Penelope lifts her enormous chocolate eyes to us, bounces her eyebrows, and whistles softly. “They’re looking for quite a payout.”
No shit. Twenty million dollars is a fair chunk of change.
“I assume you’re one of the defendants?” she asks Billy.
“R & B Ramp Services.”
“Who are the rest of these folks?”
“Windy City Sky Tours owned the plane,” he replies. “We serviced it.”
“And the lawsuit names everyone else who might have touched the plane in passing any time over the past few years?” Penelope asks drolly.
“Pretty much,” Billy replies with a chuckle.
She thinks for a moment. “What does the NTSB say?”
The National Transportation Safety Board investigates aviation accidents, among other things. It never ceases to amaze me that she knows things like this off the top of her head.
Billy shrugs. “They’re investigating. It’ll probably be a few months before they reach any conclusions.”
Penelope leans back while her eyes drift to the ceiling. It’s what she does when chasing a thought or a bit of information that’s just out of reach. My eyes follow, and I watch with interest as a particularly large dust mote breaks free from an old fluorescent overhead light fixture and floats down to land on one of my shirt sleeves.
“Haven’t they been giving public updates?” Penelope asks as I flick the speck of dust aside.
“Just the facts, madam,” Billy says with a goofy little smile he flashes whenever he thinks he’s being clever. In this case, he’s parroting Dan Aykroyd’s Detective Joe Friday in a 1980s motion-picture parody of the classic old television series Dragnet. How in hell Mel indulged Billy by watching that movie with him a thousand times is beyond me. I mean, the movie was okay, but how many times? But that was Mel—anything for her baby brother. His eyes cut to mine to make sure I didn’t miss his witty moment. I reply with an indulgent eye roll.
Penelope’s eyes pass between us before she purses her lips, drops her head, and continues reading. When she finishes, she tosses the paperwork on the desk. “They’re fishing.”
That they are. The lawsuit has no particular focus. Instead, it throws a wide blanket over every potential defendant they can think of and makes every conceivable claim of negligence and malfeasance… and then a few more.
“Butterworth Cole is staking its claim as lawyers for the plaintiffs,” I tell Billy.
“What does that mean?”
“They’re pissing on the case to mark it as their territory in hopes the family won’t look elsewhere for representation.”
“Don’t lose any sleep over it for now,” Penelope tells Billy, then tilts her head to the side. “How long have you been working with these Windy City people?”
“A little over a year now,” he replies.
“Did you know the pilot?”
“Megan Walton. I was introduced when she started, but we didn’t get to know her. The pilot turnover at Windy City is atrocious. As Rick says, ‘If they paid their pilots more than a couple of bucks above the going hourly rate for flipping burgers, maybe they’d stay longer than a month or two.’”
“Who’s Rick?” Penelope asks.
“Rick Hogan, my partner at R & B. He was never comfortable with Megan flying the Cessna and wondered if she was properly qualified. That question gnawed at me from the day she arrived, never more so than on that morning.”
Penelope cocks an eyebrow. “Tell us about Megan.”
Billy frowns. “She’s Jonathan Walton’s niece.”
“Who’s Jonathan Walton?” she asks.
“One of the Windy City owners. He seems to be the guy in charge.”
Penelope nods. “Okay. So, back to Megan. Why was Rick concerned?”
“She barely looks—looked—old enough to have a driver’s license. We wondered how she built enough flight hours to qualify for the gig at Windy City.”
Penelope knits her eyebrows together. “She had her pilot’s license, right?”
“Yeah, and she was rated for the 210.”
“So, why were you concerned?”
“The 210 has retractable landing gear and other complexities that necessitate more than basic private piloting skills. It demands an aviator with experience, not someone who happens to look ravishing in aviator glasses and tight clothes.”
Penelope’s eyes narrow. “That sounds a little sexist.”
Billy shrugs. “That’s not how I meant it, Penelope. The family connection concerned me, and Megan was very much a ‘look at me!’ kind of gal, hard to take seriously. It was so typical of Windy City to exploit the looks of their employees to promote business. All of their pilots looked good—guys and gals. Anyway, the owners seemed much more focused on appearances and marketing than safety. Even before the accident, we decided not to re-up the contract when it comes up for renewal.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Too much trouble. I’m tired of fighting with the cheap bastards to spring for the money to keep their planes airworthy.”
“How long had this Megan been around?” I ask Billy.
His brow furrows while he thinks. “Coupla months, maybe three?”
Not long, then. I follow up with “What happened that morning to concern you?”
“We were on the ramp next to her while she prepped the Cessna,” Billy replies with a faraway look. “When she started to taxi, I realized that I hadn’t seen her bleed the fuel tanks. Neither had Rick, so I ran after her, trying to get her attention so I could make sure she had done it. If she hadn’t, we could do it before she took off.”
“This might be a dumb question, but I don’t know what bleeding the tanks means,” Penelope says.
“You want to make sure you’ve worked any air bubbles out of the fuel tanks before flying,” Billy explains. “The last thing a pilot needs is to have an air pocket block a fuel line in flight.”
I think of air in the fuel lines of lawn mowers and such. “No gas gets to the engine?”
“That’s right.”
“How long does the problem last?” Penelope asks.
Billy meets her gaze. “Until
