Memories Can Be Murder: The Fifth Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  "As I recall, they only said there was an explosion. Any questions that were raised, you know by the news people or anyone like that, were shoved aside by hinting that national security could be at risk. You know the cold war was still very much alive and well back then. Russia, China, and half of Eastern Europe were our enemies. We couldn't chance any sensitive information getting out to them.

  "Even the news coverage was purposely kept brief. I don't even remember if they told about the explosion. Hold on a minute," she said, "I might just have a copy of the clipping." She stood up and started toward the living room.

  I followed to find her rummaging through a built-in cupboard below the knick-knack shelves. She pulled out a scrapbook bound in red vinyl and carried it to the sofa. I sat beside her as she opened the cover and began to page through it.

  Without a husband or children to fill the pages, Hannah's scrapbook consisted of her work and retirement lives. The work recollections were necessarily brief because of the secret nature of the company. Most of the memorabilia consisted of newspaper clippings and occasional company party and picnic shots. No letters or personal notes were evident. It made me wonder all the more about my father's possession of a notebook. Wouldn't that have been viewed as highly suspicious by the upper echelons?

  Hannah soon found what she was looking for. Two short news clippings, quite yellow and crisp now, covered the story. One headline read "Prominent Scientist Feared Lost." Apparently written before the downed plane was located. The other started: "Aircraft Located—No survivors." It recapped the location of the place, the fact that new snow had covered the scene, and listed the names of those on board—my mother and father among them. Dad was described as "A prominent scientist with Sandia Corporation," nothing more and certainly nothing about his work.

  "Was this all?" I asked.

  "Everything that made it into print," she said. "They never even gave the cause of the crash to the media people. By the time the NTSB had done their investigation, the story had cooled in the public eye and they were able to keep that part of it pretty hush-hush.

  "Course at the office, we knew about the explosion, but even there, no one asked many questions. It was just part of the job. You knew when to keep your mouth shut and when not to ask. Everyone went through numerous clearance checks before getting work there, so that was one thing we all knew, not to talk about anything we heard or saw on the job."

  "Was there any speculation? I mean, even people in top secret jobs get together for a beer after work, and maybe there was a little talk?"

  "If there was, I never heard it," she said emphatically. "Course, I wasn't one of the bunch that went out for beer. I just never got into doing that." She looked pensive for a minute. "Maybe I'd know more now if I had."

  "Can you give me some names? Maybe some people that Dad worked with? Some of those who did go out together now and then?" I asked.

  "Well, let me think. It's been so many years now." She paused and gazed at the ceiling. "Jack Cudahy. That one pops to mind right away."

  "Jack Cudahy, the Congressman? Really? He worked out there?"

  "Sure did. He wasn't a scientist, you know. Had some political connections even then. Something back in Washington."

  I pulled a small pad from my purse and wrote it down, although I doubted I'd forget that name. As she talked, Hannah remembered several more names and I put them down too, along with bits of other information she came up with.

  By the time an hour had passed, she was degenerating into stories about the neighbor's children. Figuring that the useful information had run out, I began to make exit noises so I could make a graceful escape.

  Realizing that it was well into Saturday afternoon and knowing that Drake would be arriving Monday, I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on his favorites before going home.

  Rusty greeted me, in true dog fashion, like we'd been separated a month. He bounded out into the back yard to romp and rub his back on the grass. The temperature hovered over seventy, with a deep blue October sky and no wind.

  This time next month we'd be facing bare trees, gray days, and my thirty-first birthday. And Drake would be here, living with me full-time, and trying to make me decide on a wedding date. I glanced at the diamond on my left hand.

  It was incredibly beautiful, but I didn't want to think about marriage that way. I wanted to be sure we knew each other well enough. It had only been six months since we met and out of all that time, we'd only been in touching range maybe two months. I keep putting him off about a wedding date until we have a little more time under our belts.

  Rusty continued to luxuriate in the joy of rubbing his nose in the green lawn, while I stretched out in a lounge chair to take advantage of the last few hours of those last few precious autumn days. I tried to put my father's notebook and Hannah's revelations out of my head, but it didn't work. Fifteen minutes later I went back inside.

  Still satisfied with the apple pie and tea I'd had at Hannah's, dinner consisted of a bag of popcorn done in the microwave and shared with Rusty as I flipped back through the scraps of messages and notes I'd begun to accumulate. By eight o'clock I'd compiled a master list of names I'd like to contact, with addresses as nearly as I could get them from the phone book.

  Top secret or not, I had a nagging need to know more about the crash and its cause. I fell into an uneasy sleep sometime after midnight with my mind awhirl.

  By seven a.m. I could no longer pretend at sleep. As the sun crossed my bed in rose-gold stripes, I dragged myself from under the warm covers and pulled on the jeans and sweater I wore yesterday.

  Rusty watched curiously as I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I rummaged through the refrigerator while he made a trip outside. Knowing that Drake would arrive within twenty-four hours made me conscious of my waistline, so I sensibly chose cereal with lowfat milk over the more enticing cinnamon rolls. Like one day's dieting would really matter.

  I decided that waffling around the house all day, with my mind jumping from thoughts of the plane crash to thoughts of Drake moving in, would be counterproductive so I decided to spend a Sunday in the office so I could comfortably take Drake's first few days here to be with him. Although he would eventually have to get used to the fact that I do have a job and the honeymoon can't last forever.

  Rusty bounded out to the Jeep with me as soon as I mentioned the word "go." Within ten minutes, we were pulling into the parking lot behind the old Victorian that houses our offices in a semi-commercial, semi-residential part of town. I noted briefly that the yard service had not yet cleared the flower beds or given the lawn and hedges a final trim for the year. I'd have to call them this week if they didn't come Monday or Tuesday.

  The office was quiet and cool. We'd soon have to get the heating system fired up for winter too. I started the coffee maker for a half-pot and put the sack lunch I'd made myself into the refrigerator. Rusty made his rounds of the rooms, checking to see whether Sally or Ron were around. He returned unsatisfied a couple minutes later.

  "Sorry, kid," I told him, "I don't think anyone else is coming in today."

  I walked up to the reception area to see if Sally had left any messages for me. Her desk appeared neat and uncluttered, as usual. Ron's desk was the very opposite, a disaster area that never changed. Neither Sally nor I will touch it. She had tossed a couple of pink message slips on top of the mess.

  My own office brightened considerably when I opened the blinds on the south-facing bay window. The autumn sun should do a lot toward warming the room within a few minutes. I'd left things in pretty good order but a pile of new mail stood in a small heap in the center of the polished wood surface. Warm coffee scent drifted up the stairs from the kitchen so I went back down to fill a mug before sitting down to tackle the mail with letter opener in hand.

  Ten minutes later I had separated out Ron's mail and delivered it to his chair. Anything left on the desk top was subject to being lost forever. My own work was sorted into stacks
of billing to do, bills to pay, and letters to answer. Luckily, I was able to funnel some of the correspondence over to Ron. He's really the private investigator here—I'm supposed to be the financial wizard.

  I put my wizardry to work once the computer booted up. Entered payables first, then consulted Ron's time sheets to produce billing for several clients. One was an aviation company that was having Ron do background checks on some new employees. The plane crash situation came rushing back into my consciousness.

  Maybe I should ask Ron if he had a contact person within the NTSB. If I could get my hands on the accident report it might help clarify some things that Hannah hadn't been able to fill in. Maybe Ron would be up for some of Pedro's green chile chicken enchiladas tonight. He and I really should talk about the whole situation. After all, they were his parents too. He should know about the notebook and papers I'd found.

  I picked up the phone and dialed his number. Got the machine—he was probably out with his kids on a Sunday like this, throwing a ball around in a park somewhere. I suggested to the answering machine that he might give me a call and we could make some dinner plans.

  By noon, I'd pretty well taken care of my financial duties so I stopped for a lunch break before redirecting my energies toward cleaning the offices. Rusty dutifully waited for sandwich crusts and caught a few stray potato chips that managed to leap toward the floor. I switched off the coffee maker, scoured out the sink, and wiped off counter tops and refrigerator. Picked up a dust cloth and headed toward Sally's office and the conference room. I was well into spraying furniture polish and rubbing it around on the desktops when I heard a noise in the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  My muscles froze. Hadn't I locked the back door?

  Rusty dashed down the hall, toenails scrabbling on the hardwood floor, hair raised on his neck.

  "Hey there," a male voice soothed, followed by high pitched kid sounds. Ron and his boys.

  I lowered the spray can I'd automatically aimed toward the doorway. Rusty zipped toward me, tail lowered, headed for the crawl space under Sally's desk. Three munchkins in stair-step order dashed after him.

  "Rusty! Come here!" their pint-sized voices commanded.

  "Whoa, whoa," I intervened. "Give him some time and don't all of you chase him down at once."

  I reached out an arm to capture the lead kid. Justin, Jason, and Joey. What had Ron and Bernadette been thinking when they assigned these confusing names to three kids only fours years apart in age? How did they think I'd ever keep them straight? Especially when they each grew two sizes every time I saw them.

  Ron idled into the room. "Anything happening here?" he asked.

  "Not much. There might be a couple of new phone messages on your desk, but I can't really tell. The new mail is on your chair. I left a message on your machine. Any chance we might have dinner tonight? I have something important to talk about."

  He glanced at the kids, then at me. I shook my head slightly

  "They have to be back at Bernadette's by seven. I could come over after that. Or I could meet you somewhere?"

  I thought about it. "Well, this is kind of sensitive. How about picking up some enchiladas at Pedro's and bringing them over? I think we need to talk about this privately."

  He gave me a quizzical look but was interrupted by a kid pulling at his shirt tail.

  "It's not about Drake moving here, is it?" he asked.

  "Oh no, I'm ready and eager for that."

  He relaxed visibly. He and Drake had hit it off so well when they met this past summer that Ron would have probably been the most disappointed if things didn't work out for me and my pilot.

  "He gets here tomorrow, right?"

  "Yeah. That's why I thought we should go over this other stuff tonight. I may get busy . . ."

  He grinned in a way that made me blush.

  I tossed the dust cloth at him. "Just shut up and bring enchiladas when you come."

  The kids trailed behind him, whining to be allowed to get a soda from the kitchen. He told Justin to get one can and they could all three share it. This met with some groans but hey, life is tough.

  I continued to work my way with the dustcloth around the reception and conference rooms, then on to my office, saving Ron's office and the bathroom for last. At some point Ron and the boys left, with a vague "See ya later" in my direction. I ran the vacuum cleaner over the hardwood floors and Oriental rugs and made an ineffectual stab at Ron's office before deciding to call it a day.

  The sun was a large ball of fire over the western volcanoes as I drove down Central Avenue toward my own quiet neighborhood. The tall trees in this older part of town were well into turning shades of brilliant gold and rich amber. The late sun intensified the colors, making them just short of painful to the eyes. In another couple of weeks, we'd be raking all that color off the lawns.

  The air cooled considerably as the earth swallowed up the bottom of the fire ball in little increments. Smoke drifted in little tendrils from chimneys along the block as I approached my house. We'd soon lose that too, as the city declared "red" air alert days when the winter inversion set in.

  By the time Ron arrived with two Styrofoam containers emitting green chile fumes, I was more than ready. I blended up some margaritas and, although they lacked something that Pedro managed to accomplish, they were passable. We set to work on the enchiladas before they could cool off.

  "I was clearing out some stuff from the attic the other day," I told Ron, "when I came across a lot of Dad's old papers. Did you know he stored notes up there?"

  "Well, he always carried that little leather notebook."

  "Yeah, and apparently a lot more. I found file boxes full of stuff. I haven't had time to look through much of it, and it's probably so scientific that I wouldn't know what I was reading anyway. But I did find something interesting."

  I cut through another bite of tortilla, chicken and cheese before describing the notes I'd seen. "That one notation 'the heat is on' really bothered me. Especially since he wrote it the morning of the day he died."

  I told him about visiting Hannah Simmons and showed him the list of names I'd compiled.

  "Do you remember any of these people?" I asked. Ron is six years older than I and he was probably a lot more conscious of everything that was happening at the time of the crash.

  He scanned the list while chewing slowly.

  "Hmm, George Myers, Wendel Patterson . . . those names ring a bell. And didn't Harvey Taylor and Larry Sanchez bowl in a league together or something?"

  "I don't know. I was a high school kid then, Ron. So wrapped up in dances, clothes, boys—I just wasn't interested in Dad's work life. Guess I only cared that he brought home enough money for a new prom dress."

  "Don't be so hard on yourself," he said, patting me on the hand. "Kids are always like that." I wondered for a second whether he really was referring to me or if he was losing touch with his own kids.

  His attention was already back to the list. "I think you have the wrong address for George Myers. Seems like I remember something about him moving up to the Holiday Park area."

  "Okay. If I can get a phone number for him, I can still see about talking to him."

  "What do you plan to talk about anyway, Charlie? These guys will have all retired ten years ago. They don't know anything that's going on out there any more."

  "But that's just the point. I need to know what was going on then. Why Dad was keeping these notes. What he meant about the heat being on. Why his plane exploded and why that fact wasn't brought out."

  "It was all top secret government work, Charlie. The cold war and all that. Remember, Dad wouldn't even talk about work to us? Every time Mother asked how his day went, the most she'd get out of him was, 'Fine'."

  "I know. But a lot of this stuff has to be declassified by now. The cold war is long over, so what harm can it do to ask around. I'd just like to know that if Dad died for his country, it really was something worth dying for. And if that plane explo
ded needlessly, then someone is responsible and someone is running around out there free while our parents are dead."

  I took a large swig of margarita and nearly choked.

  "You're right about that part," he agreed. "I'd never really considered it, but there could be someone out there who got away with murdering five people."

  "Do you have any contacts at the NTSB, Ron? Could we somehow get hold of a copy of their findings. Hannah told me they did conclude that there was an explosion, but then everything was hushed up. She never heard that the investigation went any further. I want to know why."

  "I'll see what I can do." He twisted at a non-existent mustache. "We investigators haf our vays, you know."

  I cleaned up the food remains after he left, feeling like we might start to move forward with some answers. I'd like to get back up into the attic and start going through the rest of those boxes. Maybe after Drake had been here a few days and we'd had a chance to settle in a little.

  That night I dreamed that Drake and I were in a small plane over the mountains. I woke up sweating and shaking just before a fireball consumed me.

  Chapter 5

  The 767 rolled up to the jetway as I pasted myself to the terminal windows in hopes of catching sight of Drake. Tiny dark silhouettes moved behind the little square windows but none were recognizable. I edged toward the open door where the passengers would emerge.

  He was among the first dozen or so to walk out and he agilely dodged around a wide woman to grab me up in a huge hug.

  "God, that was the world's longest flight," he said. "I was so eager to be here."

  We kissed unabashedly while the crowd flowed around us.

  "How many bags do you have?" I asked, once we'd walked down the long tiled corridor and taken the two escalators to the baggage claim area.

  "Just one. The movers are bringing everything but my immediate wardrobe. In fact, I've been in Hawaii so long I don't even own many winter clothes. I'll probably need to buy a bunch of new things. You can lend your expertise on that."