013 Wings of Fear

by Carolyn Keene

  "So the person who threw the rock probably climbed up from the ground or down from the roof," Nancy said thoughtfully.

  Jennifer nodded. "Whoever it was knows his way around the building," she added.

  Jennifer had ridden to the airport that day with Sean, so all three girls climbed into Nancy's rental car. Jennifer pointed the way toward her apartment. Soon they were heading down the freeways that surrounded Seattle's city center.

  On the way, Nancy had time to think. Who'd thrown the rock? Someone had to be monitoring her moves pretty closely to know she'd been about to enter Mr. Talbot's office. Or maybe they had only known she was coming to Seattle and had tossed the rock in, figuring the president would find out who she was and what she was doing.

  But how had the word gotten out that she was coming?

  "Did you tell anyone else about me besides Mr. Talbot?" Nancy asked Jennifer.

  "Just Miranda and Sean. They're both at my apartment, waiting to meet you."

  Jennifer's apartment turned out to be close to the freeway and therefore to the airport. "Sometimes we change assignments at a moment's notice," she explained. "And if we miss a flight. . ." She drew her finger across her throat. "It's curtains."

  "But if you were late because of an emergency, wouldn't they have to understand?" Bess asked as Nancy parked the car.

  "You haven't met Linda Cotilla yet," Jennifer said ominously. "She's one of our senior flight attendants. You could have triple pneumonia, a flat tire, and amnesia all at the same time—^and she still wouldn't understand."

  "Will I have to fly with her?" Bess asked anxiously as Jennifer opened the door to her apartment.

  "Probably."

  "Great. Just what I need. Trouble." Bess sighed.

  "Who's in trouble?" a male voice asked.

  Turning, Nancy saw a young man with dark hair and devilish blue eyes at the door. He was wearing a black leather flight jacket stamped with the distinctive gold V for Victory.

  "Sean," Jennifer said, slipping her arm through his, "these are my friends Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin. My boyfriend, Sean Richmond."

  "So you're the detective!" Sean said to Nancy. "Jen's told me a lot about you."

  Sean was one of the handsomest guys Nancy had seen in a long time. She darted a quick glance at Bess, who was looking totally starstruck.

  "Hey, what about me?" another voice interrupted before Nancy could respond. A pretty redhead poked her head around the corner. She was dressed in a Victory uniform just like Jennifer's. "I'm Jennifer's roommate, Miranda Cum-mings," she said with a friendly smile.

  "Come on in the kitchen," Jennifer invited, "and grab some potato chips. I thought we'd just have hamburgers for dinner."

  "Great!" Bess said enthusiastically. "I'll start my diet tomorrow."

  That was such a pat phrase in her friend's vocabulary that Nancy had to swallow a smile.

  "Who's in trouble?" Sean asked again as they all crowded around the tiny kitchen table.

  "I am," Bess said, sighing. "I'm sure I'll be all thumbs my first few days as a flight attendant."

  "Bess is starting FAA training tomorrow," Jennifer explained to Sean and Miranda. "She'll be flying with me. I was just warning her about Linda Cotilla."

  "Cotilla the Hun?" Miranda said with a mock shudder. "Flying with that woman is murder. I should know—^I just got off a flight with her."

  "She was bad, huh?" Jennifer looked sympathetic.

  "I don't know what's the matter with her. She just gets worse and worse. She snaps out orders, forgets what she's said, and then gets mad when we do something she's just asked us to. The woman is totally stressed out."

  Nancy was startled. That was odd behavior for someone who was supposed to keep a cool head during crises. "Did Linda know Rod Fullerton?" she asked.

  Miranda just stared at her. "No," she said tersely. "Linda wasn't the kind of person to associate with Rod."

  Oops! Nancy thought. Jennifer had mentioned that Miranda knew Rod well. "I'm sorry," Nancy said. "Rod was a friend of yours."

  Miranda's lips tightened, and for a moment Nancy was afraid she might cry. But instead she just helped Jennifer with the hamburgers and said nothing.

  "I can show you around the airport tomorrow and introduce you to a few people," Sean suggested to Nancy. "If you're willing to get up early, I can pick you up on my way to work."

  "That's no problem for Nancy. She gets up with the sparrows," Bess complained.

  "You will be, too." Jennifer grinned. "Starting tomorrow."

  Bess groaned dramatically.

  "Since I'm probably going to be at the airport all day, I'd love a ride," Nancy answered Sean. "Then Bess can have the rental car if she needs it." Nancy was glad when Jennifer told her she'd be working the flight to L. A. and therefore out of her hair for a while. Nancy needed time to work on the investigation without anyone's meddling— well-meant or otherwise.

  Jennifer and Miranda declined Nancy and Bess's offer to help with dinner, so the girls went out to the car and brought in their luggage. They'd decided to accept Jennifer's invitation and camp out in her Uving room rather than stay in a hotel.

  They all crowded around the kitchen table and ate the hamburgers off paper plates. Nancy would have liked to catch up on what was happening in Jennifer's life, but Jen turned the conversation to Rod's mysterious death time and time again. And she kept mentioning the smuggling angle.

  She's really getting into this, Nancy thought, worried.

  Miranda grew quieter and quieter. Suddenly she jumped up and ran out of the room.

  "Hey, what's the matter?" Jennifer asked.

  Then Miranda rushed back in with a beautiful vase in her hand. Thrusting it at Nancy, she exclaimed, "Here, you take this! I don't want it! I didn't steal it! It was a present! I'm not a smuggler!"

  Chapter Three

  "THIS WAS STOLEN?" Nancy asked, amazed.

  "I don't know." Miranda looked frightened. "Rod gave it to me. We dated for a while last year. He gave me the vase as a gift. But if it's stolen, I don't want it!"

  Jennifer stared raptly at the vase. "Rod must have smuggled it in!" she said breathily.

  "We don't know anything for sure," Nancy said sharply. She turned the lovely piece over in her hands. It was a deep, rich blue color with a scene of flowers, a bridge, and a stream overlaid with a lustrous gold-filigreed paint.

  "Is it valuable?" Jennifer asked eagedy.

  Nancy frowned. "It looks really old, but maybe it's made to look that way."

  "I don't care whether it's valuable or not!" Miranda declared. "I don't want it!"

  Nancy had taken a course in art appreciation, and just the year before the Art Institute in Chicago had had an exhibit of Chinese art. She had seen similar Chinese vases from the Ming Dynasty. But she wasn't able to distinguish an original from a fake.

  "If this is real, it's worth a fortune," Nancy said.

  "Well, then it must be fake," Sean said. "I don't care how much cash Rod was tossing around, he didn't have that much money."

  Nancy's brows lifted. "Unless he wasn't kidding about the smuggling," she said thoughtfully.

  Jennifer jumped up from her chair. "See?" she said triumphantly. "I was right!"

  "Hang on to the vase until we know more. Put it somewhere safe," Nancy said to Miranda. "It might be important later."

  Miranda gingerly took the vase from Nancy's hands. "Do you really think it's valuable?"

  With a grim smile, Nancy said, ''That's what I intend to find out. If it is, we've got a pretty good case for smuggling."

  The next day Bess began her training. Jennifer took off on her daily Seattle-Los Angeles round trip. Sean picked Nancy up at six-thirty in the morning, and they drove to the airport.

  "Were you and Rod friends?" Nancy asked as they walked to the terminal from the parking lot. She pulled her red wool coat more firmly around herself as the wind gusted.

  "Sort of. I had a few training classes with him. He was a regular sort of guy.
We used to do stuff together, but I never got too close to him. He was kind of secretive."

  "Secretive in what way?"

  "He just didn't like to talk about himself. I went to his apartment one time. It was pretty bad. K Jen says he flashed money around, I believe her, but he must have gotten it fairly recently."

  They entered through the main level and crossed the gray-and-black carpet to the Victory flight counter.

  "You were here yesterday, right?" Sean asked.

  "We just passed by on our way to Mr. Talbot's office. I didn't really get to meet anyone."

  "Well, then, let me introduce you." Sean started introducing Nancy to every Victory employee in sight. There were so many names and faces that Nancy's head began to spin. Sean seemed to know most everyone, but none of them had the time to talk. They were all getting ready for the day.

  After Nancy picked up her Victory identification badge, she stood around and waited until some of the employees would have time to answer her questions.

  "See the guy who just came through the back door behind the counter? That's Blake Maxell. He's Victory's district manager," Sean said, standing with Nancy still.

  "What does he do?"

  Sean grinned. "He's got the job I want someday! Which is why I'm in the management trainee program. Maxell is in charge of operations—the day-to-day workings of the airline. Talbot may be the president, but he only deals with the airline's public image, stuff like that. Maxell's got his hands in the actual running of the airiine."

  Nancy tucked that piece of information away. "Could I meet some of the people who actually load the baggage and go inside the baggage compartment?" she asked. "You know, skycaps, cleaning crew, baggage handlers? If there's smuggling going on, some of them would have to know about it."

  "Your wish is my command."

  Sean was so friendly and attractive that Nancy could easily see how Jennifer had fallen for him. She thought about her longtime boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, and wished he could have come with her on this trip. But Ned was at school at Emerson College and couldn't get away then.

  Still, she missed him. And being with Sean just reminded her of how much she really cared for Ned.

  Sean took Nancy downstairs. She felt as if she were descending into a dark catacomb. The hallways were narrow, low-ceilinged, and the walls were gray-painted cinder blocks. After zigzagging down several corridors, Sean opened a door that led into a wide room where a belt delivered baggage into a low-walled receptacle. As they walked in, huge metal doors on the far wall rattled open, and a small tractor-type vehicle pulling several small trailers drove in from the loading area. Instantly the baggage handlers began loading suitcases, bags, and packages into the trailers.

  "Hey, Richmond!" somebody yelled. "Nice you could finally make it."

  Sean grinned. "Give me a break, okay? Fm only fifteen minutes late, and I had something to do."

  A low whistle followed as one of the guys looked Nancy's way. "So I see!"

  "That's Paul," Sean said in an aside to Nancy. "A regular cut-up. He's a nice guy, though."

  Nancy smiled. All the baggage handlers wore black pants and shirts and leather jackets like Sean's. And all of them looked as if they were dying for introductions.

  "Come on, Richmond," Paul said. He ran his hand over his sandy brown hair, his eyes sparkling. "You've already got one girl. Spread the wealth!"

  Sean was just about to answer when a man suddenly strode up from the back of the room, glowering at them, his expression as dark as his hair. He didn't waste time with preliminaries. "You know it's against the rules to bring anyone down here," he said angrily to Sean. "Now get her out of here and get back to work! You're late!"

  "Mr. Talbot asked Sean to show me around," Nancy quickly inserted, showing him the Victory AirUnes identification card.

  "Well, you'll have to come back another time," the man said gruffly. "We're busy down here."

  He strode away, shooting one last cold glance at Sean.

  "Whoops," Sean murmured. "I'd better get to work."

  "Who's he?'' Nancy asked.

  "Grant Sweeney. He's the guy in charge of baggage—^my boss, so to speak. But he hates dealing with us management trainees. I think he's jealous."

  Nancy melted into the background while Sean went to work. She didn't want to cause him any more trouble, but she really needed to have a look around.

  There was a load of large rectangular crates at one end of the room. Casually Nancy walked over to check them out. But they were just crates of fruit being shipped from overseas to the U.S. Nancy realized this cargo couldn't have anything to do with the Chinese vase Rod had given Miranda. Was Miranda's vase valuable? she wondered again.

  Nancy had just finished examining the last group of crates when Grant Sweeney reappeared behind her.

  "What are you looking for?" he asked suspiciously.

  "Nothing in particular." She gave him a wide smile. Then she suddenly said, "Actually, I was wondering if there were any Chinese vases in these boxes." She knew that sometimes the only way to gain information was to light a fire under someone.

  "Chinese vases?" Sweeney repeated in a voice so quiet and threatening that Nancy was sure she had pushed the right button.

  "That's right. I'm really interested in them," she said innocently. "A friend of mine was telling me she bought some—"

  "Who sent you down here?" he cut her off. "You don't belong down here. What do you think you're doing?"

  "Mr. Sweeney?" one of the baggage handlers called from the other side of the room.

  Grant looked over his shoulder, moved in a Uttle closer to Nancy, then suddenly turned on his heel and left. "I want you out of here," he ordered Nancy over his shoulder.

  "Yes, sir," she said under her breath.

  Nancy left the baggage room and went back upstairs. She didn't know whether Sweeney was just normally suspicious or if he was mixed up in something sinister, but she didn't want to hang around and find out. She needed information first. And except for the threatening note—and maybe Miranda's vase— there was nothing to suggest that a smuggling operation existed, that a murder had been committed, or even that Victory AirUnes was connected with anything illegal.

  Standing in the center of the lobby, Nancy looked around. She couldn't decide what to do next. For lack of anything better, she checked Victory's flight schedule and noticed that flight 222 from Korea was coming in late. At that moment, over the loudspeaker, a voice intoned, "Victory flight thirty-eight to Singapore has been delayed two hours. We are sorry for any inconvenience it may cause you. Please check at the flight desk if you need to change your plans."

  A groan sounded loud next to Nancy's ear. "That's because that Korea flight's late," a man grumbled. "After they check it out and clean it up, the same plane takes off for Singapore. Now what'll I do? I've akeady waited two hours! How much longer will it take?"

  Nancy looked around to see a disgruntled-looking man checking his watch. "Do you know why the flight's late out of Korea?" she asked.

  "Mechanical difficulty, or so they say." He threw a scathing glance over his shoulder at the Victory flight counter and stomped off in a huff.

  Nancy checked her own watch. It wasn't doing her any good to just stand around.

  Sean had agreed to meet her for lunch, so she had a couple of hours free. She used them trying to ask questions. Whenever she talked to someone, she casually brought up Rod Fullerton's name, hoping for some kind of reaction.

  But she struck out all around. By noon the only person who'd acted even the least bit strange was Grant Sweeney.

  At twelve-ten Sean appeared from the baggage area. "Come on," he said. "Let's grab something to eat and then go down to the gates so you can meet some of the gate agents."

  "I haven't been having much luck finding out anything here," Nancy admitted as they headed toward Concourse L, where most of Victory's flights came in.

  "Don't worry, your luck's going to change. I can feel it," Sean said encoura
gingly.

  They ate lunch at a small caf^, and after lunch Sean introduced her to other Victory employees, but she had no more success than before. Either no one knew anything, or no one was talking.

  "I can't find one person who seems to have known Rod very well," she said, puzzled. "I wonder why."

  "As I said, he was secretive." Sean was walking her back to the front of the terminal. "There was one thing odd about him, though. All of us in the management trainee program are college students. It's a prerequisite. But Rod never went to college—and he was in the program, too."

  "How did he get in?"

  Sean shrugged. "Beats me."

  He went back to work, and Nancy continued asking questions. She thought about what Sean had said. What had Rod's connection to Victory been?

  Maybe she'd get more answers from the people who were part of the program. Nancy decided to concentrate on them for a while. But no one appeared to know anything more.

  Toward the end of the day Nancy went back to the baggage-handUng area. She'd decided it was worth risking a fight with Grant Sweeney to get some answers.

  Nancy glanced nervously around. She was glad to see that Sweeney wasn't in sight. Most of the other handlers were eager to talk to her. But all of them were more interested in offering to show her around Seattle than in helping with the case.

  "I'm discouraged," she told Sean when she met him after his shift was over. "Nobody even acted the least bit suspicious. Everyone just looked frazzled when I tried to interrupt them."

  "Maybe there's just nothing going on here," he suggested. "No mystery. Come on, Jen's flight is probably in already. Let's catch her before she heads home."

  He grabbed Nancy's hand and led her toward gate 43. But when they got there, it was to find that Jennifer's flight had already emptied. No one was around except one of the other flight attendants.

  "Jennifer?" the flight attendant said reflectively when Sean asked her if she knew where Jennifer had gone. "You know, I think she said she was going to see the president. She was all excited about something."