Getting in a plane didn’t sound too hard.
“According to your theory, the killer had Jack’s body in the car and drove close to the hangar,” I said, feeling sure there was more to come.
“Well, right. Actually, that’s what I want you to do, get the body to the plane. Just to prove it can be done without Mr. Foley knowing anything at all. I want you to drive my car to the back of the first hangar-that’s the one the plane Jack reserved was in-and drag the bag in my trunk down to the hangar. I want you to load that bag in a plane and get in yourself. You don’t know how to fly a plane, do you? It would be great if you could actually take off without him knowing.”
“You should have asked Perry he’s taking lessons,” I reminded her, and she grimaced as if she’d bitten a lemon.
“Perry wouldn’t do it, he’d just think of something else he had to do urgently,” Sally said. “I don’t know if Perry’s so much learning how to fly a plane as learning how to fly Jenny Tankersley.”
I wasn’t going to touch
“So, just get the bag out of the trunk, down the hill, and into the plane,” Sally prompted.
This sounded trickier and trickier. “How heavy a bag?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Oh. Pretty heavy-after all, it’s supposed to be a body.”
“What if someone comes?”
“We’ll just-tell them what we’re doing!”
Sally seemed to think that would take care of everything. I was far from sure that was the case.
“Okay,” I said, hearing the doubt dripping from my voice.
“Good,” Sally said happily, gathering her purse and notepad. “I’ll meet you back here. You have ten minutes, okay? And the object is not to let Foley see you. Or anybody else.”
Sally had made it sound like a kind of game, maybe a macabre version of hide-and-seek. But as soon as I began the experiment, it felt all too real. While Sally entered the office and hopefully began an intense conversation with Stanford Foley, I drove her old Toyota out of the parking lot and up the little graveled trail. The car lurched as I navigated it through the ruts, and my stomach began to match its motion.
I was up behind the first hangar in no time. I parked and got out, Sally’s enormous bunch of keys hanging from my hand. No one ran out of the hangar or the office to demand an accounting of what I was doing. If I looked hard I could see Sally’s head through one of the back windows of the office.
Time for phase two. I unlocked the trunk and stared at its contents with dismay. When Sally had said “bag” I’d thought of a garbage bag filled with laundry or yard rakings. What Sally had wedged in her trunk was an actual punching bag that she’d appropriated from someone’s garage. The chain it had dangled from was still attached to three rings on the top of the bag, coming together to link on one large ring.
“Son of a
That certainly didn’t mean anything in the context of my predicament, but it really made me feel better. “Okay,” I said, trying to bolster my courage and muscle power. “Okay, here we go.” And muttering further encouraging things and heaving with all my might, I got the punching bag out of the trunk.
If the chains hadn’t been attached, Sally’s little experiment would have ended right then and there. The only other way I could get the bag, which I estimated to weigh seventy pounds, down the slope would be to roll it. That would work with the bag, though the trip downhill might be rather uncontrollable, but with Jack’s body it would not have done at all.
So I grabbed the chains, for after all, Jack could have been grabbed under the arms, and I dragged the bag downhill, feeling toward the end that my arms were going to come out of their sockets. I was quite certain that Sally owed me in a major way.
Halfway down the hill I achieved some self-knowledge. I would never have done this if I’d been single, because of the embarrassment of possibly being seen and questioned. But now that I was married to Martin, I was not so concerned. He gave me the confidence to do what I wanted to do, though it might be incredibly stupid. Like pulling a punching bag down a hill behind a very obscure little airport in northeast Georgia.
Then my foot touched concrete, and I realized I’d made it to the hangar. There was an enormous door right in the middle of the wall and it was wide open. Mr. Foley was not a man to worry about security, despite what had happened the week before. Before I tried to get the bag in, I reconnoitered. The hangar, which felt cavernous, was full of shadows. The plane closest to the back door was green, but there were two little red-and-white ones, both with a Piper logo, either of which might have been the plane that dumped Jack Burns so unceremoniously into my yard. Though the concrete floor certainly had stains on it, the hangar was surprisingly neat, a credit to Mr. Foley. There were shelves on the side, a little room in the corner, and metal drums holding rags and things I couldn’t identify.
Well, the floor being clear was the main thing. I pulled the bag, which I was beginning to hate with all my might, across the smooth, floor to the nearest of the red-and-white Pipers. It was unlocked, to my astonishment. I peered into the tiny cabin, feeling a little curious even though I knew I was supposed to be hurrying. I’d never seen the inside of a plane so small.
I hadn’t been able to figure out how one person could fly the plane and dump the body out at the same time, but now that I could see the cabin, it was obvious that it would be easy. The pilot could lean across the body, which would be propped into the passenger’s seat, open the passenger door, and give a good push, and the thing would be accomplished. It gave me the willies when I put Jack’s face on the passenger, pictured it actually taking place.
Suddenly the loneliness of the hangar felt threatening rather than reassuring. I wanted to get the hell out of there. What was a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? With a strength born of sheer exasperation, I hauled the bag to an upright position, squatted, embraced the bag, and lifted. I almost got it in the passenger’s seat, but my height was the problem. Jack’s assailant too must have had a terrible time unless he was at least a foot taller than me-lots of people were, of course.
I looked around desperately. There, some wooden pallets were stacked against the wall. I ran to get one, put the bag on it, stood on it myself, and with the extra height I managed to wrestle the bag into the plane. It was not sitting up neatly in the passenger’s seat; it leaned awkwardly over into the pilot’s side. But it was in the plane, as Sally had specified.
I returned the pallet, wiped the bag with a rag to remove my fingerprints (wondering all the while why I felt that was necessary), threw the rag back in the metal drum, and hightailed it out of the hangar.
I had to back down the track until I came to the point where it led down to the parking lot. There I was able to maneuver Sally’s car to face downhill. Once I had her car back in its original position, I looked at my watch. Ten minutes, most of which had been absorbed by extricating the bag from the trunk, and hoisting the bag into the plane.
It felt like double that. I closed my eyes, scrunched down in the passenger’s seat, and wondered if I could go to sleep. No, here came Sally accompanied by an older man who had a fine head of gray hair and an orange jumpsuit that looked quite good on him. An earphone set was around his neck, the little gray pads looking like buds on the ends of the metal arc. Wires led down to a tape player strapped to his waist, like the set Angel listened to so often while she did yardwork.
Sally was smiling and Stanford Foley was smiling, and I wondered if I was seeing the start of a Good Thing. The tall older man caught sight of me in the car, and said something to Sally, something on the order of “Why didn’t your friend come in?” because I could see the question on his face. Sally said something with a conspiratorial smile and he began laughing. I decided Sally’s debt had just escalated.
She said a few more words, then traipsed down the sidewalk and slid into the car. Stanford Foley watched her with a happy face. I handed Sally the keys, and she started the motor under the watchful beam of her new swain.
When Sally had finished smiling and waving, and actually reversed the car, I asked in an acidic voice, “When are you and Stanford going out?”
“Oh, Roe,” she said in a wounded way, “can’t I enjoy a man’s company for just a little minute?”
“Not when I’ve been yanking my muscles all to pieces for you,” I said, and I meant it.
“So, tell me about it. How long did it take? I couldn’t believe it when I looked out the window and the Toyota was back.” Sally could be tactful when she chose, and she could tell she’d better choose now.
I gave her as long an account of my ordeal as I could, since it had lasted only ten minutes.
