Holly crap! You’d think he’d murdered a family and hung them up in the town square. What did he do to deserve this? He’d never had this kind of reaction back home on Camano.
Okay, how to make his great escape? And where to go?
When the deputy sheriff pulled into the driveway, Clayton had already vacated the premises. He watched as the deputy checked the doors and shone his flashlight through the windows. Nothing seemed out of place. He couldn’t see the Fly Away bird on the bedroom wall. The owners would find it when they came back in the summer. He also left them a little note thanking them for their hospitality.
The airstrip on Orcas Island was just that. An uncontrolled runway with a few planes tied down at one end. There were a few hangars, but Clayton didn’t need to worry about them. What he needed was sitting in the open, begging him to take it.
He unfastened the tie downs on the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The door wasn’t locked. He pulled the flight manual out of his backpack and walked through the pre-flight inspection. Hinges on the ailerons okay. Check. Free rudder and elevator movement. Check. Open the cowling, check the oil. Check for loose wires or broken engine mounts. Everything check.
He tossed his pack into the back seat, climbed into the pilot seat and adjusted it. The regular pilot must be pretty short. He’d read about crashes caused by not latching the seat down. He wasn’t going to make that mistake.
He glanced at the flight manual one last time, took a deep breath and sat it on the co-pilot’s seat. Pulling a large flat screwdriver from his hip pocket, Clayton jammed it in the ignition switch. After pounding it in with his fist, he turned the screwdriver. It jammed. He put both hands on the tool and twisted. The engine turned over. The starter ground for an instant then the engine fired. He pulled the screwdriver out.
The propeller quickly disappeared, to become a spinning disk that he could see through. Clayton glanced at the oil pressure, gas and temperature gauges. They were all in the green.
He swallowed a breath. It’s now or never. He released the parking brake. The four-seat plane began to roll forward.
Just like Flight Simulator. He put a little pressure on the left rudder pedal and the plane turned to the left and onto the runway. He straightened out and slowly crept to the end of the runway then turned the plane around.
He picked up the flight manual and checked it again. Run Up.
He stood on the brakes and advanced the throttle lever to full speed. He turned off the left magneto and the engine didn’t miss a beat. He switched the left magneto back on and turned off the right magneto. The engine continued to howl. He turned the right magneto back on and pulled the throttle back to idle then looked at his manual.
Turning the steering yoke, Clayton looked first to his left then his right, to make sure the ailerons responded to his commands. Next he pushed the yoke in and pulled it out while he looked over his shoulder to ensure the elevators were working. He pushed on the rudder pedals to verify the rudder worked.
All set.
This is it.
He advanced the throttle and took his feet off of the brakes. The blue and white high-winged airplane began to roll. Clayton found it easy to keep the plane on track with light touches to the rudder pedals. Speed picked up. He kept a close eye on the airspeed indicator.
At about fifty-five knots he eased back lightly on the yoke. The nose wheel came up. The speed built quickly. At sixty-four knots the wheels broke free from the pavement.
He was flying!
Clumsily, he kept the plane level, tilting first to one side then the other. He released a little pressure on the yoke, lowering the nose until the plane was flying at seventy-three knots, her best climb-out speed. He watched the altimeter wind up. A thousand feet. Two thousand feet. Three thousand feet. This was high enough. He leveled off.
He had never felt so free in his life. He played with the controls, making big S-turns in the sky. He nosed down picking up speed; he pulled the nose up to bleed off the speed. This was living.
Finally, satisfied that he could handle the airplane, Clayton turned south and headed home.
Chapter 14
“Goooood afternoon Seeeeattle, and welcome to Crime Beat. Your afternoon drive time show that keeps you up to date on all the criminal activities in the Puget Sound Area.” The salt and pepper haired DJ leaned into his microphone. “I’m Dave Lawrence and I’ll be your host this afternoon.”
In the six months since Dave pitched the idea for Crime Beat to the station manager at KRKB-FM, it had become a regional phenomenon. People had a morbid curiosity about crime. It scared them shitless to think that there might be a serial killer living next door, yet it was like going to an auto race. Even if they wouldn’t admit it, they wanted to see a crash. They wanted to know all of the gory details.
That’s exactly what Dave Lawrence brought them. Every weekday afternoon he had reporters, cops, DA’s, and hell, even criminals, on his show.
He often took his tape recorder to the local jail or state prison to interview the perpetrators of these horrible events. Boy, did they talk. Once they’d been convicted and no longer had anything to lose, many inmates actually bragged about their crimes.
Ratings soared. His show moved from an obscure night-time slot to drive time. Now it was number one in the market. There was talk about going national. He even heard rumors that KRKB-FM’s network affiliate, NBC, was interested in making it a summer replacement TV show.
Dave always knew he had what it took to be on TV. A tall, well-built middle-aged man, he was easily as attractive as the talking heads on the daily news shows.
He also knew how to sniff out a story that would grab the public’s attention, and this was one. How could the disappearance of the owner of a chain of seedy sexpresso stands not grab headlines?
“Today on Crime Beat, we investigate the disappearance of sexpresso stand owner Dick Randall.” Sexpresso stand, what a great term. It really told the story.
“Mr. Randall, owner of eight Beach Hut Bikini Barista stands in the Puget Sound area disappeared two weeks ago. His burned out Toyota pickup was found along Route 395 in the California desert. Was Randall murdered or did he fake his own death? You be the judge. On today’s show we have Mr. Randall’s brother-in-law, Dan Anderson and his son, Richard Randall Jr. to give their opinions.”
Dave sat back in his chair and smiled. This was yellow journalism at its finest. A little smut, a little gore, stir up the masses, and he didn’t have to prove anything. Rumor and innuendo were his stock and trade.
“Dan Anderson, you knew Mr. Randall well,” Dave pointed across the table to Dan and flipped his fingers towards himself, indicating that Anderson should lean into his microphone. “What’s your opinion?”
“Well, Dave.” Anderson stammered a little. “I think he’s dead. I think his no-good wife, Karen, put out a hit on him, you know, contracted for his death.”
“So,” a big grin spread across Dave’s face. “You’re thinking murder-for-hire?”
“Yeah. Karen and Dick were always fighting. She wanted to run his business. Was always telling him how to do things, that she could do it better than him. I think Karen did it to take over.”
“How about you, Dick Junior, what do you think?”
“I agree with Dan.” Dick Junior’s knee bobbled up and down uncontrollably. “I think Dad’s dead, Mr. Lawrence. But I don’t think the bi... uh... Karen hired anyone to do it for her. Karen Randall is an evil woman. I wouldn’t put anything past her. She forged my signature so that Dad could adopt my son. She’s capable of anything. I think that woman killed my dad herself.” Junior took a deep breath.
“It’s her style,” Junior continued. “She wouldn’t trust anyone else and she’d want to see that it was done right.”
“Okay, Dick. Let’s explore that thought for a minute.” Dave put his palms together and tapped his finger tips against each other. “Let’s say that Karen did do it. The police found Dick’s burned-out truck three hundred miles f
rom Las Vegas where she lived and where your dad was last seen. That’s at least a five-hour drive each way.” Dave consulted his neatly typed notes.
“Mrs. Randall told the police that she was home by herself that evening,” Dave continued. “The police stopped by her house in the morning to question her. She didn’t look like she’d been up and driving for ten hours, much less killing your dad and disposing of the body.”
“My son wasn’t home that day,” Junior said. “She was by herself in the house all day. We don’t really know when Dad was there. We just have her word for it.”
Beads of sweat formed on Junior’s brow. “She could have stashed a car in the desert then drove with Dad to where the car was and killed him.”
“I’m sorry, Dick, but that theory just doesn’t hold up.” Dave was enjoying this exchange. “Your father’s tenant saw him at his rental house that afternoon. He helped your dad load an expensive espresso machine into the back of his truck.”
“Uh...” Dick Jr. stalled a moment to think. “Well, we don’t know that Dad didn’t go back by Karen’s house. You know, to pick her up.”
“Okay, say Dick did pick her up. How would she know what route he was going to take?” Dave Lawrence stopped to let this sink in. “He was supposed to be driving back to Seattle. The route Dick took would take him through LA, hundreds of miles out of his way.”
“Well, maybe the witch didn’t drive with him. Maybe she followed him. She trailed him and pulled him off the road and shot him.”
Dave turned to his other guest. “Dan, what do you think? Does this theory hold water?”
“I don’t know, Dave.” Dan Anderson adjusted his position in the chair then leaned in to the microphone. “I don’t think so. Karen’s a tall woman, but she isn’t that strong. Dick’s a good-sized guy. The body disappeared. I don’t think she could have moved him by herself. I think she had help.”
“What kind of help? A professional hit man? A lover?”
“I don’t know. It could be either, I guess. I know she’s capable of doing this kind of thing, but I just don’t see her getting her hands dirty or breaking a finger nail. I told the police to look at her closer. I bet that she has a boyfriend stashed somewhere. Maybe some young guy who’s easy to manipulate.”
“If Mrs. Randall did do it, what did she have to gain?”
“I hate to tell stories out of school, to speak ill of the dead, but Dick and Karen weren’t living together. She lived in Vegas and Dick had a house here. I hate to say it, but Dick had another lover. It was just a matter of time until he filed for divorce. He’d been married six times, you know.”
“And so you think that Karen did him in to prevent that? To take over his evil empire?”
Dave Lawrence loved it. Sex. Murder. Betrayal. His ratings would soar today. The phone lit up like a Christmas tree.
“I see we have calls stacking up here. Let’s go to the phones...”
This was the hottest story Dave ever covered. It would make a great plot for a prime time TV series. Maybe after he got his TV show, he could pitch it to the network execs. It was the biggest thing on Seattle radio.
Until the next story fell into his lap, like manna from Heaven.
****
“Cat, you hear that jerk Randall on the radio yesterday?” Ted stirred sugar into his coffee.
“It’s like a train wreck. I don’t want to look, but I keep tuning into his program.” Cat grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl in the break room and started peeling it.
“What did you think? Any validity to the brother or son’s story?”
“Nothing new there.” Catrina dropped the peel in the yard waste basket Abiba kept in the break room and sectioned her orange. “The guy’s a total loser. I met him once. He wouldn’t know a news story if it bit him in the ass.”
“You met him? When?”
“Oh, it was at a charity auction a couple of years ago. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. He strutted around in a tux like he was James Bond.”
Ted snickered. “I bet that went over real good with you.”
“He followed me around all evening like a puppy dog. I had to keep pulling his paws off of me. If we’d been anywhere else, I’d a decked him.”
“I’d a paid good money to see that. You in your evening wear taking down a guy in a tux. Can you even fight in heels?” Ted laughed at the image.
Catrina gave him a dirty look. “You live a rich fantasy life, Higuera.”
“Do you think there’s any reason to check him out? You know, peek into his network and see if he has any important information for us?”
“I think you’d be wasting your time. That ass-hole doesn’t do any investigating himself. He just takes what other people give him and regurgitates it. We’d have the information long before he got it.”
****
Leah Sykes wore long, long jeans and an orange and black turtle neck sweater which clashed with her fiery red hair.
Ted took another look at her. He’d seen Leah many times and she always dressed to cover up her body. He sensed that she was embarrassed by her height. Now that he’d seen her nude, Ted had a greater appreciation for what lay underneath all the denim and wool.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, but Ted was a red-blooded American boy. He couldn’t resist. He had to check out the dirty pictures before he destroyed the revenge.com website.
What a shame that she hid that gorgeous body underneath piles of loose-fitting clothes.
She was tall and thin, but had a great shape and legs that went all the way down to the floor. He’d never seen her in anything but pants or long skirts, what a waste.
“Mornin,’ Leah,” Ted said as he reached for the purple and gold coffee mug on his desk. “You ready to work today?”
“Yeah.” Leah had a radiant smile on her face. “I’m feeling a lot better today.” She plopped down on the chair that Ted scooted next to his and took his hand in both of hers. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ted smiled at his friend. “All in a day’s work. We save damsels in distress and fight fire-breathing dragons.”
Leah took a deep breath. “Well, let’s get to work. You said you’d dug up a bunch of financial data on Richard Randall?”
“Yeah.” Ted had yet to run into a system that he couldn’t hack. Randall’s home network was child’s play. “He kept all his records in QuickBooks. I can’t believe how stupid people can be. His password was ‘password.’ That’s got to be the most common password in the world.”
“Well, let’s see what you’ve got.” The tall redhead leaned in to look at Ted’s computer screen.
For an hour or so, they searched through Ted’s pirated data. Neither of them had the slightest qualm about illegally accessing Randall’s systems.
“He’s not much on keeping receipts, is he?” Leah asked.
“No. I’m not an expert, but he looks pretty sloppy to me.”
“Well, I am an expert,” Leah said. “And I can tell you that he couldn’t pass an audit if the auditor was deaf, dumb and blind.”
****
Leah really was an expert. She graduated from Washington State University with an MBA in accounting, after which she spent several years at a Big Four accounting firm before she struck out on her own. With a specialty in forensic accounting, she was certified by the courts and often testified as an expert witness.
She loved the freedom of working for herself. She also liked the variety. No two days were ever the same. Today she might be working for attorney Jennifer Trask on a divorce case, while tomorrow she’d be tracking down securities fraud or embezzlement.
Her favorite client was her close friend Catrina Flaherty. She and Cat went back several years when Cat hired her to track down a husband’s missing assets. They hit it off and she probably had dinner or drinks together at least once a week.
She still hadn’t gotten over the death of Jonathon Jefferson. She loved the handsome bla
ck man. Even though he was ten years younger than her, she could really have fallen for him. Too bad Jeff played for the other team.
Ted was okay. He wasn’t someone she could ever be interested in. He certainly was good looking, with his olive skin and dark hair. She could get lost in those dark eyes, but he was twenty years her junior. Even that wasn’t the worst. He was at least four inches shorter than her, and being with a short man made her feel even more self-conscious.
She liked Ted’s sense of humor and that he didn’t take anything too seriously. Cat told her about their recent adventures in Mexico and she decided that she didn’t want to be on his bad side.
“You know,” she said. “Something isn’t right here.”
“Like what?” Ted asked.
“Well, where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. Look here.” She pointed to the screen. “His bank deposits. Now look at his receipts. Do you see it?”
“See what?”
“His deposits are routinely more than his receipts. How can he deposit more money than he takes in?”
“Hmmm... you’re right.”
Leah leaned back in her chair. “And look at this. He’s spending way too much money on a few of his suppliers. Take his garbage bill for instance.”
“Uh-huh.” Ted leaned in to his screen.
“That’s way too much. That kind of garbage bill would be appropriate for a big supermarket or a shopping center. But for eight little coffee stands? It doesn’t make any sense.”
She looked over at Ted and saw the wheels turning in his head.
“And look at this dairy bill. It’s from a jobber,” she said.
“A jobber?”
“Yeah. The deliveryman is an independent businessman. He buys his products from the diary and delivers them to his customers.”
“Okay, so?” Ted leaned back in his chair and scratched his head.
“So, his dairy bill is way out of line with industry standards. If you brought me in as a consultant, the first thing I’d tell him is to get a new dairy vendor.”
Bikini Baristas: Ted Higuera Series Book 4 Page 14