Murder at the Powderhorn Ranch (17 page)

“Well, Mrs. Fletcher, I hope you succeed.”

“So do I. By the way, Dr. Hazlitt and I are enjoying your cooking.”

“I do my best.”

“I understand you were a chef in Las Vegas.”

He paused, his hands poised over the pans, and then continued working, saying, “I worked there for á while. Not long.”

“At one of the big casinos?”

“Yeah.”

“The Molloys were from Las Vegas.”

“They were? I didn’t know that.”

I didn’t believe him.

I also took note how powerfully built he was. His arms protruding from a black T-shirt were muscular, and a sculptured chest and shoulders were evident.

“Well,” I said, “sorry to intrude on your work. The tuna sandwich was good. Glad to hear you weren’t the one to serve Mrs. Molloy’s last meal.”

“Going riding this afternoon, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“No. I’m going flying with Craig Morrison.”

He cocked his head and smiled. “Sounds like fun. I always wanted to fly a plane.”

“I’m taking lessons.”

“Lucky you. Enjoy your flight.”

I rejoined Seth. “Anything interesting in the paper?” I asked.

“Look at this.”

A short article on Paul Molloy’s murder was buried inside the paper. Geraldine Molloy’s disappearance was also mentioned, although news of her death would undoubtedly generate a longer story the next day. I felt bad for Bonnie and Jim. Despite having had nothing to do with the tragic deaths of two guests, such unfavorable publicity surely wouldn’t be helpful, especially if it was to find broader dissemination through a wire service or national broadcast network.

Craig Morrison entered the lodge. “Ready?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes?” I said.

“Sure. Meet you right here. One of the wranglers will drive us to the strip.”

Seth and I went outside.

“No sense tryin’ to talk you out of going up in that little plane,” he said.

“No.”

“Hope he’s a good pilot, not some daredevil.”

“He must be highly experienced. He flies his own private jet, too.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked up to the ridge of mountains that ringed the ranch. Dark clouds were on the horizon. “Looks like we might get us a storm.”

I laughed and gave him a look indicating I knew what he was up to. “Stop worrying.”

“I’m not worrying, Jessica. Think I’ll take a nice nap. Check in when you’re back.”

I kissed his cheek and watched him head for his cabin. As I did, Sue crossed the grassy area, carrying a huge pile of sheets.

“Need a hand?” I asked.

“No, thanks. I’m used to it,” she said, continuing toward a building next to the lodge in which large, commercial washers and dryers were located. The ranch’s only public phone was there, too.

“You know,” I said as she started loading the sheets in the machines, “I’ve never known your last name. I just know you as Sue, the cabin girl.”

She laughed and blew a lock of hair from her forehead. “That’s me, Sue, the cabin girl. It’s Sue Wennington.”

“Hello, Sue Wennington. Pleased to meet you.”

She finished loading the sheets, turned on the machines, and leaned against one of them. “I can’t believe what happened to Mrs. Molloy,” she said. “I mean, right after somebody kills her husband. It’s scary.”

“It certainly is. How was she acting when you last saw her?”

“Acting? Mrs. Molloy? Like she usually did, you know, sort of out of it, spacey, like she was on something.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Yesterday.”

“When you brought her dinner?”

She frowned and chewed her cheek. “No. I brought her breakfast.”

“You didn’t bring her dinner?”

“I was supposed to—bring her breakfast and dinner—but Joel said he’d do lunch and dinner. We were sharing the job.”

“Oh.”

Veronica Morrison entered the laundry room and went to the pay phone on the far wall.

“I have to go,” I said to Sue. “Good to know you have a last name. See you at dinner.”

Craig Morrison was waiting in front of the lodge.

“Sorry to hold you up,” I said.

“No problem, but we’d better get the time in before it rains.”

Jon Adler pulled up in one of the Jeeps. A few minutes later, we were at the grass air strip, where Morrison’s high-wing Cessna 172 sat alone at one end of the field.

“I’ve never flown from a grass strip before,” I said.

“Just a little bumpier than concrete. Want to do the walk-around with me?”

We slowly circled the red-and-white single-engine plane, visually examining its control surfaces, tires, struts, and other components. Morrison opened a small panel and checked the oil. I was familiar with the routine because I’d done it when taking lessons from Jed Richardson in Cabot Cove.

“Everything looks good,” he said. He checked the wind; a stiff breeze was blowing straight at us, which meant we’d take off from this end of the strip, into it. I started to climb into the plane through the right door, but Morrison stopped me. “No, you take the left seat,” he said. “I’ll fly copilot.”

Once strapped in our seats, he went through a written checklist called the CIFFTRS (pronounced “sifters”), a mnemonic made up of the first letters of controls, instruments, fuel, flaps, trim, runup, and seat belts. Satisfied that everything was in preflight order, he reached under my seat and came up with the ignition key.

“You’re very trusting,” I said.

“Out here I am,” he said. He yelled out his open window, “Clear,” to warn anyone in the vicinity that he was about to turn over the engine and prop, unnecessary since no one else was there, but good standard procedure. He turned the key and the prop turned. After a few more pretakeoff tests, he turned to me and said, “Go ahead. She’s all yours.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said.

“Absolutely. Let her roll!”

Instead of arguing, I drew a deep breath, placed my right hand on the throttle, and pushed it forward. The engine roared, and we started down the strip, bumpy at first, but smoothing out as we gained speed, the plane’s wings providing a little lift.

“Rotate,” Morrison said.

We’d reached sufficient speed for me to pull back on the yoke and become airborne. Trees at the end of the runway looked too close, but we were soon in the air and passing over them with a comfortable margin. The exhilaration I’d experienced back home in Cabot Cove when flying with Jed Richardson surged through me.

“Nice takeoff,” Morrison said. “Let’s get up to about three thousand feet and turn on a heading of two-seven-oh.”

I did what he asked. As I banked the plane to achieve a compass heading of 270 degrees, I looked down at the spectacular scenery that is Colorado.

“It’s breathtaking,” I said.

“Yeah. Great country. Go ahead.”

“Go ahead with what?”

“With the questions you want to ask.”

“I wasn’t aware I had any questions to ask.”

He laughed. “Don’t kid a kidder, Mrs. Fletcher. You came flying today because you wanted to pump me.”

All right, I thought, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

“Your mother seems afraid to have me spend time with your daughter, Pauline. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “Mother is protective of everyone in the family. I doubt if she’s particularly concerned about Pauline.”

“I disagree. Did you know the Molloys before they arrived at the ranch?”

He looked at me the way a teacher looks at a slowwitted pupil who’s missed a simple lesson. “Of course not. Why the hell would you ask that?”

Should I get into whether Pauline might not be his biological daughter, and mention the photo of her Molloy carried with him in his wallet? I decided not to. Raising such a delicate issue might make him angry—very angry—and since I was in his hands at the moment, so to speak, it was prudent to let it go.

I said, “I just thought that since you and Mr. Molloy seem to be in the same business—land development, is it?—that you might have crossed paths somewhere in the past.”

“Wrong. Next question.”

“Why does Pauline seem so sad? When you arrived Sunday night, she was a bubbling, vivacious teenager. Ever since Molloy’s murder, she’s gone into a shell. It’s as if she had lost someone she knows.”

I could sense anger building in him.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

I removed my hands from the yoke, and he took control, urging the plane into a tight turn to the right. It felt as though we were standing on the wing, so steep was the bank. He cut back on the power and allowed the Cessna to slowly descend until we were no more than a few hundred feet above the tops of ponderosa pines lining the mountain ridges.

“Aren’t we a little low?” I asked.

“You see things better down here,” he answered, a grin on his broad face. Then, in a sudden move, he pointed the nose of the aircraft down and flew between a row of trees, lower than their tops, the trunks whizzing by the wingtips.

My shout was involuntary. “No, no.”

Ignoring me and still smiling, he followed the contour of a mountain that had been stripped of trees—we were no more than twenty feet above the ground—applied power, pulled back on the yoke, and we climbed at a steep angle. As we lost lift due to the wings’ angle of attack, and the plane began to shudder as it approached stall speed, he lowered the nose and flew straight and level.

“I didn’t appreciate that,” I said.

Jed Richardson always said that pilots who take novice flyers up and fly recklessly do all aviation a great disservice. I now knew what he meant.

“Shook you up a little, huh?” Morrison said, a smug smile on his thick lips.

“Enough to want to be on solid ground. Please land and let me off. You can continue by yourself.”

“Whatever you say.”

He turned the Cessna until we were on a compass heading leading us back to the grass strip. I was still drawing deep, troubled breaths and was so angry I didn’t want to look at him. I peered out my window at the passing scenery below, wanting the time to pass quickly until we touched down.

But a strange sound caused me to turn. Morrison’s mouth was twisted open, and his head was leaning to one side.

“Mr. Morrison, are you all right?”

His reply was a groan; his head snapped forward, his chin coming to rest on his chest.

I reached over and poked him. “Mr. Morrison!” There was no response. His hands had fallen from the yoke, and the plane had begun a slow descent.

I grabbed the yoke and pulled back, too sharply, causing it to lose more altitude. I brought it to a level attitude and frantically searched my memory for what Jed Richardson had taught me.

The first thing was to remain calm.
Don’t panic, Jess,
I thought.
You know how to fly this plane. It’s the same one you’ve been taking lessons in. It’ll fly itself as long as you don’t do anything stupid.

I looked at Morrison again; he was in the same position.

I leaned forward and scanned the ground ahead of me in search of the landing strip. One of the things I’d had trouble with while taking lessons was being able to identify airports and runways from the air. Jed assured me that all pilots have that difficulty until they adjust to how things look on the ground from above. I knew it would be especially difficult differentiating the grass strip from surrounding terrain. Everything seemed to meld together from my lofty vantage point.

I was almost over the strip when I realized where it was. I checked my altimeter—1,600 feet. I assumed the wind was blowing from the same direction as when we’d taken off, which meant setting up my approach to allow me to land into it.

“Relax,” I said aloud. I glanced to my right. I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. If he was still alive, I’d have to get help for him immediately—assuming, of course, I managed to land safely.

This is a heck of a way to fly my first solo,
I thought as I mentally made decisions about how to approach the landing strip. One thing loomed largest in my mind. I had to keep my airspeed above the stall range. And as I turned the plane to fly downwind and parallel to the runway, I realized how menacing the trees were at both ends.

I completed the downwind leg, the runway to my left, made a left ninety-degree turn until the strip was perpendicular to me on the left, then made another ninety-degree turn, putting the runway directly in front of me.

With one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttle, I adjusted airspeed, holding the Cessna’s nose slightly elevated to gradually lose altitude.

The trees loomed larger and closer as I continued my approach. Stay above them, I told myself. Don’t let the landing gear clip their tops. At the same time, I couldn’t land too far down the strip for fear of running out of room and careening into the trees at the far end.

Lower, lower—that’s it—clearing the trees—kill any remaining altitude the minute you’re over them and stall it out hard—that’s it—almost there—pull all the way back on the yoke—kill power—and—

I hit hard, and on one wheel, but the other wheel came down and caught the turf. Keep it straight. Okay, apply brakes with your toes on the rudder pedals, but not too hard.

The trees at the far end seemed to rush toward us, but I brought the plane to a full stop a few hundred feet from them.

I let out a sustained stream of air—and relief—slumped back, and allowed some of the tension to drain from my body. I closed my eyes and started to say an unstructured prayer to someone when applause snapped me out of my reverie. I turned. Morrison was sitting up straight, a big smile on his face. “Nicely done, Mrs. Fletcher. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“You aren’t ill.”

“Never felt better.”

“You ... you ...”

“Easy, easy. Just testing you under fire. Shook you up, huh?”