Coffee, Tea, or Murder?

by Jessica Fletcher

  I’d been looking for George ever since we entered the terminal. Surely, he wouldn’t miss the flight unless the weather had seriously delayed his drive to the airport. I considered not boarding and waiting for him in the departure lounge, but decided that it wouldn’t accomplish anything. I stood in line as a uniformed SilverAir ground employee checked off passengers from a clipboard as they reached the entrance to the Jetway.

  “Fletcher,” I said when I reached him. “Jessica Fletcher.”

  He made a mark next to my name and waved me through. I lingered just inside the Jetway for the rest of the Cabot Cove group to catch up. We walked together toward the open door to the 767 where Gina Molnari and First Officer Carl Scherer stood greeting passengers. A large, clear Plexiglas insert in the side of the Jetway gave me a view of a portion of the cockpit. Captain Bill Caine was in the customary captain’s left-hand seat, his hands going to various knobs and buttons as he ran through his preflight rituals.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Fletcher,” Gina said.

  “Good evening,” I replied. “Glad to see you’re looking so well.”

  “Feeling fine,” she said. Her tight expression said she wasn’t at all happy to see me.

  I stepped inside the aircraft and looked to my left through the open cockpit door. Caine turned and saw me, nodded, and went back to his chores. I chose a seat and looked in vain for George. Christine and Jason Silverton boarded. The icy look on Christine’s face when she saw me was evident even from where I sat. Jason was all smiles as he chatted with Betsy Scherer.

  Where is George?

  A clap of thunder seemed to shake the plane as it sat at the gate. I glanced at Seth, who’d already buckled himself into his seat, and whose expression was one of abject fear. Seth is a man who seems never to be intimidated by anything—except flying. I’ve been on many flights where his grip on the armrests was enough to dent them, and his knuckles were as white as freshly fallen snow. But it was obvious that his anxiety level on this evening was especially high.

  I leaned over him and suggested, “Why don’t you try self-hypnosis? It worked for me when I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Ayuh,” he said. “I may do that.”

  “Pretend you’re flying the plane,” I said, remembering what Jed had told me. When he was a captain with a major airline, he’d taken part in a company-sponsored series of seminars for people whose fear of flying was acute, and whose lives were negatively impacted by their fears. “People are afraid to fly,” he’d said, “because they lack control. We teach ’em to take an active part in the flying process, even rise up a little from their seats on takeoff to make the plane lighter.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Seth said, not sounding as though he meant it. “Hypnosis won’t make this ugly weather any better.”

  I patted his hand and walked toward the rear of the plane. I’d learned years ago that when Seth is dealing with a problem, it’s usually best to leave him alone. I could have cited statistics to him: Your chances of being involved in an aircraft accident are about one in eleven million; chances of being killed in an auto accident are one in five thousand. Driving to the airport poses a far greater risk than getting on a plane, as evidenced by more than fifty thousand people killed in auto accidents each year. But none of that would have helped Seth at that moment. Unless the rain and wind suddenly stopped, and a rainbow appeared, there was little anyone could say, or do, to alleviate his concerns.

  I’d stopped to chat with one of the reporters when Jason Silverton approached from where he and Christine had taken seats at the front of the passenger cabin.

  “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said.

  “Hello, Jason.”

  He said through a toothy grin, “You look surprised that I’m on the flight.”

  “Not at all. It appears you’ve made up with your stepmother.”

  He glanced back at Christine. “Yeah. I’m irresistible.” He smiled at me, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Makes sense for me to be on this flight,” he said. “A shame Dad couldn’t make it. Of course, he wouldn’t be occupying a seat. He’d be down below in the cargo hold. But the police wouldn’t release his body. So he stays back in jolly old England.”

  How sad for Wayne, I thought, that his only child had nothing but callous comments to make about his father.

  “Now that I own a piece of this airline,” Jason said, “I’ll be on lots of SilverAir flights.”

  “Has the ownership question been settled?” I asked.

  “Not yet, but it will be.” He looked past me to where Vicks and Casale sat huddled in adjacent seats poring over a sheaf of papers. “Those two clowns think they can bully me out of the picture, but I don’t scare easy. Between Christine and me, we’ll show them who’s really the boss.”

  “If you say so, Jason,” I said, eager to escape his gloating. “I wish you well.”

  “Maybe you’d like to write a book about me,” he said. “I’ll bet I’m the youngest airline owner in the world.”

  “That may be,” I said. “Excuse me.”

  I joined Jed and Barbara Richardson where they’d just accepted coffee from the young male flight attendant, John Slater.

  “Think we’ll go?” I asked Jed.

  “It’s a toss-up,” he said. “Depends on what the captain up front decides. It’s his call.”

  “What would you do?” I asked.

  He smiled and sipped. “Me? I always went with the most conservative approach, Jess. But I don’t want to second-guess Captain Caine. It’s his ship, like the captain of an ocean liner. The only difference is he can’t conduct marriages.”

  “Speaking of that,” Barbara said, winking at me and pointing to the front of the aircraft where George Sutherland had just come aboard.

  I gave Barbara my best disapproving look and headed up the aisle. George looked frazzled. His tan trench coat was rain-darkened, and his hair was wet, too. He carried a small, leather overnight bag along with a well-worn leather briefcase with a shoulder strap.

  “I was getting worried,” I said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  “I had my doubts, too,” he said. “Last-minute snafus at the office, and slow going on the roads. But here I am. Anything new?”

  “Always something new, it seems, but I’ll fill you in later.”

  First Officer Scherer passed us, entered the cockpit, and closed the door behind him.

  “Any talk of scuttling the flight?” George asked.

  “No. As far as I know, we’re going.”

  Mort joined us. “Evening, Inspector,” he said.

  “Good evening to you, Sheriff.”

  “Any progress?” Mort asked.

  “Bits and pieces, that’s all,” George said.

  Mort leaned close to George’s ear and whispered just loud enough for me to hear, too, “I’ve got my weapon with me in case there’s trouble.”

  “That’s good to hear,” George said. “I’m glad you’re with us.”

  Until Mort mentioned carrying his revolver with him, I hadn’t given a thought to weapons aboard. I knew that Mort was allowed to carry his weapon whenever he flew because of his status as a law enforcement officer, and it was likely that Captain Caine and First Officer Scherer carried guns, too, under the new FAA regulations allowing, even encouraging, cockpit crews to be armed. But what about other passengers? Because we were a non-scheduled flight, security had been handled by SilverAir ground personnel, not government-sanctioned and trained officers.

  I looked around the cabin. Anyone could be carrying a weapon of some sort, a realization that didn’t sit well with me.

  I accepted a club soda from Gina Molnari. George asked for a Coke.

  “Excuse me, Inspector,” Churlson Vicks said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like a word with you.”

  “I’m listening,” said George.

  “I’ll be blunt, sir. I don’t like the fact that you’re joining us for the purpose of trying to identify a kille
r.”

  “That’s my job, Mr. Vicks.”

  “This is a public relations flight. We’ve got a lot of press aboard. Don’t want them distracted from the business at hand.”

  “Murder is always the business at hand,” George said. “We believe someone on this plane murdered Mr. Silverton. With everyone leaving London to return home to the States, the chances of bringing the killer to justice are slim, if not nonexistent. I really don’t have any choice but to pursue it while the guilty party is still in our midst.”

  “Well,” Vicks huffed, “that may be how you see it, Inspector, but I intend to have a word with your superiors the moment I return to London.”

  “By all means, sir. Please do.”

  I had the feeling that such threats had been made to George before, and that he wasn’t unduly concerned about any of them.

  Captain Caine’s voice came over the PA system.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain from the flight deck. We’re getting close to push-back, and we’ll be on our way shortly. I’d like to ask you to find your seats, settle down, and buckle up in anticipation of our departure. Cabin crew, please cross-check.”

  I’d sat next to Seth on the flight to London and assumed I’d do it again. But Jim had taken my seat and was engaged in an animated conversation with Seth, freeing me to sit with George in the row behind.

  “I had a conversation with Jed Richardson this afternoon,” I reported, “about the backgrounds of Captain Caine and the first officer, Carl Scherer.”

  “Anything of particular interest in what he told you?”

  I repeated what Jed had said, that Caine had been fired from a previous job for attitudinal problems and for having struck a passenger, and that Wayne Silverton had taken special pains to accelerate Scherer’s rise from a regional pilot of smaller aircraft to 767 certification.

  “Why would he do that?” George mused aloud. “There must be plenty of pilots out there looking for work who are certified to fly this aircraft.”

  “I don’t have an answer,” I said, “and I’ve been searching my brain for one ever since hearing it.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by Gina Molnari’s voice over the PA, informing us that our seat belts were to be secured, loose items stored beneath the seat in front of us or in the overhead bins, meal trays securely fastened, and our seats in a full upright position. A video on aircraft safety played on the screens through the passenger cabin.

  “Seems we’re on our way,” George muttered.

  As he said it, the brightest flash of lightning and most deafening roar of thunder all evening sent a garish streak of light, like a photographer’s strobe, throughout the cabin, and the thunder elicited expressions of dismay throughout the cabin.

  “Gorry!” Seth said in a loud voice.

  “Yes,” I thought as the plane was pushed back from the gate, the rain coming in pulsating splashes against the small window. “Gorry, indeed!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The wind buffeted the plane as we taxied to the runway, lightning and thunder accompanying us every inch of the way.

  “There’s only one plane ahead of us for takeoff,” Caine announced over the PA.

  That represented good news to everyone aboard, not because it meant we would be taking off soon, but because it said that there was another pilot willing to fly in this weather. I knew, of course, that once we reached our assigned cruising altitude, we’d be above the foul weather and enjoying relatively smooth skies. But until then, I grasped George’s forearm, and he placed a hand over mine. I remembered that Captain Caine had invited me up front again for the takeoff but had obviously forgotten, or decided the flight deck wasn’t the place for an amateur that night. Whatever the reason, it was fine with me.

  Our turn came. The 767’s twin jet engines roared to life, and we began our takeoff roll, slowly at first until the engines’ thrust overcame inertia, then picking up speed and eating up runway, faster and faster. The increased speed sent more air over and under the wings, creating “lift” due to their unique shape—relatively flat on the underside, slightly curved on top—the Bernoulli Principle that allows planes to fly at work. The wheels bounced less as gravity’s grip on them decreased, and we were airborne, blasting through the rain and wind and heavy cloud cover in search of better conditions.

  “Gorry!” I heard Seth exclaim again, louder this time.

  We continued to climb for another ten or fifteen minutes. Eventually, we broke free of the clouds and were in calm, pitch black air, the wings’ flashing lights and the stars the only outside illumination. There were audible sighs of relief. The Boston councilwoman had cried during the takeoff roll but was now relatively calm. The flight attendants left their seats and started serving drinks again, and hot and cold hors d’oeuvres. A menu in the seat-back pockets promised a three-course dinner, but those of us who’d already eaten had no enthusiasm for another meal.

  “Well,” George said after it was announced that we were free to move about the cabin but should keep our seat belts loosely fastened when seated, “I’d best get started.”

  “Do you want to make an announcement that you’ll be interviewing people?” I asked.

  “I think not,” he said. “Everyone knows why I’m here. I would like you to tag along, however.”

  “Of course I will,” I said, not adding that I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t been asked.

  He stood and surveyed the cabin. “See that area where four seats are grouped together around that table?” he asked.

  “Yes. Perfect for a business conference. And a murder interrogation.”

  “We’ll set up shop there.”

  We joined others who’d gotten out of their seats and were milling about, drinks in hand, chatting about myriad things. Churlson Vicks had gone to the lavatory, leaving Sal Casale sitting alone.

  “Good evening, Mr. Casale,” George said.

  “Oh, you’re the inspector,” Calsale said.

  “I wonder if you’d join me and Mrs. Fletcher over there.”

  Casale looked to where George pointed. “Sure, why not?”

  We took three of the four seats. George laid a pad of paper and a pen on the table, crossed his legs, sat back, and smiled. “You obviously know why I wish to speak with you, Mr. Casale.”

  “I’d be a moron if I didn’t,” said Casale. “You want to know if I killed Wayne. Not a chance. Wayne and I were in business for many years, first in Vegas real estate, then in this stupid airline deal. You know why I say it’s a stupid deal? I’ll tell you why. You know any airline that’s making money? They’re all belly-up. Even when they make money, it’s chump change. Yeah, some of those low-fare airlines are doing okay, but Wayne wanted to go high-end. I went along because there was something—I don’t know, something fancy about it, you know, like the jet set.” He, too, sat back and shook his head. “Did I kill him? Hell, no. But I think I know who did.”

  “I’d be interested in hearing your theory, Mr. Casale,” George said.

  “Him.” He pointed at Jason Silverton, who stood talking with Mort Metzger.

  “Please explain,” George said.

  “He’s a punk. Wayne used to talk about him to me. The kid turned out to be a foul ball after all his old man did for him. The kid takes a walk and disappears for years, but shows up when Wayne is dead, carrying a letter he claims Wayne wrote to him years ago.” He guffawed. “Can you believe it? I sure don’t.”

  “What does the letter say?” I asked.

  “I’d show it to you, only I don’t have it with me. Vicks gave it to his lawyer. Barristers, he calls them. Doesn’t matter what you call them. Thieves. They’re all thieves.”

  “The letter gives Jason his father’s share in SilverAir?” I said.

  “Ain’t that a joke? What does the kid do? He takes that phony letter and shows it to Christine, the wicked stepmother. She can’t stand the sight of the kid, but hustler that she is, she sees how they can gang up a
nd claim the airline for themselves. Nice people, huh?”

  George ignored Casale’s condemnation of Christine and Jason and asked about the two men who were detained at Heathrow, men with reputed ties to Casale’s criminal activities.

  “I’ll own that newspaper,” Casale said. “It’ll be in my pocket before they know it.”

  “The men are alleged to work for you,” I said.

  “Right. They do. They’re business associates.”

  “From what I understand of their resumes,” George said, “they hardly qualify as businessmen in the traditional sense.”

  “Maybe not traditional the way you define it, Inspector. Different strokes.”

  “I understand,” George continued, “that Mr. Silverton didn’t always live up to the promises he made to his business partners.”

  The surprised look on Casale’s swarthy face seemed genuine. “You can’t prove that by me,” he said. “Sure, Wayne could cut a tough deal, and if somebody tried to screw him, he knew how to take it out on them. But me? I never had any trouble with him. You think I would’ve stayed in business with him this long if he’d tried to ace me out of what’s due me? Forget about it.” He waved his hand for emphasis. “Satisfied?” he asked.

  “For the moment,” George said.

  Casale noticed that Vicks was watching and waved him over. “Hey, Churlson—that’s some name, huh?—the inspector here wants to ask you some questions.”

  I had to smile at Casale’s flamboyant style. He was like an actor out of Central Casting for a television show such as The Sopranos, or a movie like The Godfather or Goodfellas. I believed him when he said he didn’t have a beef with Wayne and hadn’t been behind his murder. But that represented only my snap judgment.

  Vicks took the seat vacated by Casale.

  George started by asking the Englishman the same thing he’d asked Casale, whether Wayne Silverton had been aboveboard and honest with him in their business dealings.

  “If I say that he wasn’t,” Vicks responded, “it would give me a motive to kill the man, wouldn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” George replied.