by T. J. Jones
"Slater, what are you doing? We have an appointment, I'm sure Maryanne is a busy woman." Maggie had walked over and she nodded to my new friend. "Is this man bothering you, Sir?"
He grinned and extended a hand. "I'm Luis, Luis Sanchez, and sure, I'll give you a card. I have a couple of guys I work with too, so we can handle pretty much any job."
"He'll need a lot of help." Maggie offered.
"Why are you always so mean to me?" I asked and just got a shrug and a smile. We made all the introductions, exchanged cards, then Maggie and I walked back up to the big house and rang the bell. Wouldn't you know, they had a butler.
***
Maryanne Thatcher had been a widow for about eight years according to Maggie. If I was inclined to be a gold digger, I would have given up on carpentry, investigating, even Maggie, and pursued the sixty-two year old waiting for us in her office. She was stunning. I won't be sexist or say she looked younger than her years, I'll just leave it at that, stunning.
She sat behind a giant mahogany desk with papers strewn everywhere, half of which were beyond arm's reach. There was a huge map of North and South Dakota on the wall behind her covered with yellow and black stickpins. They created a bumblebee pattern that I presumed designated the locations of all her oil wells. She stood up as we were escorted into the office by the afore mentioned butler. He announced us like we were royalty, halfway bowed, then pulled the door shut.
Maryanne shook our hands, and laughed a little. "Edgar is ridiculously formal, he's old school from New York. Picked him up after the mess in 09, just before Reggie died. Reginald Muffin, if you can believe that for a name. I insisted on keeping my own, thankfully. How would you like to have a daughter in those damn movies named Divine Muffin? The company she worked for actually wanted to use it, but I had so many lawyers on their ass they had to back down."
I couldn't help myself. "Kind of catchy, really."
"Slater's a kidder." Maggie shared.
Maryanne motioned for us to sit then walked behind her giant desk. "It's fine, I gave up being upset about it a long time ago. She's not a bad person, mostly. We talk a lot and she still flies down here once in a while. She was a wild one too, but she didn't leave home until after high school. She still calls her movies Art." She caught me looking at the big map and spun her chair around. "That's my Art. The black pins are wells that are shut down, temporarily. Sooner or later the Saudis will get the price back up where I can make money again."
"North Dakota is a long way from Florida." Maggie pointed out.
"My grandfather started buying land up there years ago, loved the cold. I still own his old cabin. That's how Jasmine got hooked up with this Cletus fellow, met him at Sturgis last summer."
"When she was sixteen?" I asked, ignoring Maggie's look.
"Divine had a boyfriend that was at the rally and she took Jasmine along. She did a piss poor job of keeping an eye on her, apparently. She met this guy and they stayed in touch, ran off a while ago with him to find herself, and do a lot of drugs I'm guessing. Her mother has given up on her, but I'm not going to."
"Did you call the cops? She isn't eighteen."
"The house in Georgia is my summer place, but Divine lived there full time up until a couple years ago. She would fly out to do some movies and send Jasmine down here for a month at a time. But Jasmine's a legal resident of Georgia, the law there is sixteen. My lawyers could make a case for crossing state lines, but what's the point? If I drag her back here kicking and screaming, she'll just run away again. She's incredibly smart, but horribly stubborn."
Everyone thinks their grandkids are incredibly smart, even the really stupid ones. Running off with a thirty-four year old biker didn't strike me as a sign of genius. "If we get her away from this guy and bring her back, won't she just run off again?"
"She ran away from her mother, but I think she'll stay here for me. We always talked about a good college for her, and she always said she wanted that. I never reined Divine in enough when she was that age, but it's time I do that for my granddaughter. I've talked to her by phone and it seems like she's getting ready to cave, but I'd like it to be her choice. I think if you and Maggie go up there, maybe put on a little show like we talked about, she'll see what she's missing and want to come home."
"What do you mean, a little show?" I asked.
"Maggie? Is he on board with this?" They both looked at me.
"Here's the deal Slater." Maggie took a breath. "We go up there, come in like the plane is having trouble, then call for a mechanic only not really. So, the mechanic can't come until the next day, and we get ourselves invited to hang out, maybe stay there because there's six bedrooms."
"Wait." I stopped her. "What if there are forty bikers and no place to sleep? We camp out?"
"Jasmine called me to ask if they could use the place, Mr. Slater. She doesn't seem to have much respect for her mother, but she and I communicate very well. I told her that if there were more than ten people at the house, I would have the cops there. She is surprisingly responsible about things like that. She promised me, and I believe her."
"She's seventeen, you don't see the potential problem with that?"
"I had to get her somewhere safe and I'm a little desperate. Like I said, she's teetering, I think she wants to come home. She just has to get away from this Cletus character, figure out that it's not the way normal people live."
Maggie took over again. "That's where we come in. We go in there and act all happy and lovey-dovey, the all-American couple, we'll say we're engaged. Whatever her happily ever after is, she'll realize she can't have that with the old dirt bag on the bike, or at least that she needs someone closer to her own age. We'll pretend you're closer to my age, not a pervert like her boyfriend."
"You are closer to my age, and I'm not like her pervert boyfriend. Lovey-dovey, that doesn't sound too hard. How lovey-dovey do I get to be?"
She ignored me. "We have to make her understand how she could finish school, go to college, then meet somebody nice if that's what she wants to do. She can't be planning to ride around on the back of a Harley for the rest of her life."
"She's too smart for that." Maryanne said. "But part of the problem is that she doesn't want to hurt this guy's feelings. She can be a handful, but she has a good heart."
"Yeah, we all know somebody like that, right Maggie?"
"It sounds like she just needs a nudge in the right direction. Once I get her alone I can convince her she should ditch this guy, then we wait until everybody's asleep and fly out of there. Got a better idea, Slater?"
"Nothing comes to mind, but if anything happens to my airplane…"
"I'll buy you a new one." Maryanne smiled pointing at the map behind her. "There's still a lot of yellow pins up there, I could buy you a dozen airplanes."
Chapter Thirteen
It was just past three in the afternoon when we made our first pass, plenty high up and a quarter mile away. Maggie had my binoculars and was inspecting the field. "Looks good to me Slater, Maryanne said the airstrip itself gets regular maintenance. Where are all the bikers?"
"The rally starts tomorrow, you'd think they'd be piling in. You don't really believe that girl is going to keep all her boyfriend's buddies from staying there, do you?"
"It does seem out of character for a seventeen-year old. This guy she's with is supposed to be kind of a badass."
"I'm not worried, you can take him."
She dropped the binoculars onto her chest. "No violence, and you should leave your gun in the plane. I'll keep mine on me, just in case. Don't bother telling me that's sexist. Any greasy biker puts his hands on me, I'm shooting him."
"Now you're being judgmental." I mocked. "Most bikers aren't the guys you see in the movies, most of them are eight to five working people that are just trying to get away."
"Those aren't the kind of bikers that take a girl who just turned seventeen for a ride, in the literal sense. Maryanne had this guy checked out before she knew about us, a
nd he's bad news. He's been busted for drugs, and assault, twice. Big too, six one, three hundred pounds according to his driver's license."
"How'd they get that information?"
"Don't know, internet maybe? Maybe they're better detectives than us, we need to get on it and learn all the tricks."
"You really enjoy this don't you, this playing detective?"
"It beats spending my days trying to keep Angela from going over the edge. I'd do anything for her, but it gets to be a grind. This seems good, we're helping people. Davey's Mom would have spent the rest of her life thinking he may have been a drug smuggler and hung himself if not for the fact that we looked into it. That's important isn't it?"
"I haven't explained all that to her yet. I think we need to dig a little more, verify everything."
"Really? You don't believe Susan's story?"
"Yeah, I think. There are some strings I'd like to tie up before I take her off my list."
She lifted the field glasses up again, peering at the distant airstrip. "You have a list of people you think might have killed Davey?"
"Of course, this Diablo, or Whitey guy, he's top of the list. It's kind of a big coincidence, him taking Susy's sister in California, then being the same guy that was involved with Davey. That's why I'm still wondering about Susy."
"That's what I thought. Pretty elaborate story though, if she was just trying to cover her tracks, who else?"
"There are a lot of people on my list."
She dropped the binoculars again, letting them hang by their string and asked the question I didn't want to answer. "Where's my Dad on your list, Slater?"
I shrugged. "You're the one wants to be a detective, where is he on yours?"
***
We made several passes at a considerable distance. Unless you have the eyes of a raptor, a plane on the horizon half a mile away is barely noticeable, but the field glasses I'd brought were hi-definition Vortex 12x50. From four thousand feet I could see Manatee swimming with their pups in the Saint Johns River or spot big alligators in the Everglades. They hadn't been cheap, so finding a practical use for them was nice.
"I only see three motorcycles down there and one of them has a side-car."
"Really? Anybody out in the yard?"
"I don't think so, how do we make sure they see us come in?"
"I'll buzz the house, get in close and hit the throttle, then go to the far end of the field and do a low turn just over the trees, cut the power and coast in."
"That should get their attention, will the duct tape hold up?"
"You're a laugh a minute. Wind is right to get around quick, but we'll have to takeoff downwind tonight or in the morning, and hopefully by then we'll have another body which means more weight. Still, we're not carrying a lot of fuel, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Not worried, you're the one said flying comes natural to you."
"I might bounce us in a little just for show, so don't get nervous, okay?"
I dropped the flaps and came in slow as I dared, just clearing the brick chimney that protruded above the roof of the two-story structure, then went to full throttle to be sure to make as much noise as possible. I flew to the other end of the big field, wobbling my wings, then banking sharply to get lined up with the small grassy runway. I glanced toward the house and saw several people running out onto the porch.
Whoever was in charge of mowing hadn't gotten around to it lately. The grass was so long it was hard to find the ground, and the first bounce was unintentional. I gave it a little rudder which cocked the plane over and corrected with the ailerons to make it look like I was doing a lot of maneuvering, then as we lost speed, braked hard and spun the plane off the runway, hoping it looked unintentional. If any of the people watching us happened to be a pilot they might have suspected our trouble wasn't real.
Maggie tucked the binoculars under the seat, threw the door open, and rolled down off the wing, then fell to her hands and knees. Three of the six people watching us started running and by the time I climbed out they had Maggie sitting in the grass a short distance away. She was sobbing like a pregnant teen on Doctor Phil, very convincing. I ran over, playing the concerned fiancé.
She was being dramatic. "Oh my God, I thought sure we were going to die! The fucking plane just lost power, then it was roaring like it was going to blow up, I was never so scared in my life."
A middle-aged man with very little hair and two women were leaning over Maggie making reassuring noises and trying to get her to drink some water. The balding man was likely the driver of the BMW with the side car, and the short plump woman at his side was undoubtedly his wife, since they were already bickering about the best way to make Maggie feel better. The second woman, big and tough looking, turned to me.
"We heard you come down, I thought sure you were going to crash that thing into the trees."
"I don't know what happened, we lost power, then the engine came back just long enough to get us into this clearing. Just dumb luck there was an airstrip here."
"Bad luck, I'd say." It was a fourth voice, and I turned to get my first look at Cletus Johnson. He was all of three hundred, had just a little more hair than Sidecar, and wore bib overalls and a plaid shirt. If it wouldn't have been for the faraway look in his eye that indicated some form of intoxication, I would have mistaken him for an Iowa farmer down to look for that winter home he and the Missus had been talking about. He stared at the plane like it was a busted combine. "You need to get that thing out of here."
"Yeah, sure." I apologized quickly. "I didn't mean to land here, but it was that or in the trees, and this looked like the better option."
He frowned and spit a wad of snus on the ground between us, then cocked his head and looked back at me. "Are you trying to be a smart-ass?"
Jasmine Thatcher had walked up behind him. "Look at his wife, dipshit, do you really think he wanted to fly that wreck in here?" I was a little unhappy that Jasmine had referred to the Piper as a wreck, but I was glad she had shut down her belligerent boyfriend. He looked at me and frowned, then over at the plane and Maggie.
"Just didn't think you wanted any more people here, Jaz."
Jaz, as her behemoth biker mate called her did have blue hair, half a head of it, and it was spiked. The other side was shaved with a sizable tattoo imprinted across her skull. I couldn't read it and I didn't try, but my head hurt just looking at it. No Pythons or Dragons on her arms or shoulders anyway, and her eyes were clear and her smile welcoming. She was actually quite pretty, hair and all.
She held out her hand. "I'm Jasmine, this is Cletus. Brandon and his wife Gracie are looking after your wife. That's Tracy with them, and Doug." She looked around. "I guess Doug's too stoned to get off the porch. What the heck, we thought you were going to smack right into the woods over there. Is she hurt?"
"No, just scared the crap out of her, me too. Is this your place?"
"My grandmother owns it, we're just using it for the weekend. What's wrong with your plane? Friday afternoon, it's going to be hard to find someone to work on it."
"Fuel I think, maybe the filter or water in the tank. I'm not a very good mechanic, I'll call and see what I can do about finding somebody."
"Sweetie?" Cletus smiled down at her and pointed at a small garage that was on the other side of the landing strip. There was no door on the old structure and I could see the taillights of an older car, probably a Toyota. "Maybe they could just use your Grandma's car and go in to town, fix the airplane tomorrow."
"You're welcome to do that if you want, but let's take your wife inside and let her relax a little. Maybe a cold beer would make her feel better."
I smiled over at Maggie. Sidecar and his wife had gotten her to her feet. "Not married yet, but she does like beer, and the carbs would probably calm her down." I went over and put an arm around Maggie and kissed her cheek. "Sorry about this Hon, but no one got hurt, that's the main thing."
"I told you to hire someone to do the maintenance, but oh
no, you had to try to do it yourself. The whole damn plane is held together by duct tape!" She smiled at Jasmine. "I'm Maggie, and this is Slater, we're getting married next Spring, if he doesn't kill me first. Men, right?"
"Idiots, the whole bunch of 'em." Jasmine agreed. I looked at Cletus, hoping to bond over our shared castigation, but just got an empty eyed stare. He looked down and spit again.
We walked up to the house and met Doug. Doug looked like the biker in Maggie's head, the one the orangutan in the Clint Eastwood movie knocked off his motorcycle. Right turn Clyde, and Doug would get knocked off his bike. Doug looked like he'd taken a few too many shots to the head, or at the very least, too many wrong turns in his life. He smiled vaguely at us and nodded when Jasmine introduced us, then went back to humming and staring off into the distance. If it came to a confrontation, it didn't seem like Doug would be much of a threat. His wife looked like she would be more likely to hurt somebody than Doug, anchored to the rocker as he was.
Brandon and Gracie looked completely out of place in the company they were keeping. They were dressed like tourists and probably had a few years on Cletus. Neither of them seemed altered, drugs or otherwise. Then again, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. It wasn't anything like the scenario I had expected, but it was possible there were still more people coming. As it was, if we could convince Jasmine to leave, Cletus was the only major obstacle I could see. Granted, he was a pretty large obstacle.
"I have sweet tea, beer, diet soda, pick your poison." Jasmine said from the refrigerator. "Feeling any better?" She brought Maggie and I both a can of sweetened ice tea. "Sugar will stop the shakes for now. We're grilling hotdogs and brats in an hour or so, you're welcome to eat with us. Cletus, you should get the grill going."
"I'm fine now, sorry, I'm usually not such a baby." Maggie smiled and drank some tea.
I wondered silently what it would take to really scare Maggie, certainly not something as mundane as a plane crash. I sipped my tea and looked at Cletus again.
