Flight ik-8

by Jan Burke

  “Unless you count a couple of guys from the Air Patrol, it’s not a cop hangout.”

  “Which is why you like it.”

  “One reason,” he admitted.

  A large woman saw him, called out, “Philippe!” and eyed Elena speculatively. After a brief, rapid-fire exchange of French with Lefebvre, she pointed to an empty back booth. They made their way through the crowd.

  “I didn’t know you spoke French,” Elena said as he sat opposite her.

  “My parents and sister live in Quebec. When Marie” — he indicated the woman he had spoken to — “lived there, she and my sister were friends.”

  “So you’re French-Canadian?”

  “My parents are Quebecois. I was born in the U.S., despite my father’s best efforts to get my mother back to Canada when she went into labor. I was born in Maine, so you see how close it was.”

  She laughed. “And your sister?”

  “Yvette was born in Quebec, so my father had nothing to be ashamed of there.”

  “You have other brothers and sisters?”

  He looked away but answered, “No.”

  She was studying him, he knew, seeing the evasion. He pretended to be engaging in the cop’s habit he had already observed in her — the habit of staying aware of one’s surroundings, of the people who moved in and out of any room. But he knew she was watching only him.

  He tried to impartially consider what she was seeing. That he was older, undoubtedly. She was about eight or ten years his junior — somewhere in her early thirties. She was probably deciding he was too old for her. While he was tall and slender — too thin, some would say — he was not at all handsome. His features were harsh. He was intelligent, but not a conversationalist, not a charmer. It occurred to him that most women would have liked a quieter place to dine, decorated with something other than airplane parts.

  “It’s not a very fancy place—” he began.

  “It’s comfortable.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “The food is plain here, but good. The steaks are the best in Las Piernas. I should have asked before — are you a vegetarian?”

  She shook her head. He signaled to Marie, who quickly came to take their orders. They waited in silence until she brought their wine. Searching for another topic of conversation, he said, “Tell me about your family.”

  “I have two brothers, one fifteen years older, the other, twelve years older — they refer to me as ‘the retirement package.’ My parents were both forty-five when I was born — they’re no longer living. I’m close to my brothers, though. They both live in Santa Barbara.”

  He studied her, just as she had studied him, all the while wondering why he had no gift for flirtation. After years of spurning overtures, of letting subtle and not-so-subtle invitations go unanswered — he found himself curiously unwilling to waste this chance. There was something waiting to begin here, but how to make that beginning? He might compliment her on her green eyes and dark hair — tell her that he liked the way she wore her hair tonight, perhaps? Not pinned up, as usual, but falling in soft curls across her shoulders. But why should she care what he liked, after all? Did any woman really want a man to say such things? Certainly, no woman would want a man to tell her that her skin was the color of walnuts. Walnuts were wrinkly things — nuts, for God’s sake. What a poet you are, Lefebvre! A real smooth operator. Still, to his eye, her skin was just that lovely, creamy brown color—

  He realized she had stopped talking and was looking at him with — impatience?

  “You’re wondering what I am,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh.” She blushed.

  You see? he told himself. Walnuts do not blush. Of all the things—

  “I saw you looking at my skin.”

  Now he blushed.

  She smiled. “You were thinking, let’s see…”

  For an awful moment, he wondered if she would somehow guess.

  “You wouldn’t put it like Hitch did,” she went on. “So you wouldn’t say, ‘What kind of goddamned mutt are you, anyway?’”

  “Mutt?” he repeated blankly.

  “I admired his directness, actually. So much better than being told I’m ‘exotic.’”

  The look on his face must have made her realize that he hadn’t been thinking about her ethnicity at all, because she faltered, then said, “Oh,” again — this time, a sound of both pleasure and embarrassment.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I know,” she said quickly. “I mean, I see that now.” She hesitated, then rapidly forged ahead. “You’re lucky to know both French and English. Even though your last name is French, when people read your ID card, they probably don’t expect you to speak the language—”

  “They don’t even know how to say my last name,” he said, looking mildly amused. “And I know I cannot ever teach most of them to say it — the sounds aren’t found in English, so…” He shrugged. “I’m known as ‘Leyfeb,’ ‘Le-fever,’ ‘La-five,’ ‘Luh-fave.’ Usually I tell them it almost rhymes with ‘ever,’ and then they’re really confused.”

  “Tell me how to say it.”

  “The way my cousins in Maine say it? Or the way my father said it?”

  “The way you say it.”

  He smiled. “Phil.”

  “No, come on.”

  “Okay. ‘Luh-fevre.’ A short e, then a soft ‘vre’ sound.” He repeated it.

  She tried it.

  “Almost. You’re rolling the r — you’re making it Spanish.” He said his name a few more times.

  She repeated it back until he said, “Yes, now you have it. Now — you were about to tell me more about your name. Rosario.”

  “You rolled the r’s perfectly! You speak Spanish, don’t you? English, French, and Spanish?”

  “Yes, but just those three.”

  “Just those three,” she said mournfully.

  “The French of Quebec, the English of California, and the Spanish of Baja California. There are undoubtedly Europeans who would tell you I don’t speak any of those languages properly.”

  “When people read ‘Rosario’ on my badge, they definitely expect me to speak Spanish. I’m trying to learn Spanish, but the last people in my family who spoke the language came to California not long after Junípero Serra.”

  “But you are not only Hispanic,” he said.

  “That’s exactly it. Without telling you my whole family history, let’s just say I’m one of those people who could mark about four boxes when asked to indicate ethnic origins. African American, Chumash Indian, Spanish, Mexican, Irish, Greek… Maybe Hitch is right — I’m a mutt.”

  “An American,” he said. “Like me — true no matter what side of the border I was born on, I suppose.”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  They were silent again, but this time it was more companionable. She asked him how he came to know of this place, and he told her about being a military pilot and saving for the Cessna, searching for just the right one, and finding it — becoming more animated as he talked about flying.

  When they had finished eating, he looked across at her and said, “Thanks for coming here with me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Another silence stretched out, then she asked, “Phil, what was bothering you tonight — at the hospital?”

  He frowned. “It’s this — probably half the department knows every detail that can be known about Whitey Dane’s appearance and habits, right?”

  “Sure,” she said, surprised by the question. “All of us who’ve been part of the investigations connected to him, anyway.”

  “And he has a number of affectations, right?”

  “Like the patch, you mean? I’ve heard he’s not actually missing an eye,” she said. “I’ve even heard that he used to wear the patch on the other eye.”

  “It’s not just the patch. For example, he
sometimes wears vests.”

  “Yes, usually. Complete with a watch on a chain.”

  “Not a wristwatch.” He said it flatly.

  “Not in a million years. You must have read about that in the files — he carries an old Hamilton railroad pocket watch on a gold chain and tucks it into a vest pocket. Makes a big show of winding it and taking it out and looking at it.”

  “He’s never been seen wearing an electronic watch?”

  “No — like you say, one of his affectations. Like the patch.”

  Again he was silent.

  She waited.

  “Don’t mention to anyone that I asked about a watch, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “It could be… it could cause a lot of problems, and be dangerous to Seth.”

  “What?”

  “Just don’t talk about it — not to anyone, not even Hitch.”

  “I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t,” she said with some exasperation. “What’s this all about?”

  He looked down at his hands, debating how much to tell her. He had so little to go on, and the implications…“I’ll take you back to your car,” he said.

  He could see that she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but after studying him for another moment, said, “Okay.” They argued over the payment of the bill, which allowed her to discover that he was a little old-fashioned in some matters, and very stubborn.

  “Do you have to go in early tomorrow?” he asked after they had driven in silence for a while.

  “No, sleeping in. I have a late-night surveillance with Hitch on one of our other cases.”

  Again he fell silent, thinking he should apologize to her, but not wanting to reopen the topic of the Dane case. He dropped her off at her car and watched her drive away. He had not been able to think of the sort of words that might have tempted her to stay with him a little longer, and deciding that it was useless to wish for what was beyond his reach, he started to get out of the car. He noticed something small and white on his passenger seat. A business card. He picked it up and saw that it was hers. In bold blue strokes, she had written her home address and phone number on the back. He sat for a long time, tracing its edges with his fingertips, then started to put it away in his wallet. He hesitated, then tucked it into his shirt pocket instead.

  “Anyone come by?” he asked the guard.

  “No, sir. And I’ve checked on him a couple times — he’s asleep.”

  Just as Lefebvre was about to enter Seth’s room, he saw the door to the patio open slightly, then quickly close, as if someone had started through it and changed his mind. He walked with quick strides toward the patio, stepping outside just as the far door closed. He ran to it, yanking it open. He could see no one, but again heard footsteps on the stairs. This time, they were hurried. He followed as quietly as possible. The footsteps stopped, and Lefebvre slowed his own steps, creeping closer to his prey. A series of small, high-pitched sounds filled the stairwell:

  Do-re-mi-do-re-mi-do-re-mi

  Lefebvre ran toward the sounds, heedless of any noise he was making.

  He reached the bottom of the stairwell and came out into the hospital lobby. He quickly scanned the room: A pair of doctors, wearing scrubs, talking to each other. A receptionist. Five people huddled together in one set of chairs, as if praying together; a family, it seemed. None of them looked as if he or she had just sat down. He turned around and saw a bank of elevators — one car just starting to ascend. And beyond the elevators, a series of hallways. He made a quick check of these, but realized his quarry was long gone.

  Or was he? He thought of the elevator and ran back up the stairs. If the attacker had returned while Lefebvre searched the lobby and hallways — how much resistance would that guard offer?

  Heart pounding, he raced to the fourth floor, immediately went out onto the patio and crossed it to the other door. Yanking it open, he looked toward the door to Seth’s room — the guard’s chair was empty.

  “No!” he shouted, causing the nurses to stare at him as if he were a madman.

  But in the next instant, the guard came out of the room, and seeing Lefebvre, said, “Oh, you’re back. He just woke up. I think he wanted me to find out if you were still here. Of course, since he can’t talk, I’m only guessing… hey!”

  Lefebvre pushed past him into the room.

  Seth smiled when he saw him, then raised a questioning brow.

  “You’re okay?” Lefebvre asked, still shaken.

  He nodded, then pointed to Lefebvre, asking a silent question in return.

  “I’m fine.”

  Seth seemed skeptical, but gestured toward a chair.

  “Yes,” Lefebvre said. “Yes, I’ll stay awhile — I have a phone call to make, but I’ll be right back.”

  Seth gestured to the phone next to his bed.

  “What, you think you get to be privy to all police business now?” Lefebvre said, trying to keep his tone light. Seth smiled, but Lefebvre did not think he looked convinced.

  He apologized brusquely to the guard, then using the phone at the nurses’ station, called the homicide desk and asked to be patched through to the team currently on surveillance of Dane. No, Dane had not left his house. Yes, they had seen him with their own eyes — had him in sight right now.

  He had pissed them off with the last question. It could not be helped.

  The guard’s replacement had come on duty in the meantime. Lefebvre felt more sure of this man’s alertness and abilities. He went back into Seth’s room and bent himself to the task of distracting Seth from his memories and fears. He failed miserably at this, until he began to tell him about his dinner with Elena.

  7

  Friday, June 22, 7:00 A.M.

  Las Piernas Police Department

  Homicide Division

  Lefebvre nodded to Pete Baird as he went to his desk. Baird, the only other detective in the homicide room, nodded back and continued working, his head bent over a file. There was a thinning spot on his crown — Lefebvre dispassionately considered the likelihood that Baird would be bald within a few years.

  He didn’t think Baird disliked him, but would not have worried if he did. He knew that his coworkers’ feelings about him were mixed. He was not a gregarious person, as Baird was. Among some of his fellow detectives, he knew, his success was probably more resented than admired, in part because he was a loner.

  If he could cope with Baird’s talkativeness, Baird would make a good partner on this case. It was not that he would be especially interested in Baird’s thoughts about it — Baird did not solve cases with his mind, although Lefebvre was sure there was more going on under that thinning hair than most people believed. Baird solved cases with doggedness. Doggedness was undoubtedly what had brought him here so early in the morning. Many times Lefebvre had seen Baird’s persistence pay off; Baird often solved cases that had discouraged supposedly smarter detectives.

  Lefebvre’s last assigned partner had been his mentor, Matthew Arden. When Arden retired, he convinced their lieutenant that Lefebvre would work best without a partner, and no lieutenant since then had insisted on pairing him with anyone.

  But although there were a great many differences in their style of work and in their personalities, Lefebvre believed Pete Baird was trustworthy. Lefebvre did not for a moment doubt his honesty. Looking around the room at the other desks, he realized that there was no one else of whom he felt quite so sure. It would be good, Lefebvre thought, to tell someone else that perhaps Whitey Dane was not the one who had attacked the Randolphs.

  But what would he say, after all?

  Pete, I have no idea who the killer is, but it isn’t Dane — even though all the physical evidence and the witness’s description point to him. I know he’s a suspected crime boss we’ve been trying to arrest for several years, and probably has been involved in murder many times over, but he’s not the man we want for this one, the only one to which we can connect him. I base this on how frightened Seth became at the sound
of a watch — a watch that many thousands of people may own, but which I believe may belong to a member of our own police department.

  Ludicrous.

  He would spend the day trying to learn more, to come up with something more solid — and answers to the questions that had plagued him all night. Those questions, and his fears for Seth’s safety, had denied him any sleep.

  At least the guard who had come on duty at eleven was more capable than the previous man. Lefebvre was equally confident about the man who had the next rotation. He had called the officer who took over this morning, intimating that new threats had been made against Seth. He would try today to get the guard on Seth’s room doubled, and to get the hospital to lock the door between the patio and the stairwell. The hospital night-shift security guard had been unwilling to do so.

  At his desk, Lefebvre took out his notebook and reviewed a list of initials he had made during the long night. Once again he pictured himself in Seth’s room and tried to recall exactly who had been present when the watch beeped. With the exception of a few reporters, Tory Randolph, and Seth himself, they were all members of the Las Piernas Police Department or police commissioners. Lefebvre still strongly resisted the idea. He told himself that other evidence still indicated Dane.

  Then he thought of the sound of the watch in the stairwell.

  Whoever wore the watch had seen Seth’s reaction and had returned, probably to finish what he had started on the Amanda.

  Why, Lefebvre wondered now, was the watch set to go off a few minutes before eleven?

  Gazing off into space as he recalled the previous evening, he soon came to an answer. The guard’s shift changed at eleven. Any member of the department could easily learn which officers had guard duty at the hospital. With very little research, the attacker would know that the least alert guard was on duty from three to eleven. And near eleven, as the shift changed, both guards would be on hand — presenting two guards to overcome at Seth’s door, instead of one inattentive man who often strayed away from it.

  He went back over the description Seth had given of his attacker. Eliminating only those who most obviously differed from that description, Lefebvre narrowed his list of potential suspects. He reviewed the remaining names.