Flight ik-8

by Jan Burke

  “Okay,” Seth said, but he still looked scared.

  As Frank stepped out into the hall, he saw that the dogs had awakened Elena. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I’ll handle it,” he said curtly. “Your son needs you.”

  She looked away from him, but didn’t argue.

  Frank took his gun from its locked compartment, loaded it, and moved to the front of the house. He looked through the door’s peephole and noticed it was dark out on the porch. He glanced at the switch — it was on. The bulb was new; he had just changed it about a week ago.

  His head started throbbing again.

  There weren’t many windows on this side of the house — no way to get a clear view of what was out there. He moved to the back of the house instead, and after taking a moment to look around, opened the door to the patio. The dogs liked the plan, too, and raced out ahead of him, rounding the corner of the house. Dunk, the German shepherd, was pawing furiously at the back gate in a “let me at ’em” style. Frank used their noise to cover his own movements and reached the back gate just as he heard an engine start up. He let them out, and they sprinted toward a white van — Deke, the black Labrador, giving chase even after it pulled away. Dunk, meanwhile, concentrated on Frank’s car, sniffing all around it, especially curious about the driver’s side.

  Frank started toward it, then came to a halt.

  Watch your back, Detective Harriman.

  The thought made him look over his shoulder. His next-door neighbor’s lights were on. Jack was a night owl — and a good friend.

  He called the dogs back. Deke had joined Dunk now, and they were reluctant to leave the driver’s side of the car. Frank called to them again, more sharply.

  He hurried them inside the house. “Grab some clothes and the animals,” he said to the others, “and let’s go over to Jack’s.”

  Once there, he made a series of calls.

  Not long after they reached Jack’s, the bomb squad arrived. The explosives experts only looked at the car for a few moments before rapping on the door of Jack’s house and asking for Frank.

  “You were right to call us — there’s at least one device on the car. Why don’t you take everybody down to the beach? We’re going to evacuate the neighborhood.”

  There was some grumbling among his neighbors, but most were more anxious than angry. Jack had the foresight to bring some wood, and they built a fire. Cody yowled pitifully from inside his cat carrier, and Seth had to be convinced again and again that only the cat’s dignity was wounded and that it would not be a good idea to let him out. Elena sat slightly apart from all of them, looking out at the water and not conversing with the others.

  Seth asked Frank where the bad guy lived, and seeing that he was feeling afraid, Frank tried to distract him. The water was relatively calm, and so he showed Seth how to find a good skipping stone and how to throw it. Seth took to it quickly and was soon challenging Jack to try to beat his record.

  Frank had wondered if Jack’s biker appearance — his tattoos, shaved head, and scarred face — would make Seth feel uneasy, but the two of them hit it off immediately. Seth listened with rapt attention while Jack began regaling him with stories from his days on the road.

  “You’ve heard them all before,” Irene whispered to Frank. “Catch a few z’s. Seth will be safe.” At her urging, he pillowed his head on her lap, and as she softly stroked his hair, allowed himself to fall asleep.

  She roused him some time later, when they were told they could return to their homes. The sun was up, but it was still cool along the beach. He shook off his sleepiness and stretched, then did his best to get past the aches from the fight with Myles as they made their way back. Seth took his hand, but talked of nothing but Jack. Frank almost wished he hadn’t seen Irene’s look of sympathy.

  Seth’s new hero had fallen back to the rear of the group, to talk to Elena. Frank told himself that being angry with her accomplished nothing. But he would think of the man in the wreckage of the Cessna, and this boy without a father, and he could not bring himself to forgive her for her silence.

  His aging Volvo was, he was relieved to see, still in one piece.

  “Two devices,” one of the bomb squad members told him. “And for working so quickly, he worked neatly. One was on your ignition. Actually, that was the backup device, in case the first one failed — a pressure device.”

  “Where was that one?”

  “Under the driver’s-side seat. When you told me the dogs had been interested in that side of the car, I made sure we checked it out. The device was rigged so that if you sat down on the seat, your weight would trigger an explosion. If something went wrong with that, when you started the car, you would have triggered a second device, under the hood.”

  Frank’s mouth went dry, but he managed to ask, “Any clues to the identity of the bomber?”

  “When we study the devices, we’ll probably know more about him than he’d ever guess we could know. They weren’t unique in construction, per se, but — strange thing is, they are built almost exactly like the ones a guy named Wendell Leroy Wallace built seven or eight years ago — same materials, same design, everything — and the really weird thing is, his initials were on this one — W.L.W.”

  “I remember those cases,” Frank said. “Series of car bombs. He had some grudge against the company he worked for.”

  “Right, that’s the one. But Wendell’s been dead for years. He went the way of a lot of the guys who take up this bomb-making work — the on-the-job training is murder. I’ll bet there are still little pieces of him embedded in the oak tree near what was left of his garage.”

  Frank thought for a moment, then said, “Who did the lab work on those cases, county or city?”

  “County, mostly. We’ve got the bomb squad. But of course, there was cooperation between your lab and ours. On that case, we were going all-out, so I’m sure the information was shared.”

  “You’ve been in this business awhile?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, and I’ve still got all my fingers, although my hearing’s going.”

  “How long?”

  “About eighteen years. Why?”

  “What’s your guess about this guy — the one who placed these bombs?”

  “An off-the-record guess? Whoever made them hasn’t done this sort of thing around here lately, because I would have recognized anything done in Wendell’s style. So it’s someone who has read about Wendell, or studied him somehow, because I don’t believe that Wendell’s come back from the dead. I almost would believe that, because like Wendell, this guy is as anal as all get-out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A neat little set of packages, all lined up just so, everything clean, ends of the wires carefully clipped and attached, and so on. I’d like to see him caught, because I don’t need any careful bombers — especially any who can install quickly — working in my neck of the woods.” He looked at the stitches in Frank’s eyebrow, the black eye and other bruises, and said, “I suppose it’s foolish to ask if you have any enemies?”

  “A few.”

  “Well, in your line of work, I guess that’s a given.” He started to walk off, then paused and turned back. “Hey, you think you could show me how to fold a paper airplane the way you do?”

  “What?”

  “We found this one under the passenger seat, figured it must be yours. I’ve never seen one folded so elaborately.”

  “I have,” Frank said as the man showed him the plane. “Once before.” And he suddenly remembered the form in one of Professor Wilkes’s folders — the contest entry that had been filled out so neatly by W. L. Wallace.

  42

  Friday, July 14, 3:30 A.M.

  The Dane Mansion

  “Myles, why these lucubrations?” Dane said, entering Myles’s small study. “Are you feeling guilty about striking Detective Harriman?”

  Myles looked up from his desk to see Mr. Dane smiling at him. Mr. Dane was clad in a blue
silk dressing gown into which a pattern of swans had been embroidered. Only the slight swelling and darkening of the area around his right eye marred his beauty.

  “I do regret that deeply, Mr. Dane, but only because it went against your wishes.”

  “Naturally you felt compelled to defend me, Myles. Please don’t lose another moment’s sleep over it.”

  “Yes, sir. But I should point out that I’ve stayed up late going over these papers because I believe I’ve found the pattern we were looking for, sir. I wanted to be certain I was on the right track.”

  “What track is that?”

  “I’ve found something in common in many of the eleven cases you asked me to look into — something other than the fact that the defendants either died unexpectedly or were later convicted of crimes of which you believed them to be innocent.”

  “Yes?”

  “Judge Lewis Kerr, sir.”

  “Kerr? Are you certain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Myles.”

  “Of the eleven, nine of them had been tried before Judge Kerr on other charges.”

  “And found guilty?”

  “No, sir. The judge dismissed their cases. On what some would call technicalities.”

  “Yes, but we all know what that means. When the police fail to obey the law, that law is suddenly reduced to a technicality.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the remaining two cases?”

  “I believe we are looking at random chance there, sir.”

  “You interest me, Myles. Tell me more about the other nine.”

  And so Myles spent an hour reviewing cases with Mr. Dane. At the end of that time, Mr. Dane said, “I would like to have a conversation with Judge Kerr. I don’t think he is our enemy, but he has met our enemy.”

  “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  Myles glanced at the clock. “Later today Judge Kerr will dedicate the new courthouse building — the new annex, I should say.”

  Dane smiled. “My dear Myles, what would I ever do without you?”

  43

  Friday, July 14, 7:00 A.M.

  Las Piernas Airport

  The Looking Glass Man sat in the cockpit of the Cessna, engine running, cleared for takeoff. He had completed his final preflight checks and taxied to the assigned runway, but now he hesitated.

  He had laid his trap for Harriman. Harriman would be dead before he could back out of his driveway.

  He knew Harriman had seen his van — damn those dogs! Still, he doubted Harriman suspected more than a little late-night snooping. At most, he might check to see if an arsonist had placed gasoline-soaked rags on his front porch. That was the behavior Harriman would expect of a man in a white van.

  The Looking Glass Man had taken care of the porch light first. He had simply used a stream of ice water from a spray bottle to accomplish that. Then he had broken into the car and put the pressure bomb in place without incident. It was only when he lifted the hood that the dogs gave the alarm — the ignition device, probably an entirely unnecessary precaution, was the one that had nearly got him caught. But nearly getting caught was not what made him hesitate now.

  It was Hitchcock, of course.

  He had failed to see how deeply involved the man was with Dane. That was irritating. Years ago, when he made his plans to kill Trent Randolph, he had used Hitchcock — chosen him, because of all the members of the task force that was after Dane, he seemed the most vulnerable. Hitch often complained of being in debt. But like others in the department, he seemed completely devoted to putting Dane away.

  To think he had been fooled! Fooled by that doughnut-eating dumpling Hitchcock!

  It took so much of the pleasure out of Dane’s defeat. Why hadn’t he seen that if he could bribe Hitchcock, so could Dane?

  The tower called, asking if there was a problem.

  He replied that he wasn’t sure, that he was going to return to the hangar.

  He had time to spare. One should never fly an airplane while distracted. If he had lived, Phil Lefebvre could have given lectures about that.

  He made up a story for the mechanic about the engine not running smoothly. The mechanic, who had long shown his resentment of the Looking Glass Man’s desire for perfection, agreed to take a look at it.

  The Looking Glass Man removed the smallest of the canvas bags from among his luggage, went into the restroom, and, after unfolding the plastic trash bag he carried in his pocket and laying it out on the floor, set the canvas bag on top of it. He took out a second, smaller bag and placed it on the edge of the sink. On this he neatly aligned the disinfectant spray, paper towels, glass cleaner, and good plain soap that he always carried with him, making sure all the labels pointed the same way.

  His complaints to the owners of this property had ensured that this restroom was cleaner than many public restrooms, but that was not saying much at all.

  He sprayed the disinfectant first, not because he would ever use the toilet in a place like this or even because he thought the spray was effective.

  He liked the smell of it.

  His mother had believed in the powers of this particular brand and had sprayed it rather liberally about their house. For the Looking Glass Man, this scent was as homey as that of baking cookies or hot mulled cider to others.

  Next, he cleaned off the mirror.

  He studied himself.

  The man in the mirror seemed a trifle sad.

  I know just the thing to cheer you up, he told the man in the mirror.

  The man in the mirror appeared bashful.

  Yes, I thought so. You should have just spoken up, you know. There’s really no reason to deny yourself the treat, is there?

  The reflected face showed its complete agreement.

  It’s settled, then. You’ve worked hard all these years. That was the trouble, wasn’t it? You can’t walk away — or fly away — now. Not when all you’ve dedicated yourself to is about to reach its conclusion. Well, you shall have your treat! A few minutes of watching the dust settle over Judge Kerr’s tomb won’t bring you to harm.

  He looked away from the mirror and began to wash his hands. He didn’t use antibacterial soaps, because he believed that overexposure to antibiotics was bad policy. Warm water and soap would do the job. No use overdoing it.

  When he was finished, he would don gloves and put everything away, carefully bagging the trash in the large plastic bag without touching the filthy bag itself. For now, he enjoyed the almost scalding water on his hands.

  He heard a sound, an unfamiliar sound, that stopped almost as soon as he became aware of it. He smiled a little nervously as recognition came to him. He had been humming.

  He never hummed.

  Maybe he was happy.

  He looked in the mirror and thought perhaps he was.

  But still, he couldn’t be sure.

  44

  Friday, July 14, 7:00 A.M.

  Las Piernas Police Department

  Although the bomb squad had assured him that the car was free of explosives now, it had been hard for him to get in the driver’s seat and turn the key. He started to park in the department garage, decided he didn’t want to make it easy for the bomber to take another shot at it, and left the car a couple of blocks away.

  There were three calls on his voice mail, two that had come in after he had left the office on Thursday. The first was from the FAA. Vince Adams, Michael Pickens, Paul Haycroft, and Dr. Al Larson had pilot’s licenses. No one else on Lefebvre’s list of suspects was on the FAA’s list.

  The second was from Blake Halloran, the arson investigator, asking Frank to give him a call back. Frank called, but got Halloran’s voice mail. Phone tag.

  The third was from Chief Hale’s secretary. The chief wanted Frank to meet with him at a quarter to nine.

  He took the paper airplane from his pocket and studied it, then looked over at Vince’s
desk.

  The surface was dusty. Papers were piled up loosely in the in box. The phone sat in the middle of the blotter, where Vince had left it after his last call. Vince was only slightly less sloppy than Pete. Not the man he was after. Had he ever believed in the possibility? Vince? He felt a wave of shame. Yes, he had.

  Then he told himself that he should have felt shame only if he hadn’t considered Vince as a suspect. He had to consider everyone, no matter how close they were to him. That was the problem with these cases all along — no one had looked at any member of the department other than Lefebvre.

  Commissioner Pickens would not have had access to the property room. Which left Haycroft and Larson. Something Dane had said came back to him: “Who learns more about tricks of the criminal trade than police officers?”

  A crime lab worker — especially one with years of experience. He wouldn’t just see it all, he would study it in detail. There was incredible range in these cases, the sort of range a criminalist would see, especially in a lab the size of the LPPD’s. Arson, explosives, booby traps, forgery. Murder.

  He felt his stomach tighten. The implications of having a murderer working in the crime lab went far beyond the Randolph cases or Lefebvre’s death — what else had been tampered with? And how could such an expert be caught?

  The lab wasn’t just a place to learn how crimes were committed, he realized. A criminalist would also know how to avoid getting caught — how to avoid leaving evidence — or how to leave just enough false evidence to point an investigation in a particular direction. He’d have easy access to the property room. Frank, working in an elite detective group like Homicide, didn’t have as much access to evidence.

  While a detective handling evidence from a case to which he wasn’t assigned would risk discovery, lab workers handled evidence from many cases. A criminalist knew which investigators were working which cases — so that he would have known how to devise an anonymous tip that might interest Lefebvre or anyone else.