“So?”
I could almost hear Reyes shrug. “I wouldn’t have thought anything about it, but Jim Bergin was uneasy.”
“Why?”
“Well, from hearing him talk, I gather that he’s a real stickler for following the book. He changed the oil on Sprague’s Centurion last week. He logs all that kind of stuff…in the plane’s engine log, and in one of his own…some maintenance record he keeps for regular customers.”
“Again, so?”
“So, it’s a two-hour flight from here to Albuquerque in Sprague’s plane. A round trip would be four hours.”
“Duh,” I said, irritated at being led like a child.
Estelle chuckled. “Even with some sightseeing, not much more than six. The point is, the Hobbs meter in the Centurion shows almost fourteen hours.”
“So somebody made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so. The tachometer roughly agrees. And nobody in Albuquerque refueled Mike Bravo one-seven-eight. And nobody in Mid-Valley. Or Socorro. Sprague has always paid for av-gas with a credit card. Somebody would have a record.”
“Unless he paid in cash.”
“Bergin says that fixed base operators would remember the plane.”
“When did he leave Posadas?”
“Bergin says the day before yesterday.” Estelle Reyes waited a minute and listened to me thinking. “It’s about thirty minutes airtime to Las Cruces-Crawford, sir.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“And if he picked up Barrie there…”
“Right. They could have slipped across into Mexico as easy as can be. Jim Bergin says all you’d have to do is fly low, and it’d be a piece of cake.”
“And so you think he took Barrie out of the country?”
“Well, I’d be a little slow to jump to that conclusion except for one thing. He made another long flight a few days before.”
“Bergin is sure?”
“Reasonably. But you know, Sprague flies to conventions all over the place.”
“What catches your eye about that particular flight, then?”
“Bergin isn’t sure when Sprague left, but he knows when he returned. He landed back in Posadas late in the afternoon on the day you were in Gallup at Art Hewitt’s funeral. Very late in the afternoon. Just about dusk.”
“Did he have anyone with him?”
“Bergin doesn’t know. Sprague put the plane away. Bergin had already gone home. It was after five.”
“Then how does he know that’s when Sprague came in?”
“He said he saw him. He was getting a backyard cookout ready. He saw Sprague’s plane fly over. Low.”
“That’s the day Scott Salinger was murdered,” I said, as if Estelle needed reminding.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Yes. I looked in the aircraft engine log. There’s a signature from a mechanic who checked and corrected a shimmy in the front gear. The work was done at Guaymas.”
“Mexico,” I added.
“Right. That’s three hundred miles from here.”
“He goes fishing at Bahia Kino. That’s about eighty miles up the coast from Guaymas.”
“Right. It’s just that I can’t help thinking-this last flight. Seven hours in a turbo Centurion would get you pretty deep in Mexico.”
“Mazatlan. Guadalajara. Any of those, even at tree top level.”
“You think there’s enough cause to link him with David Barrie?”
“I can see him laying a trap for Barrie, maybe even blowing him away, if he discovered the man was a drug dealer and responsible for his daughter’s death. But working with him? Hardly.”
“Any ideas?” Estelle asked.
“Yeah, I got an idea. I’ll ask him.” I outlined what I planned to do, and Estelle hesitated. “Hey, look, Holman says I need a vacation, right?”
“Not like this.”
“Sprague has offered to take me fishing in Mexico anytime. When we’re up in the plane, he’s a captive audience. No better time.”
“I hope he doesn’t ask you to step outside. At twenty thousand feet.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“You’ll let me know if you do something like that?”
“Yes, mother. In the meantime, you keep nosing around. You’re doing good.” I rang off feeling better. Maybe it was just misplaced intuition, but I fell asleep again with the notion that Dr. Harlan Sprague would tell me things on a Mexican beach that he wouldn’t in Posadas.
Chapter 26
I didn’t tell Holman what I was planning. I didn’t want to hear the song and dance about my health. Besides, I had a few gnawing suspicions left about Martin Holman himself, among them a certain uneasiness about the paired arrival of Sprague and Holman at the hobby shop. I chalked most of Holman’s actions up to being ignorant of investigation procedures, but still…
I gave my plan a couple more hours of thought. The most intelligent move would have been to summon all the heavy-iron help our department could find. But I followed my intuition, and that dumb feeling told me that the root of the abscess was right in Posadas and that I was perfectly capable of rooting it out. And call it pride, but I didn’t want strangers proving to Holman that he was right about aging undersheriffs not being able to handle their own counties.
I made my preparations with some care, and they included a call to my son. At least in that respect, the cards were in my favor. With only ten minutes of waiting and three or four shunts, Buddy came on the line, sounding nervous. “Dad?”
“Forget what they told you, Buddy. I’m fine. I just had to tell some lies to get through to you. It’s like talking to Fort Knox.”
Buddy laughed, but when he heard what I had to say, he turned serious quickly. “You’re not really going to do this, are you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“No way I can talk you out of it?”
“Nope. But you can help. You can answer me some questions.” We talked for almost twenty minutes, and when we were finished, I was pleased and he was more apprehensive than before. “Relax, Buddy. I’ll call you when it’s over.”
“Easy for you to say. I think I’ll check me out a T-thirty-eight and ride tail on you.”
“You do, and I will be, as they say, most annoyed. I can take care of myself. Just hang loose.”
Late that afternoon, I made another telephone call. As it turned out, Harlan Sprague couldn’t resist the opportunity to catch a few fish. If what little that was left of his medical practice was an inconvenience, he didn’t let it bother him. When I called, Sprague was initially startled, but then enthusiastic. He asked if my visa was in order or if I’d have to get a visitor’s permit. I assured him I had the necessary papers. I didn’t ask him about his own.
I added to my mental file the nagging uneasiness I felt about Sprague’s sudden agreement that a trip was in order. And it was only when I parked at the airport at dawn the next day that I remembered that the good doctor hadn’t made much of an issue about my precarious health, a welcome change, but unusual nevertheless. I patted myself on the back for having had the presence of mind to call my son.
The weather was still soft and cool when I met the doctor at the airport, and Sprague looked at my small duffel bag critically. “I’m glad you can travel light,” he said. He loaded the airplane, taking special care that nothing rested on two heavy fishing rods. “I made these,” he said as he jockeyed them into place. “Wait until you try one.” He looked at the small Pan Am flight bag I carried. “You’re going to keep that up front?”
I nodded, and then pointed at the Cessna. “This thing has enough room inside for a boat and motor,” I said. I stowed the flight bag on the floor in front of the right-hand seat. Harlan Sprague took his time with the preflight check. I walked around with him and watched. After fingering every rivet and seam, and after the airplane had sprayed out three or four urine samples into Sprague’s plastic specimen
cup, the doctor seemed satisfied. We climbed in.
I’ve never seen an airplane engine start eagerly. This one was no exception. The prop kicked lethargically several times against the prime and then the big engine coughed, belched, and settled into a powerful rumble.
Some minutes later, the lift-off from Posadas County Airport was smooth and certain. One seven eight Mike Bravo was virtually empty-just the two of us and light baggage in a six-seat airplane, and Sprague held the Centurion in a powerful climb so steep that my ears clicked and popped. When we were well clear of surrounding mesa tops, he let the nose settle so we could see ahead.
“It’s going to be a perfect day,” Harlan Sprague said with relish. He scanned the sky, and then keyed the mike on the control yoke. He wore one of those nifty arrangements where the pickup is on a slender boom that curves around from the headset, ending right in front of the pilot’s mouth. As I listened to him file and open his flight plan, I thought that kind of radio should be in police cars. Just push the button on the steering wheel and talk into the boom mike-nothing to pick up and fumble. According to what he was telling the FAA, we would be cruising at ten thousand feet. I thought that was on the low side for a powerful airplane that was probably capable of scrambling up to airliner country, but the flight was reasonably short. Maybe even semi-retired doctors felt the need to economize.
While he was talking, I reached down for my small travel bag. I found a pair of sunglasses, and while my hand was in the bag, I punched down the dual switches of the cassette recorder. I glanced at Sprague. He was still reeling out numbers to some soul on the other end. I heard him say, “That’s negative,” and then he turned and looked at me. “Paperwork’s done. Now we can relax,” he said. “We’ll be flying down to Tucson first. I filed for there. Then we hop across to Nogales and clear Mexican customs there.” He pointed out to my right, and I saw the silver dart and twin contrails of a commercial jet heading south ahead of us.
“What altitude is he at?”
“Probably thirty-five or forty thousand feet,” Sprague said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to fly much higher than we are, though. Not with a cardiac patient aboard.” He smiled faintly. “Plus it’s not far to Tucson. You comfortable?”
“Sure,” I said. I was tired and my fingers and toes tingled a little, but then it was early in the day. Until my first gallon of coffee, everything was out of whack.
“So,” he said, as if we had reached a point in the sky for which we had both been waiting. He was messing with his headset, turned slightly away from me. “What was it you wanted to know?”
He glanced sideways at me as he next fiddled with switches and gadgets on the dash. The plane was on autopilot, I hoped, because he relaxed with his hands off the wheel and his feet off the pedals. I could feel the gentle drift and swing as the electronic brain corrected for bumps in the road. He chuckled at the surprise on my face. “Sheriff, I don’t know you terribly well, but I know you a little. The Bill Gastner I know would, obviously, check himself out of a hospital cardiac care ward at the least provocation to continue his work. He would not go off on a fishing trip to Mexico during the middle of that investigation unless everything was completely wrapped up, sealed and delivered to the district attorney’s office.”
He scrunched around in his seat so he could look my way without cranking his neck so much. “Maybe I just reached a point where I’m ready to admit my own limitations,” I said. Sprague laughed aloud at that.
He reached out and made a small adjustment. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed that the Cessna lifted its nose a fraction of a degree. A smile kept playing at the corner of Sprague’s mouth. Finally, he said, “How long is the tape?”
“Tape?” I asked, puzzled.
Nodding toward the small travel bag at my feet, he said, “The cassette in the recorder there.” His eyes swung up to meet mine, and the crow’s-feet at their corners deepened with an irritating smugness.
“Ninety minutes.” I saw no point in trying to cover or apologize. Neither did Sprague, evidently.
“And what would you like me to say for the record?”
“Do you…” I started, then stopped. A small wave of nausea swept over me, and I blinked rapidly and licked my lips. “Do you have any information about the case?”
With an irritating casualness, Sprague said, “Which one?”
“Any. Do you know anything about David Barrie’s disappearance?” If I looked at the clutter of instruments, I got dizzy.
The blank blue of the sky was harsh, and I realized with an odd sense of detachment that my feet and hands were nearly numb. I knew damn well what was the matter…and as the Centurion climbed higher into thinner air, matters would only become worse. I closed my eyes for a second or two. Sprague was feeling confident, even cocky. He could tolerate the altitude far better than I…Maybe he even had a supplemental oxygen bottle stashed somewhere. But I couldn’t let the chance slide by. I opened my eyes and saw that Harlan Sprague was staring hard at me, his face set in a glacial, emotionless mask. The possibility of hypoxia was one I had discussed with my worried son, but now that I was caught in the trap, no brilliant options presented themselves.
“David Barrie,” I repeated, working to enunciate the words.
“I know approximately where Barrie is,” the doctor said quietly.
“Where?”
“Many places now, I’m sure.” Sprague looked out at the sky. “When he left the seat in which you are now sitting, he was lightly drugged and suffering from rather severe hypoxia. You know what that is?” He took a nod as my answer. “I imagine…I sincerely hope…that sometime during his rapid twenty thousand foot descent to the Mexican desert below us, he regained consciousness. I would like to think that.”
“You killed him.” I knew it sounded stupid, but that’s all I could think to say.
Sprague didn’t smile. “No. Actually, I just helped him out of the plane. It’s relatively easy, you know. Climb steeply to a near stall and there isn’t much slipstream to lock the door closed. You notice this aircraft has no wing struts.” He pointed as if he were a tour guide. “They call it a cantilever wing. Nothing for Mr. Barrie to hit on his way out. The sudden stop when he hit the desert killed him, no doubt. If not that, then the scavengers who keep the desert clean of garbage finished the job.” He raised an eyebrow. “Because that’s what he was, Sheriff. Garbage. He killed my daughter. And when he did that, do you remember what the good folks of Posadas did in return?”
“Tell me.”
“Nothing. They did nothing. I lost my daughter, and they did nothing.” His jaw set tightly and he looked away, out toward the clouds. The momentary euphoria of oxygen starvation had passed, and instead I felt miserable. I wiped my forehead. On the ground I had been fine, and I cursed my body’s crumbling resistance. I looked at the instrument panel. There was that conversation with my son again, replaying through my mind. There was an altimeter there somewhere, no doubt. Who knows where. Buddy had told me to pay attention to that. I found one dial whose needle pointed left, its white bar just past the numeral 5 above a horizontal line. On the dial face it said, in small, blurry letters I could just make out, “Vertical Speed.”
Buddy had said something about focus, too, I remembered. “You know your rights?” I said thickly.
“Oh, yes, Sheriff. I know them. But I’m not worried about me. Maybe about you. Not about me.”
“Turn back to Posadas,” I said.
“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.” He fingered the control yoke idly. “Don’t you want to know the rest? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Tell you the rest?”
“The rest?”
“It worked well, too, until Barrie got clumsy. You see”-he settled a little like a good storyteller in front of the fire-”and I’ll make this quick, because I can see your concentration is limited…I decided that my first priority was revenge against Barrie. But the more I thought, the more I decided that it was the entire co
mmunity.” He smiled at me. “I’m sure the whole world is to blame, but one must start somewhere. If it was drugs they wanted, it was drugs I would provide…until Barrie and all the rest knew what it was to lose, Sheriff. To lose everything. Barrie lost his daughter. That was a nice twist of fate. And justice, too. Unplanned, to be sure. His daughter stole the kilo from him. It was intended for sale up north, but she stole it. It was in the car, no doubt intended for a great party. An ‘all-nighter,’ as they say. I assume the boy who was driving panicked when he saw the lights of the police car in his rearview mirror. Your eager department helped considerably.”
“You can’t…” I said, but he interrupted me.
“Indeed I can. But enough of that. I would think you would be more interested in how we brought the cocaine into the country…since this trip is your idea, you must have some notions. I hate to admit that the idea was Barrie’s. But I’ll give him credit.” Sprague almost sounded wistful. “It was novel. It’s going to be difficult to replace him, and the others.”
Sprague was right…it was difficult to concentrate, but a large share of the sickness I felt was revulsion at listening to this man talk about multiple murder as if he were filing fingernails. I remembered Buddy saying that I would feel happy as a clam. I didn’t. Of course, Buddy had had no way of knowing what I would be hearing.
“A unique plan,” he continued. “I don’t know all the technical details. I just fly the big plane.” He reached out and patted the panel top. “This one. Perfectly legal flight into Mexico and back. I clear customs, usually at Nogales and Tucson, where they know me. After Tucson, I head for home. Except I make a little change. I change my plan, maybe for a little airport like Cochise. Buzz the runway. If anyone is watching on radar, it looks like I landed. I fly low and hot over the border, back into Mexico. No problem. Are you still following this? And there’s my contact point. Straight and level at eighty knots, fifty or sixty feet above the cactus. Up from the ground comes that magnificent little airplane, radio-controlled. My partner, flying with me, takes over from the man on the ground. They call it the ‘handoff.’ Just like in football. We fly in formation, Sheriff, the small plane just far enough away that it’s not affected by the wash from my wings. Nothing on radar, even if they could scan so low. He was good, my partner. Too bad the state police arrested him and a friend last week.” Sprague shrugged. “They got careless. But they obviously didn’t talk, or I wouldn’t be here, would I?” He tapped a dial directly ahead of him. “Anyway, we fly across the border together. No problem. In the radio-controlled model are two, maybe three kilos of uncut cocaine. Not bad. Nothing in my plane, should someone bark at me when I land. Once across the border, the model plane is passed off to another party on the ground with a third transmitter. We use a different location for that each time. He takes the plane and lands it. I fly on to the airport. Nice, huh?”
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