Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (10 page)

About that time, the other officer came
around the nose of the helicopter, and spotted me. Thankfully, it
was not the same man I'd had the verbal exchange with at the
station. He gave me a quizzical look, but didn't say anything. His
movement caught Akito's eye.

"Hey! What's
she
doing here?" Akito's
voice cut through the air, echoing off the high metal roof.

"I'm working for Mack Garvey," I told him,
walking toward them. "I need to talk to his mechanic."

"How'd you get in here? Where's your airport
security badge?"

I shrugged. "The gate was open, and no one
stopped me." I hadn't seen any airport guard hanging around the
crime scene tape, but what did I care if his butt was in the
sling?

Akito didn't look any too happy about that.
In fact, he looked like he wanted to kick somebody's ass; he just
wasn't sure which one to start with.

Instead, he turned to the other officer. "We
almost done here?" he growled.

The other man was a rather heavy-set local
boy of about thirty-five. He handed Akito a plastic baggie with a
bit of dust in it.

Vacuumings, I supposed, from the helicopter
interior.

Akito pointed to the metal object on the
floor I had noticed earlier. "Wrap this, and take it in, too."

While the officer went out to the car to get
something to wrap it in, I bent down to take a look at the object,
careful not to touch it. I had no idea what the thing was, except
that presumably it went somewhere on a helicopter. It looked like
pretty solid metal, though. There was a good unmistakable blood
stain near one end of it.

About ten feet away, a large spot on the
greasy floor looked a bit murkier than the rest. Blood?

Looked to me like there was reason to believe
we had our location and murder weapon.

I watched the young officer drape some
plastic wrap over the metal object to protect fingerprints. He
picked it up, and balanced one end against his leg while he neatly
twisted the plastic around the opposite end. He repeated the
procedure with the second end. His hands worked confidently. His
last job had probably been as a sandwich wrapper at the deli.

"Heavy, huh?" I had noticed his biceps
working to maneuver the long metal shaft.

Now that it was wrapped, he held it out to
me. It weighed a good twenty pounds. More than I had expected, for
sure. It would take a pretty good swing to heft this thing into the
air and knock someone in the back of the head with it.

I handed it back to him before Akito caught
me.

He was making one final snoop over the long
workbench before taking his leave. Static crackled from his
hand-held radio, and he murmured some response to it.

"We through here?" he asked his partner.

The other man held up the weapon and his
other baggies in response.

"Okay, Esposito, you can go on working. I
guess we're finished." He gave me a dark look, then motioned his
partner. He didn’t speak to me and I was glad I didn't have to talk
him into letting me stay awhile.

The mechanic had turned back to his
workbench, ignoring me completely. In profile, I could see that his
nose had been broken, probably more than once. The light from the
florescent fixture over the bench played up the deep pits in his
pockmarked face. His hair was about shoulder length, pulled back
into a snarled rubber band.

"Are you Joe Esposito?" I asked, peeking
around his shoulder.

He squirted some white grease out of a tube,
like a shot of toothpaste, and rubbed it carefully with his index
finger around the edge of a piece that might have been a small
bearing of some sort. He fitted the greased part inside another,
then wiped his finger against a filthy rag on the counter. The rag
looked as if it could stand on its own.

"Hello?" I watched his face to see if a light
came on. Nothing. "Look, Mack hired me to find out why he's accused
of a murder he didn't commit. I'd just like to ask a couple of
questions. Is that okay?"

I began to wonder if the man was deaf, but he
finally turned to look at me. He had droop-cornered dark eyes that
some women might find attractive in the bedroom. Here, the effect
was anything but sexy. I stepped back half a pace.

"You work for Mack, don't you?" I asked.
"Don't you care whether he goes to jail or not?"

He shrugged. Apparently, the prospect of jail
wasn't the worst thing he could think of. His stubborn silence was
really beginning to irritate me, though. I could feel my hands
starting to clench up.

"Listen, jerk, even if you don't give a damn
about Mack, don't you care whether you have a job next week?" I
can't help it. Obliquity in others tends to bring out strong
reactions in me.

He spun on me so quickly, I thought he was
going to grab me by my shirt collar. I jumped back about twelve
inches.

"Look, lady, you don't know nothin'. You a
stranger here, and you come buttin' you nose in where you know
nothin'. Mack, he so far in debt, I don't know if my next paycheck
gonna bounce anyway."

He jabbed the greasy index finger toward my
nose. "For all I know, maybe he did kill that guy. He sure sounded
like he might. But it really piss me off when the cops think I help
him, cause I didn't. I got nothin' to do with this."

His brown skin had a dangerous red undertone
to it. I was tempted to back my way out the door, but something he
said had just sunk in.

"Wait a minute," I ventured cautiously. "You
say Mack
sounded
like he wanted to kill the guy? Did they
have a fight?"

He puffed a sharp breath out his nose. "Right
here in this hangar Friday night."

He gathered up a couple of screwdrivers and
several wrenches from the workbench, and carried them to the red
tool chests. I followed at his heels, like a kid wanting candy.

"So, you were here? You heard them?" Mack had
told me that Joe never showed Friday night. He said he had gone
back to the office and had chicken for dinner.

He never mentioned Gil Page being here.

Joe made another trip to the workbench. He
picked through small items on the bench, sorting out nuts, bolts,
fuses, and screws before he answered. He put each of the items into
special drawers in a little cabinet.

"I work til 'bout nine-thirty, ten Friday
night, then I take a break for dinner. I gotta finish some work on
the ship, then Mack gonna come later, and we do tracking. I get
back from my dinner break, walk up to the door, hear Mack and this
other guy screaming at each other. Sounds like they ready to tear
each other apart. I don't wanna be in the middle. I drive around
awhile, come back 'bout half hour later. They both gone, I figure
okay, I do my work."

"They were gone when you came back? What
about that ... that metal thing the police took away? Was that
here?"

"Police find that on the floor under the
workbench. It's usually on the shelf over there. Old spare
hydraulic servo."

"And you told the police about the fight, I
suppose."

He didn't respond. He pulled a key ring off
his belt and locked the red cabinets.

"Did they tell you they think you helped Mack
dump the body?"

"I told you, I got nothin' to do with
this."

He grabbed a baseball cap from where it hung
on a nail, and pulled it on. "Better get outta here," he said, "I'm
locking up."

I stood aside as he pulled the two heavy
doors shut and padlocked them. The yellow police tape was gone now.
Apparently, Akito felt they had thoroughly investigated the
scene.

The afternoon sun had sunk below the
mountains, and the parking lot was bathed in pinkish light. Since
Joe and I were both heading for the gate, we ended up walking
together. The female guard was in her little wooden structure when
we passed. She rose from her seat, and I thought she was going to
question me, but Joe reached for the gate's doorknob, and opened
it. I walked through, without a word to the guard.

Catherine Page was standing in the parking
lot. She wore white linen slacks and a white cotton sweater that
made her look cool and clean. Too clean to be standing in the red
dirt lot. Her hair was freshly done, her tapered nails now polished
pale apricot.

"I was hoping to catch Mack Garvey," she told
me.

"He's not here. Joe just locked up the
hangar."

She carefully kept her eyes on me, avoiding
any direct glance at Joe, just as he was avoiding looking at her.
Here among the shabby buildings and rusted cars, she was like a
sweet angel in white. I couldn't imagine any male not wanting to
gaze upon her, at least for a minute.

I got the distinct feeling an undercurrent
had just rippled through the lot.

Joe got into the beefed up red pickup truck
next to my rental, and started it with a rumble. Catherine and I
stepped to one side as he backed the clumsy contraption out of its
space. As he pulled away, I saw him watching us in his rearview
mirror.

I turned to Catherine and noticed she was
staring through the fence at the hangar.

"Is that where it happened?" Her voice went
high and thin.

I nodded. I couldn't think of anything
appropriate to say.

"You know," she said sweetly, "I don't think
I ever hated anyone in my life the way I hated Gil."

It took a moment for the words to reach me,
coming as they did past her angel exterior. I caught myself staring
at her.

I didn't really need to ask why she felt that
way.

Already, she had lost a little of the
beaten-puppy look I'd noticed earlier. I tried to picture her
wielding twenty pounds of greasy hydraulic servo, but it didn't
quite gel.

On the other hand, she'd certainly managed to
get here almost immediately after the body had been discovered. It
was entirely possible that she and Joe were in this together. I
better check out the Friday night phone call, and the airline
schedules.

She had turned to stare back at the
hangar.

"The worst part was having to watch him abuse
Jason," she said.

"Physical abuse?" I wondered how a mother
could sit back and watch.

I'm not sure whether she heard me. She seemed
wrapped in a private world. Her eyes were narrowed, her thoughts
turned inward.

Her voice, when it came, was merely a
whisper. "I'm so glad he's gone," she said.

If she killed him, I decided, she did it for
her own survival.

I murmured an apology about needing to be
somewhere, and got into my car. As I pulled onto the highway, the
light was fading fast, and so were my eyelids. I let the valet park
my car, and dragged my feet through the lobby toward the
elevators.

"Miss Parker!"

I turned to see the concierge. He was a sandy
little man, thirty-something, about five-six, his thinning hair cut
close all around. His name badge told me he was Morton Willis. His
braid-trimmed uniform was crisp and unwrinkled. It made me aware
that my own linen suit had wilted hours earlier.

His manner was as ingratiating in person as
it had been over the phone.

"I was able to get you on the six o'clock
flight to San Francisco in the morning. I hope it was all right to
book the seat, but they said it was the only one available for two
days."

I'd forgotten all about our conversation. Was
it only a few hours ago?

Fatigue was making my muscles Jello-like, but
I had no choice. I couldn't wait another two days to talk to Jason
Page. I took the ticket folder he handed me. I handed him a twenty
dollar tip.

"Oh, one other question." I might as well get
my money's worth out of the guy.

"Yes, Miss Parker?"

"I need to know if Susan Turner requested a
pay per view movie Friday night."

He wanted to tell me something about the
hotel's assuring its guests privacy, but the twenty dollar bill
still rested crisply in his hand.

"It's official," I said. "If I don't find
out, I'm sure the police will ask."

Without another word, he turned toward the
registration desk. I followed, feeling like a kid at Baskin Robbins
begging for a small taste. He stepped behind the desk, and signed
on to one of the computer terminals. His fingers skipped over the
keys, pausing now and then for the next screen to come up.

"Yes," he said, finally. "Ten p.m. Friday,
The Curse of Dracula
."

Hmm, Susan didn't seem like the Dracula type.
I thanked him, as he quickly signed off the terminal.

"Shall I arrange a wake-up call for five in
the morning?"

"Sure. Five." Ugh. These early mornings were
becoming a habit.

I sank against the back of the elevator for
the ride up.

A couple got on at the fourth floor, bound
for the restaurant on twelve, I imagined. She was wearing a
strapless print dress of bright orange hibiscus and green leaves
which hit her about three inches below the buns, and would probably
require a paint scraper to remove. Her date was giving it a good
try though, right there in the elevator. I wondered if they would
make it through dinner before making a hasty retreat to their room.
I got off on seven, giving them five whole floors for a
quickie.

My message light was blinking again. Drake.
He wanted to know if I'd eaten dinner yet. I couldn't remember.

"Let me take you out," he begged.

"Honestly, Drake, I'm beat. I'm heading for
the tub right now."

"Let me join you."

Even in my weakened condition, the idea was
powerfully attractive. Something held me back, though. Our first
time, if there were to be a first time, should be special.

I filled him in on my plan to fly to San
Francisco.

"Tell you what, why don't you pick me up when
I get back?"

I pulled the ticket out, and looked at it. My
return flight left San Francisco late afternoon.
If
the
airline was on schedule, I should arrive back on Kauai about ten
p.m. the next night. He said he would be there.