Lalla Bains 02 - A Dead Red Heart (17 page)

"Lalla? Yes it is. Hey you, don't you stop to say hi to old friends anymore?"

Caught, I pretended surprise. "Janice? Janice Bidwell. Don't you look wonderful."

She swept silky dark bangs off her forehead and gave me a dazzling white smile. "Oh, lord, I haven't gone by that old name in years."

"So, you work here, now?"

"Silly, of course I do, I did the story on the Patience McBride murder last year, but maybe you didn't know because I use a penname, Margarithe Delacourte? Janice Bidwell, sounds so bourgeois, don't you think? But hey, I'm still Jan to my friends, and we are still friends, aren't we?"

"That was you? Then I should have called, thanked you for the conscientious job you did, making me look like a heroine when all I did was hang on until the fire department arrived."

She waved away the compliment and tilted her head. "Well, girlfriend, those dark circles under your eyes say you're not getting your share of beauty sleep. It must've been awful finding that dead homeless man in the alley. Of course it doesn't help that Del Potts keeps your name on the front page. So, can I help you with anything?"

"Del, if I can find him."

Her pretty face squeezed into a sour expression. "Oh, honey, if you're here to wring his neck, you'll have to get in line. Better yet, take it to our managing editor."

"The neck wringing is optional. Is he here?"

The tinkling laughter sounded forced. "After that libelous story he did about you?" She held a pinch of air between her perfectly manicured nails. "He's this close to getting fired for it, too."

"Really?" I was still feeling magnanimous towards the little twerp, so neck wringing was off today's list. But, then again, the day was still young.

"I don't even know why he's still on the payroll. Whatever he's doing now to keep his job, I can tell you he's dirt under this girl's sandals. Listen, you don't want Del. You want someone who's on your side, someone who'll do a fair and honest story. Why not let me help?"

At my hesitation, she tried again. "You said it yourself, it was my story that made you look like a heroine. Del isn't going to give you any of the breaks I can."

"Let me think about it. Do you have a card?"

She shook her head, sadly amused at the perverse set of my mind, and handed me a card.

"Lalla Bains, you got kick-me on your backside, or what? He'll abuse your trust then leave you bleeding all over the carpet like the rest of us who got in his way. Oh, and tea bags under the eyes should help, but
s'il vous plait
I have the name of a really good plastic surgeon."

I felt my face redden. "Uh, well, thanks but I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet."

"
Chérie
, even in this light I can see the worry lines and crows-feet are winning,
né'ce pas
? At least let me give you my dermatologist's number. A little Botox here and there and you'll look good as new."

"Well, uh, maybe later."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself, but you shouldn't take the big four-oh without a fight, girlfriend. Hell, thirty-five is hard enough without a little help. Mentioning of which, believe me when I tell you Del is not going to do you any favors. Besides, us girls have to stick together, don't we? Look, I have to run, but just remember what I said about Del—and call me. Use the cell. I'm never home anyway." She turned away, leaving a trail of Chanel, and I watched the flowers on her sundress sway with the motion of her curvy hips as she clipped down the stairs.

I wondered what heinous crime Del had committed for Janice to hate him so much and why she thought she could convince me she was thirty-five, since we both graduated the same year. Must be the Botox talking.

"Potts?" replied a harried young man in shorts and Hawaiian shirt. "The great man hasn't shown up yet today. You can ask the chief, if you can get a word in between phone calls." He thumbed over his shoulder to indicate the office with a closed door.

I knocked once and a deep baritone said, "Come."

I introduced myself, offering him my hand.

He winced, but accepted my hand in his big paw. "Let me guess, you're here to complain about Del Potts."

"No, no. Just talk."

Signaling that I should take a seat, he sighed deeply and collapsed back into his desk chair. "Sorry, Del can be a bit of a trial."

"He's that alright, but you don't have to fire him on my account."

"Fire Del?" His eyes widened. "Why ever would I do that? Sure, he's a bit odd, and he has to be reined in now and then, but have you seen his work?" He waved an arm at the wall to his left. Graphic, daunting, frightening, and awesome were the only words to describe Del's photography. "He's up for a Pulitzer for this one," he said pointing to a particularly gruesome image. "Spectacular, isn't it?

"But if he's a problem for you, I'll talk to him, tighten his leash so to speak." He smiled weakly.

We both knew that wasn't going to happen. Del might be annoying, but his editor was trying like the dickens to hang onto him for as long as possible.

"What else can I do for you, Miss Bains?"

"You can tell me where I can find him."

"Haven't a clue. Comes and goes. In and out, all hours of the day and night, days at a time. Nothing to do for it. He shows up when he's got his story wrapped up. Anything else?"

I said, no, thanks, and taking him up on his offer of a free copy of today's paper, saw myself out of his office.

In my car I turned to the page for Police Beat. Last night a truck struck a homeless man jaywalking on H Street. The police hadn't released the man's identity, but if Brad had been right, that the killer was a cop, all I could do was pray that Byron was too embarrassed to let anything drop about finding Del and me in the alley next to Mr. Kim's on the same night a homeless man was run over by a truck. And, hopefully not in front of the one police officer who would also like to know who else might have been talking to Brad that night.

Chapter sixteen:

The next day's work allowed me the respite I so desperately needed to get my mind off Billy Wayne's murder.

I was up in the air, idling along at a hundred and thirty miles an hour, hopper empty, job done, no traffic to dodge, the soporific warmth of the sun on my windshield, the vent blowing at the sweat trickling down into my flight suit, and a repetitive knocking sound that jumped me out of my reverie. Something in the pistons? No, just one cylinder, and it was intermittent. Hadn't I checked the engine out yesterday? Maybe not. Too busy with murder suspects lately to take care of the business that paid the bills. I swore at myself, added that I was an idiot, then eased the fuel mixture to run a little richer, and added another hundred feet between me and terra firma.

Flying lower would save on fuel, but I'd rather avoid a forced landing and another busted- up airplane to repair. I held my breath for the last five miles until the dark hump of hanger, barn, and office came into view. I banked and kicked the ailerons, grateful that the big aircraft responds to such cavalier treatment, then let go of the breath I'd been holding as the wheels touched the tarmac under me.

Pushing the flaps to stop the forward motion, I taxied to home plate. Pedro chocked my wheels, and Javier, his face wrinkled with worry under his darkly tanned face, offered me a hand off the wing. I was grateful that my ground crew had the good sense not to call me on the VHF. Some pilots want everyone's attention when the aircraft is coming in under duress. Not me. I'm irritable at the interruption, wanting it quiet so that I can listen to the engine and hopefully diagnose the problem and confirm that I will have air under me instead of go plowing into a field, or worse, into trees.

The men backed out of my way, waiting, I suppose for me to bounce my helmet off the tarmac in a fit of pique. I ignored the questioning stares and waved them all back to work. Then I stood, hands on hips, sweat still trickling down the back of my flight suit. I gazed down the long fifteen-hundred feet of runway, to the south of us and on to the other side of the canal, to where there used to be a walnut orchard and where it was now a leveled field staked with little yellow flags. We'd protested the building site for the new elementary school, taking it to our lawyer, then to the county. The county commissioner of schools suggested that we should talk to the charter school since it wasn't a public school issue. Or we could reposition our airstrip east to west or west to east. Didn't matter to them. West to east is not the optimum flight pattern for takeoff and landing. It's north and south, or not at all.

As for today's fiasco, if I hadn't been able to make it as far as I had, or if the problem had surfaced at takeoff, and if I'd had to ditch the plane… I shuddered at the picture.

Mad-Dog jogged up to me. "You okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine, thanks." It was a little shaky in the delivery but I wasn't about to let anyone see how frightened I'd been. I was a mechanic and I did my own engine maintenance. So, how could I let myself forget? Or was it something I couldn't have foreseen? I went in the office and rummaged through the desk looking for the maintenance records on my aircraft.

When my dad sauntered in the door, the crew correctly decided they had better things to do and left. He sat down across from me. Everyone, hearing an airplane coming in underpowered, has one ear tuned for the miss of the engine. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure." I continued to search through the paperwork, looking for the log. Not wanting to wait to hear the reprimand I knew would be coming, I got up to leave.

"Wait," he said, catching me by the sleeve of my flight-suit. "It can wait a few minutes. I could use a cuppa joe, you too?"

I collapsed back into my chair while he poured the coffee, adding creamer to his own, and handing me my cup, he sat down next to the desk.

"You're safe, that's all that matters," he said, watching the cup as I tried to deliver it to my quivering lips.

"I know," I said. "It's just, if that charter school they're laying ground for was already in business... and if I wasn't able to make it to the runway... I hate to think… "

"Don't. It's not going to come to that."

"What, no school? Did something happen to change their minds? Have they put birth control pills in the water or what?"

"I don't know. But, it's not anything you need to be worried about right now."

"And why is that?"

"Well, for one thing, you're too young to be worried about something that far in the future."

This was different. Where was the part where he kicked my butt for not making sure my TBO report was done?

"Right. So besides sweating a forced landing, which I may or may not have survived, I could've plowed into a school yard full of kids. I don't even know what I want on my tombstone."

"You're forty," he said, exasperation scouring his voice. "When you're sixty-eight you can get serious about your epitaph."

At my indifferent shrug, he slammed his cup down on the desk. "Wanna trade places? I'll tell you what, you be sixty-eight and I'll be forty again. You can have the bad eyesight, the creaking joints, and I'll get another twenty-eight years to think about what I wanna be when I grow up."

"Look who's talking. One minute you got a heart condition, can't be bothered with the business you built and slaved for, and now you're a born again ladies' man. And that's another thing—why now? Why not last year, or all the other years since mom died?"

He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling.
"'First keep peace within yourself,'
Thomas á Kempis.'"

I rolled my eyes at yet another of his irrelevant quotes. That was the way it was with my dad, always would be. When forced to inspect his own motives, he retreated behind some archaic quotation totally off the subject.

Seeing my eye-roll he put down his cup. "Last year the house almost went up in flames, then you and Caleb got together, and well, you started calling me Dad again instead of Noah, so I decided that I just might have something to live for—and…" his expression showed all of the bewilderment in his voice, "danged if I can figure how to fit another lifetime into what I got left."

I grinned at him, shaking my head at the peculiar stage in which we'd both found ourselves: I'd found love where I least expected it and my dad, for once in his life, actually said what he felt.

Then, perhaps uncomfortable with the unmapped territory of our relationship, he stood up. "Well, if you don't need anything else, I'll mosey on back to the house. I have some business to attend to in town. Oh, by the way, Caleb called, said he'd be at Roxanne's by noon, and for you to be there, noon sharp."