Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (22 page)

The walk-in door was closed, but as I got
nearer, I noticed the big sliding doors stood open about a foot. I
felt a spatter of rain as I approached them, and heard thunder in
the distance. Inside, the hangar was dark except for a single
fluorescent fixture suspended over the workbench.

My flat loafers made hollow sounds as I
walked across the empty room, like a premonition of danger in a
scary movie. The background music usually gets intense at that
point. I tried to tiptoe, but the shoes only slipped off my heels,
making more noise than ever.

What was I so jittery for?

The telephone sat on the bench. It was so
encrusted with greasy fingerprints, I couldn't tell what color it
had been originally. I looked down at my clothes. White had not
been a good color choice. How many hours ago had I gotten dressed?
I reached for the slimy receiver. Bringing it near my face made me
almost choke.

Luckily, I remembered the phone number for
Paradise.

"Paradise Helicopters," Melanie answered. Did
I imagine a high-pitched edge to her voice?

"Melanie, it's Charlie. Is anything
wrong?"

"Oh hi, Charlie. I don’t know . . . I can't
raise Drake on the radio, and he's already thirty minutes
late."

"I'm at the maintenance hangar, and nobody is
here; at least I can’t see anyone. Is Mack around?" I found myself
trying to sound normal, not wanting to let her edginess get to
me.

"No, he had a meeting with his attorney. He's
been gone all afternoon." She sounded about ready to cry.

"What's your normal procedure in a case like
this?" I asked. My own voice sounded shaky to me, and I forced
myself to slow down. No sense in both of us going into a panic.

"I don't know. Nothing like this has ever
happened before," she whined.

"Okay, Melanie, calm down. We have to think.
Do you have a list of emergency phone numbers there somewhere?"

I heard a lot of paper-crinkling noises
before she answered. "You mean like the FAA, the control tower,
those kind of numbers?"

"That would be good for a start anyway. Also,
why don't you try..."

"Put the phone down. He's not coming back."
The harsh voice behind me made me jump, sending my heart crashing
loudly into my ribcage.

I carefully lowered the receiver, placing it
on its cradle at an angle so I wouldn't break the connection. I
prayed that ditzy Melanie would have enough smarts to realize I was
in trouble. I turned slowly, shielding the telephone with my
body.

Susan stood about ten feet from me, gripping
a wrench almost the size of Delaware.

She was wearing her green jacket.

Susan. She hadn’t left the island after all.
I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved to terrified.

Why, until a few minutes ago, hadn't I
seriously considered her as a suspect? Because she had seemed so
broken up over Gil's death? Because her alibi had checked out?

"Why isn't Drake coming back, Susan?" I
raised my voice slightly, hoping Melanie was getting all this.

"Sugar in the gas tank," she answered. "I had
to get rid of him." She laughed derisively at me. "
You
, miss
smart-ass detective, you don't know anything. Your fly-boy lover
was closer to figuring it out than you were."

That stung. Especially since I didn't know
what the heck she was talking about. I wasn't about to give her the
satisfaction of asking, so I let her continue.

"I was almost out of here twice now, and
didn't make it because that creep screwed it up. The day after I
killed Gil, I planned on getting out right away. I figured no one
would find his body where I left it. Then Drake changed his flight
pattern, and the whole mess came to light. I was really pissed when
the cops wouldn't let me leave.

“I hung around here for days of questions,
being as cool as I could about it, until I finally got my chance
this morning. I'm booked on the first flight out, and I'm loading
my stuff into the car when your lover comes out to the parking lot.
I couldn't believe it. His truck was parked right next to me.

"I could tell, the minute he said hello, that
something went off in his head. He stared at my rental car, and I
knew he'd made the connection. If Gil drove the rental car out to
the hangar to meet Mack on Friday night, how did the car get back
to the hotel parking lot Saturday morning for me to use? He didn't
say anything, but I knew that he knew."

"So, why didn't you head straight for the
airport this morning and beat it out of here?"

"And be hauled back here the minute he told
his story? No way. Plus, I wasn't sure how much you knew. For all I
knew, once you figured out my jacket was the only thing missing
from your room, I was probably the subject of your pillow talk last
night. I followed you around all morning, but never could catch you
alone.

“After awhile, I figured that you really
didn't know, or else you would have run straight to the police. I
came back out to the heliport, and watched for my chance. Paradise
apparently didn't have an early afternoon flight booked, because
Drake didn't come right back after lunch. I waited until no one was
paying attention, and sneaked out to the helicopter. I figured some
sugar in the fuel tank would do the trick."

I remembered Drake telling me that if a
helicopter's engine quits, they execute a procedure called
autorotation to bring it down safely. He said they practiced it
regularly. There was still hope, but I wasn't going to tell
Susan.

Susan was swinging the heavy wrench up and
smacking it softly into the palm of her left hand. I had to keep
her talking.

"So, you broke into my room to get your
jacket back. Why? Wouldn't it have been simpler to just ask me for
it?"

"I couldn't take the chance that you'd looked
through the pockets. If you had, you'd know that there was a
cashier's check in there for a quarter mil."

"Whoa! Two hundred fifty thousand,
spendable?"

"Gil had given it to me our first night here.
The money was for me to get my health club built. You almost had me
there, too, you know. When you got back from California, I was
surprised you didn't say anything about it."

Why hadn't I? Oh yes, Catherine Page had
walked up, and a distracted Susan had beat a hasty retreat from the
pool.

“You carried a huge cashier’s check around in
your
pocket
? Why didn’t you keep it in the hotel safe?”

“Gil might have been able to get it back,”
she answered

I kept stalling. “You could have mailed it
back to California. I don’t know, Fed Ex or something.”

She shifted from one foot to the other, a
tiny crease of uncertainty appearing between her brows. It didn’t
matter at this point anyway. I just needed to keep her talking.

"So, if you had the money, why did you have
to kill Gil?"

"To keep it. Remember, I told you he and
Catherine had argued terribly over the phone. Well, toward the end
of that fight, I heard him tell her that he would get the money for
Jason's race car from another source. I knew that other source was
either Mack Garvey or me. It made me so mad to hear him give in to
Catherine like that, I told myself he wouldn't get the money back
from me."

"So you went with him to the hangar?"

"Yeah. I offered to ride out there with him,
to kinda calm him down after the fight with Catherine. He thought I
was being considerate."

"But the hotel verified that you ordered a
movie in your room."

"All you have to do with those pay-per-view
movies is turn on the TV set to the right channel. They
automatically bill you for the movie. So, as Gil and I were
leaving, I switched on the TV, and hung out the 'Do Not Disturb'
sign. I told him I wanted it to look like we were in, in case the
maid came around. We had parked near one of the hotel's side
entrances, so we didn't walk out through the lobby. No one saw us
leave, and no one saw me return two hours later."

"So, you came to the hangar with him, and
waited for your chance."

"We drove up and parked. I told Gil I'd wait
for him in the car. Mack Garvey came pulling in about then, but he
parked at the other end of the lot, and didn't see me. Gil and Mack
walked up to the gate about the same time, and the guard let them
in. Then the place really started hopping. Some girl drove up, and
went over to talk to the guard. I couldn't hear what they were
saying, but she looked real upset, and he finally steered her back
to her car, and the two of them drove off.

"I was in a dark part of the lot, and they
didn't see me sitting in my car. They were no sooner gone, than I
saw that mechanic that works for Mack. The one that always looks
like he has a burr up his rear. He came walking around the side of
the hangar, and when he got to the door, he stopped. He looked like
he was listening to whatever was going on inside for awhile, then
he beat it out to the parking lot, and took off in his truck."

So Joe had told the truth.

"I thought I better find out for myself what
was going on. The mechanic hadn't pulled the gate tight, so I
walked on in, and stood near the door so I could see through a
little crack, and hear what was going on. Gil and Mack were going
at it. Finally, Mack told Gil flat out that he didn't have any
money. If Gil wanted to take the helicopter, fine, he'd have to
take it by force. Mack just turned around, and walked out, leaving
Gil standing there. I ducked into a dark shadow just before he came
outside.

"By then, I realized it's now or never. Gil
was going to try to get the money from me, since Mack didn't have
any. I slipped into the hangar. He had his back turned, and it was
a simple matter to pick up the handiest heavy object, and whack him
with it."

"But, once he was dead, wasn't he heavy?
How'd you move him?" I thought I heard a police siren in the
distance, but I couldn't be sure.

The wind had picked up, whistling through the
rusted holes in the old metal building. I didn't like the way she
swung the wrench a little more firmly as she got closer to the end
of her story.

Susan looked at me scornfully. "Heavy? I can
bench-press two hundred pounds," she said. "His size made it a
little awkward, but the weight was nothing."

Nothing. Sure. I wanted to slap the smirk off
her face, but I didn't want to break my hand doing it. I really
was
going to have to start working out—if I made it out of
here in one piece.

"So, how did you get him out to the Na Pali?
Or, is flying helicopters another of your many talents?"

Again, I thought I heard a siren, but the
wind blew the sound away. Rain was beginning to drum on the metal
roof, and we both raised our voices to be heard.

"I wasn't sure at first what I'd do with
him," she said. “I hadn't planned that far in advance. But, I knew
it had to be somewhere that people wouldn't find him right away. We
had taken one of those snorkeling trips earlier in the week, and I
knew there were lots of rugged valleys out there.

“I drove out to the end of the road, thinking
I'd carry him partway up the trail, then take him off to the side
somewhere. But, I got luckier than that. Some fool had left a small
motor boat pulled up on the beach. There were no cars around, and
no one camping, so I just borrowed the boat for a little while. I
worked fast. It didn't take long at all to motor over to the first
deep valley and beach the boat. I carried him as far inland as I
could, and dumped him behind a boulder. I figured wild animals
would get him before anyone found him."

"So, you put the warning note on my
windshield? And what about Catherine? Did you knock her over the
head last night, too?"

"When I realized I'd left my jacket at the
pool, I almost panicked. I went back to look for it, but you and
she and the jacket were gone. I searched her room first, and she
was just unlucky enough to walk in about two minutes too soon."

There was a slight pause in the falling rain,
and the siren sound came through distinctly. This time, Susan heard
it too. She changed instantly from her talkative
self-congratulatory mood, to one of near panic. Her eyes grew wide,
and I could see perspiration glistening on her upper lip.

"Well, Charlie, looks like I need to get
going. After killing Gil and Drake, you don't honestly think I'd
let you get away, especially now that you know the whole
story."

I supposed that would be asking a bit much. I
watched her fingers grip the wrench tighter.

Her actions started happening in slow motion,
as my brain took its time assimilating the situation. Her right
arm, wrench outstretched, swung out to its full extension. She
closed the gap between us with a quick little two-step, as she
brought the wrench in a downward arc aimed at my skull. I tried to
leap backward, but the workbench bumped the middle of my back,
blocking my way. I managed to duck, bent at the waist.

I dove for the floor behind her.

Her weapon came down hard on the edge of the
wooden workbench. The impact would have certainly dislocated a
person's shoulder, but not Susan’s. However, the element of
surprise did cause her fingers to let go. The heavy wrench made
sparks when it hit the floor. It skated across the concrete like it
was greased.

We both scrambled for it, but she got there
first. I backed off, and scanned the area for something I could use
that might help my odds. Nothing I could see was a match for
Susan's arm wielding fifteen pounds of metal.

I decided distance was my best bet. I side
stepped out of range, trying to work my way toward the door.

Susan might be all muscle, but she's also
fast. She made an all out run toward me, closing the distance
quickly. I could see her raising her arm for another swing, so I
turned and bolted for the door.