howled, that was what let him know we’d really found him.” I paused. “Tony always wanted something from me. And from other people, too, like his old girlfriend Eileen Tobey. He felt as if we owed it to him.”
The general furrowed his brow. “Owed him what?”
“Oh, attention. Contacts.” I could remember Tony’s persuasive smile, the charming twinkle in his eyes. Know any rich doctors? Guess not. Dentists? No. Plumbers? No. How about pilots?
Pilots. Yes, I knew one. One unemployed ex-Braniff captain who had received a FedEx delivery last week of navigational maps. I had been the one who told Tony about Sandy Trotfield. I had told him, too, that Trotfield’s wife ? the one with the money ? invested in art, but she might want to get into venture capital. Tony appeared to be interested in them as clients, but nothing more. Albert had even given them a cookbook. But I knew something else that I?d learned when the Trotfield’s had booked me for last week’s party: Sandy Trotfield was due in today from Rio de Janeiro. It was my guess that it was Sandy Trotfield whom Tony Royce had been waiting for. Sandy Trotfield who had. acted so angry when the cops had invaded his kitchen. Sandy Trotfield who could fly Tony Royce out of the country without attracting attention, and be paid handsomely for his efforts. All this I told the general. I looked out at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, offering a rare glimpse of a Wedgwood-blue expanse. The fast-moving front appeared to be passing through. Could this actually be happening? Could the sun truly be appearing, like Eurydice after a lengthy stint in the underworld?
The general groped under his seat for the cellular phone, found it, and punched in the numbers L told him.
“Yes,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Alexander Trotfield? This is Investigator Beauregard Farquhar of the Furman County Sheriffs Department. We have a fugitive, a murder suspect, a man we believe has contracted you to fly him out of the country? Name of Anthony Royce. We need to know everything about your contact with Mr. Royce.” He listened for several minutes, then gave me a thumbs up. “Furman County Airport? When? One-thirty. Your Citation. Which hangar?” Bo waited while Sandy talked. “Mr. Trotfield,” Bo said urgently, “you may keep this appointment with Mr. Royce. But tell him there’s been a delay. Do not act alarmed. When I arrive, please introduce me as your copilot. We will meet you at the hangar. Yes, the sheriff’s department will reimburse you for all the expenses you incur. Thank you for your cooperation.” He pressed a button to disconnect.
I said breathlessly, “Do you think he believed you?” General Bo glanced at the clock on the dashboard and grimaced. “I’ve got an hour to buy a bomber jacket and find some dye to rub through my hair, just in case Royce got a glimpse of me at the mine; which I doubt.” He reflected. “Did Trotfield believe me? I don’t really care. The one I have to do a good acting job for is Royce.”
I shivered. Sandy Trotfield wanted to be reimbursed for his time and effort. What a joke.
“Hey,” said General Farquhar. “You better trust my acting ability, too. I’m going to need to talk my way close enough to Royce to snag him.”
“Oh, yeah? And where am I going to be?” The general’s face was grim. “Nearby. Holding my gun.”
22
“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not using a gun. I?m calling Tom.”
Bo’s glance was chilly. “You’d better not have him bring those two cops who arrested Marla.
“Don’t worry.”
I called; once again, Tom was not at his desk. I almost screamed with frustration, but instead left a two- sentence message on his voice mail: “The armed and dangerous person you seek is attempting to leave the country from the Furman County Airport this afternoon. We need help to catch him at Hangar C-9.”
By twelve-thirty General Bo Farquhar and I had made two stops. The first was a sporting goods store in the foothills, where the general bought a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. His prominent chin held aloft, he scanned the outerwear racks as if he owned the place, and had just stopped in to pick up a new outfit in which to circumnavigate the globe. I saw him flash his thin-lipped, much-knowing smile at the female sales attendant, who predictably melted. How would he pay for his purchases, I wondered. There was probably a kidnapping charge outstanding against him, and any credit card use was sure to be traced. Well, if we were successful in trapping Tony Royce, we could worry about Marla’s prison break and its consequences later.
“All I need now is a Navy pilot to give me grief,” the general mumbled as we pulled up to our second stop. “They do get their noses so out of joint when a nonflyboy wears a bomber jacket.”
I grinned. “I do believe Navy pilots are the least of our problems, sir.”
General Bo grinned. He was loving this. But I suddenly felt the weight of what we were about to do. The sheriffs department was twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes from the airport. I judged we were a little less than half an hour away. This was all wrong. When I couldn’t reach Tom, I should have called someone else at the sheriffs department and come clean. But thinking about Shockley made me shudder. I just want to see him and Arch again, I thought. And maybe even Jake.
We zipped along toward the airport. Since Furman County is mostly mountainous, the people who built the airport had been at some pains to find an area large and level enough for hangars and a runway. They’d eventually paid a rancher a staggering sum to move his herd of cattle to eastern Colorado. The starry-eyed airport builders had proceeded to divert a local brook, destroy two prairie dog villages, and pave over an elk migrating area while smoothing the rancher’s fields. Then they’d failed to build hangars and purchase computers that were even close to within their budget range. The airport had not been profitable, and the resultant wrath of environmentalists and downgrading of the airport’s municipal bonds had provided juicy material for The Mountain journal for several years.
“Hangar C-Nine,” the general muttered as we came down the incline to the south gate security fence. “Now if we can just… oh, for Pete’s sake.” He stopped the Jeep. Ahead of us a dozen cars stood motionless while a tow truck pulled a station wagon out of a large pool of rippling water. “What the hell ? “
I craned my neck. “Flooding. No one’s going in or out of the south gate for at least a quarter of an hour.” I pointed. “That’s the brook that used to go through the ranch.”
“What ranch?”
“The ranch that used to be where the airport is.”
He wheeled us in a U-turn. “Is there a north entrance to this godforsaken place? We need to find another way to C-Nine.”
At my direction we raced up the state highway until we came to a sign for the small northern entrance to the airport. Like its southern counterpart, the north entrance road also sloped downward to our right.
“Ha!” exclaimed the general, triumphant. He careened the Jeep onto the road and accelerated down the hill. Just as quickly, he braked and stared at the road ahead. “Holy Mother of God.” Hangar C-9 was up a hill to the right, about a hundred feet away. But the security gate and fence were underwater, claimed by the fast-rushing, no- longer-diverted brook. On the far side of the fence, the roofs of two cars were barely visible above the swirling, muddy torrent. “Damn this rain. How are we ever going to get around that?”
I sighed. “Fly.”
Of course, I didn’t think he’d take me literally. But I should have remembered who I was talking to. Bo turned the wheel sharply and gunned the Jeep off the road. Up and down we rocked, with Bo keeping a sharp eye on the water. Finally the road took us past the perimeter of the airport property. Abutting the highway was a small cliff that rose above the original brook. Over the centuries, the water had cut through the stone, so that on the far side of the brook, perhaps fifteen feet away, was another cliff. Bo expertly piloted the Jeep off the road, then brought-it to a stop at the bottom of the hill that led up the cliff.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” I replied. “Remember the last time you and I were together on a cliff over water? With all the moisture in the rock, we could easily precipitate another slide ? “
“So you’re just willing to let Marla go back to jail for, killing this guy who’s about to split forever?”
“There must be another way ? “
“There isn’t. I could take a tank over that cliff: We’ll make it, Goldy.”
What other choice did we have? “We’d better,” I told General Bo.
His face set with determination, Bo pressed the accelerator. The speedometer needle soared upward. My breath seemed permanently caught in my throat. We raced to the edge of the cliff, and then suddenly, we were airborne. My heart beat out the seconds as we flew through the air. Oh, Tom, I’ll never, ever get involved in crime again. I’ll ?
