Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (9 page)

There didn't seem to be much more she could
tell me and I left a few minutes later.

An eternal optimist, I hoped my luck would
hold, and I'd find Susan Turner in. I thought about Catherine Page
as I rode the elevator up to the tenth floor.

A simple check of the phone records would
confirm whether she had talked to Gil from California that night.
She didn't strike me as a wielder of blunt objects, anyway. Still,
I couldn't disregard that beaten-pup look. Sometimes the quiet ones
will fool you.

And, she certainly had money enough to pay
top quality help for any service she needed.

The elevator doors slid open on number ten,
and I glanced both ways before stepping out. Susan's room was about
four doors down, on the left. As I approached, I realized the young
woman walking toward me had just left that room.

"Susan?"

She stopped, and appraised me.

She was a big girl, about twenty-four years
old, five-eight or -nine, I'd guess, and probably a hundred forty
pounds, without an ounce of fat on her. She had the solid body of
an athlete. Spandex shorts hugged her muscular thighs, and the
oversize T-shirt she wore didn't hide the well-developed neck and
shoulders. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a neat French
braid. Her eyes looked haggard.

"Can we talk a minute?" I showed her my card,
and she reopened the door to her room.

She had apparently tried out the concrete
bleacher chairs already, because she opted for the bed. Not being
familiar enough with her to share the bed, I got stuck with one of
the chairs.

"I was just going down to exercise. Doing
aerobics helps me when I feel bad."

Two puddles of moisture pooled in her lower
eyelids. Her full lips settled into a little pout, the kind favored
by teen models.

"Yes, I imagine it was quite a shock to learn
about Gil."

Her lower lip quivered, and she nodded
without speaking.

"Look, I won't go through any cute pretenses
that you're traveling with Gil as his secretary, or anything. I'm
just trying to help a friend. How did you and Gil meet in the first
place?"

She went into the bathroom for a Kleenex, and
came back dabbing at her eyes.

"He used to come into the club where I worked
out. In the beginning, he said he was concerned about his
cholesterol. He thought aerobics classes would help. We saw each
other at class three times a week for over a year.”

She wadded the Kleenex into a ball, which she
rhythmically squeezed in her palm like a grip strengthener.

“Now I'm opening my own club. Gil was helping
with the financing."

I pulled out my little notebook, and jotted
down the name she gave me. Workout Heaven. Hmm, a complete
contradiction in terms, in my mind. She wanted to tell me all about
the equipment they had, and offered me a free month membership.

"Sure," I said, "although I don't get to San
Francisco too often."

I couldn't admit to her that I don't exercise
because I really hate it. My brother, Ron, tells me that attitude
will catch up with me one day, probably soon, now that I've hit the
big three-oh.

"Tell me more about you and Gil," I
prompted.

"We were sleeping together within the first
two weeks after we met. His wife is an iceberg. She drinks a lot,
which is really terrible for your body, you know. She dotes on that
kid, Jason, while she treats Gil like dirt. She nagged at Gil all
the time—Jason needs this, Jason needs that. You know what Jason's
latest thing is? Race cars. He wanted Daddy to just up and buy him
one of those fancy ones, so he could join the circuit. Can you
believe it? Do you know how much those things cost?"

I had some idea. After all, I grew up in the
same hometown as the Unsers. It makes us all think we're
experts.

"Oh,
yeah
," she continued. "Catherine
thought Gil should just, like, write out a check. They had a
terrible fight about it on the phone Friday night."

She gave a wistful look at the connecting
door, closed now.

"You overheard the argument?"

"He was in the other room when the phone
rang. We had just come in from dinner, about eight o'clock I guess,
and I came in here to take off my shoes. Gil listened for awhile,
and then I guess he just couldn't take it anymore. He let go with
both barrels, and really let her have it.

"I kind of went to a corner. I've never heard
Gil lose it like that. I mean, he was really screaming. He told her
if Jason didn't get off his ass and finish college and get a job,
he'd never see a penny. He even went so far as to say that he was
changing his will as soon as he got back to California. He would
cut Jason off until he saw some effort on the kid's part."

"Pretty strong words," I observed. "Do you
think Catherine might kill for her son?"

No hesitation. "I sure do. She may look like
a helpless little thing, but she's as protective as a mama
grizzly."

"What about Gil's dealings with Mack Garvey?
Any trouble there?"

She had spread the crumpled tissue out now,
flattening it against her tan leg with the palms of her hands.

"I only met Mack Garvey once. He seemed okay.
But, Gil never talked about his business deals with me. They could
have had problems, but I didn't know about them."

"What happened after the phone call?"

"Gil went out. He didn't invite me, so I
turned on one of those pay-per-view movies on the TV. It wasn't
very good, and I drifted off to sleep before it was over. At some
point, I switched off the set with the remote, I guess. I was
pretty tired."

"Weren't you worried about Gil when he didn't
come back?"

"I didn't know he wasn't back at first. See,
sometimes he preferred to sleep alone."

"Is that why you had two rooms?"

"That, and for phone calls. We'd know, by
which phone was ringing, who the call was for. No slip-ups that
way. And, Gil was a real workaholic. If he had business on his
mind, he liked to bring his briefcase and all his paperwork into
bed with him. He'd work on stuff until he couldn't keep his eyes
open, then fall asleep with the whole mess stacked all around him.
Sometimes, he'd wake up at five in the morning, pick up his pen,
and start in, right where he'd left off."

He sounded like a thrilling bed partner to
me.

"If he was in the mood for sex, he came to my
room," she continued. "I didn't especially like it that way, him
always calling the shots, but I learned early on not to
complain."

I remembered the maid's description of Gil's
violent temper.

Susan was obviously no Einstein, but she was
pretty and energetic, and I had to wonder why she would stick with
a guy like that. Maybe everyone has a price.

Maybe hers was a week in Hawaii now and then,
and shopping trips to expensive boutiques.

"Anyway," she continued, "that morning I woke
up early, and the connecting door was still closed, like I'd left
it. I went down to exercise. When I came back, he was gone, but I
didn't think too much about it. I went down to the pool, and
figured he'd find me there. It wasn't unusual for him to go off by
himself all day. I always played it by ear."

"Well, Susan, thanks for your help."

"Glad to. Charlie, I loved Gil."

Her voice cracked a little at this point. "I
don't know anything about his business deals, but if Catherine Page
had anything to do with this, I want to see her pay."

Chapter 7

There was still one person I'd like to see
today if possible. The mechanic, Joe Esposito. Mack had said that
the police would probably be questioning him.

I needed to know what he told them.

First, though, a quick stop in my room was in
order. I'd had a brainstorm of an idea. I really needed to talk to
Jason Page. After the two versions of the story I'd just heard from
Catherine and Susan, I felt Mack could see my justification in
seeing Jason face to face.

It's too easy to hide one's true character
over the phone. If I can look a guy in the eye, I can pick up a
wealth of information behind the words.

I phoned down to the concierge, and asked if
he could check some flight times for me. I told him I'd like to
leave early the next morning, and return the same night or the
morning after.

His voice oozed helpfulness, in hopes of a
big tip, I'm sure. He assured me he would have the information
before the afternoon was out.

I hung up the phone, and my tired muscles
turned longingly toward the bed. It stretched out warm, welcome
promises of comfort to me, but it was still only three o'clock. If
I stopped now, I might never get back up.

I had to try to find Joe Esposito.

Since Mack had cancelled the whole day's
tours, I figured one of two things would happen. Mack might want
Joe to use the extra time for some preventive maintenance, and
therefore, he might be around the hangar. Or, Mack might have given
Joe the day off, in which case tracking him down might be a real
trick.

I wasn't exactly sure where the maintenance
hangar was, but figured it had to be at the airport somewhere. It
wasn't
that
big a place. If I drove around long enough, I
could surely find it.

Once again, my snappy red convertible and I
hit the road together. Up Rice Street, turn right, past the acres
of tall sugar cane, eventually following the curved road past the
helipads. I began scanning the area, driving as slowly as traffic
would allow, hoping to spot the maintenance hangars.

Actually, it didn't turn out to be difficult
at all. Just past the helipads sat a collection of buildings,
ranging from the old to the decrepit, surrounded by a rust-brown
chain link fence.

A white car with the words Kauai Police on
the side, blue lights flashing on top, sat outside one of the
buildings. It gave me a pretty good idea which place I was
after.

I parked the tourist-mobile in the only empty
space I could find, between a red pickup truck and a once-yellow
Nissan station wagon that was more rust than paint. The pickup was
hiked up about four extra feet off the ground by oversized tires
which stuck way out on both sides, making the vehicle look like a
gigantic roller skate.

I followed the perimeter of the chain link
fence until I found a gate.

It was firmly closed, with a heavy-duty
looking doorknob, and there was a three-sided guard house just
inside. The guard was nowhere to be seen, having apparently been
lured by the excitement inside the strip of yellow crime scene tape
surrounding the hangar. I did a sneaky little glance-around.

No one was near enough to be paying any
attention to me. I wrapped my fingers around the hefty doorknob. It
turned surprisingly smoothly. Shame, shame, guard person. I suppose
the recent lull in terrorist activity had made him
lackadaisical.

Not one to question a good thing, I stepped
through quickly, and pushed the gate closed behind me. Lest I be
caught lurking around the unguarded guard house, I walked quickly
toward the hangar.

The building looked like an oversized World
War II Quonset hut that had stood rusting to this spot since the
day the Japs flew by. It had once been painted khaki green, now
oxidized out to the flat gray color of lichen. The whole building
looked like a great beached sperm whale.

Rust ate away at every seam in the corrugated
metal. In places, it formed only a thin line, while in many spots
it had already eaten through, leaving ragged gaps several inches
big. I mentally gathered all my fingers and toes in close to my
body, trying to remember when I'd had my last tetanus shot.

The double wide doors gaped fully open, and
the nose of the helicopter peeked out at me, like an errant puppy
sent to its kennel. The noise of wind and machinery outside made it
impossible for me to hear anything of what was going on inside
until I was practically touching the building. Voices came through,
but distance blurred the words, making them indistinguishable.

Akito would not be pleased to see me, and I
wished for the chance to spend a few minutes as a mouse in the
corner before making my presence known. I tried to achieve this by
slipping around the edge of the open door, and standing very still
with my back to the wall to scope out the situation.

The hangar was dark and relatively cool in
comparison with the bright sun outside. I slipped my sunglasses
into my purse, and let my eyes adjust to the dim interior.

The helicopter sat in front of me and to my
right. I could see dark blue pant legs with black policeman shoes
on the far side of the ship. Its rear door stood open on that side,
and I couldn't see an upper torso to go with the legs. Presumably,
the officer was examining something inside.

A long workbench, littered with tools and
mechanical looking things, stretched the length of the end wall on
my left. Two red tool cabinets, the kind with wheels and about two
dozen drawers each, stood against the back wall. Pegboard lined a
large section of the wall over the workbench, which was hung with
an assortment of belts, hoses, and metal things, like the
automotive department of Wal-Mart. The air smelled of that garagey
combination of grease, dust, and solvent,

Most of the activity, I noticed, centered in
the rear corner of the hangar, to my left. Akito stood there, along
with a short dark-complected man I didn't know. He wore navy blue
shorts and a matching shirt with the tails hanging out. There was
some kind of embroidered patch on his sleeve, and I assumed he was
Joe, the mechanic.

The conversation looked pretty intense, but I
couldn't catch the words. An aircraft part, a shaft of metal about
two feet long, capped with a round connection at each end, lay on
the floor near them. I didn't see anyone else around. I wanted to
talk to Joe, but debated the wisdom of butting in around Akito.