At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  A strand of Maclean’s long hair had come loose, and as they passed the fountain into the open area of the rotunda, a gust of wind caught it, carried it up for a moment, then draped it across the lapel of her short Burberry trench coat. He wondered if he should tell her. Then he decided against it. It wasn’t like having a low-flying zipper or spinach stuck between your teeth. He liked the way it looked. Seeing her now, with the wind playing through her hair, looking so natural, he imagined she would be in her element in the woods, taking her inner city kids on wilderness treks. She turned to him.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Verraday. “I hadn’t even realized I was smiling.”

  Maclean followed as Verraday now turned down a walkway toward an attractive brick building with a Gothic arched window in the center.

  “Here we are,” he said. “This is the Kirsten Wind Tunnel.”

  “This isn’t how I pictured a wind tunnel,” said Maclean.

  “That’s because it was built in the 1930s, when there was Guggenheim money and no one had yet come up with the bright idea of making campus buildings look like Soviet mental hospitals. After you.”

  He held the door open for her.

  Entering, they heard a low hum. They followed the sound a short distance down the hall until they spotted a white-haired man in his midsixties wearing a Hawaiian shirt and gazing intently through a heavy blast window. On the other side of the shatterproof glass, in the wind tunnel, two helmeted men on locked-down racing bikes were pedaling furiously.

  “Professor Lowenstein?” called Verraday.

  “That’s me,” replied the man, turning and smiling. He had long, thinning white hair, prominent features, and light-blue eyes that gazed out thoughtfully from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, giving him the demeanor of an overgrown Hobbit.

  “We spoke yesterday on the phone. I’m Professor Verraday, and this is Detective Maclean.”

  “Right. Let me just have a quick word with these gentlemen.”

  Professor Lowenstein pushed a large red button, and the whine and roar from within the tunnel subsided. He switched on a talk-back microphone.

  “Take five, fellas,” he told the men riding the bicycles.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see bicycles in a wind tunnel,” said Maclean.

  “Well, we gotta pay our way here. They’re determining how to reduce drag on racing bike helmets. That’s our specialty here—figuring out how to get through life with the least amount of resistance. But I know you’re not here to talk about that.”

  Verraday was already wishing he did have all afternoon to listen to Lowenstein. It would no doubt have been more pleasant than tracking a killer.

  “As I said on the phone, Professor,” began Verraday, “I understand your hobby is local commercial aviation history. Detective Maclean is working on a criminal case that might have a related angle to it. Could be nothing, but you never know.”

  “The case is ongoing and none of the details can be public yet,” added Maclean.

  Lowenstein smiled. “For the last four decades, both the Russians and the Chinese have been trying to play footsie with me, hoping to persuade me to reveal the knowledge we’ve unlocked here. And in all that time, the only information they’ve gotten out of me is that it’s a bad idea to urinate into high-velocity air masses. So my lips are sealed. Now how can I help?”

  Maclean took out the photo and handed it to him. “We’re trying to find out what airline the plane and the flight attendant uniform are from. Might be a clue.”

  Professor Lowenstein studied the photograph for a moment. “I’ve seen this uniform before. But not in ages. I would guess it’s twenty-five or thirty years old. But the cockpit is from a much more recent plane. The instrument panel is from a Cessna Citation M2 executive jet. They didn’t go into production until 2013.”

  “So the uniform and the plane don’t go together?”

  Lowenstein shook his head. “Not a chance. But that logo on the flight attendant’s lapel pin rings a bell. Just a sec.”

  Professor Lowenstein reached into an equipment cabinet and pulled out a magnifying glass. He held it over the photo and studied it closely. Then his eyes lit up and he smiled.

  “Yep, now I remember where I know this from.” He put his finger on the photo. “See that ‘G’ in the center of those wings on the young lady’s pin? That was the crest of Griffinair.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Maclean.

  “It was a legendary regional airline. Before your time. They started up when I was a kid and pterodactyls ruled the skies. At their peak, in the 1970s, Griffinair had about half a dozen war surplus cargo aircraft and three small commuter planes that flew out of Seattle to Spokane, Portland, and Walla Walla. They also had a floatplane charter service. It was founded by a guy named Dick Griffin, a real character. He was a World War II combat veteran who ran the company until he died at ninety-five. Stubborn as hell. He was a trailblazer in the beginning. But as the years went by, he fell out of touch with the industry. He passed away about ten years ago, and by then he’d just about run the company into the ground, from what I hear. But that uniform is Griffinair, for sure. That any use to you, Detective?”

  “Thanks, Professor,” replied Maclean. “You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Got time to come pay a visit to Griffinair with me?” asked Maclean as they left the Kirsten building.

  “Love to. I’ve got a class to teach at two o’clock. Can you get me back here by then?”

  “I might have to embarrass you by putting the siren and flashers on, but sure, I think that can be arranged,” said Maclean. “Now I’d like to do a web search on the company before we talk to them.”

  “Want to use the computer in my office?”

  “We can check it out on my iPad on the way there, if you don’t mind doing the honors. It’ll save us some time, help make sure I get you back here on schedule.”

  Within ten minutes, they were headed down Interstate 5, and Verraday had read Maclean a Wikipedia entry on the history of Griffinair as well as several articles about the company in aviation magazines. All of them conveyed the same story that Professor Lowenstein had told them. One community paper contained a paid obituary notice for Fred Griffin, son of the founder. It was written by Fred’s son, Jason. It did not reveal the cause of death, but suggested that donations could be directed toward a local mental health organization.

  By the time they had exhausted the Google entries for Griffinair, they were cruising along Perimeter Road at King County International Airport, still referred to by the locals as Boeing Field. Built in the 1920s, it had since been eclipsed by the larger and newer Sea-Tac Airport and nowadays was used mainly for cargo operations, maintenance, and flight-testing.

  Maclean spotted a hangar with a Griffinair logo on it, which had been updated from the midcentury crest on the uniform pin to a sleek, stylized emblem. Maclean pulled the Interceptor up beside it. The hangar door was open just enough for Maclean and Verraday to step through into the cavernous interior. As their eyes adjusted to the murky light, they saw a twin-engine commuter plane and a small executive jet parked inside. The door of the commuter plane was open, and an access panel under the crew compartment had been removed. From somewhere inside the plane, they heard the whine of an impact wrench.

  At the back of the hangar, a door was ajar, allowing a single shaft of light to escape into the gloom. It appeared to be an office area. Verraday now noticed that there was a vintage car parked at the back of the hangar. As he got closer, he recognized the lines as belonging to a 1968 Dodge Charger, highly coveted by collectors. The hood was open, revealing a hulking engine that Verraday could identify because of the unusual way that the spark plug wires came up through the valve covers.

  Verraday whistled low under his breath. “Wow, a vintage Dodge Charger with a Hemi. That’s one expensive piece of machinery,” he commented to Maclean.

  She s
miled to see him genuinely awestruck. Just then a man stuck his head out of the office. He was partially silhouetted by the office light and was difficult to make out, but they could see that he was muscular and appeared to be in his late twenties.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, his tone solicitous.

  “Let me take this for a sec,” Verraday whispered to Maclean.

  “Just admiring your Charger,” said Verraday. “I’m guessing by the grille it’s a ’68?”

  “Sure is,” said the young man proudly as he approached them. “First year of production for that body type.”

  “Looks like a 426 Hemi,” said Verraday.

  The man seemed surprised but pleased that a stranger recognized it. “That’s exactly what it is. Four hundred and twenty-five horsepower, straight out of the factory. Zero to sixty in four-point-seven seconds. Fifty years old, and it’ll still blow the doors off a Ferrari.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Verraday. “A Charger with a 426 Hemi can take just about anything, even off the showroom floor.”

  “You seem to know your Mopars,” said the man.

  “My dad had a 1967 Belvedere. Same platform. Except his had a 318. He couldn’t afford the Hemi.”

  “There aren’t many of them around, that’s for sure. So what can I do for you folks?”

  “I’m looking for Jason Griffin,” said Maclean.

  “Well, you’re looking at him,” replied the young man confidently.

  A loud servo whine now joined the clatter of the impact wrench, drowning out every other sound in the hangar.

  Jason grimaced in mock agony. “Why don’t you come into my office so we don’t have to shout,” he shouted, gesturing toward the open door.

  Maclean and Verraday followed him toward the office at the back of the hangar.

  “Watch your step, folks. I’ve got the lights off because we’re only doing inside work on that one plane right now. This place sucks up electricity like Las Vegas when the overheads are on.”

  Verraday and Maclean traded a look as they passed a machine shop area where a six-by-eight-foot industrial bath stood. He noticed them looking.

  “That’s where we repair and manufacture replacement parts. We’ve got lathes and drill presses to make any mechanical part we could need.”

  It was evidently a well-practiced sales pitch, and despite having to almost bellow over the racket coming from the commuter plane, the young man was clearly proud of his operation.

  “That tank you see is for flushing out and testing radiators. Most of the smaller cargo and commuter operations still run prop planes. Overheating is the number one cause of engine failure. And without an engine, you’re not going to stay up there for very long,” he said, jerking his thumb skyward. “So you’ve got to take good care of the cooling systems.”

  When they reached the office, he stood aside and with a courtly gesture, motioned for them to enter. He followed them in and closed the heavy door behind them. Instantly, the machinery noise became virtually inaudible. He saw the look of surprise on their faces.

  “That’s better, eh?” he said, smiling. “I spend sixty or seventy hours a week running this place, and believe me, it gets tiring listening to all that racket. That’s why the office is professionally soundproofed, so I don’t lose my hearing and my marbles by the end of the week.”

  In contrast to the cavernous maintenance area, the office was well-lit, stylish, and comfortable. Several expensively framed aviation photos hung on the walls. Verraday noticed that in two of them, which were black and white and seemed to date from the 1940s, the same man was looking out the cockpit window of two different airplanes.

  “Great pictures,” said Verraday. “World War II?”

  “Yes,” replied Jason. “That’s my grandfather, Dick Griffin. He founded this company. He flew a B-17 Flying Fortress with the Eighth Air Force, based in England. That’s it in the picture on the left. He did his tour of duty—twenty-five bombing missions over Germany—flying through flak and fighters and anything else the Nazis could throw at him. Then instead of going home, he transferred to Air Transport Command and flew the plane in that other picture.”

  “Looks like a C-47,” said Verraday.

  “That’s exactly what it is,” said Jason. “So you know about planes as well as cars.”

  “Just a little bit,” said Verraday. “My dad was a machinist at Boeing up until he retired.”

  Verraday noticed another framed image, this one of Jason Griffin, fairly recently, standing on the pontoon of a small floatplane with a Griffinair logo on it. In another frame was a section front from the Seattle Times, showing a chubby adolescent boy behind the controls of a plane and a woman in her thirties sitting in the seat beside him.

  “Who’s that?” asked Verraday.

  “That’s me when I was twelve,” replied Jason. “And my mom.”

  Verraday leaned in to read the text under the photo. “You set the world’s record for youngest solo flight in a twin-engine plane?”

  “That’s correct,” said Jason, smiling. “It was a Beechcraft Super 18.”

  He motioned them toward a couple of leather and stainless steel Wassily chairs. “Please, have a seat.” He took his own place in a black leather captain’s chair behind a large desk made from a single slab of mahogany. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Detective Constance Maclean from the Seattle Police Department. This is James Verraday. He’s a forensic psychologist working with me on a case.”

  “Cool. If I can make a shameless plug for myself, my grandfather taught me some of his combat flying techniques for evading Zeros and Messerschmitts. I know how to stay out of sight, so moving ground targets like speeders or drug boats wouldn’t even know I was there. Then when you’re ready to pounce, boom! I’d be right on ’em. So if it’s aerial surveillance you need, I’m your man, okay? I’ll beat anybody else’s price, and I’ll outfly ’em too. Guaranteed.”

  “Thank you,” said Maclean, fighting to suppress a laugh and hide her befuddlement over this man-child, who obviously had a lot of technical skill but seemed arrested in early adolescence. “I’ll keep it in mind, but today we’re actually here to discuss something else.”

  “Not sure how I can help, but I’ll try,” said Jason affably.

  “We can start here,” said Maclean.

  She pulled out a photo of Helen Dale that had been cropped to omit the reflection of the man in the window as well as the details of the cockpit controls.

  “This young woman is wearing what I understand is a Griffinair flight attendant’s uniform. Can you tell us who she is?”

  “Sorry, no idea.”

  “She’s not a flight attendant here?”

  “No,” said Jason, “it’s been ages since we’ve had flight attendants. Like literally not since I was a kid. I was only about twelve when the last flight attendants worked here, so I wouldn’t remember any of them. That’s got to be a really old photo.”

  “Actually, it was taken two days ago. The woman’s name is Helen Dale. Any idea why she’s wearing one of your airline’s uniforms?”

  “I can’t speak for her, but it’s common knowledge in the aviation industry that flight attendant uniforms are a hot item in the vintage clothing business and the black market. Not to be crude about it, but there are entire Japanese porn sites devoted to stewardess erotica. Japan Airlines actually had to put serial numbers and tracking chips in their stewardess uniforms because so many of them were getting ‘lost’ and turning up in hard-core movies and upscale brothels. A lot of girls get really turned on by wearing them, and a lot of guys get turned on by seeing girls in them.”

  “I guess so,” said Maclean, “because this guy looks pretty turned on. Any idea who he is?”

  Maclean held out the uncropped version of the photograph, showing not only the aircraft cockpit but also the reflection of the man’s face in the window.

  “Wow, that’s pretty hard to make out. I’m not sure.”

  V
erraday watched Jason closely. Maclean glanced at Verraday, caught an almost imperceptible flicker of something on his face, then leaned forward toward Jason.

  “Mr. Griffin, that’s the cockpit of a Cessna Citation executive jet in this photo. I’m no aviation expert, but I see that you’ve got an executive jet parked out there too. If I go out there into your hangar and climb aboard that plane and see that the cockpit is the same, that will put me in a very suspicious frame of mind. And if I take this out to your shop and the rest of the airport and start asking people if they recognize this man, and he’s in any way connected with you, I will be very unhappy. Unless you tell me who he is right now.”

  “Okay. I hear you. It’s hard to tell because of the lighting. But it could be Cody North. He’s an employee of mine.”

  “Any idea why he’s with that girl in that plane?”

  “Well, it looks to me like they were partying. I mean, if there’s one thing that turns people on more than flight attendant uniforms, it’s getting it on in airplanes. Otherwise there wouldn’t be such a thing as a Mile High Club, right?” Jason laughed easily. “If they were at twenty-thousand feet going four-hundred miles an hour, it would be an issue. But there’s no rule against partying in the cockpit when the plane’s parked in a hangar, so there’s no law being broken in this photo.”

  “That’s true,” said Maclean. “There was no law being broken in this photo. But there was a law broken not long after it was taken.”

  “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “This young woman’s name was Helen Dale. She worked as a call girl under the alias of Destiny. And she was murdered just a few hours after she took this selfie.”

  Jason leaned forward to take a closer look. “That’s terrible. She’s a nice-looking girl.”

  “Was,” emphasized Maclean. “Was. She doesn’t look like this anymore. Her killer did a real number on her. Now, Helen was a close friend of this girl.”

  She held out a photo of Rachel Friesen from the Assassin Girls website.

  Jason examined the photo then shrugged blankly. “Never seen her before.”