She smiled fixedly. I wondered what she thought I was up to. Probably a bill collector or process server trying to get at Page. She could have got rid of me much more efficiently by just saying that he was dead.
I didn't breathe normally again until I was back on the street. The two block walk to my car proved beneficial in getting my tangled thoughts in some kind of order. I remembered reading something about an equipment leasing scam a couple of years ago. What had it been about?
It was a limited partnership, I remembered, set up to provide tax shelters to people who made so much money they couldn't figure out what do to with it all. Turned out the IRS disallowed the shelter, so the investors lost the deductions they thought they were getting.
To top it off, the partnership declared one small dividend, then filed Chapter 7. Three hundred investors lost fifty thou each. I never heard any satisfactory explanation of where the fifteen million ended up.
My former fiancé, Brad North, was the only person I knew dumb enough to get into it. And, he's a lawyer. Kinda makes you think.
Had Gilbert Page set up a similar scam? Where they just about to enter the bankruptcy phase of the game?
It could explain the operating losses that showed on the books. It could also give several hundred more people a reason to kill him.
I unlocked the car door, and stepped in, glad to be out of the persistent wind. I was a little at a loss for what to do next. My watch told me it was three o'clock, but I honestly couldn't remember whether I'd changed it. I could still be on Hawaiian time. The sun was hazy behind the high cloud layer, though, and it felt like mid-afternoon.
I suddenly realized I was starving. The thought of driving up to North Beach, and finding a pizzeria was tempting, but I figured I better head the other way. By the time I turned in the rental car, and checked in at the airport, I'd just about have time for something to eat there before my flight. Airport food couldn't compare remotely with anything I'd find in North Beach, but, oh well. Another time.
I found myself thinking of Drake as I anticipated my flight. I turned in the rental car, shouldered my small carry-on bag, and thought of Drake. I presented my ticket, stood in line, and inched my way toward my seat.
A handsome male flight attendant offered drinks. For an instant, some trick of light made me think he was Drake. My heart surprised me by doing a momentary little dance.
I'm a pretty independent person, and not unaccustomed to traveling alone. But, I found it comforting to think that he'd be there to meet me this time. I drifted into a pleasant sleep thinking about him, and awoke from a series of weird dreams about an Oriental police officer driving a race car with a blond exercise instructor at his side.
It was pitch dark outside.
Chapter 9
Sex with Drake made me euphoric—mellow inside yet almost super-charged at the same time. His mouth caused me to melt. His hands knew all the right places to touch. I found it easy to give myself over to him in a way I had never done with anyone before.
It had been too long since my last relationship. Two years since the six month stint with Edward, the dreamy eyed man with wispy blond hair who fancied himself a poet. His lines of verse had enchanted me in the beginning, but I came to see them as meaningless bunches of words he had dredged up from somewhere in the bottom of a bottle of Stoli. That's probably where his sex drive came from, too, because it was the only time he was ever in the mood.
It ended with Edward slowly yet abruptly, as I suppose many relationships do. I had long since lost my fervor over his poetry. I had quit spending the night, because waking up next to his vodka-laden breath turned my stomach. I was looking for a way to end it gently.
The night he confided to me that he was bi-sexual seemed like the perfect time.
I incinerated the toothbrush and spare changes of clothing he used to leave at my house. I had myself tested for HIV, although he swore he had not been with a man in three years. Perhaps my behavior was a bit unfeeling, but truthfully, I felt stupid for not having found this out ahead of time.
Thankfully, I tested okay, but it put the fear of God in me. I was only now starting to get in the mood again.
Drake Langston came along at just the right time. He'd been married for fifteen years, up until a year ago. His emotions, like mine, were just beginning to heal.
The fact that I was here on vacation kept us from getting too serious. The seriousness of the situation kept us from taking each other too lightly. I wasn't interested in one night stands, but I wasn't ready for a full-fledged commitment, either. I sensed the same feelings in Drake.
We'd take it easy and see what happened.
The hotel room lay in gray shadow, the furnishings colorless in the dim light filtering around the edge of the drape. I stretched sensuously, my body remembering last night’s emotions.
Drake lay asleep on his side, his face free of the past few days’ stresses. I reached toward him and, sensing my nearness, he rolled to his back and pulled me close. I nestled into his shoulder. I loved his scent, warm with sleep.
“Awake already?” he mumbled. He stroked my hair and I nodded.
I wanted to stay exactly like this for the rest of my vacation. Unfortunately, nature called.
When I returned from the bathroom, Drake was opening the curtain allowing daylight to filter into the room.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Nine.”
“Too early.” I hopped back into the still-warm bed, sat with my knees up to my chest, and pulled the covers up to my neck.
Drake walked naked across the room, plumped the pillows against the headboard and joined me.
I filled him in on my California inquiries.
"I flew into the Hanakapiai Valley again yesterday," he told me. "It was high tide, and I noticed that the spot where our dead guy ended up was quite a bit closer to the water's edge."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that, if the tide was high the time of night he was killed, someone could have brought him around there by boat."
"How can we find out?"
"I already have. I checked the tide calendar. High tide last Friday night was eleven forty-two. And, there was an almost-full moon."
I pondered that. It still didn't seem very likely.
Page had been a good hundred yards from the water's edge. Even at high tide, someone would have had to lug his body sixty yards or more, up sloping terrain strewn with boulders. He hadn't been a large man by any means, but even at one-sixty, one-seventy, he would have been a burden to carry that far.
Besides, if they had a boat, why didn't they just dump him into the sea? Why go to all that extra trouble?
Unless they wanted it to look like a helicopter was involved.
I became distracted by Drake, who was planting a line of kisses across my ribcage, heading for my belly.
"I'm hungry," he murmured. "It's either macadamia nut pancakes or this."
It was a tough decision—I wanted both.
An hour later, we strolled though the lobby hand in hand.
"Let me stop off at the desk, and see if there are any messages," I told Drake.
There was one, from Officer Akito. He wanted to see me today. Now that was a switch. I supposed I should comply, but first I wanted to talk to Mack again.
"Is Mack flying today?" I asked Drake, as we walked the perimeter of the curving hotel driveway, heading for the parking lot.
He glanced at his watch. "Yeah, but he should have a lunch break about twelve. It's ten-thirty now. Let's get some breakfast, then catch him at the office."
My rental car hadn't been driven in two days, and I noticed a film of dried rain spots on it. There was also something white flapping under the left wiper blade. I grabbed at it without much interest, thinking it was probably a handbill of some kind. I slid into the driver's seat, and reached across to unlock Drake's door. I pressed the switch to lower the top, and stuck the key into the ignition before giving the white paper another glance.
Only then did I notice that it was an envelope, plain generic white, with cut-out magazine letters spelling CHARLIE pasted across the front. A funny prickling sensation formed at the base of my neck, and waves of goose bumps ran up both my arms. My lungs seemed unable to expel the air in them, while my heart pounded in slow heavy thuds.
"Charlie?" Drake stared at me, two ridges of concern pulling his brows together.
I held the front of the envelope up for him to see. He got very still, waiting for me to open it.
I noticed that the paper was fresh and unwrinkled no sign of water spotting, like on the car. It had to have been left on the windshield this morning.
The flap ripped as my trembling fingers worked at it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, with more cut-out words and letters. GARVEY DID IT. BUTT OUT AND LET HIM FRY. I handed it over to Drake, while I took a deep breath and started the car.
My mind raced through my list of suspects. No one seemed to particularly have it in for Mack, except Akito. Surely, the police wouldn't resort to this kind of tactic, even if the officer had a personal grievance with the suspect.
Among the others, I wasn't sure who would even know that Mack was the prime suspect at this point.
I drove mechanically, following the remembered back streets to the Tip Top Café. Neither of us spoke as I parked the car and we made our way to the same back-corner booth we’d taken before.
Drake and I were both quiet as we ordered pancakes, and watched the waitress walk away. I felt unsettled.
Maybe it was just the effect of coming abruptly off a sexual high. Maybe it was the whole case, in general. I was antsy to talk to Mack again. There were things he hadn't told me, and now I wondered how much more I didn't know. I hated doubting him.
Our waitress ambled over, two plates of pancakes in hand. Her flame-red hair was ratted up high in the front, one-dimensional, like a fake-fronted building on a movie set. There were precise little spikes of bangs arranged across her forehead. The rest of it formed a shoulder length fluffy cloud. I found myself scanning my plate for hairs. I hoped the cook's coif was a bit more restrained than this one.
Drake and I both accepted more coffee before she left. I watched him drench his pancakes in syrup.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"You mean, who might have left the note?"
I nodded, cutting a wedge from my cakes. They were the tiniest bit crisp on the surface, just the way I love them.
"Joe? He's got a hell of a nasty temper."
"I thought about that. I got a small sample of it myself the other day. But, if the police think Mack did it, doesn't that implicate Joe, too? I'd think Joe would want to steer me in a different direction."
"Unless they come up with someone else who might have helped him."
"True. Who might that be?" I asked.
"They questioned me yesterday." He sopped up syrup with a slice of pancake. "I told them it would have been rather stupid of me to dump a body, then fly to the spot the very next day and lead them to it."
I didn't point out to him that the person who discovers the body frequently becomes the murder suspect. I had been with him when he first saw that body. There would have been no faking the reaction I'd seen.
We finished our coffee, and drove to Mack's offices. Melanie fawned over Drake when she saw him, and I had to suppress a wave of . . . what? . . .jealousy? . . . After all, she had known him longer than I had, and she'd still be here after I was gone. What were these feelings?
Drake brushed past her, asking if Mack was in. She plopped back into her chair with a small pout.
"Cute kid," he said, once we were partway down the hall, "but her circuits aren't quite all connected." He tapped at the side of his head.
For some odd reason, I felt better.
Mack sat at his desk, writing figures on a yellow pad with his right hand, clutching a sandwich in his left. I took the chair across from his desk. His khaki slacks had deep wrinkles in them and the navy knit shirt had come untucked on one side, making the company logo hang lopsided. The military straightness had gone out of his shoulders. The lines around his eyes looked deeper than before, the gray in his hair more obvious.
I hated to press him, but I had to.
"Mack, why didn't you tell me about the fight you and Gil had at the hangar Friday night?"
The color left his lips, and he swallowed hard. The sandwich hung loosely in his fingers, looking like it might fall. I sat very still, looking him straight in the eye, waiting.
"I ... I didn't think anyone knew about that," he said finally.
"Joe overheard it. He's told the police the two of you sounded like you were going to tear each other apart."
"Now wait a minute! It wasn't anything like that." The life had come back into him, anyway. He planted the sandwich on a napkin on his desk and stood abruptly.
"Page called me at the office about nine o'clock. He wanted to meet me at the hangar. I suggested that he just come to the office, but he insisted on the hangar. I think he wanted the psychological advantage of making me look at my helicopter while telling me I was about to lose it.
He tucked the straggling shirt tail into the top of his pants as he paced toward the window. The short burst of energy lasted only until he got back to his chair. He slumped into it once again.
"Anyway, I met Gil there.” He sighed. “He told me I had until the end of the week to come up with some other financing. He wanted the money back to give to his boy for a race car. I told him there was no way I could do it. Banks here just don't move that fast. I'd be lucky to get approval in a month, much less a week.
“I pointed out that taking the helicopter away from me wouldn't do either of us much good. He'd have to sell it to get his money, and the bottom has really fallen out of the used helicopter market the past few months. He probably wouldn't have been able to get back all his investment. And, then what would I do? I need that ship to keep the cash flowing."
He picked at the sandwich again, and turned to me, pleading his case. "We may have raised our voices a time or two, but it never got close to blows. He tried to bully me into coming up with a lump sum by the end of the week, but I just couldn't. I told him that."
"So that's how you left it?"
"Pretty much. He said he had one other possibility—some other place he might be able to get the money for his kid."
"Who left the hangar first, you or Gil?"
"I did," he said. "But I thought he was leaving right behind me. There were only my car and his in the lot. Hell, Joe's truck wasn't even there. How could he have heard this so-called fight?"
"He says he overheard your voices, and didn't want to get involved, so he drove around for awhile."
"Joe's making a lot more of this than it really was, Charlie."
I wondered why. Clearly, one of them was lying to me. I looked over at Drake. He didn't say a word.
"I gotta go," Mack said. "I've got a flight in fifteen minutes." He jammed the last bite of sandwich into his mouth, while picking up his sunglasses and headset. Drake rose and clapped a hand on Mack’s shoulder.
I lingered a moment as the two men started down the hall. Next to Mack’s yellow pad lay a computer printout. My natural snoopiness would not let me walk past it without taking a peek.
Mack's quarterly financial statements didn't look so hot.
It only took a second for my eyes to skim down to the bottom line. The operation showed a loss for two of the three months. Flipping to the second page, his balance sheet was in no better shape. His long term liabilities rivaled the national debt.
I turned back to the income statement, and did a bit of fast math in my head. Given his gross sales, and assuming they continued to fly a full schedule, Mack was barely making it. He'd simply got himself too far in debt. I wondered how long he'd had these figures.
Just how desperate was Mack Garvey?
I was about to walk away when something else caught my eye. Mack's legal expenses for the
quarter were well over ten thousand dollars. Based on his overall picture, that seemed way out of line. What could he be involved in? The income statement didn't give a breakdown.
I glanced around the room, well aware that I really didn't belong here, but curious as hell about what I'd just seen. I dimly registered the closing of the front door, and assumed Mack had left. Passengers for the upcoming flight were beginning to gather in the front waiting room. I could hear Drake's voice chatting with them. Melanie would surely be occupied with checking the people in.
I decided to risk a few more minutes.
Mack's desk drawers were unlocked, so I made myself at home in his chair, and pulled open the lower drawer on my right. Manila file folders were jammed in, along with a plastic box of staples, some loose envelopes, and a metal ruler, whose rusty corners looked pretty deadly. However, it was the files that interested me. I flipped through them quickly.
The fourth one back was labeled LEGAL. People make this so easy.
The file was thick, and there was no time to study it carefully, but I was able to get the gist pretty quickly. Mack was being sued. By Bill Steiner. The pilot I'd seen at the heliport that first day. The man who'd made such a scene with one of his own employees.
According the petition, Steiner was suing to gain control of Mack's landing pad at the heliport. Some of the correspondence in the file had gotten pretty heated. There were a number of letters back and forth between Mack and his attorney. Mack's letters had a sense of desperation. No wonder. Without a landing pad, he wouldn't be in business another day. The bills would keep coming, but the money wouldn't.
The question was, could this possibly be connected to the Gil Page situation?
Chapter 10
Drake and I decided it was time to stop by the police station. I wasn't eager for another meeting with Akito, but I was curious why he had left a message for me. And, I thought he should know about my trip to California. I hadn't yet decided whether I would tell him about the note on my car. It might serve to sway him further against Mack. I needed to know more myself before I let Akito in on that little tidbit.
Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery Page 10