The McBain Brief (22 page)

“It's not your fault,” I said. “Accidents happen. They happen all the time. No one could possibly blame you for it.”

His tears ebbed slowly, and he finally sat up again. “You know it's not my fault, don't you?” he asked solemnly.

“Yes,” I said. “We know.”

He tried to smile, but failed. “It was just an accident,” he repeated.

“Sure,” I said. I picked myself off the bed and said, “Let's go, Ed. Nothing more for us here.”

At the door, I turned to look at Jeffrey once more. He seemed immensely relieved, and he smiled when I winked at him. The smile was still on his mouth and in his eyes when we left him.

It was cold
in the Merc, even with the heater going.

We drove in silence for a long time, and finally Ed asked, “All right, what was all that business about?”

“What business?”

“First of all, that brother routine. You know damn well you're a lousy, spoiled only child.”

“Sure,” I said. “I wanted to hear the kid tell me how much he loved all his brothers.”

“That's another thing. Why the hell did you cross-examine the kid? Jesus, he had enough trouble without your . . .”

“I was just wondering about a few things,” I said. “That's all.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well, the clipping about the little boy who accidentally killed that girl, for one. Now why do you suppose any kid would save a clipping like that?”

“Hell,” Ed said, “you know how kids are. It probably caught his fancy, that's all.”

“Probably. Maybe the Luger magazines caught his fancy, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“The kid said he found those magazines for the first time today. He said he took a cartridge from one of the clips and stuck it into the gun. Tell me how he managed to handle a dust-covered magazine without smearing any of the dust?”

“Well, maybe he . . .”

“He didn't, that's the answer. He took that bullet from the clip a long time ago, Ed. Long enough ago for the box and the magazine to acquire a new coat of dust. This was no spur-of-the-minute job. No, sir, not at all.”

“Hey,” Ed said suddenly. “What the hell are you trying to say? You mean the kid did this on purpose? You mean he actually killed his brother?
Murdered
him?”

“Just him and Mom now, Ed. Just the two of them. No more Dad, no more big brother, and now no more little brother.” I shook my head, and stared at my own breath as it clouded the windshield.

“But just take it to a judge,” I added. “Just take the whole fantastic thing to a judge and see how fast he kicks you out of court.”

Ed glanced at me quickly, and then turned his eyes back to the road.

“We'll have to watch that kid,” I said, “Maybe get him psychiatric care. I hate to think what would happen if he suddenly builds up a dislike for his mother.”

I didn't say anything after that, but it was a cold ride back to the station.

Damned cold.

S
quak Mountain was cold at this time of the year. The wind groaned around Davis, and the trees trembled bare limbs, and even at this distance he could hear the low rumble of planes letting down at Boeing and Renton. He found the tree about a half-mile east of the summit. The DC-4 had struck the tree and then continued flying. He looked at the jagged, splintered wood and then his eyes covered the surrounding terrain. Parts of the DC-4 were scattered all over the ridge in a fifteen-hundred-foot radius. He saw the upper portion of the plane's vertical fin, the number-two propeller, and a major portion of the rudder. He examined these very briefly, and then he began walking toward the canyon into which the plane had finally dropped.

Davis turned his head sharply once, thinking he had heard a sound. He stood stock-still, listening, but the only sounds that came to him were the sullen moan of the wind and the muted hum of aircraft in the distant sky.

He continued walking.

When he found the plane, it made him a little sick. The Civil Aeronautics Board report had told him that the plane was demolished by fire. The crash was what had obviously caused the real
demolition. But the report had only been typed words. He saw
impact
now, and
causing fire
, and even though the plane had been moved by the investigating board, he could imagine something of what had happened.

It had been in nearly vertical position when it struck the ground, and the engines and cockpit had bedded deep in soft, muddy loam. Wreckage had been scattered like shrapnel from a hand grenade burst, and fire had consumed most of the plane, leaving a ghostlike skeleton that confronted him mutely. He stood watching it for a time, then made his way down to the charred ruins.

The landing gear was fully retracted, as the report had said. The wings' flaps were in the twenty-five-degree down position.

He studied these briefly and then climbed up to the cockpit. The plane still stank of scorched skin and blistered paint. When he entered the cockpit, he was faced with complete havoc. It was impossible to obtain a control setting or an instrument reading from the demolished instrument panel. The seats were twisted and tangled. Metal jutted into the cockpit and cabin at grotesque angles. The windshield had shattered into a million jagged shards.

He shook his head and continued looking through the plane, the stench becoming more overpowering. He was silently grateful that he had not been here when the bodies were still in the plane, and he still wondered what he was doing here anyway, even now.

He knew that the report had proved indication of an explosion prior to the crash. There had been no structural failure or malfunctioning of the aircraft itself. The explosion had occurred in the cabin, and the remnants of the bomb had shown it to be a
home-made job. He'd learned all this in the past few days, with the co-operation of the CAB. He also knew that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Military Police were investigating the accident, and the knowledge had convinced him that this was not a job for him. Yet here he was.

Five people had been killed. Three pilots, the stewardess, and Janet Carruthers, the married daughter of his client, George Ellison. It could not have been a pleasant death.

Davis climbed out of the plane and started toward the ridge. The sun was high on the mountain, and it cast a feeble, pale yellow tint on the white pine and spruce. There was a hard grey winter sky overhead. He walked swiftly, with his head bent against the wind.

When the shots came, they were hard and brittle, shattering the stillness as effectively as twin-mortar explosions.

He dropped to the ground, wriggling sideways toward a high outcropping of quartz. The echo of the shots hung on the air and then the wind carried it toward the canyon and he waited and listened, with his own breathing the loudest sound on the mountain.

I'm out of my league,
he thought.
I'm way out of my league. I'm just a small-time detective, and this is something big
. . .

The third shot came abruptly. It came from some high-powered rifle, and he heard the sharp
twang
of the bullet when it struck the quartz and ricocheted into the trees.

He pressed his cheek to the ground, and he kept very still, and he could feel the hammering of his heart against the hard earth. His hands trembled and he waited for the next shot.

The next shot never came. He waited for a half-hour, and then he bundled his coat and thrust it up over the rock, hoping to draw fire if the sniper was still with him. He waited for several minutes
after that, and then he backed away from the rock on his belly, not venturing to get to his feet until he was well into the trees.

Slowly, he made his way down the mountain.

“You say you
want to know more about the accident?” Arthur Porchek said. “I thought it was all covered in the CAB report.”

“It was,” Davis said. “I'm checking further. I'm trying to find out who set that bomb.”

Porchek drew in on his cigarette. He leaned against the wall and the busy hum of radios in Seattle Approach Control was loud around them. “I've only told this story a dozen times already.”

“I'd appreciate it if you could tell it once more,” Davis said.

“Well,” Porchek said heavily, “it was about twenty-thirty-six or so.” He paused. “All our time is based on a twenty-four-hour check, like the Army.”

“Go ahead.”

The flight had been cleared to maintain seven thousand feet. When they contacted us, we told them to make a standard range approach to Boeing Field and requested that they report leaving each one-thousand-foot level during the descent. That's standard, you know.”

“Were you doing all the talking to the plane?” Davis asked.

“Yes.”

“All right, what happened?”

“First I gave them the weather.”

“And what was that?”

Porchek shrugged, a man weary of repeating information over and over again. “Boeing Field,” he said by rote. “Eighteen hundred scattered, twenty-two hundred overcast, eight-miles, wind south-southeast, gusts to thirty, altimeter twenty-nine, twenty-
five; Seattle-Tacoma, measured nineteen hundred broken with thirty-one hundred overcast.”

“Did the flight acknowledge?”

“Yes, it did. And it reported leaving seven thousand feet at twenty-forty. About two minutes later, it reported being over the outer marker and leaving the six-thousand-foot level.”

“Go on.” Davis said.

“Well, it didn't report leaving five thousand and then at twenty-forty-five, it reported leaving four thousand feet. I acknowledged that and told them what to do. I said, “If you're not VFR by the time you reach the range you can shuttle on the northwest course at two thousand feet. It's possible you'll break out in the vicinity of Boeing Field for a south landing.' “

“What's VFR?” Davis asked, once again feeling his inadequacy to cope with the job.

“Visual Flight Rules. You see, it was overcast at twenty-two hundred feet. The flight was on instruments above that. They've got to report to us whether they're on IFR or VFR.”

“I see. What happened next?”

“The aircraft reported at twenty-fifty that it was leaving three thousand feet, and I told them they were to contact Boeing Tower on one eighteen, point three for landing instructions. They acknowledged with ‘Roger,' and that's the last I heard of them.”

“Did you hear the explosion?”

“I heard something, but I figured it for static. Ground witnesses heard it, though.”

“But everything was normal and routine before the explosion, is that right?”

Porchek nodded his head emphatically. “Yes, sir. A routine let-down.”

“Almost,” Davis said. He thanked Porchek for his time, and then left.

He called George
Ellison from a pay phone. When the old man came on the line, Davis said, “This is Milt Davis, Mr. Ellison.”

Ellison's voice sounded gruff and heavy, even over the phone. “Hello, Davis,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“I'll be honest with you, Mr. Ellison. I'd like out.”

“Why?” He could feel the old man's hackles rising.

“Because the FBI and the MPs are already onto this one. They'll crack it for you, and it'll probably turn out to be some nut with a grudge against the government. Either that, or a plain case of sabotage. This really doesn't call for a private investigation.”

“Look, Davis,” Ellison said. “I'll decide whether this calls for . . .”

“All right, you'll decide. I'm just trying to be frank with you. This kind of stuff is way out of my line. I'm used to trailing wayward husbands, or skip tracing, or an occasional bodyguard stint. When you drag in bombed planes, I'm in over my head.”

“I heard you were a good man,” Ellison said. “You stick with it. I'm satisfied you'll do a good job.”

Davis sighed. “Whatever you say,” he said. “Incidentally, did you tell anyone you'd hired me?”

“Yes, I did. As a matter of fact . . .”

“Who'd you tell?”

“Several of my employees. The word got to a local reporter somehow, though, and he came to my home yesterday. I gave him the story. I didn't think it would do any harm.”

“Has it reached print yet?”

“Yes,” Ellison said. “It was in this morning's paper. A small item. Why?”

“I was shot at today, Mr. Ellison. At the scene of the crash. Three times.”

There was a dead silence on the line. Then Ellison said, “I'm sorry, Davis, I should have realized.” It was a hard thing for a man like Ellison to say.

“That's all right,” Davis assured him. “They missed.”

“Do you think—do you think whoever set the bomb shot at you?”

“Possibly. I'm not going to start worrying about it now.”

Ellison digested this and then said, “Where are you going now, Davis?”

“To visit your son-in-law, Nicholas Carruthers. I'll call in again.”

“Fine, Davis.”

Davis hung up, jotting down the cost of the call, and then made reservations on the next plane to Burbank. Nicholas Carruthers was chief pilot of Intercoastal Airways' Burbank Division. The fatal flight had been made in two segments; the first from Burbank to San Francisco, and the second from Frisco to Seattle. The DC-4 was to let down at Boeing, with Seattle-Tacoma designated as an alternate field. It was a simple ferry flight, and the plane was to pick up military personnel in Seattle, in accordance with the company's contract with the Department of National Defense.

Quite curiously, Carruthers had been along on the Burbank-to-Frisco segment of the hop, as company observer. He'd disembarked at Frisco, and his wife, Janet, had boarded the plane there as a non-revenue passenger. She was bound for a cabin up in Washington, or so old man Ellison had told Davis. He'd also said that Janet had been looking forward to the trip for a long time.

When Davis found Captain Nicholas Carruthers in the airport restaurant, he was sitting with a blonde in a black cocktail
dress, and he had his arm around her waist. They lifted their martini glasses and clinked them together, the girl laughing. Davis studied the pair from the doorway and reflected that the case was turning into something he knew a little more about.

He hesitated inside the doorway for just a moment and then walked directly to the bar, taking the stool on Carruthers' left. He waited until Carruthers had drained his glass and then he said, “Captain Carruthers?”

Carruthers turned abruptly, a frown distorting his features. He was a man of thirty-eight or so, with prematurely graying temples and sharp gray eyes. He had thin lips and a thin straight nose that divided his face like an immaculate stone wall. He wore civilian clothing.

“Yes,” he said curtly.

“Milton Davis. Your father-in-law has hired me to look into the DC-4 accident.” Davis showed his identification. “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?”

Carruthers hesitated, and then glanced at the blonde, apparently realizing the situation was slightly compromising. The blonde leaned over, pressing her breasts against the bar top, looking past Carruthers to Davis.

“Take a walk, Beth,” Carruthers said.

The blonde drained her martini glass, pouted, lifted her purse from the bar, and slid off the stool. Davis watched the exaggerated swing of her hips across the room and then said, “I'm sorry if . . .”

“Ask your questions,” Carruthers said.

Davis studied him for a moment. “All right, Captain,” he said mildly. “I understand you were aboard the crashed DC-4 on the flight segment from Burbank to San Francisco. Is that right?”

“That's right,” Carruthers said. “I was aboard as observer.”

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on the trip?”

“If you mean did I see anyone with a goddamn bomb, no.”

“I didn't—”

“And if you're referring to the false alarm, Mister Whatever-the-Hell-Your-Name-Is, you can just start asking your questions straight. You know all about the false alarm.”

Davis felt his fists tighten on the bar top. “You tell me about it again.”

“Sure,” Carruthers said testily. “Shortly after take-off from Burbank, we observed a fire-warning signal in the cockpit. From number three engine.”

“I'm listening,” Davis said.

“As it turned out, it was a false warning. When we got to Frisco, the mechanics there checked and found no evidence of a fire having occurred. Mason told the mechanics—”

“Was Mason pilot in command?”

“Yes.” A little of Carruthers' anger seemed to be wearing off. “Mason told the mechanics he was satisfied from the inspection that no danger of fire was present. He did not delay the flight.”

“Were
you
satisfied with the inspection?” Davis asked.