Mum’s the Word
An hour later we pulled into Knob Hill Airport north of Princeton and parked in front of a hangar with a sign over the door advertising flight lessons. We were greeted by the smell of Jet A and the sound of pounding on metal in the near distance. A woman wearing a purple suit sat at the front desk. Her nameplate read Edna O’Toole, and she had a smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial. I gave her my card and told her we were doing research on a crash that happened in the area over ten years ago.
Her smile, if anything, became brighter. “You’ll be wanting to speak to one of our mechanics.” There was an intercom box on her desk. She pressed the switch, and I could hear a metallic version of her voice echoing in the vast space surrounding us. In a minute, a man appeared appropriately smudged and carrying a wrench.
“This is Jim Wilson. He’s the A&P Mechanic on duty. He’ll be glad to answer your questions.”
After wiping his hands on his jumpsuit, he said, “I’d shake with you ladies, but …” He held up his greasy mitts, then pointed to a door on the far side, and we followed him into his office.
Lorraine stood for a moment admiring framed pictures that hung on the wall, antique airplanes floating in bluish pink clouds. She sat next to me, facing Mr. Wilson. In one corner of the room were a set of large books covered in black and beginning with F.A.R. On the other side were old filing cabinets. I could hear the sound of a motor revving in the distance.
“Recent records are in our computer, but we’ve been around a long time and haven’t quite gotten around to digitizing all of them.”
His desk was filled with papers and engine parts, or at least that’s what they looked like to me. In one corner stood what looked like a wooden propeller, varnished and tipped in brass. I showed him my ID and his brows shot up, but I quickly explained we were investigating a crash that happened over ten years ago, shortly after the plane took off from Knob Hill. “We think there could have been foul play: mechanical failure of the push rod was indicated as the cause of the crash.”
Jim Wilson straightened. “We have the finest mechanics on duty, have had for over sixty years. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business.”
“One of your customers, Norris Oxley, and his wife lost their lives shortly after takeoff from this airport. Mechanical failure was mentioned in the NTSB report. But my knowledge of flight control systems is worse than minimal, and I’d like more of an understanding of what may have caused this airplane to crash. That’s why we’ve come to you.”
He asked the date of the crash, and Lorraine gave it to him.
“Before my time,” he said, turning on a desktop computer. He smiled, waiting for it to boot up. “You ladies live around here?”
In a few minutes, he began tapping the keys, peering at the screen. Tapped some more and shook his head. “Not in the computer. Let’s see if we’ve kept a record.” He padded over to the file cabinets and opened and closed metal drawers.
My stomach was doing flips, thinking time was slipping like sand through spread fingers. I looked at the clock. Almost twenty hours since Kat had disappeared.
“Oxley, the pilot’s last name?”
I nodded.
He closed the drawer and shook his head. “Not here.”
“Are you sure?” Lorraine asked. “Please, Mr. Wilson, a child’s life may depend on it.”
“Don’t see how, it happened ten years ago.” He stood for a moment, his brow furrowed, before leaving the room.
Snoop that I am, I stood, seizing the chance to look in the drawers of his desk. As I did so, Lorraine got up and began looking on the top of the filing cabinets. “Nothing here,” she said, as Jim Wilson returned.
“Admiring your view,” she said, laughing.
“Found it,” he said, and blew out air. “Edna had it at the front desk. She’s the one putting them into the computer.”
The springs on his chair creaked when he sat. He looked at his watch, his forehead sweating, his eyes fishlike. “Got a heavy load today,” he murmured, then cleared his throat. “Sorry for keeping you so long. Records aren’t my thing, you know. Give me a plane that limps into the maintenance shack, and I’ll have it airworthy in no time, but I’m no good with this office stuff.” He turned pages with fingers not used to paperwork. In a few minutes, he found an account of the crash and began reading.
Lorraine interrupted him. “That must be from the NTSB. We’ve read that. We want to know what you can tell us of the craft’s airworthiness before it took off for the last time.”
The mechanic stared at her, not understanding at first. “You mean her maintenance records?”
We nodded.
After flipping through the papers in the file, he paled. “Missing the records for this bird,” he said and pressed the squawk box. “Edna, you got the Oxley plane records?”
“You’re losing it. I just gave them to you.”
Mr. Wilson looked like a saint having a vision of hell. I looked at Lorraine, who brushed my hand. We’d worked together long enough for me to know I should give the man some space, so I kept still while he explained that all single-engine planes used for business like the Oxley plane had maintenance checks every hundred hours. They keep records of service checks as well as all other work performed on each plane. But in the case of the Oxley plane, these were missing, probably taken by whoever did the crash investigation.
A cold stone made its way to my throat. I could hear voices, laughter, pounding echoing from the metal walls.
“Do you have a list of mechanics who would have worked on the aircraft?”
He replied that many pilots performed their own routine maintenance—not exactly what I’d asked him.
“Would anyone else have the maintenance records for the plane?”
He seemed relieved and told us Edna would have a list of mechanics on duty the day of the crash. We thanked him for his time as he led the way to the front desk, handing Edna the file and telling her it was missing the plane’s maintenance records.
Edna proved to be more helpful.
“Such an unusual shade of purple,” Lorraine began. “I wore something similar to my son’s first communion.”
And they were off.
Turns out Edna had been working at the airport for thirty-five years and was on duty the day of the crash. “Pull up a chair, and I’ll find those records for you, a list of mechanics and their dates, you say? ’Course, we have FBOs,” she said, explaining FBOs were a sort of middleman, providing various services for the airport, like maintenance and fuel pumping.
“You mean you outsource,” Lorraine said.
“Precisely, my dear. But I know how to gather my rosebuds, you might say. They’re called macros, and when anyone needs information, I use one of my macros to pick the right bunches. What church, love? Wasn’t David the King, was it?”
Lorraine did a double take and shook her head. “Mary, Star of the Sea, but it was a while ago. I just haven’t seen that shade of purple in a long time.”
“Been there, but it was years ago. Thought you looked familiar. Altar and Rosary?”
Lorraine nodded, opening her mouth, but Edna beat her.
“Eggplant—that’s what it’s called today. But I bought it a while ago.”
“It looks like you just took it home from the store.”
Edna beamed and reached down to pick up the pages she’d printed. “Got to dress up or this place can get to you, know what I mean?”
I grabbed the list from Edna’s hands.
“We’re so appreciative of your skills and helpfulness. I feel like I’ve gained a friend,” Lorraine said, shooting me her raised brows.
“List of mechanics organized according to dates.”
The list was long. Knob Hill had been in business over fifty years, and she’d digitized all the records, but there was one name that stood out. I passed the paper to Lorraine, whose eyes widened when I pointed to Garth Goncourt. In parenthesis next to his name, there was a spread of d
ates. I asked Edna about him.
“Interesting man. He left for a while, I’m not sure why. I’d have to look in his file, but I think he joined the army.” She considered. “That’s it. Went to Afghanistan. They needed mechanics, he told me.” Shielding her mouth, she leaned toward Lorraine. “Came back a little clutey, if you know what I mean.” Squinting at her screen, she did the keyboard and mouse thing, bringing up his record. “He was on the payroll when the crash happened. We don’t get many red alerts, you know, so I remember it. ’Course, the crash didn’t happen here. Still, nasty business. Government on our backs for months. Ever so fierce.”
She was like a waterfall of words, and we said nothing, not wanting the flow to stop.
“Don’t know if he was working or had the day off, but he’ll remember. Want his phone number? Not supposed to give it out, although I can’t see the harm in it in your case. Star of the Sea and all,” she said, smiling at Lorraine.
“He’s got a big commute, coming all this way to work. He lives in Brooklyn,” Lorraine said.
Edna frowned. “Not according to my records.” She swiveled the screen so we could see his Princeton address. The Goncourt address.
“He still works here?” Lorraine asked.
Edna nodded. “Seen him the other day. Should be here any minute. Got to do a maintenance check on a flight coming in this afternoon.”
Lorraine’s eyes widened, and I watched her hand make its way to her heart, but neither of us said a word.
Lorraine asked her which flight, and Edna asked us to wait while she called scheduling. “It’s in the computer, but I just want to make sure. Wouldn’t want to mislead.” She waited for a minute, casting her eyes up to the ceiling then over at Lorraine. “That’d be A-7802, Abe Goncourt’s flight. They’re brothers or cousins or something. Plane’s scheduled to arrive at three, or as we say, at fifteen hundred hours. But it might be a little late. Or early, if you get my drift. Hasn’t taken off yet. We’ll know more when it does, and they update the flight plan.”
When I asked her the location of Abe Goncourt’s hangar, she pointed toward the back of the field and told us it was in the middle of a row of them, the largest one. “Can’t miss it, got Oxley Paper written in red letters.”
We were about to leave when I thought of one more question. “Do you have the government’s report on the crash?” I asked. “I’d like the names of the investigator.”
“I think I can find it without too much trouble.” She searched for a couple of minutes, pursing her lips. “Several hundred pages, you know how those government folks can go on, a lot for me to print. How’s about I just give you his name?” After squinting and scrolling, she handed me a slip of paper with a name and phone number. Not that I needed to talk to him, I knew what had happened, but I figured the prosecutors could use it.
“One more thing, Edna. Don’t tell Garth we’ve been here.”
“Don’t worry, dear.”
“And say nothing to anyone else,” Lorraine said, swinging her head in the direction of the mechanic’s office.
“Mum’s the word.”
Little White Pills
“You missed something. Thought you’d like to know.”
It was Jane. She’d called as we were winding up with Edna, so I excused myself and walked outside, blasted by the New Jersey wind.
The blonde detective’s voice was wicked. “Won’t be the first time you glossed over something big, that’s for sure, but I’ve got to hand it to your warped ESP, even though it’s doing squat when it comes to locating Kat.”
“Get to the point.”
“Lab super just called. They found drugs in the Studebaker’s glove compartment. Little white pills in an envelope bearing the Oxley Paper Foundation return address.”
“Little white pills?”
“Roofies.”
I didn’t say anything at first, giving her a long enough time to get in her digs, as in, too bad we’d done such a sloppy job last night and missed the pills—the real find of the evening. Perhaps if we’d seen them, we could have confronted “that Kirsten Goncourt woman” and rescued Kat. But instead, she went on, we’d wasted valuable time, lessening our chances of finding the missing teen in one piece.
I put my brain in neutral, waiting for her paragraph to end. When it did, I reminded her that the Goncourt woman had not been available to talk to last night, and not to put too fine a point on it, if we hadn’t found the Studebaker, her precious lab wouldn’t have found the pills.
I took a breath before segueing into what we’d discovered by talking to airport personnel at Knob Hill, where I was still standing while talking to her, saving the best for last. “Just spoke to a woman who swears she saw Garth Goncourt yesterday. She gave me his home address, the Goncourt residence in Princeton.”
“She’s mistaken.”
“She’s not mistaken. Matter of fact, Garth Goncourt is scheduled to do routine maintenance on Abe Goncourt’s plane. It lands at Knob Hill this afternoon, estimated arrival, fifteen hundred hours.”
Except for the white noise over the network between New Jersey and Brooklyn, the silence was so deep I thought she’d hung up. But in a tic, her breathing became audible, so I asked her if she’d like to hear what I planned to do next.
The Shapeshifter
We had an hour before Abe Goncourt’s flight was scheduled to land, time enough to confront the Goncourts, I told Jane over the phone. I asked her to call the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, which she promised she’d do, to ask him to meet us in Princeton at the Goncourt residence as soon as possible. She paused, and I heard her gulp air before she apologized for her inability to leave Brooklyn at the moment, asking me to disregard some of her accusations, blaming it on the pressure she and everyone else at the precinct were feeling because of the demonstration.
“Crowd’s swelling onto the bridge walkway,” she said. “A lot of them spilling into the roadway. They don’t have a permit to block traffic. It’s stopped. Horns blaring. Lots of Brooklyn salutes. Been a few altercations after the rally, some arrests; it might get ugly.”
I could feel pounding beats in my temple. “Have you seen Denny? He’s not answering my calls.”
There was a pause and I watched Lorraine’s eyes widen as she held her breath and waited.
“He’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Jane said. “Situation’s a little hectic now,” and she disconnected.
Her words weren’t exactly encouraging, but we had to meet with the Goncourts. Just in case Jane didn’t get the chance to call the FBI, I phoned Tig and briefly brought him up to date about the drugs NYPD’s lab found in the Studebaker’s glove compartment, the sighting of Garth Goncourt at Knob Hill Airport, and the scheduled arrival of Abe Goncourt’s flight. I told him I’d be arriving at the Goncourts’ home in Princeton any minute and asked for his help.
“Better if you wait until I can promise backup.”
“Can’t do that. I know who killed Norris and Henriette Oxley, the same people who killed Phyllida Oxley and who took Kat. I know they aim to kill her.”
“Fina, you don’t know that, not for sure …” He stopped talking, probably because he knew it was no use.
“A child’s life is at stake, Tig.”
“Why hasn’t Kirsten Goncourt called me if she’s so worried about her niece?” I asked.
Lorraine shook her head, and we were silent on the short drive from the airport to the Goncourt home in Princeton. Not right away, but soon enough, my buzz was answered and the gates slowly opened. To her credit, Lorraine’s face was a blank as she gazed at the grounds. Through larches laden with snow, I caught another glimpse of their huge home from the drive.
Rip answered the front door. He didn’t look pleased to see us. “Should have called to tell us you were coming. I doubt Kirsten’s receiving. She expected you this afternoon, remember? After Abe got home?”
I grinned. Before he could shut the door, I wedged my foot over the jamb and got close enough to no
tice his blue eyes again, their oceanic depth reminding me, not for the first time, of someone else I’d met recently. When he scrutinized Lorraine’s face, he softened, stooping slightly to shake her hand. At that moment, I knew who he was: his bent form and deep blue eyes gave him away. Lorraine must have recognized him, too. Her mouth opened; her eyes swam huge behind thick lenses, but at the slight shake of my head, she understood not to say anything, and her face smoothed.
“Rip. Is that your name for today? Where’s your parrot?” she asked. “Taller than my son, and almost as handsome.” She gave him a rueful smile. “Fina here tells me you’re in charge, a formidable job.”
Before he could stop us, we charged down the hall.
“Leave now or I’ll call—”
“The police?” I asked over my shoulder. “Go right ahead.”
In the library, Kirsten, clad in her gypsy skirt, chestnut hair falling below her shoulders, stood by the wall of books, shocked when we entered. She swiveled to us. “What took you so long, darling? And I see you’ve brought yours, too.”
“Mine?”
“Your mother-in-law. We’re plagued with them, aren’t we? They change our lives.”
Despite myself, I could feel my cheeks growing hot. “Where is Liese Goncourt?”
“Who knows, darling?”
“You can do better than that. Before the FBI arrives, lead us to her. She’s done so much damage, and for what?”
“She’s been here,” Lorraine said. “I smell her perfume.”
“Does she have Kat with her?” I asked.
Kirsten crossed her arms. “Really, darling, we wouldn’t—”
“Kidnap a teenager? Liese Goncourt will do anything. Anything. She killed her own daughter.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Rip backing up. He was escaping. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Looks like you stand alone. Your assassin is leaving.”
The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Page 21
