“Yay,” we all cheered.
“Come join us. We’ve got mimosas and,” Mary Ann surveyed what was left of the spread, “and more mimosas.” She giggled.
Jimmy had clearly lost weight, but he still had that same bright smile that runs in the family.
“Hey, I like your taste in hats,” Jeb said, shaking Jimmy’s hand. They were both sporting canvas Australian bush hats. “I hope now we can schedule that lunch we’ve been talking about and catch a Cubs game.”
“Where’s Joe?” I asked, giving Jimmy and Sally hugs.
“He had a lecture at eleven, so we dropped him off at the university. We’re all just so relieved. Our lawyer had Jimmy out in fifteen minutes. He’ll be kept under surveillance, but there’s just no real evidence.”
Either way, I thought. As long as there’s a chance one found clue could be misinterpreted and lead them back to Jimmy, the fat lady hasn’t sung. But I was so happy with the joy on Sally’s face, I kept my thoughts to myself.
More neighbors had begun gathering on the hill, unloading chairs and snacks from the trunks of their cars and doing the cocktail party mingle.
“Hey, there’s my friend,” Marisol shouted, standing up on the bench and pointing.
Jack quickly swooped in and grabbed her by the waist to steady her. That little bit of bubbly had clearly gone to her head.
“Where, honey?” Aimee joined her on the bench and swung an arm around her for protection.
“There, that’s Joan, Rusty’s mom. She works at the post office.”
That got my attention, and I was soon standing on the bench with them. Sure enough, Rusty was with her, although by the slump of his shoulders, he didn’t appear to be very happy about it.
“Joan! Over here. We’ve got orange juice!” Marisol’s shout was more like a cackle.
The sun was now almost halfway covered, and it cast an other worldly yellow glow in the sky. Marisol continued to holler and jump up and down; I was so afraid of her falling and breaking her neck, I told her that I’d run over and invite them to join us. It would also give me an opportunity to size up Rusty some more. When I looked back to where they’d been standing, I noticed the spot was now empty. I climbed up to the very top bench and stood on it to scan the field. Their car was still here, so they had to be too.
“You see them?” Marisol was getting impatient and on my nerves.
“Still looking.”
Suddenly, a bright yellow flash went by overhead, and when I leaned backward to follow it, I felt my feet slip. The next thing I knew was that I could see the dark sky, and just below it my feet. I braced and landed unevenly with a thud on what felt like two logs. For a moment, I couldn’t see or feel anything.
“Are you all right?” I heard a voice I didn’t immediately recognize.
I slowly opened my eyes and felt myself being gently lowered, and then I felt the ground on my back. I registered that I was looking directly into Rusty’s eyes.
“What? What happened?” I started doing a mental inventory of my body parts, checking for damage.
“You fell, honey.” I saw Jack’s face come into view. “You were spooked by that damn Pietenpol flying overhead. Anything hurt?” He placed his big hand under my head to prop it up.
“I don’t think so.” I looked at Rusty. “You caught me?”
He nodded.
“Thanks, man. I owe you big time.” Jack shook his hand.
“Gotta go,” Rusty replied.
“Don’t forget your mama,” Marisol shouted to him, “unless you’re going to get more orange juice and come right back.”
“We’ve got to find out who was flying that plane so low. That’s the second time Halsey has barely escaped getting seriously injured. I’m calling the airport.”
I was still stunned but pleased to see that Jack was taking this investigation seriously. But if that plane didn’t land at the airport, we’d still be in the dark; even more so, because this time we couldn’t suspect Rusty. Also, I needed to keep Jack thinking about solving this rather than seeing it again as dangerous.
“Jack, go for it. I know you can trace that plane.”
I tell Bardot all the time not to be a suck-up, but sometimes. . .
* * *
Later, at my house, we all gathered in the living room to talk about what had just happened.
“One thing’s for sure, Rusty wasn’t flying that plane. Did anyone get a look at the pilot?” Peggy was circling the wagons.
They all shook their heads. I was sitting up, but my equilibrium was still a bit off and Sally was checking my blood pressure.
“It was the perfect time for a flyover. We all had glasses on and were focused on the sun. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to register the tail numbers, but all I got were the last two—a zero and a five.” Jack entered from the kitchen and placed a cup of tea, just the way I like it, on the end table.
For that he got a kiss. This kind of protection I’ll take all day long.
“I must scoot, babe, but I’ll call to check in on you in a couple of hours. I’m also going to stop by the airport to see if I can get an ID on that plane from the partial I have.”
“Actually, and this is for all of you,” I started, “Peggy and I thought we needed to turn our attention to Jonas. If we can paint a picture of who he was, what he did, and what he knew, we should be able to identify his killer.”
“Great idea. I’m off. I’ll dig into that when I’m at the airport as well. Love you.”
Jack left, and Aimee stood.
“I’ve got to get to the shop. We have a birthday party this afternoon,” Aimee informed us. “But I’ve gotten to know Britt a little bit. I’ll see what she has to say about Jonas.”
“Be subtle,” Sally warned, and I felt a pang of guilt again for my pushiness in San Diego. If only I had stuck to superficial questions with Chloe.
“Aren’t I always subtle?” She grinned, and her sunburst-painted cheeks inflated.
“I’m afraid I won’t be much help. I hardly knew the guy.” Jeb got up to leave as well.
Jimmy had gone straight home. “That just leaves us girls,” I said.
As if that was a clue, cushions were tossed on the floor, chairs were moved in and we all gathered around my big square, wooden coffee table. Sally found a box of matches and lit one of my scented candles. Thankfully, it was a good one and smelled of a sea breeze rather than seaweed. Marisol was in the kitchen with Bardot, plotting something I’m sure I’ll hate.
“What can I do, Halsey? Now that I have this big burden off my shoulders, I want to contribute.”
“Thanks, Sally. We still have this story of the mechanics witnessing an argument with Jimmy and Jonas. Did your cousin have any more insight on that?”
“None, except to say he would never pick a fight with anyone.”
“Maybe I can help with that, I’m still employed by the Times and I’m doing a story on local general aviation, so I would have a valid reason to be asking questions.”
“Brilliant, Mary Ann. I’ll get the names of those guys from Jimmy and you can go to town.”
“Thanks, Sally. I’m going to get right on this.”
We watched her small frame shuffle to the door with purpose.
Sally sighed. “That still leaves me with a free hand, Halsey.”
I looked at Peggy, and she took the floor.
“We’ve, well, Halsey has learned that this toxin that killed Jonas could also be extracted from a tree that grows here locally. It’s called Angel’s Trumpet. You may not recognize the name, but I’ll guarantee you’ve seen the plant.”
I pulled up an image on my cell and passed it around. There was instant recognition.
“Do you think you could check around here for examples?” I asked. “I’m specifically interested in knowing if any are growing near or around the Spitfire Grill, near the hangar where Rusty works, or the museum.”
“Of course.”
“Charlie and his buddies came t
hrough for us, and it turns out Chloe has a Nicaraguan boyfriend. Peggy’s working that angle with the help of some of her past business associates.
“Damn right I am.”
Marisol, I need you to go back to Rusty’s mom to get more info on him. Also, find out if they have an Angel’s Trumpet tree. Marisol?”
It was then that I realized she and Bardot were missing from the kitchen. I could hear double snoring coming from the hallway to my bedroom.
“Oh, she’d better not—”
We found Marisol passed out on my bed, sharing a pillow with Bardot.
CHAPTER 15
When I was able to wake Marisol with a loud foghorn noise from an app I’d downloaded, I filled her in on the mission she’d been assigned. I let her know we were now questioning Rusty’s involvement, given that he wasn’t flying the Pietenpol and kind of saved my life, but we still hoped his mom, Joan, might be the keeper of some clues. I gave her money to invite Joan to Spitfire Grill for turkey burgers. I said that if she could get the address for the apartment Jonas had been renting, I’d throw in another twenty-five bucks.
She squealed with delight.
I figured that would keep her occupied for a while and out of my hair. By now it was afternoon, so I checked the mail in perpetual hope that some of my invoices had been paid early. I needed something to wear to Malcolm and Penelope’s wedding. Coincidently, their invitation was in my mailbox.
I ran my hand over the elegant, silver-embossed script set onto an off-white linen heavy stock card. I had to admit weddings were fun, although I barely remember my own because I was so nervous. A sign I didn’t heed. It should have been the most relaxed, peaceful, and fun day of my life. There had been so much that was right in the beginning; my ex was cool, creative, considerate and attentive. The guy knew how to court.
The Christmas after I’d turned thirteen, my dad got me one of those anthology book sets on Hollywood movies in the Golden Age. I immediately found the old movie stations on TV and spent that entire winter indoors, hooked on the sassy romances of Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. I loved the female characters who were prim and proper on the outside but up for anything to get what they wanted in secret. And if they walked away at the end having taught someone an important lesson, all the better. So, like in the movies, I clung to the good parts of him, assuring myself I could change the parts that mildly bothered me and totally ignored the parts that were fundamentally opposed to my belief system.
Well, you live and learn.
I hopped online and typed “dresses for a Southern California afternoon wedding” into a search box.
Instead of the results being fancy dress shops and sites, the first link took me directly to lists of bridal shops. I decided to browse just for shiggles. I was alone in my office, so I began commenting aloud with each scroll to another picture.
“Not if it were the last dress on earth.”
“Pretty, but I’d have to have my upper arms tucked first.”
“No one has enough boob for that.”
“Definite possibility, right, Bardot?”
She looked at me in a way that said, not another oxymoron.
“That style always looks like it was featured at a moth buffet first.”
“Ack! It looks like something an albino threw up.”
“Having fun?”
I nearly fell off my chair in shock when I saw Jack.
“I’m helping Penelope,” I said, trying to quickly recover.
He just stood there grinning.
I punched a button on my keyboard and my screen went to black. To his credit, Jack didn’t push it and moved on to the reason for his visit.
“I just came from the airport. I had to check in with Neil. We’re doing a test rescue with the copter in the morning, and I wanted to make sure all the equipment was loaded. He was hanging outside shooting the breeze with another whirlybird pilot, and I asked him if he’d known Jonas.”
“Good job. Had he?”
“Oh yes, and the things he told me may surprise you.”
“You have my undivided attention.”
Jack got a water for each of us out of the fridge and pulled a chair up next to me.
“First, he wasn’t exactly the ‘sweet boy,’ as Britt described him, and she would know according to this fellow. It was known among the landing crews that Jonas had fallen hard for Britt and wasn’t just pining away alone at night suffering from unrequited love.”
“I’m both scared and excited to hear what you have to say next.”
“I think you’ll find it a bit of both. Neil’s buddy and apparently a couple of others on separate occasions caught Jonas and Britt going at it hot and heavy in the flight simulator.”
“Over what period of time? Had this been going on for over a year or more?’
“I asked the same question and that’s the real sad part. All of this happened within the last month and a half. Which means Jonas was finally getting the girl of his dreams, only he didn’t live long enough to enjoy it.”
“Okay, my head is officially spinning, and you’re nothing but a Jimmy-Stewart-in-Vertigo blur to me.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“Not your fault, and it was one of the scenarios we tossed around, the lovers’ triangle between Britt, Rusty and Jonas. It assumed Rusty had a thing for Britt, which we haven’t been able to prove yet. Crap, and I was just about to rule Rusty out.”
Jack’s phone came alive with a distinctive ring that told him this was a CARA emergency.
“Yes?”
Jack listened.
“How long ago? Okay, I think Neil is still at the airport. I’ll get over there right away and we should be in the air in fifteen.”
He dropped the call, then hit Speed Dial.
“Hey Neil, you still with the chopper? Great. Fire her up. I just got a call that an ultralight went down in Thousand Oaks.”
Jack waved, blew me a kiss and ran out the door.
“Be careful!”
“Always.”
* * *
I got into bed and decided to listen to a bit of music before going to sleep. Because of Marisol’s proclivities for spying, I plugged in my headphones. I swear, I don’t remember how I got there, but I found myself watching wedding videos on You-Tube. At first, they were the beautiful, love-filled videos that brought tears to my eyes—weddings in which I could picture myself and Jack as the bride and groom. But I soon slipped down the slope to the funny ones, like an outdoor ceremony where the best man trips on the dais while delivering the rings and knocks the bride and the minister into the pool behind them. Or the bride that chose five dachshunds as her bridesmaids and dressed them in pink gowns. And then there were the spectacular tumbles. Was I just working through jitters or was I truly not ready to do this again?
Just before my head hit the pillow and I passed out from exhaustion from the ordeals of the day, I got a text from Jack saying he was fine and they were still looking for signs of the downed plane. Knowing he was alive and well sent me down the rabbit hole and into a sleeping wonderland.
But not for long.
I dreamed that a giant black bear was on the roof of my house and no amount of coaxing would lure him down. Everyone was urging me to call Animal Control so they could shoot him with a tranquilizer gun. I was afraid the bear would be severely injured in the fall, so I refused. If I teased my hair in all directions and became Freud for a minute, I would say the bear represented the big weight on my shoulders to solve this case, but because I didn’t want the bear to be injured, I must be looking for the wrong killer.
What does Freud know?
When the sun was just about to make an appearance, I gave up on sleeping and decided to go for a swim. I’d had the foresight to throw the heat on in the pool yesterday because it was forecast to be a great, sunny summer weekend. Bardot ignored my movements and burrowed deeper into the bed.
I put on my Pamela Anderson red swimsuit and padded out
the back. The air was still quite cool, so I grabbed two fresh towels and placed them near the pool steps. I would need to make a warm retreat to the shower when I’d finished my laps. I tightened my swim goggles and placed them on the top of my head. Long ago, I’d recognized the futility in wearing any sort of cap to keep my hair dry. They never worked. Even once in the dark of night, I’d tried an Esther Williams kind of full-head cover with a chin strap. It produced an angry red line across my forehead and neck.
The warm water felt divine on my feet, and just as I was about to do a swan dive, there was a loud splash that sent a wall of water my way. Bardot also must have realized bikini season was nigh.
I got into a rhythm doing laps, but that didn’t convince Bardot that each turn was not a race. When I’d touch the wall at one end, she’d take off beside me and propel herself across the water with enough speed and ease to be able to look back and measure my slow-and-steady progress. She’d learned there wasn’t much she could do to interrupt my routine for play, but that didn’t stop her from swimming across the pool underwater to try to distract me. When I was one lap short of fifty, I stopped at one end. Bardot knew what that meant.
“Ready for the Olympic sprint?”
She lined up next to me and whimpered.
“Go!” I took off in a power kick, no-time-to-breathe swim. It was one back and forth in the pool for the gold. I didn’t look up; I just kept my head down and worked every muscle in my body.
When my final stroke brought me to the wall, I let my whole being relax and slowly take in oxygen. I didn’t see Bardot and yanked off my goggles in the hope that I’d finally beaten her.
“You owe me fifty dollars.”
I looked to the side of the pool where the steps are and saw Marisol dangling her puce-painted toes into the water. Bardot was lying down next to her grinning—on the towels I’d placed there for when I got out.
It was going to be one of those days.
* * *
“Where did you come up with this fifty-dollar figure?” I asked Marisol after taking a long, warm shower and pulling on my coziest sweats.
She’d helped herself to the orange juice in my fridge, which today was just orange juice, and she and Bardot were watching The Today Show.
The Name of the Rosé Page 14
