Gossip Can Be Murder (19 page)

Chapter 24

The quality of the faxed photograph wasn’t great. Even knowing who I was looking at, I could barely tell it was a younger Trudie Blanchard. It was obvious why Rita didn’t recognize her. This Trudie had very dark hair, pulled up into a tight knot on top of her head, contrasting the stark whiteness of her skin. Thick glasses with dark frames obscured her eyes—a disguise, or had she switched to contacts now? Her mouth was a hard line. I saw little of the uncertain, needy woman I’d met in Santa Fe.

Drake peeked into my office, looking like every other guy who ducks and runs when a woman goes on a cleaning binge.

“Don’t worry, it’s safe,” I said. I’d downloaded forty-three email messages and trashed more than thirty of them. Same with the regular mail. After sorting out the junk, there were really just a couple of bills to pay and one letter to answer. All of it could wait until tomorrow.

“Pedro’s?” he asked, with that winning little-boy smile that always gets me.

“You bet.” I grabbed my denim jacket and purse and switched out the light so quickly that he did a double-take.

Our favorite little haunt was empty this early in the afternoon. We’d caught them squarely between the lunch crowd and the happy hour margarita drinkers. We kept the chat light as we ate, because I didn’t really want to share the drama of yesterday evening in front of Pedro and Concha, and because I was too busy stuffing my face.

“That was
so
much better than any chef-prepared gala dinner in Santa Fe,” I said.

Thirty minutes later, we’d dragged ourselves away from the table and arrived at home. Rusty greeted me like I’d been gone for a month, but he does that even if I just run to the post office. But the sentiment was nice and I hugged him and sneaked him an extra doggie cookie.

Drake seemed distracted as he went to his home office and checked messages on the machine. He called the one client who had phoned, a rancher who wanted to patrol the perimeter of his eight thousand acres to be sure fences were intact for the upcoming winter. He offered to send me to do the job, but I was secretly glad when the rancher reassured Drake that there was no rush—the work could wait a few days. It was always a pleasure to work for a guy who ran his own show, rather than the government types who’d as soon fine you or dock you if things didn’t go exactly their way. The guy had been pleasant and amenable to working on the weekend or even the beginning of the following week, if Drake were held over. For my part, there were things in Santa Fe that had not quite been answered.

I was in the kitchen, scooping nuggets for Rusty, when I felt Drake’s presence behind me.

“Hey babe.” He had that bedroom tone and in less than two minutes we’d abandoned our poor dog and closed the door to the sanctuary on him. I had to admit that I’d really missed having my sweetheart to snuggle every night.

Shoes and jeans began to pile up on the floor but when Drake took off his shirt I stopped cold.

“
What
are these horrible marks on your neck?” I demanded.

He wasn’t to be deterred. “Hmm… tell you later,” he murmured into the curve of my collarbone.

I took a deep breath. He clearly was feeling quite well, and it wasn’t worth spoiling the moment.

An hour later, however, he wasn’t going to get away without an explanation. We lay in the warm sheets, a tangle of arms and legs when I brought up the subject again. When I heard that he’d been attacked and warned away from his testimony, anger flooded me.

“Sweetheart, calm down,” he said. “It’s done. I know who it was and I don’t have any reason to go near the guy again.”

I sensed there was more to it and my skepticism must have showed.

“Okay, whole story? I have to continue my deposition again tomorrow. And what I have to say is going to nail this guy, Leo Malone.”

He read my worried expression. “It’ll be fine,” he said. He pulled me into his embrace. “There’s another witness, plus I think we can prove his guilt through aircraft records. My testimony is only part of it and Malone can’t get rid of everything that implicates him.”

That made sense and I relaxed a little. But not much. Any guy who would give such a drastic warning might very well go further.

He stirred again. “There’s a weird thing, though. I forgot to mention it earlier . . . one of the attorneys on the opposing side is a guy named David Ratwill.”

“What!”

“A Santa Fe firm. Ron said he’s connected to that case you’re working on?”

All at once my nerves felt wired. I lay there, puzzling over the connections, long after Drake fell asleep.

Chapter 25

Eight o’clock the next morning came way too soon for Drake’s taste. He rolled over and put an arm around Charlie, wishing that the morning snuggle could last awhile longer. She mumbled something about his needing to get downtown and that brought back the apprehension that he was trying to hide from her.

“Hon, just chill,” she said. “I can feel it in your muscles that this whole thing is really getting to you, but don’t let it.”

Easy to say.

“I mean it. You can’t take this stuff personally. Those lawyers are jerks. Don’t let it bother you.”

“I know. And if it weren’t for the fact that they’re trying to make me look incompetent and stupid, I’d like to confront David Ratwill, in light of the things I know about him now.”

“Actually, I’d like to ask him a few questions myself.” She sat up in bed.

 “Forget it. I know what you’re thinking, and you can’t go with me.”

She almost muttered ‘rats’ under her breath. “But, hon, it would be so classic to see his reaction if he saw me there.”

Actually, it probably would be pretty funny. But Drake didn’t need the distraction.

“I’ll bet David has no idea of our connection,” she was saying. “With different last names, he probably has no clue . . .”

“Not this morning, Charlie.”

She sensed the finality in his tone, he could tell by the slump in her shoulders.

“You’re right,” she said. “You have to keep your mind on your testimony. I need to go back to Santa Fe and get the rest of my stuff anyway.”

By the time he made his way to Valdez’s office he’d gotten himself all keyed up again and took a minute in the elevator to take a couple of deep breaths and force himself to repeat ‘it’s nothing personal’ several times. The receptionist greeted him warmly this time and he put on a smile.

“Hey, Drake!” Valdez certainly looked cheery this morning. “Guess what Jen found?”

“The inspection checklist, I hope?” The two men walked down the hall to the lawyer’s private office as they talked.

Valdez whipped out a sheet of paper, a photocopy of the familiar form. Beside each item on the inspection list was a checkmark on a short line. Next to the check, initials confirmed which man had performed each step. Drake scanned down the list; the tightening and wiring of the nuts would be near the end. Every line had a check and set of initials.

“What do you think?” Valdez asked. “I looked it over. Can’t tell if the same guy made all those marks or not.”

Drake shook his head. “I can’t be absolutely sure, either, not on a copy.”

“Let’s hold off and not bring it up just yet.” The lawyer lowered his voice. “See what the other side says first. If we have to, we can get the original.”

Voices in the hall announced the arrival of the other team and Drake felt his stomach tighten. He was glad he’d opted for a light breakfast.

Valdez reminded him: “With everything you say today, just remember that this is the time for the other guys to show their hand. Don’t bring up Leo or the fact that you went to Gallup yesterday, unless they ask about it. Don’t speculate about Leo and Ratwill meeting—in fact, don’t even let on that you know. I want the chance to find out what we can from them, so we have a little ammunition of our own.”

Drake nodded.

“Next week it’s going to be our turn to grill the hell out of their expert.”

That made Drake feel somewhat better as he walked into the room and was forced to shake hands and smile at the men who would, for the next few hours, be his inquisitors. Again, there were three lawyers in expensive suits and their mechanic expert, who looked no more comfortable than he had two days ago.

“Mr. Langston, how are you today?” Malcolm Browne, the other partner in Browne and Ratwill, greeted him with pseudo-warmth. Drake smiled his own version of the social grimace and answered, “Just fine.” He met Ratwill’s gaze and, as if unconsciously, stretched his neck and passed a hand over this throat. He’d purposely worn a polo shirt with his jacket, open at the collar. The vivid purple had gone out of his throat now but the marks were clearly there. Ratwill didn’t blink. Either he didn’t know about Leo’s little communication two nights ago, or he was able to stay extremely composed about it.

The third lawyer, whose name didn’t stick with Drake, had crossed to the back of the conference table and staked out the same chair he’d had at the previous session. As the others took their seats, Drake sent a tight smile toward the mechanic, sending the message ‘enjoy this, buddy, you’re next.’

The session started much as the previous one, with questions from Ratwill about Drake’s qualifications. He answered by rote, telling the truth but not letting the substance of the question or the manner of the questioner affect him. After an hour or so of covering the same ground the lawyers changed tactics, Ratwill appear to be getting impatient. While he took a break for a glass of water the guy in the gray suit started in with specific questions about the crash.

By the lunch break Drake was feeling a bit more relaxed. The things pilots did and the ways they would react to emergency situations were familiar to him. The lawyers had come up with nothing he couldn’t answer with confidence.

At lunch with Valdez, over another burger at Lucky’s, he found himself actually smiling.

“Don’t get too calm just yet,” the lawyer advised, swallowing a large bite of his green chile cheeseburger. “Remember, these guys want to pin the accident on the engine manufacturer. Learning that the pilot wasn’t at fault will go right to their goals.”

“Okay, they’re establishing that the pilot did all the right things,” Drake said, “we’re in agreement on that.”

“Which is good. Finding some common ground with the other side isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Drake dipped a potato wedge in ketchup. “So are they going to ask me about the mechanic’s role this afternoon?”

“My guess, probably so. But who knows with these guys.”

In the afternoon session, Ratwill was absent. Browne took over and began with general maintenance questions, procedures that Drake knew well. He answered confidently when asked about the frequency of inspections and which procedures could be done by an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic and which would have to be signed off by someone holding an Aircraft Inspector license. He readily admitted that he had some experience with the work but was not licensed at either level. Browne clearly wanted Drake to be apologetic or become rattled, but Drake held his own.

“Now, Mr. Langston, in this particular accident case you’ve stated that the mechanic forgot to sufficiently tighten one of the nuts and did not safety wire it.”

“I can’t say whether he tightened it or not. I can say that in the wreckage of the engine, the nut had come off and there was no evidence that it had been safety wired, although the other nuts on that part of the engine were wired.”

“So one small piece of wire brought down the whole aircraft. I find that very unlikely.”

Drake opened his mouth but Browne continued.

“Isn’t it far more likely that there was a defect in the engine’s design or manufacture that caused the failure leading to the crash?”

“This particular engine has been in use for more than twenty years,” Drake responded, “with few problems. I think that would rule out design flaws.”

“
Few
problems?” Browne looked like an angler who’d just snagged the big one. “Then there have been engine failures.”

Drake took a deep breath. “There have been engine failures, but—”

“Note the witness’s admission that there have been engine failures.” Browne turned toward the stenographer.

“This isn’t the courtroom,” Rick Valdez reminded.

Drake continued where he’d been interrupted. “But—in each of the documented cases—three in all, the failure was traced to either pilot error, an inspection not done correctly or other human error. I have documentation.” He reached for his folder.

“Note this evidence for the record as well,” Valdez said, giving Browne the same intent stare the lawyer had so recently aimed at the stenographer.

Drake pulled out the accident reports from the other three incidents, thankful that he’d anticipated this line of questioning. Browne quickly glanced at them and asked that copies be made for his files.

The lawyer continued questioning, throwing in a number of queries that didn’t appear to Drake to have much at all to do with the case.

When Drake asked Valdez about it during the mid-afternoon coffee break, the chubby attorney shrugged. “Some guys like to think they’re clouding the record with stuff like that. It might work in front a jury—throwing out a lot of irrelevant stuff to confuse them—but in this kind of proceeding it just wastes time. My guess is that he doesn’t have much else. He was counting on being able to get you to admit that the engine design could have been at fault.”

They were in Valdez’s office with the door closed, having coffee and cookies that his secretary had left on the cherry credenza. “Why?” Drake insisted, “Why does everyone seem to think that corporations want to deliberately make their products fail? There’s no logic in that.”

“Logic, no. Money, yes.” Valdez topped up his mug. “Get a case like this in front of a jury and nine times out of ten they want to sock it to the corporation with a big money award. Ratwill and Browne know that. They want enough evidence for the judge to let them take it to trial.”

“No wonder every part on the damn aircraft costs so much,” Drake fumed.

“Hey, the corporations know it too. It’s easier for them to agree to pay ten million in a settlement than to risk having a jury hit them for a hundred mil. And the cost of appealing a judgment like that—it gets unbelievably expensive. They’ll pay out of pocket—well, their insurance will.”