Murder Takes to the Hills (35 page)

“We’ll take all we can get, right, Mae?” She gave us each a pat on the head and they left.

And shortly, so did we. After I dropped Cindy, munching on a mint, back at the bank, I circled around and started out toward the airport. I had spoken with Cassie on the phone since we got home, but hadn’t seen her. I thought, if she was there and not busy, a small visit would be nice…I could find out if there was anything new with the Pittsburgh pirates.

As I turned onto the airport road, I glanced back at the town. Green spots were showing here and there, trees had lost their bare look, even the houses looked brighter and some rooftops seemed actually to sparkle in the sun. There was no season here I didn’t love, although if winter were the tiniest bit shorter, I wouldn’t complain. Even so, it was home, and I was glad to be here.

Walking into the large hangar where Cassie parked her beloved plane, I thought I was seeing double. I turned my head this way and that in confusion. Two twin-engine
Beechcraft
planes sat side-by-side, both painted blue and white, both with their noses in the air as if they were above it all, even on the ground.

Cassie appeared from her tiny office in the corner.

“Yes, madam, having a problem with double vision?”

“Don’t be silly. The one on the right is painted a slightly darker blue and kind of an off-white.”

“Truth to tell, it’s just dirty.” She laughed.

“I see. And have you learned to fly two at a time?”

“Alex,” she said, her tone now serious. “I have recently had—I think—two pieces of absolutely fantastic good luck. Even the timing is just about perfect. I can still hardly believe it is all true.”

Not yet even knowing what it was, I was already happy for her; if anyone deserved good fortune it was Cassie. She was one of the most generous and caring people I had ever known.

“Explain, woman!” I commanded.

“Come on into the office where we can sit.” She began talking as we walked across the now less empty hangar.

“There’s a fellow from Vermont who flies in here every month or so on business.

“He told me about this plane for sale cheap at his home airport.”

She took a seat behind the small desk. I carefully removed a bunch of charts from the other chair and put them on the floor before I sat.

“I flew up to have a look at it. It seems it was privately owned by a
fella
who just flew it weekends and maybe holidays and vacations. Why he thought he needed this much airplane just to circle the neighborhood, I’ll never know. He had bought it new, and the logbook showed less than six hundred hours. The farthest he ever flew was occasionally down to the casino in Connecticut and sometimes over to Buffalo to visit an ailing parent.”

“Just got to be too much for his budget?” I asked.

“Well, yes and no.” She took a pack of cigarettes from her desk drawer. “Don’t tell
Lainey
. I’m supposed to keep them in the car, so I have to walk all the way out to the lot to get one.”

She offered me one and I took it, figuring somebody else’s didn’t count against the five I try to allow myself daily.

“The man had some bad luck,” Cassie continued. “He blew a tire on landing and ground-looped off the runway onto the grassy area. Consequently, he had a collapsed undercarriage, a bent propeller and maybe shaft and a slightly damaged wingtip. That accounted for the low price.”

“So what was wrong with the plane?”

“I just told you!” She looked at me in amazement.

“No, you told me that
he
had a collapsed undercarriage…”

“Oh, shut up!” She grinned. “Anyway, I thought of buying it right then and having it trucked down here. It really was a bargain basement price. But I finally decided it wasn’t worth buying when I didn’t even have a pilot for it and would have to pay someone to repair it—it was way beyond my capabilities—so, very reluctantly I told him no thanks.”

“From time to time you’ve mentioned several people who wanted to fly for you using just the one plane,” I recalled. “Giving you a little time off in the busy season until you could afford a second plane. Aren’t any of them still around?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes, but they all seemed just a little off to me. One man told me he was forty-five, but I happen to know he has a son who’s a co-pilot with United. At fifteen, maybe? Another fellow is a bit heavy on the booze. Another one was rough with the plane…you know how I feel about that, Alex. There was a woman I thought would be okay, but I heard her husband was dead against it, so that could have been trouble. All of them had just a little something that made me a tad untrusting.”

“Gotcha. But the plane is here.”

“Yep. While you were away chasing bears around the mountains and drinking mountain dew, a new woman walked into my life.”

She laughed at my expression and explained, “Not that kind of woman.” She pointed at the new plane. “
That
kind of woman.”

“
Jeesh
! Don’t do that to me.”

“Sorry. One day this woman just walked into the hangar, looked around and said, ‘How do you feel about a relief pilot and mechanic with twenty years experience?’ At first I thought it was a joke.”

She laughed and continued. “Her name is Rhoda Bannister and she just finished a twenty-year stint with the Air Force. She wasn’t a pilot, she was a mechanic. However, she’d bootlegged several hundred hours in propeller-driven planes including ones like mine. We took it for a spin and you’d think she had been born in one! She got her commercial license the day she got out of the military, I think.”

“Sounds perfect, Cassie. How did she end up here?”

“Her lover—also a twenty year Air Force non-com—something in communications—is an artist, always wanted to do seascapes as she sat in Colorado and Texas looking at mountains and deserts. So here they are, with pensions, but wanting something extra in the way of money and activity. So Rhoda and I went up to Vermont and looked at the plane and I bought it on the spot—well, me and Choate Ellis and my dad. Had it trucked down, and Rho will start working on it Monday. If she can get it ready for the summer, she’ll be flying almost every day, great for both of us!”

I was delighted for her. In the busy summer months, Cassie was stretched so thin you could about see through her. Sometimes she had to turn down potential customers, which, of course, is never good…all too often they don’t bother with you again. This would relieve a lot of pressure.

“Bright idea time,” I said as I doused my cigarette. “If you and
Lainey
aren’t busy, why don’t we see if Rho and
whatsername
are free for dinner at that new Italian place. And the Poly-Cotton Club opens tonight—we could see what they’ve got going to start the season.”

“Good thinking, actually a good idea to see them in a social setting. I’ll check with them and
Lainey
and call you.” We stood and started back to the main door.

“By the way,” I asked, “what do you hear from your peripatetic Pittsburgh pirates?”

“Finally,
finally,
it’s all locked up. One week from today at approximately two o’clock we will turn in to a fish market and depart for Findlay, Pennsylvania.”

“Oh, good. You got paid? You got a place to stay? Someone will be standing on the landing strip with a candle when you get there?”

“Yes, Mother. Half the fee in advance, half when we get there—before we unload. New floodlights on the strip. And I am staying with a Mrs. Somebody at her nearby B&B…her husband is a deacon in the local church.
 
Can I go now, Mums? I have to pee.”

“I guess so, but don’t say
pee
, dear, it’s too, too gross. Say you have to
use the facilities.”

She aimed a kick at my backside and we parted.

Everyone’s calendar was clear for the evening, so
Lainey
and Cassie picked us up and we headed for the new restaurant in the East End. Rho Bannister and her lover Janie Allen were there ahead of us, their apartment only a couple of blocks from the restaurant. They stood to greet us, and I noted they were both blond and both, as Harmon would say, square-rigged. Standing side by side, they reminded me of bookends. But they were also pleasant, intelligent women and the evening promised well.

So did the new restaurant. The menu included numerous northern Italian selections, so we were not limited to food smothered in thick acidic red sauce, which was what some of our local restaurants termed
Italian.
And the service was quite good for people not yet used to working together. They even had arias from various operas playing in the background.

During dinner, I had another one of my bright ideas.

“Say, Cassie, are you planning on taking Rho along as co-pilot on your Pennsylvania run?”

Privately, I was almost certain she was not, but I would feel much better if she did.
Lainey
gave me a grateful look, and I intuited that she had already made this suggestion and been turned down.

Cassie shook her head and swallowed a bite of food. “No. The men are trying to keep the price down, for one thing, and a second pilot would run up the bill. And the trip isn’t all that long. Anyway, one of them—Frank—is a pilot and can relieve me for a while if I need to
use the facilities.”
She gave me a sweet smile.

I returned the smile. “I just thought it would make a good orientation flight for Rho. You could explain that to your passengers, not charge them for her time, and pay for her B&B if they squawk about that.”

Lainey
gave my hand a squeeze under the table. “See, Cassie, I told you Alex would agree with me! And I will feel so much better.”

Cassie grumbled, “I don’t know which of you is more of a
wuss
. But all right. Rho, it really would be a freebie on your part. The price I finally quoted them doesn’t give me any money to pay you, but you can function as first pilot and log the hours as such. Want to do that? It’s quite okay if you don’t.”

Before Rho could answer, Janie spoke up. She was obviously on the ball.

“I seem to sense a certain tension around this flight. Would you say there is anything unusual about it?”

Cassie laughed. “Only that we are carrying a load of fresh seafood to a cookout for about four hundred people and unless we have nose clips, we better not get stranded en route.”

Cindy looked at me, as did
Lainey
, but I said nothing. Rho and Janie were new to town and would never understand that Harmon’s phantom drug dealers were everywhere from the Baptist church pulpit to the mansion of the wealthiest family in town. It was Cassie’s business.

Rho finally got her answer out. “Suits me fine, just pray for a good brisk tailwind.”

I managed not to take a deep breath, which was more than
Lainey
and Cindy could claim. But I was as happy as they that Cassie would have her own companion on the flight.

We moved on to the Poly-Cotton Club, and our evening went rapidly downhill. The entertainment consisted of two hip-hop guys who plucked frenetically at their guitars and screamed threats to parents, cops and bitches and, I think, the audience and possibly each other. They were too
overmiked
to be sure.

At the end of the set our table and most of the others were all waving for checks.

Otherwise, it had been a successful evening. It seemed to me that Rho and Janie made a good addition to
Ptown
.

At home, I let the pets into the yard to use whatever facilities they could sniff out to their satisfaction. By the time we got back in, Cindy was already in bed.

“Tired?” I asked.

“Not really.” She grinned. “Why?”