Henry scrunched his nose. “Now, that is a mystery I would like solved. But I don’t think it’s as grand as DB Cooper.”
He blinked rapidly as he stared out the window.
The little café was busy, and Tess could see a young family in the booth where they had sat only twenty-four hours ago.
“Indulge me.” Tess stood and held up a green, diamond-shaped keyring with a single key attached. “When I was in Mr. Benham’s apartment last night, I saw lots of old photos in his hallway.”
She had already printed out the artist’s sketch of DB Cooper from 1971 and held this up, too.
Tess waved the key like bait.
Henry shrugged and stood. “Sure. Let’s see this.”
1971: The Case
The passenger understood that the short-haired stewardess had to get up to relay his messages to the cockpit. He didn’t like it when she left him, though. This one was sweet. Polite. The other stewardesses were also aware of what was going on, that was clear. He wanted to shout at them to stop looking at him, but so far this was still just between him and the crew.
She’d read the note. He’d shown her what was in the briefcase, and she believed him. Things were running on their own power now; stopping was off the table. The question was what would be waiting for him when they landed?
The plane had been circling Seattle for a little over two hours at this point. The pilot’s announcements about mechanical issues and having to burn off fuel were getting repetitive. They had told him all the money was ready. It was the rest they were waiting for. He didn’t want to land until it was all there: touch down, civilians off, then go. Or was the plane going to be surrounded by National Guard?
The chatter of all the other passengers on the plane had died into a bored silence after the first hour. Occasionally, someone would get up and walk past him at the back of the plane to use the washrooms. No one appeared to find it odd that the young stewardess would sometimes be there next to him, nor that he was still wearing his tinted glasses. No one looked twice at the briefcase on his lap, open only wide enough for his hand to rest inside.
Had he asked for too much?
A stiff icicle shot up his spine in an unfamiliar moment of panic. Had he asked for too little? No. I did the math. This is all it’s going to take. We’re not criminals.
The sudden crackle from the overhead announcement speakers was like a thunderclap in the quiet cabin. At the far end of the plane, one of the stewardesses left the cockpit, locked eyes with the passenger and nodded. The pilot’s voice came on.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We’ve been informed by Sea-Tac that everything has been taken care of. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for landing.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The furnishings were all older and in worse shape than Henry had pictured in his mind. It didn’t help that the paramedic had left footprints on the living room carpet.
From the entrance, Henry could see into the kitchen and living room. The kitchen lay straight ahead and a hall to the left would lead to the rest of the suite. The star in the living room was a well-worn green leather chair. An air tank and hose lay next to it on the ground. The chair was still reclined, and Henry thought he could almost see the imprint of the man who would have, should have, occupied it.
There were few dishes or furniture. In the hall, there weren’t even many photos. Henry noted that the chemical smell of new furnishings had been replaced, perhaps decades ago, by the slightly stale air of a man alone.
He wondered whether Benham had any children.
“The photos are in the bedroom,” Tess said, heading down the hall, Frieda in tow.
Standing over the chair, Henry read a man’s daily routine from a side table. A pair of remote controls held together with an elastic band, eyeglasses, a JF Penn novel, a tipped mug with stains of coffee, and a small medicinal-looking spray bottle. Henry picked up the spray, Apo-Nitroglycerin, which sounded important. It was capped, so Henry reasoned that it shouldn’t get dirty in his pocket. It may be good to bring to the hospital.
He nearly stepped on an orange pill bottle. It still held one small, white pill, but the lid was missing. So he got down onto his hands and knees to look under the chair. With a magazine from the floor, he swept out crumbs, tissues, and the missing lid. He sealed the bottle and kept it with the inhaler.
“We should clean up,” he said to no one in particular.
Tess’s reply was indistinguishable.
Henry continued exploring around the far side of the living room and into the kitchen. He tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, unsure of why it felt important to disturb nothing. The discomfort that accompanies intrusion rose in his stomach. If he had gotten sick or cried, he wouldn’t be surprised.
He found Tess and Frieda in the bedroom, removing a frame from the wall.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I thought you said something.”
“I said I thought we should clean up.”
“Ah. Good idea, but let’s check with Bernadette first.”
A double bed with a large headboard made of dark wood occupied most of the carpeted floor. The open closet was crammed with boxes bearing felt marker labels such as WINTER CLOTHES, BOOKS, RECORDS, and HOLIDAY. Henry wondered whether Mr. Benham put up a Christmas tree.
On the bedside table were two more framed pictures. One was missing a photo; the glass of the other was so dusty that Henry had to remove it from the frame in order to see. The tint of the faded colors reminded Henry of his own childhood family photos. This family looked particularly idyllic, with a mother and a father about his age. They sat on a rock with three teenage girls, one of whom appeared to have been an unwilling subject.
Henry surveyed the bedroom, unsure of what he was looking for, until Frieda’s voice broke the silence.
“This one,” she said. She and Tess sat on the bed with a photo frame in Frieda’s lap. The largest of eight photos in the frame was half the size of a sheet of paper.
Tess slipped the photo out of the back of the frame and brought it close to her face. Henry half expected her to sniff at it. She snapped an image with her phone before handing it to Henry.
It was a black-and-white image of three men in uniform, arm in arm. Each grinned with the drunkenness of that cocktail of youth and adventure. An ornate mansion filled the background with symmetrical towers and curving staircases. Beneath the men, a strip of paper was glued to the front of the photo, with a typed description: Ronald B. Bryan D. Kevin F. at Schloss Favorite, Germany, October 1959.
Henry took the photograph and squinted. He lifted his own glasses onto his head and looked again.
All three men wore the same uniform. Simple clothes, pressed, buttoned tight, with RCAF wings on their breast. Bryan’s eyes told the story that it was he who had delivered the most recent punchline.
Condensation formed from Benham’s breath as he laughed at the camera; the only hint of autumn. His pale skin shone like the clear sky in the background, in contrast to the dark uniform, as spartan of medals as his face was of experience. A wedge cap with two shiny buttons hid any evidence of Cooper’s telltale widow’s peak.
Henry flipped back and forth between the drawing and the photo. “It’s not even close,” he said.
“It is.”
“It’s not.”
“You have to imagine an artist working from descriptions.”
“If the witnesses were short-sighted.”
“Try picturing him without the hat.”
The most expensive thing Henry had seen in the suite was the recliner, and it might have been twenty years old. Two hundred thousand dollars in 1971 should translate into millions today.
“Does this look like the home of a millionaire to you?” Henry asked.
“Well, like you said, maybe he realized the money was marked and so he couldn’t spend it.”
“So he moves to Vancouver and rents a basement apartm
ent for fifty years?” Henry stood and handed the photograph back to Frieda. “No. The Cooper who hijacked the plane was methodical. Calculating. Think about it. Why did he ask for four parachutes?”
“In case he needed to take hostages?”
“I don’t think so. Nothing we read says he was trying to hurt anyone. But if the police thought he was going to take hostages, they for sure wouldn’t sabotage the parachutes, right?”
Henry closed the closet door. Somehow, it felt more respectful.
Tess parried. “Someone who thought of those details would already have figured out how to launder the money.”
“Or not,” Frieda said. “Maybe the money’s still here and that’s what Keller was looking for.”
“It couldn’t be,” Henry said.
“If he’s not after the money, then what?” Frieda asked.
Henry tapped the image of the young air force officer in the chest.
“Let’s ask Benham.”
Keller coasted the car to the corner in front of the coffee shop. The police vehicles were no longer parked across the street in front of the house. There was movement downstairs, though. Someone was home.
He scowled.
He was on the right track. Or it could be a trap. The girl had dropped an old brass Northwest Orient Airlines pin in the alley for him to find. He recognized the logo: a wave inside of a circle. He had burned into his memory all the images of the hijacked plane.
Still, the message was uncertain.
Are they telling me I’m on the right track? Are they warning me to stay away?
There was no going back now. His father was lighting the way, and the signs were coming faster and faster as he neared the truth.
This was just a minor delay. The house would make itself available again soon. It would make its secrets known, and he would get what he had come for. This was now as unstoppable as time itself.
He turned the corner onto Richardson Street, toward Granville, away from the house.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Vancouver General Hospital was a sprawl of buildings. Wide lawns and narrow roads cut between towers confused one’s perspective. It was hard to say how many city blocks the entire complex covered. Henry barely spoke as they approached the first series of squat pavilions. He dipped in and out of Tess and Frieda’s steady stream of excitement.
“But he didn’t blow up the plane?” Frieda asked.
“No, it was a threat. Nobody even knows if he had a real bomb.”
“But he showed it to the flight attendant.”
“He did, but it’s not like she was a bomb expert, right? Would you recognize a real bomb if you saw one?”
Frieda’s jaw slackened, elongating her round features. “I might.” She changed tactics. “What if he blew up in his parachute?”
Even Henry had to laugh. He held the door open for the pair as they entered the Centennial Building, per Bernadette’s directions.
Tess’s research while Henry had been on the phone with the police was apparently extensive.
“The thing is,” she said, “people believe he made it down because years and years later, someone found some of the ransom money washed up on a riverbank. They could tell it was DB Cooper’s because of the serial numbers on the bills. And it was an eight-year-old kid who found the cash.”
“What?” Frieda’s palms shot to the side of her head, fingers spread wide. “That kid must be rich.”
“It was only a couple thousand bucks, which means Cooper still got away with about two hundred thousand dollars. US.”
“Hen, that’s a lot of money, right?”
He pressed the call button for the elevator several times.
“After fifty years,” he said, “if you took care of it, you could have millions today.”
“But you said Mr. Benham doesn’t have millions.”
Tess threw fuel on Frieda’s young fire. “Some of the richest people in the world live really cheaply so they don’t attract attention. They don’t buy stuff. They just collect tons of money.”
“Like Smaug,” Frieda said, nodding her understanding.
Henry looked at Tess to see whether she had picked up on the reference.
“Exactly,” Tess answered. “Like a dragon.”
The elevator pinged its approval before Henry could express his own.
As the trio approached the nurse’s station to ask for directions, they were interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Tess! Henry!”
Further down in the intensive care ward, Bernadette stood alongside a uniformed police officer. The nurse behind the counter wore glasses on her head and a second pair at the end of her nose. Her eyes followed the group bypassing her station, squinting and using none of the lenses.
“Constable Stubbing was here to ask Ron about what happened,” Bernadette said. The police officer smiled only with his mouth as he nodded his agreement and scanned each of the newcomers.
Henry tore himself away from the police officer’s stare to ask, “How’s Mr. Benham?”
“He’s talking this morning and doesn’t remember a lot. The whole thing’s been too much for him.” Bernadette’s voice cracked. “They’re saying that he had a heart attack. Maybe more than one. They say he’s too old for a cardio-myo-something-or-other, so they want to put a pacemaker in.”
“Can we see him?” Tess asked.
“They’re doing some pre-screening for the surgery in a bit, but you can go on in.” Bernadette pointed at the closed door behind her. The curtain in the small, square porthole window was drawn shut.
Henry put his hand on Frieda’s shoulder and spoke to the severe-looking man in uniform. “Do you work with Officer Tipton?”
“Constable Tipton. Yes, she said you’d have something for me?”
Tess disappeared alone into the room as Henry pulled out the papers that Frieda had found and explained. They listened as Frieda recounted seeing the stranger on the lawn, the car, and the license plate. The officer took the papers, made notes, and even asked Frieda to draw the shape of her “K-Car” on his pad.
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Stubbing asked.
Frieda’s drawing became jittery. She shrugged without looking up. “I didn’t remember.” She initialed her drawing with only an F.
Constable Stubbing looked over the drawing, pointed at Frieda with his pen and spoke to Henry. “And this is your daughter?”
“My niece. My ex-wife’s sister’s daughter.”
The officer turned his head and looked at Henry from the corner of his eye. “So, she’s not your real niece.”
“Fuck you!” Frieda shouted, loud enough to make the nurse sitting at her station jump to attention. The young girl started to cry.
Henry bent down and put an arm around Frieda. “You know what? I think we’re all getting hungry. Let’s you and I go to the cafeteria and grab sandwiches for everyone.”
Stubbing’s face was flush. He winced in apology. “I still need the young girl’s address.”
Bernadette inserted herself between Henry and Frieda, whispering, “I’ve got her. Let me grab my purse.”
Instead, Henry pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. Bernadette slipped it into her pocket without taking her attention from Frieda. And, with that, she whisked the crying girl toward the elevators.
Henry took the notepad and began writing. His irritation with the situation cleared when he overheard a bit of Bernadette’s conversation with Frieda at the elevator.
“Yeah, fuck him for sure,” Bernadette said, a little too loudly. “But you still can’t say that.”
Henry returned the notebook with a grin. Stubbing had heard as well.
Ron Benham’s room was large enough to hold a second patient. Instead, on the far side of the silver steel mechanical bed were two chairs. Nearer to the door, a massive cream-colored machine looked ridiculous compared to the tiny six-inch black-and-white screen, which showed Benham’s heartbeat and a stream of numbers.
“You must be Henry.”
“I am. It’s nice to meet you, despite the circumstances.” The old man’s hand was thin and weak, but the skin still bore the callouses of an active life.
“Likewise. I’m sorry to have caused such a fuss. Where’s Bernie?”
“She and my niece have run down to the caf.”
Henry turned to Tess, backlit by the window. The view of the city was reminiscent of Henry’s old office, only ten stories higher.
“Thanks for bringing my things,” Benham said. “They only have soft toothbrushes here. Nothing that cleans worth a darn.”
Henry pulled the spray and pill bottle from his pocket. “I picked these up, too.”
Benham’s frail hand took the spray. “Those aren’t mine.” He waved at the orange bottle in Henry’s hand.
Henry turned the bottle over in his hand. The prescription label was faded, the name illegible.
Tess cleared her throat. “I was waiting for you.”
Benham sat up further in his hospital bed, frowning at each of them, on either side.
“That sounds serious. What’ve you got for me?” he asked.
“We know that someone came to visit you yesterday.”
“What of it?” The old voice was slow and creaked with skepticism.
“What happened?” Tess asked.
“Pardon?”
“Did he harm you?”
A sigh, followed by coughs. “Nothing happened. He left. I must have fallen, or taken the wrong pill, or something. Whatever you expect us old people to do.”
“Who was he?” Henry asked.
“What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?”
“Look,” Tess picked back up, putting her hand on Benham’s leg. “We think he’s been hanging around. Henry’s niece saw him in the hallway and saw him leaving your place.”
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