Except for the Bones (27 page)

The airport manager leaned forward, picked up Bernhardt’s identification plaque from the top of his desk, studied the plaque, then looked across the desk at Bernhardt.

“San Francisco …” In appreciation, the manager nodded. “Great place. They say New York is where it all happens. But San Francisco—they know how to live out there.”

“I agree. I grew up in New York. I loved the city. Still do. But it’s a lot easier life in San Francisco. Not much cheaper. But easier.”

“So you’re checking up on Preston Daniels, eh?” The manager—Holloway, Bernhardt remembered—leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his neck, and regarded Bernhardt with interest. Holloway was a small, muscular man with a round, hard belly, vivid blue eyes and a quick, mischievous smile. His thick brown hair was crew-cut. He wore a wrinkled summer suit and a garish silk tie. His steel-rimmed glasses sparkled when they caught the light.

“I’m checking up on the woman, really. I need a name. And an address, too, if I could get it. But mostly the name.”

“It sounds like Preston Daniels is headed for a divorce court,” Holloway said cheerfully.

Bernhardt decided on a sly, coconspirator’s smile. “No comment.”

“This lady—had she come here for maybe two or three weekends previously, with Daniels? Is she the one?”

Bernhardt nodded. “She’s the one.”

“But she hasn’t been up to the Cape for two, three weeks since. Is that right?”

“That sounds right, Mr. Holloway.”

“Yeah—well—we’re talking about the same lady, probably. A great-looking blonde, like you said. She’s not the first, you know. ‘Daniels’s blondes’ we call them. They’re part of the show hereabouts.”

“The Preston Daniels sex sideshow, you mean.”

Holloway’s ruddy face broke into another broad smile. “You got it.”

“So how would you say I should get a line on her?”

“Best thing would be to ask Bruce Kane, I’d say. He’s Daniels’s pilot. At least once, I remember, Kane and the blonde flew in together, just the two of them. So I’d think he’d know her name. That time, I remember, the weather was bad. Real bad. Time they got here, she was probably reciting her rosary to Kane.”

“I understand Daniels and his wife are coming to the Cape, maybe today or tomorrow. Would you know about that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do they have to file a flight plan, or anything?”

“They probably do, in New York, or wherever their flight originates. But the first we know, we’re getting a handoff from approach control. So—” On the desk, Holloway’s phone warbled. He picked up the phone, said something cryptic, then covered the mouthpiece as he spoke to Bernhardt: “I’ve got to take this. Find Kane, like I say. There’s a big house out on Sycamore Street, where Daniels’s staff lives. When he’s here, Kane lives in that house. You can get his phone number from the girl at the reception desk. Tell her I said it was okay.”

Bernhardt quickly rose, extended his hand. “I will. Thanks, Mr. Holloway. Thanks very much.”

“B
ETTER BUCKLE UP.” DANIELS
reached across the narrow aisle, handed her one of her seat-belt straps. Without looking at him, Millicent found the other strap, snapped the buckle.

“Did you make dinner reservations?”

She swiveled her chair to face the rear and locked the chair, the approved landing sequence. “No. I don’t want to eat out. I phoned Bessie. She’s left everything out. Squab.” Her voice was expressionless; her violet eyes had gone cold and dead. Stranger’s eyes.

An enemy’s eyes?

Would the weekend reveal the truth, friend or enemy?

“Ah—squab. Good.”

“Everyone buckled up?” It was Kane’s voice on the intercom’s loudspeaker.

Daniels spoke into his microphone. “All set.”

“We’ll be on the ground in about five minutes.”

“Is your car at the airport?”

“That’s affirmative.” Always, when they were in the air, Kane’s language was laced with the flyer’s patois.

“Okay. We’ll take the Cherokee.” He paused, glanced briefly at Millicent’s frozen profile, then said, “Stay close to the phone. Stay in touch.”

“Roger. Gotta get off.”

“Yes …” Still with his eyes on his wife, speculating, Daniels replaced the microphone in its rack.

“W
HAT I NEED TO
have done,” Kane said, “is have a mechanic check the shimmy damper on the nose wheel. And I need to have him do it tomorrow. You know where to get me. Let me know.”

“I’ll do my best,” Holloway said. “But I’ve only got two mechanics this weekend.”

“Well, call me tomorrow, before noon. I’m not doing another landing with that shimmy. If you guys can’t fix it, I’ll have to take a shot at it. So I’ll want to know, one way or the other, before noon.”

“Right.” Holloway waited until the other man got to the door of the office. Then, partial payback for Kane’s scowling bad manners, the airport manager said, “By the way, there’s a guy named Bernhardt looking for you.” He glanced at Bernhardt’s card, still on his desktop. “Alan Bernhardt. He’s a private detective, from San Francisco.”

O
N THE THIRD RING
he heard Daniels pick up the phone, his private line.

“Yes?”

“This is Bruce.”

“Yes …” The inflection had shifted guardedly.

“The—ah—nose wheel. It could be a problem, getting it fixed by Sunday.”

“Then you’ll have to find us a charter.”

“All right. I’ll let you know.”

“Is that the reason you called?” It was a haughty question: the emperor, interrupted during his dinner hour. Unthinkable.

“There’s—ah—something else.”

“Something else?” Another change of inflection, this one plainly apprehensive. The emperor, faltering.

“I’m at the airport. I talked to Holloway. He’s the manager. He said that a private detective wants to talk to me. His name is Bernhardt.”

“Bernhardt?”

“Alan Bernhardt. And he—he comes from San Francisco.”

“San Francisco …”

“Right.”

“What’s he after?”

“It’s about …” Should he say it? Was the line secure? He was in a phone booth at the airport parking lot. But Daniels’s line could be—

“It’s all right.”

Always, Daniels knew what he was thinking, a mind reader.

“It’s about Carolyn.”

“Ah …” The single word was spoken very softly. The emperor, wounded. Flicked by a sword point, blood on the silken sleeve. The first wound of many.

“Does he want to talk to me?” Daniels asked.

“I don’t know. All Holloway said was that Bernhardt wanted to identify Carolyn—wanted to find out her name.”

“Her name …”

“Right. And Holloway told him that I’d probably know. So—”

A police car was turning into the parking lot, coming closer. Chief Farnsworth. Unmistakably, Joe Farnsworth behind the wheel.

“What is it?”

“It’s Farnsworth.”

“Looking for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“If he’s talked to Bernhardt …”

“I know.”

“Call me back—” A pause, for calculation. “Call me about ten-thirty.”

“What about Bernhardt, though?” As he spoke, he saw Farnsworth’s car stop at one of the parking lot’s intersections. “Holloway knows where I live. He told Bernhardt, gave Bernhardt the phone number on Sycamore. What if—?”

“I’ve got to go. Call me at ten-thirty.” The line went dead.

He hung up the telephone and stepped clear of the booth. His car was parked in the small licensed lot adjoining the airport’s main parking lot. It was a Buick Skylark, the same car he’d driven the night he killed Jeff Weston.

To get to the Buick, or to return to the terminal, he must cross Farnsworth’s line of sight. It was as if the policeman had taken up a position calculated to command two fields of fire, trapping him.

Meaning that he must walk down the aisle, pass Farnsworth’s car, nod pleasantly to the fat man behind the wheel, and cheerfully continue walking to his car.

Daniels’s car, really.

I
N THE MIRROR, FARNSWORTH
watched Kane come closer—closer.

Killer Kane …
Where had he heard that name? Was it an old comic-strip character? Buck Rogers, was that it?

With his hands resting on the steering wheel, he waited for Kane to pass in front of the squad car, waited for the pilot to look at him. When it happened, Farnsworth smiled, nodded, crooked a forefinger. He saw Kane stop, stand motionless for a moment, then come to the car, bending down.

“Get in,” Farnsworth said. “There’re a couple of things I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure …” Kane was nodding, putting on a smile, opening the passenger’s door, sliding inside.

Farnsworth put the cruiser in gear. “Have you got a few minutes?” He let the car move ahead, toward the parking lot’s exit. “Something I’d like to ask you about.”

“Sure …” Kane spread his hands. The knuckles, Farnsworth noticed, were scarred.

“I’ll drive down toward Knickerbocker’s Pond.” Fine.

“Good flight?” Farnsworth asked.

“Very good. Except for the traffic, getting into Barnstable on a Friday afternoon.”

“I understand the FAA’s thinking about doing something to take care of the problem.”

“They’re trying to limit touch-and-go’s—training flights—during the summer months.”

“Would that help?”

Kane nodded. “It’d help a lot. But it’ll take a year, at least, to get the damn thing approved. It’s got to go through channels.”

Affably, Farnsworth chuckled, then stepped on the brake, brought the cruiser to a stop on the shoulder of a narrow road that led down the dunes toward Knickerbocker’s Pond. He switched off the engine, set the parking brake, then laboriously levered his body until he faced the other man, who was turning toward him. “The reason I want to talk to you,” he began, “has got to do with a private detective. His name is Alan Bernhardt.” He waited. Then: “Does that name ring a bell?”

A frown, then a puzzled nod. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, Holloway—the airport manager—said something about that.”

“Have you talked to Bernhardt?”

“No. I just landed. And I’ve got a mechanical problem. A shimmy in the goddamn nose wheel.”

Farnsworth decided to say nothing, decided to let silence work for him as he stared at the other man. Finally: “You remember that missing-persons circular I showed you a week or so back, don’t you? The woman named Carolyn Estes, who was last seen here during the weekend of July fourteenth?”

Kane’s face froze as he nodded. “Sure. Carolyn. Did she ever show up?”

“No,” Farnsworth answered, “she didn’t.”

“Hmmm.

“And in the meantime, two other people died. And they were both connected to Daniels, one way or the other.”

Kane swallowed. “Two other people?”

“Yeah. His daughter died in San Francisco. She OD’d. A week ago, I think it was.”

“Th—that’s right. God—” Kane shook his head. “I can’t say I was surprised. But …” He let it go somberly unfinished.

As if he hadn’t heard, Farnsworth said, “And then there’s Jeff Weston, the punk that Diane was apparently screwing. Jeff was killed the day after Carolyn Estes turned up missing. So you can see, they were all connected to Daniels, one way or the other.”

Kane was nodding. “I thought about that, too. Of course, it could all be coincidence.”

“Oh, sure.” Smiling, Farnsworth spoke affably. “No question about it. No question at all.” He held the smile for a moment longer. Then, gently: “Of course, that’s not the way this fella Bernhardt sees it. I understand he and Diane spent some time talking, out in San Francisco. And the way Bernhardt’s got it figured out, Preston Daniels killed Carolyn Estes on the night of Sunday, July fifteenth. Apparently Diane was fooling around with Jeff Weston, out on the dunes near where her father lives, and the two of them saw Daniels haul the body out of the beach house. They followed him when he drove away from the beach house and buried the body.” As he said it, he saw Kane stiffen, saw his eyes suddenly sharpen. Was it surprise? Shock?

“So the next night,” Farnsworth continued, “Jeff Weston gets killed while he’s delivering dry cleaning for his mother. Bernhardt figures Jeff tried to blackmail Daniels, and Daniels had him killed. In fact—” Farnsworth’s mouth twitched in a small, playful smile. “In fact, Bernhardt figures that you killed Jeff, on Daniels’s orders. That’s—”

“But—”

“That’s probably because your car was seen at the scene. That Buick Skylark you drive.”

“My car? But—”

“Please.” Still smiling, he held up a hand. “I’m almost done. Bear with me. Okay?”

Kane made no reply.

“Still according to Bernhardt,” Farnsworth said, “Diane got spooked, and ran away that night. She went out to San Francisco, where her father lives. Bernhardt thinks you followed her out to San Francisco. He thinks you tried to kill her out there. You missed your chance, but she was so shook up, the way Bernhardt figures, that she OD’d, that same night.”

“But that—that’s bullshit. Total bullshit. I
saw
her in San Francisco, but I sure as hell didn’t try to kill her. Christ, I went out there—Daniels
sent
me out there—to get her to go back home.”

“You were seen with a club—an iron pipe, maybe, just about to attack Diane Cutler. Come to think of it—” Farnsworth paused. Then he nodded reflectively, as if an idea had just occurred to him. “Come to think of it, Jeff Weston was killed by a pipe, probably.”

“I don’t think I have to listen to this crap.” Kane’s voice was harsh, defiant. Approvingly, Farnsworth saw the pilot’s eyes harden, saw his hands involuntarily clenching into fists. Yes, Kane was up to the job.

Ignoring the other man’s response, Farnsworth said, “This fella Bernhardt, he’s been all over the Cape, yesterday and today, asking about Carolyn Estes. He’s trying to find out her name, of course. If you want to find someone, pick up someone’s trail, you’ve got to have a name. Then—” Meaningfully, Farnsworth paused. “Then, once you’ve got a name for the computers, then you’re in business. So far, I don’t think Bernhardt’s got much. Everyone knows about Daniels’s blondes, but no one knows them by name. Which is, I’m sure, the way Daniels arranged it. You’d fly the two of them in, and they’d go right out to his place, and have their fun. Then they got back in the airplane, and you flew them to New York, or wherever. The housekeepers didn’t even know Carolyn’s name. So that means—” Another meaningful pause, a final turn of the screw. “So that means that, besides me and Daniels, maybe you’re the only one on the Cape who knows Carolyn Estes by name. Which means that, when Bernhardt finds you, and questions you—and if you give him the name—then it’s Katie-bar-the-door. Bernhardt’ll have a name. He already knows where the body’s buried. So I won’t have any choice but to get a crew together, and tell them to start digging around. And if they find anything, then, for sure, the state attorney is going to issue a warrant for Daniels’s arrest.”