Mile High Murder

by Marcia Talley

  Paul applied a knife to his corned beef, but it was so tender it fell apart immediately. He laid the knife aside and continued with his fork. ‘And what am I supposed to do while you’re away?’

  ‘So, you’re OK with it, then?’ It wasn’t an argument, exactly, but I was surprised to have won it so easily.

  ‘As the Borg say on Star Trek, “Resistance is futile.”’

  ‘Do what you usually do in the summer, sweetheart,’ I suggested, getting back to his original question. ‘Coach sailing. June, July …’ I waved a well-buttered slice of soda bread. ‘When you go offshore with the mids, I’m practically a widow. Not that I begrudge you the time at sea.’

  Paul smiled. ‘It’s how I keep my boyish figure.’

  That was certainly true. A grandfather three times over, yet Paul remained the same tall, lean, athletic guy I’d married. These days, his dark curls were laced with gray but, to my mind, that was an enhancement.

  ‘There’s a new horse in the stable,’ he said after a moment.

  I must have looked puzzled because he quickly added, ‘A Swan 56.’

  Swans, I knew, were beautifully built, budget-busting sailboats. ‘Donated to the Naval Academy fleet?’ I guessed.

  Paul nodded. ‘Last fall. A sweet, fifty-six footer formerly known as Neva. A proven offshore racer. She’s called Apollo now.’

  ‘Isn’t it bad luck to rename a boat?’ I asked.

  ‘Not if it’s done properly,’ he said. ‘It involves petitions to Poseidon and incantations to the four winds,’ he explained. ‘And lots of champagne.’

  I laughed. ‘Some of it might even splash over the bow.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So, how are you involved with Apollo?’ I asked, trying to remember if he had mentioned the boat before.

  ‘Shake-down cruise,’ he said. ‘If all her systems check out, we’ll race her to Newport in early June.’

  ‘There you go!’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Most likely you won’t even be here when I’m gone.’

  ‘But, if I am, I will miss your sweet, sweet loving. And your cooking, too.’

  ‘That’s why God invented the hot food bar at Whole Foods, Professor.’

  THREE

  It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

  US Supreme Court, Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, New State Ice Company v. Ernest A. Liebmann, 1931 (285 US 311).

  Six weeks later, at the crack of dawn, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom, chanting, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall,’ and wondering what to wear when traveling with a Maryland State senator. Claire had warned me that state government employees always flew coach, so I wouldn’t be hobnobbing with the rich and famous on the flight, but still. My grandmother Alexander wouldn’t have dreamed of traveling wearing anything less dressy than her Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes – a suit, hat and gloves, not to mention stockings and fashionable shoes. The way folks dressed for commercial flights these days would have given Granny palpitations.

  I decided to split the difference, choosing the middle ground between Grandmother’s navy-blue Lilli Ann suit and short shorts with flip-flops. I pulled a pair of black slacks off a hanger, paired them with a pale peach top, added a colorful jacket from Chicos and accessorized the outfit with a scarf and a chunky silver chain that Emily had given me one Christmas. With my longish brown curls drawn back into a low ponytail, and a splash of makeup, the woman staring back at me from the mirror looked like she was heading to a job interview, something I hadn’t done in years, thank goodness. But, sadly, the necklace had to go. It would set off every bell and whistle at airport security. I tucked it back into the jewelry box and retied the scarf a bit more jauntily around my neck, then went to find my iPhone.

  My Uber driver, a chatty young Nigerian with exceptionally good taste – he complimented me on my outfit – told me he was working his way through an undergraduate degree in animal care and management at the University of Maryland. An hour later, joining the line that snaked through the security checkpoint at BWI, and despite the Uber driver’s approval, I felt woefully out of place among the tracksuits, skin-tight leggings and tank tops worn by many of the female travelers. And men! Whoever wrote the law making saggy-baggy jeans, team jerseys and neon-colored athletic shoes the uniform of the day should have been lynched. But at least they were prepared to sleep in the airport should their connecting flight be delayed for a couple of days.

  My boarding pass was stamped TSA Pre, so I didn’t have to unpack my laptop or slip out of my pumps to pad barefoot on the cold concrete through the metal detector. Once on the other side, I found Claire easily, sitting in the departure gate area of Concourse D, a cup of coffee in one hand and an Auntie Anne cinnamon pretzel in the other. ‘Morning,’ I said, taking the seat next to her.

  ‘You have time for a coffee,’ she said, bobbing her head in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company kiosk nearby.

  ‘I’m already wired,’ I said. ‘I haven’t set an alarm for four a.m. since I worked in Washington. Without caffeine, it isn’t pretty.’

  Perhaps that’s why I started when the public address system crackled to life: ‘Passengers Thompson and Ives, please see the United agent at gate D4.’

  I frowned. ‘Uh, oh. What’d we do?’

  Claire stood, grabbed the handle of her carry-on bag and said, ‘C’mon. You may be surprised.’

  Still puzzled, I followed.

  ‘May I see your boarding passes, ladies?’ the agent asked.

  We handed them over. The agent gave me a quick up-and-down glance, smiled and began tapping at her keyboard.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ I whispered.

  The agent looked up. ‘I’m upgrading you to first class.’ A dazzling smile. ‘I trust you have no objections.’

  I held up both hands palms out in a gesture of surrender. ‘No, ma’am.’

  I watched in happy anticipation as our new boarding passes spewed out of the printer. ‘In spite of what you told me earlier, I always assumed state legislators flew first class,’ I said when the agent handed them over.

  Claire wagged her head. ‘Only if we pay the difference. Forty-eight thousand dollars doesn’t go that far.’

  ‘That’s your salary?’ I asked. Seemed pretty generous for three months’ work, but I didn’t say so.

  ‘Plus expenses,’ she said. ‘Miles, meals, lodgings. Per diem, it can add up to another ten thousand or so.’

  ‘So, how did you wrangle this?’ I asked, waving my new boarding pass like a victory flag.

  ‘My government ID sometimes does the trick,’ she said with a grin. ‘That and my charm, good looks and perspicacity.’

  ‘A pleasure to be travelling with you, ma’am,’ I drawled.

  And indeed it was.

  It felt odd being in the first group to board, to stroll leisurely down the ramp, to settle comfortably into wide leather recliners, each with its individual ‘flight entertainment system.’

  And that nonsense about not serving drinks until well after takeoff?

  Rubbish.

  Our flight attendant – an attractive, thirty-something man who introduced himself as Dave – appeared almost immediately, balancing a tray of mimosas in champagne flutes. How could I refuse?

  ‘This is so civilized.’ I took a sip and melted contentedly into the upholstery, grateful not to be sandwiched between two muscle-bound weightlifters on the three-hour flight. I mentioned the experience to Claire. ‘I was flying to a library conference in California. After our meal trays arrived they inhaled theirs, then loomed hungrily over mine. The food wasn’t good enough to worry about, so I simply handed it over.’

  ‘No worries on this flight. Have you seen the menu?’ Claire said, passing one over.

  When dinnertime came around,
we would have a choice of three entrées. After careful consideration, I decided on the red pepper quiche with tri-colored potatoes and sundried tomato and mozzarella sausage, followed by a cup of dark-roast Illy coffee.

  Life was good.

  I’d fallen asleep in the middle of the in-flight movie when something jolted me awake. Next to me, Claire was dozing, too, her Kindle open, drooping from her hand at an unreadable angle.

  ‘For what I pay, you’d think you’d have decent whisky aboard.’ A man’s voice, dripping with disgust, came from behind me.

  Ice tinkled against glass. ‘Dump this out and bring me something decent.’

  I twisted in my seat and looked back, but the blue of the flight attendant’s uniform blocked my view.

  ‘Cutty Sark?’ the attendant asked, his voice surprisingly calm.

  ‘Rot gut,’ the man snapped. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to pull – Dave, is it? But this …’ Ice tinkled again. ‘This is not Glenfiddich. Think I’d fall for the old switcheroo, did you? What’s in it? Four Roses?’ A long, exaggerated sigh. ‘You’d think I was flying Southwest or something.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Dave replied in a customer-is-always-right tone of voice.

  The altercation had awakened Claire, too. ‘Who is that asshole?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ I whispered back. ‘He must have come aboard after we got seated.’

  ‘Bring me a Bloody Mary, then,’ the asshole demanded. ‘And it better have the whole garden in it.’

  I snorted. ‘Garden?’

  ‘Celery, carrot sticks, pickled green beans …’ Claire shrugged. ‘Good luck with that, bozo.’

  I wondered if passengers should be bracing themselves for a temper tantrum. If, after his drink order arrived and it failed to meet his unreasonable expectations, he’d begin kicking the back of my seat like a petulant three-year-old. If, when all was said and done, we’d have to wrestle him to the floor and duct tape him to his seat until the authorities arrived to escort him off the plane at an unscheduled stop in the middle of Kansas.

  I fumbled for my iPhone, made sure it was fully charged, then slipped it back into my pocket. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned toward Claire. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  I wandered forward, gave a sympathetic smile to the flight attendant fussing over the man’s drink in the compact first-class galley, then popped into the restroom. After spending a respectable amount of time there, I wandered back to my seat.

  The guy sitting in the seat directly behind me looked like a prosperous businessman. He wore a dark-blue custom-tailored suit, a conservative striped tie in the new, longer length popularized by the President, and the shoe on the foot that protruded into the aisle gleamed from the efforts of a shoeshine professional. Dark hair, slicked straight back. A stylishly scruffy mustache and a short, neatly trimmed beard. Then his face had disappeared behind a copy of the Wall Street Journal.

  ‘What?’ Claire mouthed when I returned to my seat.

  ‘Wall Street banker, I’d guess. Straight out of central casting.’

  ‘Entitled S.O.B.,’ she muttered.

  The Bloody Mary must have met the guy’s high standards because we didn’t hear any more out of him – except the rustling of his newspaper, and, eventually, snoring – for the duration of the flight.

  At the Denver airport, the guy couldn’t get off the plane fast enough. By the time we had gathered up our carry-on luggage and disembarked, the back of his blue suit was just disappearing through the door at the top of the ramp. ‘Good riddance,’ Claire said as we hustled down Concourse B and waited for the people-mover tram next to a life-sized statue of Jack Swigert, an Apollo 13 astronaut. A few minutes later, on our way to baggage claim on level five of the main terminal, I grabbed Claire’s arm, pulling her to a halt next to one of a series of apocalyptic murals. On the wall, brightly-clad children huddle in a basement while the Angel of Death, wearing a gas mask, looms over them like an evil Nazi, brandishing an AK-47. The scimitar he holds skewers a dove of peace. ‘What were they thinking?’ I said, feeling chilled.

  ‘It’s called “Children of the World Dream of Peace,” Claire informed me. ‘By a Mexican-American artist named Leo Tanguma. He’s somewhat of a social activist.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said, taking in a weeping Madonna cradling her dead infant at the end of a long line of refugees.

  Next to me, someone muttered, ‘Swell. So my flight is delayed, like, for all of eternity.’

  I had to laugh.

  Claire shook my hand free. ‘This is creepy. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another mural somewhere with a happy ending,’ I said as we hurried past the image of a lad – clearly German by his lederhosen – who was using a hammer to beat a sword into a plow.

  Tanguma’s mural just outside the baggage claim area was only marginally more cheerful. ‘In Peace and Harmony With Nature’ featured children grieving over the wanton destruction of the environment. Behind them, seas churned and fires raged. Birds – an auk, a passenger pigeon and a quetzal – gazed out of glass cases with dead eyes. The sea turtle ensnared in a fishing net particularly got to me. I swallowed hard and moved along.

  For the final panel, at least, the artist dressed the children in their native costumes and allowed them to celebrate the rehabilitation and rebirth of the planet. ‘Too little, too late, if you ask me,’ I muttered as I hurried by.

  Once in baggage claim, I kept having the feeling I was being watched. And no wonder. Nothing says ‘Welcome to Denver’ like a demonic gargoyle, the size of my ten-year-old grandson, crawling out of a bronze suitcase. And there were at least two of them leering at me from overhead, disapproving of my every move, daring me to touch a bag that wasn’t mine.

  Finally, carousel fourteen spewed out our luggage.

  ‘Are we taking a cab?’ I asked Claire as I hauled my bag off the conveyer belt.

  ‘Nope. We got a limo.’

  ‘Oooh, I’m impressed.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘It comes with the package.’

  ‘What package?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want anything less than the total experience, would you?’ she said.

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Then stick with me, girlfriend.’

  FOUR

  Marijuana smoking at women’s bridge parties has become frequent, the parties usually ending up in wild carousals, sometimes with men joining the orgies.

  The Union Signal, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 1934.

  We’d been waiting outside the terminal for no more than five minutes when a long, white limousine that had been idling a few hundred yards away swept into an opening created by the departure of a yellow Hertz van and eased soundlessly to a stop. The vehicle seemed to go on forever, so long that its hood would reach our B&B hours before its trunk. I counted five windows, back to front. A logo painted on the passenger-side door read Happy Daze Tours, its letters curved in a semicircle under a colorful graphic of a five-fingered marijuana leaf superimposed over a bell.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said.

  Claire laughed. ‘Our chariot awaits.’

  ‘What’s with the bell?’ I asked, referring to the logo.

  ‘That’s the name of the B and B we’re staying in. Bell House.’

  In Colorado these days, B&B stood for ‘bud and breakfast’ more often than not. Serious cannatourists flocked to such private establishments, the only ones where smoking, weed or otherwise, was permitted on the premises.

  We watched as the chauffeur climbed out carrying a whiteboard that read Thompson in black marker pen.

  ‘That would be me,’ Claire yelled above the noise of the traffic, thumbing her chest.

  The driver grinned, revealing a row of impossibly white teeth. ‘Welcome to Denver,’ he said.

  ‘You must be Austin Norton,’ she said.

  ‘It’s the shirt. It always gives me away.’

  Under an embroidered leather
vest that flapped loosely at his sides, Norton wore a black T-shirt that read: IT’S 4:20 SOMEWHERE. He’d belted the shirt neatly into a pair of blue jeans that had been pressed into a sharp crease. I guessed he was around fifty. An aging hippie, I thought. His hair, prematurely silver, was tied back in a low ponytail.

  ‘Are we waiting for anybody?’ I smiled into his eyes, but saw only my own reflection in his mirrored sunglasses.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘You’re the last.’ He took our bags and somehow managed to fit them, like pieces to an intricate puzzle, into a trunk already crammed with luggage. Then he held open the door, stood aside and invited us in.

  The last time I’d been in a stretch limo had been with a guy named Ron at my high-school prom. This limo, too, had a bar – stocked with designer water – and circular bench seating. But there the resemblance ended. In the Happy Daze limo, LED lights pulsed green, like Kryptonite, turning Claire’s red jacket a dirty shade of gray. A wide-mouthed glass jar containing frosty buds of marijuana took pride of place on a low, central table.

  A young guy holding a glass pipe scooted over to make room for us. ‘Welcome to the Mile High City,’ he said as we cut our way through the smog. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a captain’s hat, soft and faded from repeated laundering, perched at a jaunty angle over his crewcut.

  Claire eased into her seat, inhaled and sighed. ‘Ah, this is what I’m talking about!’

  As for me, I tried not to breathe too deeply. All my fellow passengers seemed to be smoking something: the guy with the glass pipe; a young couple, their blond heads touching, sharing a hookah like a cream soda with two straws; two women sucking on vape pens. I understood about people going on wine tours of Napa or Sonoma, but they’re not opening bottles of merlot the minute they leave baggage claim. Still, it must be a relief to get high without being hassled by the cops.

  ‘You trip out early in Denver,’ the young guy said, as if reading my mind. He took a hit from his pipe, held his breath and closed his eyes.