to find someone who had successfully dodged their presence. He turned off the lights and turned off the ignition of the car. It chugged with a slight protest and then went dead, clicking from the heated engine all that remained. Then he finished, “And Bob said, ‘Screw that, kid, I don’t need a ‘chute to jump out of a plane!’ But he did. Ended up jumping twenty-five times that day. Don’t know who was happier. Bob or the pilot we were paying to go up for us. We wore out two pilots that day.”

  It dawned on Teddy what he was asking her to do. And Fitch wasn’t unaware of the turmoil that she was undergoing. He put a hand on her shoulde
r, and told her in an insistent voice, “We need to move fast. If we don’t get out of here, then they will catch us, and there isn’t a judge or a jury who won’t convict us and throw us under a prison. That’s if we make it that far.”

  Her face was frozen in place. Finally, reluctantly, she turned her head away from the sight that was burned into the back of her eyes, like some vision of hell on earth, put there exclusively to torture her. “Jesus, Fitch, are you going to tell me that you can fly a plane, too?”

  Fitch didn’t have time to answer her. Despite the engine being off, the radio was still on, the power independent of the ignition. There was a crackle of fresh white noise, and then a cold voice came across the air, sending a chill racing down Teddy’s spine. She had heard the voice before in the basement of the hospital and it was enough to make her knees buckle. “Theodora, I know you’re listening,” said John Gower. “You should listen carefully to this. If you stop now, then we can settle this without bloodshed. If not, who can say what innocent people will die? I know that you understand what I’m attempting to impart to you. Theodora, innocent people.”

  Teddy looked at Fitch and said in a remarkably calm voice, “Let’s get on a plane.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  August 16th - August 17th

  A Serbo-Croatian proverb states that: Every bird has a hawk above it.

  Fitch gently led Teddy to one of the hangers and there they met the Jumpmaster, no other name was needed. He was a lean man in his sixties, bearing some similarity to Robert Wren, with shoulder length gray hair, and penetrating blue eyes. He smiled knowingly at Fitch and then at Teddy. Then he said in a gravelly voice, “F-Bob called over earlier and said maybe I should be available. He also said that maybe I should keep away from the radio and the TV. You know, for my own good. What’s up with that?”

  Fitch introduced the man to Teddy, who was devoid of energy again. She didn’t feel safe. She knew she wasn’t safe. She knew that it was only a matter of time before someone started sending police vehicles to the various and sundry airports in the vicinity, including this one, and there was the stolen police car, not exactly hidden. But they had pulled it off. They had slipped under Gower’s nose one more time. And they had a plan. But all of that couldn’t stop the insidious shaking of her knees or the curl of dread that crept through her stomach and yanked at her intestines. And as she thought about all of that, Fitch said to her, “This is the guy who’s logged over two thousand jumps...” His voice trailed off uncertainly, and he rapidly finished his sentence with, “but we won’t talk about that, right now.”