Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) (7 page)

“I think I saw a body!”

7

The Press Box, a stand-alone place near the
Town Crier
offices, was more or less the official bar of the newspaper staff. There was no ambiance at The Press Box, and it certainly didn’t possess even a shred of family atmosphere. Sure, you could get a sandwich or a burger there. The grub was pretty good as far as bar food went, but there was nothing on the menu that was tempting or exciting. The inside was dark and on the dreary side. Guys stopped in during the day for a cold brew—generally blue-collar types who couldn’t face the remainder of their workday without a little booze in their system. The rest of the regular clientele consisted of frustrated teachers and, of course, journalists fighting deadlines. Once in a while, the
Crier
’s advertising department and accounting people would pop in for a liquid lunch, especially on those frustrating days when sales were down, and it looked like jobs might be lost.

Willy and I took an empty booth and ordered drinks from Vic, the cheerless, ever-efficient bartender, and reviewed the photos taken with Willy’s Nikon.

“See this?” Willy said, clicking to one of the photos. “Take a good look. What does it look like to you?”

I looked at the small screen and squinted. “I don’t know. It’s long, yet it looks like it’s crumbled or something. Could someone have shot a deer?”

“In the middle of a field?” Willy asked. “Gee, that’s sporting.”

Vic came by with the drinks, and Willy swallowed a mouthful of his double vodka martini. I sipped at my gin and tonic—regular tonic, not diet. Vic didn’t believe in using low-calorie mixers.

“Okay, go over a few more shots and see if you got it at a better angle,” I told him.

Willy pulled up a few more pictures taken from a slightly different perspective and stopped at one in particular. “Ah-ha!” he said. “See? See?”

I did see something.
A deer?
What had I been thinking? It looked more like a body, but I couldn’t be certain. “You have to download them and see if you can enhance the shot, or enlarge it. Can you do something with them to make them clear? Do you have software that can do things like that?”

“Tons of programs expressly for that purpose,” Willy said. “Give me a minute to finish my drink, and we’ll go.”

“Are you okay to drive?” I asked.

“Are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m not even finishing this,” I told him, pushing my glass aside. “I’m still shaking just from being up in that flying coffin. I need a Xanax or something—something better than gin.”

“The only thing better than gin is vodka,” he told me and then drained his glass.

* * *

Ken Rhodes and Meredith Mancini joined me at Willy’s desk. We looked over Willy’s shoulder as he went through the process of enlarging the shot and adjusting the focus.

“Has anyone been reported missing?” Meredith asked. “Are the police looking for someone from the nursing home or the hospital who might have wandered off?”

Ken shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“There aren’t any posters up, and there wasn’t anything on the news. Wouldn’t one of the beat reporters be onto a story like that?” I asked.

“They would,” Ken said. “None of them are.”

“So maybe it
is
a deer, or a very big dog. Maybe even a cow,” Meredith suggested.

We all turned and glared at her.

“A cow?” Ken asked. “In the middle of an empty field? How do you figure it got there? I know, maybe it hitchhiked six miles from the nearest farm and someone shot it.”

Meredith blushed a deep, embarrassed crimson. “Maybe it had mad cow disease, and it walked there and just died.”

Willy turned his attention back to his computer. I laughed. Ken Rhodes didn’t. Meredith’s innocence was lost on him.

“Hold on! Got it! Take a look at this!” Willy said.

We leaned in closer to get a better look at the monitor. Although the image was still grainy, it sure looked like a person. I could definitely discern a scrap of clothing—some sort of beige patterned print—but most of the body was obscured by the dying grass and weeds in the field. I couldn’t imagine how Willy spotted this on our descent, but he did have a sharp eye.

“I’ll call the police and have them meet us at the airport,” Ken told us. “Are you two okay to drive?”

Willy seemed fine after his double martini, but I didn’t want to take any chances riding along with him. As for me, my nerves were still on edge. “I think we’ll let you drive us both,” I said.

“Print out a few of those shots to give to the police to help them locate the body,” Ken instructed Willy.

“I guess I’ll have to stay here and hold down the fort,” Meredith whined. “Sometimes I wish I was still a reporter.”

* * *

For the second time in a little over two weeks, I had the pleasure of seeing young Officer O’Reilly. He grinned broadly when he saw me get out of Ken Rhodes’s SUV. I waited for the inevitable.

“Hello again, Mrs. Caruso! I’m so surprised to see you!”

“How are you, Officer O’Reilly?” I inquired politely.

“Very good, thanks. I’m a little worried about job security though,” he said. “Have you considered joining the force?”

Ron Haver was also waiting in the airport’s small parking lot, leaning against his county sedan. “Can you give us a general idea where you spotted this supposed body?” he asked when Willy and I approached him.

Willy handed over the photos he had printed out at the office for Ron to study under the bright midday sun. He looked at Ken Rhodes and raised a questioning brow. It was obvious from the photos that the figure wasn’t a “supposed” body at all. The prints removed all doubt.

“How did you get these shots?” Ron asked Willy.

Willy raised one finger and pointed up to the cloudless blue sky.

“We were up in a Cessna covering a story on the flight school,” I volunteered. “Willy took them while we were landing.”

The four men laid out the photos on the hood of the county sedan and argued about the approximate location of the body. I had nothing to offer, as my attention had been focused on Willy at the time, in order to avoid looking down during the landing. I glanced at the building and noticed Hank Barber peering out at us from the snack bar window. The mechanic, Drake Tuttle, stood beside him.

I pulled out my notebook and marched inside the structure, hoping the men could give me a little information.

“Hi guys,” I said, taking a seat in the small snack bar. “Care to join me?”

The two men shuffled over and sat down at the table.

“What’s going on out there?” Hank asked. “Why are the cops here? And more reporters? Who’s that other guy in the suit?”

“He’s with the county prosecutor’s office,” I told him. “He’s an investigator.”

“An investigator?” Drake asked. “Like a detective?”

I nodded.

Hank Barber looked perplexed. “Why are they here? We haven’t broken any laws, have we?”

“Mr. Barber,” I began, “Hank. The photographer thought he saw something in the field when he was taking some aerial shots during our landing. When we got back to the office and reviewed the photos, we realized it was a body.”

“A body,” the pilot muttered.

“You mean a human body?” Drake asked. “Like a dead person?”

“Most likely,” I told him.

The three of us turned to look out the window. An ambulance pulled into the lot and came to a stop near O’Reilly’s black-and-white squad car. Another squad car followed. Ron Haver and James O’Reilly took one of Willy’s photos and began a slow walk east into the field.

“Man, oh man!” Drake said. “This is getting so weird! There’s a lot of freaky stuff going on in the Harbor lately. I always thought this was such a nice, quiet place to live. A body. A real, live, dead body. ”

I decided not to point out the obvious error in his last comment. “The Harbor seems to be getting more exciting every day. Do you guys mind answering some questions?”

Both men shrugged. I could tell they were upset, even if they tried not to show it. Drake, in particular, seemed rattled.

“Have either of you noticed anything usual going on around here in the last few days?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Hank said. “The only thing out of the ordinary is you and your photographer coming out to do a story.”

Drake shook his head. “It’s been really quiet around here, especially since school started a couple of weeks ago. Nothing. No break-ins. No crank calls. Nothing other than some lessons here and there—all adults. Those were all scheduled and went as smooth as silk, right Hank?”

Hank nodded.

“There were no strangers hanging around? Did anyone file an unusual flight plan, or do you remember any weird pilots landing here that would have raised suspicion?” I asked.

“Just the usual guys coming in to take their planes up,” Hank said. “We know them all. Recreational flights for most of them—flying over their houses or doing the scenic thing over the ocean.”

“Sue Jeffries took her Skipper down to Atlantic City last weekend,” Drake told me. “She usually drives down, but she said she didn’t feel like fighting the parkway traffic. She came back early Monday afternoon. She hit three thousand playing craps.”

“I’m guessing Skipper is her boyfriend?” I asked.

Drake shook his head. “A Beech Skipper 77. It’s a sweet little single-engine beauty—a pleasure to fly. She let me take it up once. I love that plane.”

I wondered what kind of adventuress flew her own plane to AC, then flew back home a few days later with a small fortune in winnings. As it had over the last several months, envy reared its ugly head at me. I really needed a life and enough sense to get my finances in order so I could actually live one. I also wondered how much flying Drake Tuttle did. He never mentioned he was a pilot.

“You have a pilot’s license, Drake?” I asked.

“Of course I do. I got into the mechanics of it because I fly. Most pilots service and maintain their own planes. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just curious,” I said, writing small notes to myself that would never make it into a story. “Do you own any of the planes here, Drake?”

“A Cessna 150. You know, one of those small ones. I’d love another one, but you wouldn’t believe how much they set you back.”

A vivid imagination wasn’t necessary to know flying could be an expensive hobby, one not for a woman who had trouble paying her electric bill at the end of the month.

“Do either of you guys live around here?” I asked.

“A few miles away—both of us,” Hank told me.

“So what happens here at night?”

Drake laughed. “Nothing much. It’s not like we’re Teterboro or anything. They’re owned and operated by the Port Authority. They handle all kinds of traffic. We’re a mom-and-pop operation by comparison—privately owned.”

“Traffic?” I asked.

“Planes coming and going,” Drake explained.

“Do you have runway lights?” I asked.

“Sure, but you have to pre-arrange for them late at night. Same with the beacon,” Hank informed me.

I turned my attention to Drake. “You said the airport is privately owned. Who’s the owner?”

“Hank owns the place.”

I started a scenario in my head about the body in the field. “And this place is more or less closed late nights …”

“Unless someone makes prior arrangements,” Hank repeated.

“How about cars?”

“What about them?” Drake asked.

“Could anyone just drive up onto the property after hours?”

“Sure. There’s no reason to though, unless they made a wrong turn off the highway or … oh, I get it. You mean, like, murder someone here, or maybe bring a body here and dump it in the field after dark?” Hank asked.

“Exactly.”

The two men looked at each other. “I guess they could,” Drake said. “I mean, I never really thought about it.”

“Because it never came up before,” Hank added.

I closed my notebook and slipped it back in my purse. “The interview on those flying lessons will have to wait a while longer, Hank. For what it’s worth, once the story about the body in your field hits the papers, I doubt your phone will be ringing off the hook with requests for flying lessons anyway.”

“Guess not,” Hank said, sounding a little disgusted. “I could have used the business, though, what with the lousy economy and all. Maybe it’ll pick up once this whole thing blows over.”

I went outside to join Willy and Ken. Drake and Hank followed me out of the terminal, but hung back near the entrance.

“Now what?” I asked Ken.

“Now we wait.”

After a while, a county hearse pulled into the parking lot and the ambulance left. A few minutes later, the police photographer’s van drove in. A young woman stepped out, reached across the driver’s seat, and brought out two cameras.

Officer O’Reilly emerged from the field and waved to the photographer. She slung the cameras around her neck and went to join him.

“They must have found something,” I told Willy. “I guess your pictures were right on target.”

“Can you believe this?” Willy said. “I actually spotted a body from all the way up in the sky. We’ll have to stay right here. I’ll need to get some shots when they bring the body out.”

“It’ll take time,” Ken told us. “Do they serve anything like food inside there?”

“There’s a small snack bar. I’m guessing sandwiches and coffee—things like that,” I said.

“We might as well get something while we’re waiting.”

Three cups of coffee, two bathroom pit stops, a handful of corn chips, and a package of M&M’s later, I finally watched two attendants from the medical examiner’s office begin moving our way. They wheeled a stretcher between them. Atop the stretcher was a white body bag—which confirmed the person in the field was, indeed, dead and not simply injured and unable to move. Willy took a few shots, as well as some long-range photos of the general area where the body had been found.

“Wait a sec!” called an officer. The attendants halted while he jogged toward them carrying an evidence bag.

“Almost missed this,” he said and placed the clear plastic bag on top of the body.

Inside was a woman’s brown sandal.

Hank Barber, who had been waiting on the walkway near the airport’s double doors with Drake Tuttle, let out a scream.