No, if they did, he was convinced, Cassidy would have gloated about it, as he had about the survival of Harriman and Kerr.
“If what he says is true,” Haycroft said slowly, “why were you waiting for me here? What led Detective Harriman to me in the first place?”
“Well, Detective Harriman claims it started with you telling him some fib about your son’s photograph, which made him suspicious, and he ultimately realized you had a darned good reason to dislike Judge Kerr. But even though he may be convinced you’re guilty as sin, the irony is this — if the D.A. doesn’t have more to go on than that, some dumb judge like Kerr will toss the case out on its rear end. Isn’t that right?”
“Why, yes, it’s true. But you see, there is this little problem of my having taken a hostage now.”
“Well, this is awfully embarrassing to the department, of course. I’m sure Denise there would be happy to say it was all a joke that she went along with just in order to help you out. You release her, and all is fair and square.”
He looked at Denise, who was nodding furiously.
“I think not. I feel safer with her here, you might say. And I am concerned that Vince Adams must have had a little look-see through my plane while he waited for me, so I don’t really believe I can rely on your story. I will be leaving now.”
He began to taxi out of the hangar. “Haycroft!” a new voice said.
“Detective Harriman, forgive me, but I must be on my way.”
“That’s fine with me, but I just wondered if you really believe your papers are the only thing Vince and I might have messed with on that Cessna today.”
He stopped taxiing, then smiled to himself. “Nice try. It’s running perfectly well.”
“To tell you the truth, I hope you think so.”
“You wouldn’t be trying to tell me that you in some way disabled a plane carrying a hostage?”
“How was I to know there would be one? Besides, sometimes lambs must be sacrificed.”
“But you, dear Frank, are no killer of lambs.”
“Things happen to change a man. You weren’t either, before Kit.”
Haycroft was silent. He allowed the plane to move a little farther forward.
“You should know better than anyone, Haycroft, that, sometimes, the legal ways are not the effective ways. I’ve learned that from you. I applied it to your case, too. You just couldn’t be caught by normal means. So I had to come up with something special.”
“You don’t know the first thing about airplanes,” Haycroft sneered. The plane nosed out of the hangar.
“Vince has a pilot’s license. And I don’t need to tell you that a person can learn a lot when he’s investigating a homicide. For example, the NTSB showed me how little it might take to sabotage a plane.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
“Okay, my conscience is clear. Have a
As Haycroft passed, Vince smiled and waved. He was holding an opened five-pound bag of sugar.
“This is nonsense,” Haycroft said, as much to himself as to Frank.
But he thought of Lefebvre’s fall from the sky.
He taxied to the runaway that had been assigned to him that morning.
“Nice try, Frank,” Cassidy whispered to Frank.
“I’ll bet you’ve wondered what it was like for Lefebvre, that last flight,” Frank said, not giving up.
Haycroft was silent.
“I’ll bet you’ve asked yourself, ‘Was he calm when he heard the engine cough and then go silent? Did he panic and scream?’ Now you can find out what you’ll do in that situation. Personally, I’ve got you pegged as a screamer.”
Haycroft let the plane drift a few feet forward.
“Maybe you think you’re such a hot pilot, you’ll be able to land it without power.”
Haycroft increased power so that the engine droned louder.
“But then your emergency locator transmitter won’t work any better than his did.”
The plane did not move farther.
“And you never know what you’ll be flying over when you start to hear that first little sputter. Water, trees, rocky ground. I guess it won’t matter. It will all feel like a brick wall once you actually hit it.”
The plane turned and continued turning. As everyone in the hangar held their breath, Haycroft taxied back. He shut down the plane and climbed out, leaving his hostage within. His hands were over his head. Within seconds, the SWAT team had him down on the floor and Denise was free.
56
Saturday, July 15, 1:00 P.M.
Las Piernas Beach
He watched for a moment before going down the steps to the beach.
