The boardroom door opened. A middle-aged man walked out wearing khaki work clothes and black boots. His head was down. He glanced at us when he stopped at Carol’s desk. The way he was dressed suggested that he could be the company’s licensed aircraft mechanic.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to him. ‘You the crew chief round here?’
‘Who wants to know?’
I showed him my ID, as did Petinski. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Dewy Baker.’
‘Your boss left in a hurry, Dewy. Got any idea why?’
‘Yeah – money.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Carol.
Dewy ignored her.
‘Money?’ Petinski echoed.
‘The Super King Air was worth seven big ones and the person supposed to be flying her wasn’t at the controls, right?’
Petinski nodded.
‘That means the insurance company won’t pay out. Morrow didn’t own the plane. And the boss didn’t have a lazy seven mill clogging up his bank account. Like everyone else in this game, he’s in it on a wing and a prayer – literally.’
‘If you want me, I’ll be out back,’ Carol said, departing angrily through the door in the partition behind her desk.
‘Anyone else leave in a hurry?’ I asked.
‘You’re referring to Stu Forrest, my two-eye-cee, who took off in the twin just before you got here?’
‘Where’d he take off to?’
‘Don’t know, but I’d put money on Mexico. Sell the plane, live in a beach shack . . .’
‘You got its registration numbers handy?’
The mechanic reeled them off from memory. Petinski took them down and asked, ‘Why’d he go?’
‘Don’t know that, either. For what it’s worth, Stu was the King Air’s crew chief.’
‘Did anyone witness the King Air’s departure?’ I asked. So far, we hadn’t placed Randy at the controls when he left.
‘No one except Stu. The takeoff was at three-thirty a.m.’
‘Why so early?’
‘Avoid the early-morning traffic out of LAX.’
‘The NTSB investigation team following up, and probably the FAA, will want to talk with you. You’ll make yourself available.’
‘Do I got a choice?’
‘No.’
‘I have to get another job – got kids, two ex-wives, three cats.’
‘No one’s stopping you,’ said Petinski. ‘Just make sure your contact details are up to date, don’t take anything when you go, and don’t leave the country.’
He nodded, dug his hands deep in his pockets, picked up a folder from Carol’s desk.
‘Maybe you should leave that,’ said Petinski.
He shrugged, put it down and trudged off out the back door.
Petinski asked, ‘You got any connections with local law enforcement in this town, Cooper? We need this place locked down.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s going to take me an hour at least to work up the affidavit, find the judge on call in this town and get the warrant issued. I need someone in uniform here while I go off and do all that – unless you want to hang around and wave that pay check you got from your topless dancer friend as your legal authority.’ Petinski was getting more agitated by the minute. She wrung her tiny hands.
‘What’s going on your affidavit? You got grounds? It mightn’t have been in Morrow’s interest for that plane to go down, but a desire to avoid creditors doesn’t look like probable cause to me.’
Petinski lost patience. ‘Look, if I have to get this place sealed up on a freakin’ building violation, then that’s what I’ll do. You want to find out what happened to Sweetwater same as me, and
my
intuition tells me this is the rock to look under.’
‘You’re federal. Why don’t you call in Homeland Security?’
‘Cooper, we – or rather
I
– need someone here
now
.’
She was right about HS. Before doing anything, those guys would first set up a task force, otherwise known as a committee, and we both knew how fast
they
moved. ‘You seem pretty tense about this, Petinski.’
‘I take my job seriously.’
As far as I could tell, Petinski took everything seriously. ‘You might want to see if your FAA pals know where Morrow took off to. Same for Forrest. Check their flight plans.’
‘I know what to do, okay?’
I shrugged.
‘What about getting this place closed up? Can you help, or not?’
I retrieved my cell. ‘As you ask so nicely, I do happen to know someone local.’ The screen told me I had a text each from Arlen and Alabama, as well as a voice message from a number I didn’t recognize. They could wait. I extracted Ike Bozey’s number from the phone’s memory and dialed. ‘Detective Sergeant Bozey?’ I asked when the call went through.
‘Speaking.’
‘Vin Cooper.’
‘Hey, Cooper. You’re a mind reader. Called you half an hour ago. Spoke with Arlen. Welcome home. How was Australia?’
‘Hungry. That place eats people.’
‘Hey, I heard you didn’t find your guy?’
‘No.’
‘Long way to go for no.’
Maybe, but it was the best answer for Alabama. It meant she could continue to believe in that feeling she had about her boyfriend being out there somewhere, breathing, all his bits still attached. ‘We need a little assistance. Wondered if you could help us out.’
‘Who’s us? You including that cute showgirl pal of yours?’
‘No, an investigator from the NTSB.’
‘Whadaya need?’
‘We need premises at McCarran sealed, pending a federal warrant.’
‘Why?’
‘To stop any more evidence here flying away before the NTSB team looking into the plane crash arrives.’ I gave him a brief rundown.
‘The federal courthouse is down on South Las Vegas Boulevard, near the old casinos. You could get it done in an hour or two.’
‘Yeah, but in the meantime we’re gonna need someone to babysit the place.’
‘See what I can do. Should be able to get a black and white over there within the next ten to fifteen. That suit your schedule, Cooper?’
I crooked the cell phone under my cheek and signaled ten minutes to Petinski, who nodded. ‘Yep, that’s good for us,’ I told him.
‘Any pal of Arlen’s . . .’
I gave him the address. ‘Say, while I got you – the amputated hand. Anything come through from pathology?’
‘You
have
been watching too much TV, Cooper. I doubt it’s even made their to-do list yet. I’ll go talk with them, see if leaning on ’em will speed things up.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Don’t thank me. Leaning on them usually makes them go slower. Stay in touch.’
I said I would and the line went dead. Petinski’s hands were on her hips, scoping the room like she was wondering what to do next. ‘When did you call Morrow?’ I asked her.
‘Excuse me?’
‘In the coroner’s office back in Darwin, you said you had some calls to make. Was one of them to Morrow?’
‘What?’
‘Simple question, Petinski. What time did you call him?’
‘Look—’
‘What time?’
‘Around eleven.’
‘Eleven a.m. in Darwin, six-thirty p.m. in Vegas. You talked to Morrow and within minutes he’s shredding documents.’
‘No, I—’
‘You tell him the dead pilot who flew his wrecked King Air wasn’t Sweetwater?’
Her blue eyes flashed, did that squid thing. ‘Yes.’
‘Why the hurry?’
‘Did you call your topless dancer client?’ she asked, fighting back.
‘I got around to it eventually, but that’s what I was being paid to do – identify the remains and notify her. I’m still not clear on what it is
you
do?’
Petinski took a deep breath. ‘Okay, calling Morrow was a mistake,’ she admitted. ‘I should’ve had someone arrive here with the news and the warrant at the same time.’
Imagine that – a mistake. Petinski was human after all.
‘Excuse me, Mr Cooper?’ It was Carol. She’d reappeared with a wad of paperwork, which she handed me. ‘A copy of Mr Sweetwater’s flight plan.’
I thanked her and opened it up, Petinski looking on.
‘LAS, LAX, OGG, CXI, FUN, HIR, POM, DRW,’ the investigator said. ‘McCarran, Los Angeles, Kahului, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Honiara, Port Moresby, Darwin.’
‘No wonder he took so much reading material,’ I said.
‘Randy flew to LAX, gave his wallet, watch, license and other ID to the Brazilian stand-in, who took it on from there,’ said Petinski.
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘I don’t – not for sure. But that would work.’
‘You don’t know if Randy gave up the pilot seat willingly.’
‘No, but LAX is way bigger than any of the other airports in the flight plan. You could do a lot of things at LAX and no one would know or care. On Kiribati, for instance, you’re going to be the center of attention. If it happened, it happened at LAX.’
‘So then, by that reasoning, he
could
have been shanghaied in LAX, his documents stolen and so forth.’
‘Okay,’ said Petinski reluctantly, a little annoyed. ‘Yes, that’s possible. It just doesn’t feel like that’s what has happened here. But I can’t explain why.’
Maybe she’d been reading tea leaves. The cell buzzed in my pocket again, reminding me about those unchecked messages.
Two uniform cops walked in through the front door. I’d hung up on Bozey maybe five minutes ago. These guys should deliver pizza. The uniforms checked out the room, thumbs hooked into their utility belts, looking around to see what was what. Petinski motioned that she was going to have a word with them. I nodded okay and took the opportunity to check my cell. There was the voice message from the blocked number. I hit the button and listened to Bozey asking whether I was back in the country yet and how it all went. Old news. I touched the text from Arlen. It read,
St Barts. Amazing place. So is Marnie. Am here two more days. You’re still on vacation – come on over. Marnie has friends.
The message concluded with a smiley face. There was a photo attached. I opened it and felt my heart stop. Like I said, Marnie was the spitting image of Anna, and here she was practically falling out of a tiny emerald-green bikini. Arlen had his arm around her tan shoulder, his hand an inch from a breast. He looked a lot older than her – a bit of a gut, lecherous. He should be wearing a raincoat. St Barts was the one place I
wouldn’t
want to be.
I put the photo out of my head and opened the text from Alabama. The message said,
Come over. I have others
. Another photo attachment. I opened it up. The lighting wasn’t great unless you wanted it intimate. I recognized Ty Morrow. He was with a woman, having dinner. She was plenty younger than he was so maybe the lighting was just how he liked it. Aside from being young, the woman was also attractive and . . . familiar. The dots took some seconds to connect, the angle on the girl a less-than-ideal rear three-quarter view. Jesus, was that . . . ? It was: Sugar. Ty Morrow and Sugar.
Together?
There was a time and a date on the photo. It was shot at 0210 this morning, which meant that it was taken some time
after
Morrow supposedly flew off into the sunset.
W
ith the uniforms in place, Petinski left NAB to work on her affidavit and chase down the local judge. I kept the photo of Morrow and Sugar to myself and went in the opposite direction, taking a cab to Alabama’s home at Summerlin. Whatever was going on with Randy Sweetwater, it was a universe expanding way beyond Thing in its KFC bucket: new connections were still being made, new trails heading down unexplored paths. There was the dead pilot from Brazil who spoke Portuguese and flew halfway around the world on Randy’s photo IDs; Stu Forrest high-tailing it from NAB; and now Sugar and Ty Morrow, Randy’s boss, caught cozying up together. I knew Sugar got around, but what were the odds of those two randomly hooking up? I wondered what the core inside this boil was all about – a ransom, an insurance fraud, a con gone wrong, or something else entirely? This was a different experience for me – watching events unfold as an interested spectator rather than being the special agent in charge and personally having to lance the sucker. If I’d never met Sweetwater and had no connection with the guy, this would almost be pure entertainment.
My cell rang: Petinski.
‘Cooper,’ I said.
‘Dewy Baker was on the money,’ she said. ‘Stu Forrest is on his way to Acapulco.’
‘Can we stop him?’
‘Provided he sticks to his flight plan. Otherwise, no. If he’s got something to hide, he’s gone. He’s supposed to stop at Tucson, Arizona, to refuel, but he could divert and go anywhere. We’ll see what turns up in the next hour or so when he’s due to land there. You’ll never guess where Morrow has gone.’
‘He didn’t leave town,’ I said.
‘How’d you know?’
‘My client spotted him early this morning.’
‘And when did
you
know that, Cooper?’
The cab pulled up outside Alabama’s home. ‘Gotta go. Call you back,’ I said.
‘Coop—’
I hit the off button and set the ring tone to mute. A curtain flickered in a window and then the front door opened. Alabama came out onto the front porch in a purple satin halter top tied tight around her flat midriff, fitted cream-colored hot pants cut extra hot, bare feet and her hair worn in a high ponytail. Okay, so I notice details like these . . . She leaned against one of the veranda’s roof supports, a drink in hand. I waved at her while I counted out some bills. The cab driver was more interested in watching her than he was in collecting the fare, which I completely understood.
‘Tall, ain’t she,’ the driver commented.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
He didn’t count the bills when I placed them in his open hand, just stuffed them in a pouch with his mouth slightly slack, which surprised me. I thought cab drivers in this town would’ve seen it all – one of the few perks of driving a cab in Vegas.
Alabama went inside when she saw me get out of the cab, and left the front door ajar. Being on staff, I figured I wouldn’t be required to knock.
‘Leave the door open,’ she called out from somewhere inside. ‘Need some air in here.’
I found her perched on a stool behind an oldish Mac desktop.
‘When did you get in?’ she asked.
‘With the sunrise.’
‘Good flight?’
‘Great,’ I said, happy to skip the details.
‘Vin, I know I said this when you called, but going to Darwin for me, waiting to see whether those remains were Randy’s or not. Jesus, I . . . I couldn’t have faced it.’
‘That’s what employees are for,’ I told her. ‘Do I get a bonus?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then let’s have a look at those photos, shall we?’
‘Thanks, Vin.’
‘So . . . you said you had some other photos?’
She turned around to face the Mac, tapped a key and the screen lit up. They were already loaded, three shots of Sugar and Morrow – one of which I’d already seen – sitting opposite each other at a table for two.
‘What are you drinking?’ I asked.
Fluffy the cat wrapped its tail around my leg, then ran off to chase a shadow.
‘Orange juice.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘It’s the morning. Help yourself.’
‘Feels like evening to me.’ I passed on the juice offer. ‘Were you the photographer?’
‘No, one of the girls from work took them. She emailed the shots to me this morning.’
‘Why’d she do that?’
‘Because I’ve been asking around – seeing if anyone has seen Sugar. They were taken at a place called the Green Room.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A swingers’ club.’
‘As in keys-in-the-bowl kind of swingers?’
‘Anyone can go there. It’s no big deal.’
I wasn’t making one. If it exists, it exists in Vegas, Vegas being that kind of town, but she was missing the point. ‘Do you think they were there to be seen, or to hide out?’
‘The Green Room’s not exactly the Hard Rock Café. They wouldn’t have gone there to put themselves on display.’ She put her glass down. ‘Morrow and Sugar meeting up,’ she continued. ‘That
means
something, doesn’t it?’
‘That they swing?’ I said.
‘You know what I mean, Cooper. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?’
‘Hmm, coincidences,’ I said.
‘What does “Hmm, coincidences” mean?’
‘It means that Sugar and Morrow knew each other. It probably also means Sugar’s interest in you and Randy had something to do with Morrow. And I guess it could also mean that the severed hand you received purporting to be Randy’s is connected somehow to a woman you worked with, and to Randy’s employer.’
The muscles in Alabama’s throat moved up and down and her eyes went hot and wet as she also stopped believing in coincidences. She wiped away the tears before they had a chance to fall, using her palms and then the backs of her hands. ‘Fucking bitch . . .’
‘I’ll get Bozey to put an all points out on both of them, have ’em brought in for questioning.’ Even as I said it, I knew the chances of finding them were slim. I’d be surprised if Morrow was still in the vicinity. Maybe the meeting with Sugar was the reason he came back. Perhaps he came back
for
Sugar – to take her somewhere. Whatever the reason, I doubted he’d be hanging around. But there was always luck, and occasionally it was the good kind. I put in a call to Bozey, got the detective’s voicemail and left him a message to call back.
The leather couch I was sitting on was new and expensive. A couple of ceiling fans rotated slowly overhead, pushing the air around, evaporating the sweat on my head and under my shirt. The room was pleasant, a mix of male and female. Two people lived here who enjoyed full lives and had an easy accommodation with each other. There were photos of Alabama and Randy together, sharing wall space with photos of Alabama’s girlfriends and Randy’s buddies. Large, original, brightly colored works of modern art also dominated. Objects collected from Randy’s various tours were displayed – pottery, figurines, rugs. Two vases of flowers further brightened the place, and the air smelled vaguely of jasmine and money. Given Alabama’s comments about her Showgirls salary, I had to assume that Randy was well paid.
‘Tell me about Australia,’ Alabama said, getting up off the stool and sitting on a leather chair opposite me, folding a leg beneath her, holding her glass in both hands.
I gave her a rundown: the discovery of the first set of remains, followed by the second set hooked by the two fishermen. I then described the trip to Elcho Island and the wreckage we searched in the shark-infested estuary. I concluded with the discovery that had stumped both Petinski and me: ‘In the cockpit, we found Randy’s passport, FAA license and security pass, as well as his logbook.’
She scowled at me, questions etched in the lines on her forehead.
‘The items were either flawless copies or the originals. The NTSB is checking on that now, along with the FAA and Homeland Security. And if they’re originals, then they were either stolen from Randy or he gave them to the pilot, or to someone who passed them on to the pilot.’
‘Why would Randy give them away?’ she asked.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ That little Department of Speculation was a thirty-story building full of options and variables. I looked around the room again. ‘Summerlin’s a good neighborhood.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘And it’s a nice place you got here.’
Alabama glared at me. ‘Are you going to ask me how much Randy earns?’
‘How much did Randy earn?’
‘I’ve told you already. He wasn’t into anything illegal.’
‘How much?’
‘Check with NAB. One-fifty, plus bonuses.’
‘Bonuses for what?’
‘Beats me, Cooper. Flying planes?’
‘If there’s anything you think I should know, you need to come clean about it. Randy’s life – and maybe yours, too – is about to be squashed between two glass slides and put under a microscope.’
‘Look, if I had something to hide, why would I engage you to go all the way to Australia to identify Randy’s remains?’
‘Don’t think I haven’t asked myself that question.’
‘You’re not on the payroll anymore, Cooper,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should leave.’ Alabama stood, went to the door and opened it wide, the dazzle from a summer’s day in the desert almost blinding. I noticed her legs – hard not to. They were long, lean and toned. Dancer’s legs. Maybe she could do the splits, too. I got up and walked toward her and the door and she stepped a little to the side to let me pass.
‘And what about Randy?’ she asked.
‘What about him?’ I was tempted to say that, like she just told me, I wasn’t on the payroll, but I held off. Something undoubtedly odd was going on with Randy, but Alabama’s reactions to the hard questions and her persistence to find the answers suggested that, whatever it was, she didn’t know enough to leave it alone. ‘There’s the pathology report still to come on the amputated hand. Once that has come in, as well as the verdicts from the FAA and DHS on the documents purporting to be Randy’s, we might know something more concrete.’
A wall of dry heat met me in the doorway. A dragonfly pulled to a stop in the shade beneath the awning, its beating wings glittering. I had no vehicle and there didn’t appear to be any cabs out here cruising for fares.
‘Hey, I’m sorry, Vin,’ she said. ‘This business is just messing with my head. I’ll keep paying your expenses. If I don’t have you looking into this, I don’t have anyone.’
I hesitated, partially distracted by the dragonfly. It turned and zoomed off, away into the sunshine.
‘You’ve come this far,’ she continued. ‘Please don’t make me beg.’
I found her hand – it was still vaguely moist with her tears. I gave it a squeeze and went down the stairs. At the bottom, I called over my shoulder, ‘Let you know when I hear something.’
‘Vin.’
I stopped and looked back up at her.
‘Thanks – for me, and for Randy too. You’re a good friend. I . . . I mean that.’ She glanced up and down the street. ‘Hey, I forgot you came by cab. Can I drive you somewhere?’
‘No, thanks. I could do with the exercise.’
‘Midday in Las Vegas in summer ain’t the best time to take it,’ she cautioned.
It was baking hot, the overhead sun a white point like the tip of an oxy-acetylene torch, but what I needed was time to think and I had to do it away from Alabama and those legs of hers. ‘Which way do I go? There a main road nearby?’
‘Okay . . .’ she said with a shrug suggesting that it was my funeral, and pointed down the road. ‘Keep going till you see the golf course, then turn right. It’s a twenty-minute walk.’
I went for ten minutes and made no progress on what might have happened to Randy Sweetwater, but I made leaps and bounds on the cab front, catching one that had just made a drop-off at the golf course.
‘Where we going?’ the driver asked.
‘Bally’s,’ I told him.
‘You seen the show there? The girls?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shame. Could’a got you cheap tickets. How long you in town, buddy? Need some company?’
‘You’re not my type,’ I said.
Checking the screen on my phone, I saw I’d missed three calls from Petinski, and one from Bozey. I flicked off the mute button and it rang immediately.
‘Cooper,’ I said.
‘Don’t hang up on me again, okay?’ Petinski demanded.
‘I’m headed back to Bally’s. Wanna join me poolside? If we hurry we can catch the afternoon bikini contest. You can even enter it.’
‘Are you trying to get
me
to hang up on
you
?’
‘Am I that transparent?’ I asked her.
‘Cooper, I’m in Detective Sergeant Bozey’s office. You and I are taking a conference call with your supervisor in twenty-five minutes and we’ve got a few things to talk about beforehand.’
‘My supervisor?’
Arlen?
‘Yeah.’ Petinski cut the call there, evening the score.
The driver stomped on the gas when we hit Summerlin Parkway. Arlen was supposed to be on St Barts with Marnie, but now suddenly he was back in DC, changed out of his board shorts and raincoat, with something to say to both Petinski and me, and maybe Bozey too. I had to admit I was intrigued.
‘Been a change of plan, buddy,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘The police department down near McCarran.’
‘Now that I think about it, you
look
like police.’
‘What do police look like?’
He adjusted the mirror so I could see myself in it and said, ‘A little like that.’