Memories Can Be Murder: The Fifth Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  Drake, meanwhile, warmed the syrup and put plates and flatware on the table. We again shared the first waffle while the second one cooked.

  "I'm going to spend the morning on the phone," he told me between bites. "Try to get all the details put together on this machine."

  "Can I help with anything, or would it be better if I just went to the office and got out of your hair?"

  "Do you really want to? Help, I mean."

  "Sure, as limited as my knowledge is in this area."

  "Well, I need to get a business set up, and I'm not really sure how you go about that," he said. "What should we do first?"

  "Pick a name for it," I suggested. "Then you'll need to set up a bank account, decide if you're going to incorporate, get a tax ID number . . . About a million little details."

  He stabbed a banana disk and a square of waffle and stuck them both into his mouth.

  "This gets to be a major thing, doesn't it?" he mused.

  "Pretty major. But it's a matter of doing things one step at a time. None of it's difficult, there's just a lot of it. I'll help with it."

  "Charlie, it's a big commitment for you to pitch in and help with my business. Are you sure you want to?" He took my hand.

  "Well, if you're asking whether I'll work in your business full time, I'll have to talk that over with Ron too. After all, we're partners in the investigation biz. I'm not putting in full days, as you've noticed, but he does depend on me.

  "If you're asking whether I can help with the setting up and the paperwork, sure. Of course I want to help."

  "I'd really appreciate it," he said. "We're a great team and I'll take as much of your involvement as you want to give."

  I reached for a maple flavored kiss. "Then I guess I better get with it."

  I rinsed and put the dishes into the dishwasher while he headed for the telephone. I pulled out some basic business forms that I'd stashed in a file when Ron and I started our venture, and put together a checklist of things that would need to be done and questions that Drake would have to supply the answers to.

  "A second phone line is probably going to be a priority, unless you plan to also rent an office at the airport," I told him. "I've already got a list of calls I need to make, and it looks like you do too."

  "I'll order one today," he said.

  I decided in the meantime to go to Ron's office and make my calls. It would also give me the chance to talk to him about the future, a subject that felt like it was rapidly changing for me.

  Yesterday's breezy cool front had brought a dip in temperatures, so I pulled a sweatshirt from the closet. Rusty watched expectantly, wondering whether he'd be better off staying home with Drake or going to the office with me. Finally the lure of staying at home near the dog biscuits won out. I planted a little smooch on the back of Drake's neck as he conversed with an FAA man. He waggled his fingers at me and I left.

  The clear blue sky had an edge to it today. The wind was not as strong as yesterday's but had a frigid quality to it. I cruised up Central and traversed the couple of residential streets to the office. Here, the trees were noticeably more bare than two days earlier. It wouldn't be long before our balmy autumn days were gone. I noticed that the yard service had come by. Our lawn was relatively clear of leaves, the grass had received its final trimming of the fall, and bright beds of pansies had been planted for winter. Both Sally's and Ron's vehicles waited in the parking area behind the building.

  I called out to Sally that I was here. By the time I reached my desk, she was paging over the intercom.

  "Hey sleepy," she teased. "You sure are taking advantage of the cooler snuggling weather these days."

  "Yeah, yeah," I agreed, remembering how I'd awakened this morning to Hannah Simmons' phone call, the delivery of Drake's truck, and the news of my neighbor's burglary.

  "You've only had one call so far," she went on, "a woman named Rebecca Sanchez. She sounded real shaky and asked that you call her ASAP." She read the number off to me.

  Rebecca Sanchez . . . Rebecca Sanchez. Larry Sanchez's daughter, who'd so selflessly given up her own life to take care of him. I dialed the number quickly.

  "Rebecca? Charlie Parker here. What's happening?"

  "Charlie, my father's worse than I've ever seen him. I think he's dying," she wailed. I could tell it was an effort for her not to sob.

  "Has the doctor seen him? Is he in the hospital?"

  "The ambulance came last night and took him to St. Joe's. It doesn't look good. I called you because he kept talking about Bill Parker. That's your father, right? He keeps saying something about his accident. I don't know what any of it means."

  "Can I go see him at the hospital?" I asked.

  "I think you should. He really wants to get this off his chest, and I think you're the only one who's going to know what he's talking about."

  I hung up, wondering what Larry could have remembered after all these years.

  "Hey, you're in!" Ron lounged against my doorjamb, peeling the wrapper off a candy bar.

  "Yeah . . . um, Ron, could we have a little office meeting this afternoon? I'd make it right now, but I just got the weirdest call. A dying man wants to talk to me."

  "I'll be here," he answered. "Today looks like phone calls and paperwork. Just check with Sally, though."

  Ten minutes later I was again driving up Central after confirming that Sally would be able to stay late. St. Joseph's Hospital is right off the freeway, but from my vantage point, it was easier to stay on Central until I got close, then cut over to Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Avenue, formerly Grand Avenue. I never have figured out why our city fathers didn't just select a new street to bestow the honor upon, rather than taking simple old Grand and turning it into a huge mouthful. Obviously, I don't have the correct thought processes to ever make it to elected office.

  I glanced at my watch as I pulled into the uncrowded visitor's parking lot. Noon. I followed Rebecca's instructions and entered the fourth floor hall just in time to catch the heady smell of scrumptious hospital lunches being delivered to the rooms.

  Larry Sanchez didn't have a lunch tray. He was hooked to a number of tubes and bags that I didn't begin to understand, but I assumed he was getting nourishment from some of them. He looked smaller than before—something about hospital beds tends to do that to people. His eyes were about half open when I stepped into the room.

  "Larry? Larry, it's Charlie Parker," I called out quietly.

  His head turned toward me.

  "Rebecca told me you wanted to talk to me," I reminded.

  A slow smile curved his mouth. "Bill Parker's girl?" he said faintly. I sat in the chair at his side.

  "Yes, Larry. I'm Bill's girl. I came by your house to see you earlier this week, remember? We talked about my father's plane crash about fifteen years ago. Have you thought of something more about that?"

  He lay so still I wanted to check and see if he was breathing. Only his eyes moved and I remembered that Rebecca said he was paralyzed from the chest down. Finally his mouth began to work.

  "Bill . . . Bill was on the . . . airplane." Took a deep breath. "The plane crashed. A bomb made it crash."

  "Yes, the NTSB said they found evidence of a bomb," I told him. "Do you know who put the bomb on the plane?"

  "The spy people." His eyelids slowly lowered.

  "Spy people? Do you know their names?"

  "Some said . . . Bill Parker was one of the spy people. But I didn't think so. Security . . . really tight in research. Someone else did it."

  "Who? Do you know any names?"

  "I fell . . . One day I fell. The spy people did that too. I . . . I saw them loading the airplane. And the next day I fell."

  "Larry, you've really got to help me here," I pleaded. "Who were they? What were their names?"

  He breathed rapidly three or four times. "I . . . let me think . . ." His eyes closed again. He had drifted into a light sleep.

  I leaned back in the chair, wondering whether he'd wak
e up again soon. I wanted so badly to learn some names but wasn't sure how much he really knew or whether he'd have the strength to get them out.

  "Mmmm . . . Bill's girl? Are you here?" His eyes remained closed, but his mouth was working.

  "I'm here, Larry. Can you talk a little more?"

  "Mmm hmm. I wanted to tell you . . ."

  "Yes, you'd said something about some spies. Do you know their names?"

  "George . . ."

  "George Myers?"

  "Mmm hmm. George put the bags into the plane . . . And there was a mechanic. He's died. He checked the plane first."

  "What was his name?"

  Larry's brow wrinkled. "He worked for . . . Southwest Aircraft. They, umm, rented the planes. He was curly. He was bald." Something that might have been a smile played across his mouth.

  "Was the mechanic a spy?" I asked.

  "I, umm, not sure. Didn't . . . didn't know him."

  Chapter 19

  I blew out a pent-up breath. Couldn't think what else to ask him and he was plainly getting tired.

  "Larry, I'll let you rest now. If you think of anything else, will you tell Rebecca about it? Ask her to write down what you say and then to call me."

  He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  "Especially if you think of any names," I reminded.

  His breathing had become regular and slow.

  Well, I had one or two clues to follow up on. It was an easy hop to get on I-25 and pay a visit to the airport. If I remembered correctly, Southwest Aircraft was still in business at Albuquerque International and perhaps I could catch Neil Kirkpatrick at the FAA. I steered the Jeep back to DMLKJ Ave. and aimed toward the on-ramp. Even with the noon hour traffic I found the turnoff to the FAA offices less than ten minutes later.

  After trying to explain the reason for my visit to the sour-faced woman at the front desk, without giving away any real information, I was guided through a maze of halls and cubicle-sized rooms to Neil Kirkpatrick's office.

  Kirkpatrick was in the process of returning his telephone handset to its cradle when we entered his spacious glass-walled office. My guide evaporated, closing the door behind her.

  "Mr. Kirkpatrick? I'm Charlie Parker."

  He rose from his chair, six feet of slim black man in a charcoal suit with perfectly pressed white shirt and an Armani tie in shades of gray. He looked more like he belonged in the boardroom of a major corporation than buried in the depths of a federal bureaucracy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His voice only confirmed it—soft, with perhaps a touch of Harvard—when he spoke.

  "Ms. Parker. Yes, Drake Langston mentioned you."

  I was relieved that the bureaucratic roadblock didn't appear to extend past the front desk. Kirkpatrick offered coffee, which I declined, then suggested that we sit. I outlined briefly the background of the case, leaving out the fact that one government employee had already died trying to get answers for me.

  "Call me Neil," he insisted, when I'd finished. "I'm going to be Drake's POI, that's principal operations inspector, when he gets his helicopter company set up." He flashed an orthodontically perfect smile. "We'll probably be seeing more of each other.

  "I do remember the air crash you're talking about," he continued, shifting tracks. "I was here in the office. When you mention it happening on Baldy Peak, it rings a bell," he chuckled, "because our supervisor here at the time was bald as a melon and he used to become quite flustered whenever he had to discuss that mountain. As if, somehow it were named for him. And I guess a few of us who were quite a bit younger then, did sort of snicker over it at times."

  He rubbed his hand over the thinning spot on the crown of his own head. "Of course now, I can relate to a man's sensitivity on that subject." He grinned again, revealing that he could do it with humor.

  "And what happened with the crash case?" I steered him back.

  His chocolate eyes reached for a spot on the ceiling. "The only reason this sticks in my mind is because I was so new here at the time. It was the first case with reported fatalities after I started work in this office. I remembered how jarring it was to realize that, even in this labyrinth of a bureaucratic office, I'd be dealing with life and death situations."

  "Did you go to the crash site?"

  "No, I was a paperwork man, even then. I handled the file at first. Then the NTSB stepped in and took everything we had." He steepled his fingers and tapped them against his pursed lips. "Which I thought was strange, you know. Every other case file we've built since then has stayed in this office, even when the NTSB is involved. We keep our set of documents and they have their own. But not on that one."

  "And no one questioned it?" I asked.

  "There were a few murmurs from the old-timers, but I didn't know enough to question anything myself. Soon, we were on to other cases."

  I couldn't think what else to ask him. Obviously, there wouldn't be any files he could locate for me here. And I didn't want to put him at risk—Jim Williams' death still weighed on me. Neil offered a warm handshake as I stood to leave, as if to apologize that he couldn't offer more answers.

  Southwest Aircraft occupied two large gray hangars with their name in tasteful burgundy letters clearly visible. I parked near the entrance of what I took to be an office and went in.

  A part of the hangar had been partitioned off to form a series of small offices, carpeted in dark gray industrial weave, furnished in sturdy metal desks like school teachers used to have. My stepping on the doormat triggered a ding-ding sound somewhere in the back and a woman emerged from an adjacent room.

  "Hi, how can I help you?" she inquired. Her slim body fit neatly into black size three jeans, which went well with a gray polo shirt decorated with the company logo in burgundy. Her name, Louise, was embroidered on the opposite breast. She was in her mid-forties, with very white caps on her front teeth and a wind-tousled pony tail.

  "Hi. I'm sure this is an odd request, but I'm looking for some information about an employee who worked here about fifteen years ago. Is there a manager I should talk to?"

  "Well, hon, I'm the owner's wife and we're the only two who've stuck around through everything. So I can probably tell you what you need to know. Sit down." She indicated a chair for me and took the one behind the desk herself.

  "This sounds crazy, but I don't know the man's name. And the only description I have is that he was curly and bald."

  "Oh, Curly! That was his name." She leaned toward me. "You know how people always call the biggest guy Tiny or the fattest guy Slim? Well, this was a bald guy named Curly. What can I say?"

  "I understand he was a mechanic?"

  "Yep. Worked here quite a while too—good mechanic. You're not popping up here to say you're his long lost kid or anything, are you?" Louise grinned. "You missed him, cause he died some years back."

  "Oh, heaven's no." I handed her my business card. "My connection with Curly is much slimmer than that, I'm afraid. I wanted to ask some questions about a plane that your company chartered to Sandia Corporation years ago. One that he worked on. You see, the plane crashed and my parents were on it."

  Her face closed immediately. She stared at my business card again. "Private investigators. Y'all hooked up with a bunch of lawyers? Cause if you are, you can just get your little ass out of here right now."

  "Oh, no, no, no," I assured her. "This is purely personal. And I know your plane and mechanic weren't to blame in any way. I've already seen the NTSB report. They concluded that a bomb was carried aboard in the pilot's carry-on bag."

  "You got that right. And that pilot was a Sandia employee, not one of ours. If it had been ours, it probably would have been my Rick and he'd be dead now too." Her eyes reddened as she stared at the desk top.

  It hit me that this is what pilot's wives lived with every day.

  "Honey, you just learn to take it in stride," she counseled, seeing the stricken look on my face. "If it ever happens to Rick, at least I'll know he died doing something he loved. He'd rather have it that
way than to shrivel up from cancer or something."

  "I . . . uh, yes I suppose you're right." I cleared my throat. "Do you have any records that go back that far? I mean, I'm trying to find out the names of the pilot and passengers, and I'm getting nowhere with Sandia people."

  "Oh, that bunch. They probably make the directions to the ladies room top-secret. Well, we'd have made a charter sheet out, although Sandia would have done their own flight following. No public flight plans with that bunch.

  "We never even knew in advance how long they'd keep the plane or where it was going. Just took the Hobbs clock time before they left and again when they got back. Even then, I always suspected that they'd fly real out-of-the-way routes or circle the airport a couple dozen times or something like that so we'd never be able to plot out where they'd gone. I was required to get some minimum information though, like the pilot's name and how many passengers on board."

  "Would there be a record of all that?"

  "Hell, I can tell you the pilot's name—it sure came up often enough after that crash. It was Joe Smathers. He did most of their charter flights. Like I said, he was a Sandia employee. But Joe purposely carrying a bomb on board? No way. Joe was a careful, careful pilot, and he wasn't out to go killin' himself in an airplane. Had a cute wife and two little kids at home. No, Joe planned on being home for dinner every night."

  "Does she still live in town?"

  "Pretty sure she does. I think her name was Kathleen," Louise said. "She got a good-sized insurance settlement. Able to put the kids through school without having to go to work or get remarried."

  I jotted down the name in my notebook.

  "What about Curly?" I asked. "Did he die soon after the crash?"

  "Nah," she said. "It was more like three or four years later. It was a tragic accident, though. He walked into a spinning prop. Was over at Sandia doing some maintenance on a rented plane."

  "Louise, you seem to know a lot of the inside gossip. What was the word going around about the crash?"

  She stopped pushing paper clips around the desk and her eyes found a spot somewhere near the ceiling. "Well, there's always gossip-mostly speculation, cause nobody really knew nothin'. I mean, that thing was zipped up so tight so fast. Hardly anything made the newspapers."