Friday Edition, The (17 page)

Sam arrived at the Gilmore residence ten minutes before nine Saturday morning. Brady was sitting on the couch waiting when she rang the doorbell.

The weather had cooperated. It was an unseasonably warm day, though typical for Colorado in winter. They left the house within minutes and spent the next four hours at the exhibit. It had been a long time since Sam saw Brady look so happy.

They were in the Mustang now waiting to leave the airport. Sam kept her eye on the traffic and Brady kept his attention fixed on the sky. “I was gonna be a pilot like that once,” he said.

He was still staring at the sky when Sam looked at him. “Yes,” she said, quietly. “I know, Brady. I remember.”

“Me and Robin were gonna get married and have lots of kids.”

Sam smiled, but his words pierced her heart. “Yes, I remember. Robin wanted that, too, very much.”

“Wanna see a picture?” Brady asked, going for his wallet.

“Sure,” she said.

Sam knew the photo well. He had shown her countless times.

“Here,” he said.

It was a picture of Brady and Robin the day of their high school graduation, the day of the boating accident. They were standing together on a dock at the Boulder Reservoir. The sun was shining brightly on them and their young lives. They were wearing swimsuits and had their hands resting on their hips. Brady looked like an Olympic swimmer, tall and trim. His dark hair was cropped closely to his head in the dated photo. His confidant, sweeping smile spoke of a bright future full of promise.

Sam handed the photo back to Brady.

“Robin looked so pretty in that picture,” he said, studying the photo a moment before he carefully returned it to his wallet.

For a long time neither spoke. They watched the last of the cars leave the airport grounds as single-engine airplanes took off and landed on the distant runways.

“Wanna know somethin’ cool about this airport?” Brady asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the runway.

“Sure,” Sam said. When she turned to look at him she had to use her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

Sam nodded and Brady took that as her permission and he began to spew facts about Truman County Airport as if he was an encyclopedia. “This airport has two 8,000-foot runways with pilot-activated lighting. They just finished building that last runway in September,” he said, pointing in the direction of the new runway.

Sam looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”

“It means that a pilot can land at the airport anytime he wants even at night,” he replied, following an airplane with his eyes as it touched down and taxied toward a hangar.

Brady’s comment stirred something in Sam that made her draw a breath involuntarily. It spoke volumes to her and thoughts skittered through her mind like dead leaves on a porch. “How do you know that, Brady?”

“The airport manager told me.”

“What’s his name?”

Brady shrugged his shoulders and looked at Sam. “Gary something.”

Sam nodded and decided she’d have a conversation with “Gary something.”

They didn’t speak again until Sam parked her Mustang outside Brady’s home.

“Thanks for letting me take you to the show today,” she said. “I enjoyed being with you very much, Brady, it was fun.”

When he looked at her, she smiled. Sam waited until Brady was in the house before she pulled away from the curb. She recalled what he said about the runways with the pilot-activated lighting. She would return to the airport hoping Gary something would be working. She had some questions to ask that could not wait until Monday.

As Sam Church returned to the Truman County Airport, Grandview police officer Rey Estrada was in the middle of working a day shift. He was being dispatched to a busy intersection at Wadsworth Boulevard and Colfax Avenue to direct traffic.

A traffic light had malfunctioned.

The county airport was quiet and empty of cars when Sam returned. As she drove to the main terminal she passed by single-engine airplanes fastened securely to the ground and she remembered Brady telling her that the high winds that often whipped along the Front Range could topple them as if they were toys.

The warm winter sun met her as she walked from her car to the building. There was no one at the information desk as she expected, but she heard the faint sound of a man’s voice and moved in that direction. She followed the sound to the corner office at the end of the hall. He hung up the phone just as Sam reached the office door. She knocked hesitantly and peered inside. “Knock, knock,” she said.

“Hello,” the man said, looking up from his chair.

Sam’s attention was immediately drawn to the windowed-walls, which offered a generous view of the Front Range, showing foothills, draped in snow and magnificently clear, free from the brown cloud that often clung to them on winter days.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes, I hope so,” Sam said. “I was looking for the manager.”

She could detect a hint of rich pipe tobacco in the air as she stepped inside the office.

“You found him. Gary Gorton. What can I do for you?”

His voice was light and soft-spoken. His friendly smile seemed to match his personality. Sam guessed him to be in his early forties. She thought he might be younger, but a receding hairline made it hard to tell. He was tall and slender and had a firm handshake.

“Sam Church,” she said. “I was here earlier this morning for the exhibit. I brought a friend, Brady Gilmore. He mentioned you by name. Perhaps you know him?”

“Oh, sure I know Brady. He’s more interested in the airport and the planes than anyone I’ve ever known. We’ve spent a lot of time talking.” Gary extended his hand toward a chair. She felt welcome, but had yet to tell him she was a reporter and why she had come. It was a frequent experience for reporters that people often did an about-face after they learned they were talking to one who was working on a story.

“I’m a reporter with the
Grandview Perspective
and when Brady and I were here earlier, he said something that, well, piqued my interest. I came back hoping you might be here. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

Sam waited for Gary’s reluctance to surface about talking to the press.

“Sure, sit down.”

“Are you the manager of the airport?” she asked, relieved by his willingness.

“We call it director of aviation, but it means the same,” he said. “Are you doing a story on county airports?”

“I’m not sure what kind of a story I’ll write, if anything,” Sam said. “Our conversation is just background for now. If that changes I’ll let you know.”

“What did Brady tell you that has you so interested?” Gary asked.

Sam fished for a pen and reporter’s notebook from her backpack. “He mentioned something about light-activated runways.”

Gary nodded. “We have two, hard-surfaced 8,000-foot runways where pilots can and do activate the lights. Those runways can also be expanded to 10,000 feet or even 12,000 feet if needed.”

“What makes county airports in Denver so popular? There are four, right?”

“Five, counting ours. When DIA opened, it was the best thing for us.”

“How so?”

“Business has soared at each airport,” Gary said. “Centennial Airport has always been a big plus for Arapahoe County, even before DIA. Of the roughly 420 control towers in the U.S., we rank about 150 in terms of busiest, but Centennial is easily within the top twenty-five. By shifting so far east, DIA changed the controlled air space around Denver so that now there’s a north-south flight corridor from Wadsworth west to the foothills. It makes it easier for private jets to travel to this area and land at this airport.”

“How does the number of planes that take off and land here compare with Centennial Airport?” Sam asked.

Gary opened a desk drawer and sifted through several files before he pulled one out and set it on the desk. The room was quiet as he read and Sam could hear the tick, tick of a small clock on his desk.

“Last year, our traffic count was about 160,000 take-offs and landings. Centennial’s count last year was about 400,000,” Gary said.

“I had no idea that county airports were so busy.”

“Most people are surprised,” Gary said and returned the file to the drawer. “We’re home to forty corporate jets. Centennial has probably seventy or so jets.”

He reached for his pipe in an ashtray on the windowsill. “Back to your question,” Gary said and clenched the pipe between his teeth. “We have eighty-one T-hangars, six executive hangars and a maintenance hangar. We also have here three of the five instrument landing systems located at general aviation airports in the metro area. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently placed a NEXTRAD weather radar facility here. And the Colorado National Guard built an armory and a communications facility here. Both costs millions.”

Gary stopped and tapped the pipe against his lips. “Lastly, in addition to Front Range Airport, we’re the only other airport in the metro area not located around any major residential areas. We have no indebtedness and, as result, users pay lower fees.”

Gary clenched his pipe between his teeth and fixed his attention directly on Sam.

“But something tells me you didn’t come here to talk about airport user fees.”

She couldn’t help her laugh. “You’re right, Gary.”

“Your initial interest was runways,” he said. “What did Brady say that sparked your interest?”

Sam leaned forward in her chair. “Well, it’s not so much what he said that interested me, but what he didn’t say.” She stopped to collect her thoughts. “I saw a movie once where the pilots activated the runway lights like Brady said, but these weren’t ordinary pilots. They were drug runners. They’d land at local airports that weren’t staffed twenty-four hours a day, make their drop and take off. No one would be the wiser.”

“I don’t recall the movie,” Gary said with slight hesitation. “But if you’re asking if that could happen here, the answer is no because we operate round the clock. But I can tell you what’s more likely to happen.”

Sam’s eyes widened in interest.

“A drug drop like the one you described from that movie could happen very easily on some desolate county road, especially around here because of the sparse population,” he said.

“That’s impossible,” Sam said, shaking her head.

“I’m not kidding.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Brady knows more than he’s letting on.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s told me.”

“Told you what?” Sam said and tried not to sound amazed.

“Off the record?”

She studied him a moment, but there was nothing to read in his face, neither hostility nor warmth.
There must be a reason Brady wanted me to take him to the exhibit that he could not tell me directly,
Sam thought
.

A surge of new-found energy stirred within her.

“Of course, off the record,” she said.

“Drug drops do happen on the outlying county roads around here,” Gary said.

Sam’s eyebrows drifted toward the ceiling. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were,” he said. “But it happens.”

“For how long now?” Sam asked.

“At least the last five years,” he replied.

“Five years!”

Gary nodded. “Maybe longer.”

“How do you know this?” Sam asked.

When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Why haven’t you said anything?”

The look on Gary’s face dissolved to fear. “About a month ago,” he said quietly. “A young woman was killed. I heard it was a suicide, but I have my doubts and I know Brady was real shaken up over it.”

“Did you know her?” Sam asked trying to keep the sound of her voice neutral.

Gary shook his head.

“What do you think happened?” Sam asked leaning forward in her chair.

“I don’t know, but I think the woman knew something that got her killed. But when I heard she might have committed suicide, I figured I wouldn’t read anything about it in the papers. I have a sister who’s a reporter for a newspaper, too. She’s forever telling me, newspapers don’t report suicides.”

Sam nodded. “She’s right. Newspapers don’t report suicides unless they’re rich and famous, or someone very young.”

“Did you hear about the woman’s death?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” she breathed.

“She, she was ...” Sam’s voice trailed off and her expression clouded with grief. She looked from Gary to the distant foothills.

“You okay?” Gary asked.

“I’m fine. How did you learn about the woman’s death?”

“Brady told me,” Gary said and shrugged his shoulders. “He knows a lot more than people give him credit for.” He laughed. “I’ve got news for them.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Sam asked.

The light moment quickly turned somber. “I couldn’t prove there were drug drops happening, except by what Brady’s told me. But I know the kid, I know he couldn’t tell a lie. Call me a coward, but I didn’t want to end up like that poor young woman.”

A heavy silence hung in the room. Sam thought of Robin in the picture that Brady had shown her earlier. She was young and free. Slender as a toothpick, her long thick hair flowing in the breeze. Sam thanked Gary Gorton and left the terminal.

When she was safely inside her car, she locked the door, as if to keep out the evil in the world. Tears began to fall. She cried hard, deep, heaving sobs that left her breathless. When she collected herself, she drove from the airport. The thought came to her as she turned onto Wadsworth. Sam could see Robin’s handwriting on the yellow sticky note the day she searched her condo.

County Road 676.

“Of course,” she said and pounded lightly on the steering wheel. “It makes sense now.” She thought of Rey and a moment of uncertainty set in.
Shouldn’t he have said something to me by now?
For a fleeting moment a reoccurring thought came that frightened her.

Sam had trusted Rey so readily all along. He had made it so easy to put her faith in him. But what if she had been wrong? Blinded by what she so desperately wanted to believe? What if Rey killed Robin or was the ringleader of this drug smuggling operation? He appeared to have a strict moral compass. And he was probably one of the nicest, most sincere people she had met in some time.

But what if it was all an act?
Sam had lived with a cop for nearly ten years. She often heard Jonathan say how easily and quickly the line between police and criminal could be erased by corruption. She had no doubt that fine line Jonathan had so often mentioned did exist. But Robin was a good judge of character. Always had been. Because she trusted Rey it gave Sam hope that he had not crossed that line.

She smiled with satisfaction as she pulled to the side of the road to page Rey. She could hardly wait to tell him about County Road 676.