TailSpin (6 page)

“Now that I can’t tell you.”

“All right, I’ll buy that for the moment. So we keep things even here, Agent Savich, let me tell you Dot—she’s Parlow’s other paramedic—told me about the downed search-and-rescue plane. She figured the pilot was from a law enforcement agency since they’re the ones who usually use those planes. She said the pilot was good, bringing the plane down in the valley. She should know—Dot’s a pilot herself, as well as a paramedic. She wondered why Agent Crowne was flying it since she hadn’t heard about any accidents.”

“I believe it was the only plane available.”

“So after they medevaced Dr. MacLean out, Dot examined the plane.”

Savich waited. He knew there wasn’t much left after it had exploded on the ground. He also knew he wasn’t going to like what the sheriff was about to tell him.

“Dot didn’t have the time or the expertise to do a thorough check, but from the look of what was left of the fuselage, it looked to her like the luggage compartment was blown outward by some sort of explosion, maybe a bomb. Seems like it didn’t work too well, since the plane wasn’t blown out of the sky. So, I’d appreciate it, Agent Savich, if you don’t try to pawn off the crash on some sort of a malfunction.” Sheriff Hollyfield was rocking back and forth on his toes. He was wearing galoshes, Savich saw, though very clean, thankfully, as if they’d been hosed down.

“Yes,” Savich said, “that’s what Agent Crowne thinks. We’ve got an expert coming to verify. If you wouldn’t mind keeping a deputy at the crash site to protect it until our people arrive.”

Sheriff Hollyfield nodded. “All right, then. You’ll keep me in the loop, Agent Savich?”

Savich nodded. You never knew when you were going to find good law enforcement, he thought as he shook the sheriff’s hand, thankfully as clean as his galoshes.

Savich looked over the scattered wreckage while Sheriff Hollyfield hooked up the tow to Rachael’s Charger. “Hard to imagine surviving that,” Sheriff Hollyfield said, straightening to look out over Cudlow Valley, his hand over his eyes to shade against the strong morning sun.

“Believe me, we are very grateful.”

Before the sheriff dropped him and Rachael’s duffel off at Monk’s Café, Savich said, “Could I come to your office a bit later, Sheriff, and use your landline to call the Franklin County Hospital? See how Dr. MacLean is doing?”

Sheriff Hollyfield nodded.

First Savich wanted to speak to Sherlock, see what she was doing with Rachael Abercrombie. He tried his cell again, but couldn’t get a signal. Mix mountains with the boondocks, and technology didn’t mean squat.

Monk’s Café was on Old Squaw Lane, a small skinny white building with an apartment on the second floor, sandwiched between May’s Cleaners and Clyde’s 24/7. It was kitty-corner from the Parlow Clinic on Rosy Bill Avenue.

Savich set Rachael’s duffel next to her on the seat.

“Thank you, Agent Savich. Where did you have my car towed?”

“We’ll talk about that in a moment.” Savich picked up a menu. “What’s good?”

A waitress with impossibly ink-black hair sprayed up in a cone walked briskly to their table, her bright yellow high-top sneakers thumping on the worn linoleum, wearing a huge apron over jeans and a man’s white dress shirt.

She stopped, looked him over, gave him a big smile showing teeth as white as her dress shirt. “Well now, Deliah—she’s my sister, the nurse at the clinic—she called me about the federal agents being here, one of them bloody and nearly dead in an examining room. But that isn’t you, thank the good Lord.” She paused a moment, tapped her pencil on her chin, and eyed him. “Aren’t you ever a hottie, that’s what Deliah said. She didn’t know about the other one ’cause he was in such bad shape. You’re all dangerous-looking, not a single soft edge on you. I’ll bet you’re a real bad boy. Of course, that’s what makes the women perk up when you’re around—even my sister, who never even noticed her own husband before he passed. Just look at you—two pretty girls here, ready and waiting.”

Sherlock snorted. Suzette, the waitress, ignored her.

Suzette was old enough to be his mother, Savich thought, and gave her a big smile. “Nah, I’m only dangerous when I don’t get my Cheerios for breakfast. May I please have some very hot tea . . . Suzette?”

“You can call me Suz,” she said, licking the tip of her pencil before writing down the order. “We only got tea bags, that all right?”

Savich nodded. He could already see the tea bag floating in the lukewarm water.

“I know it’s still early, but Tony just took his meatloaf out of the oven. Or, if you’re into healthy eats, I’ve got some fish sticks, nice and deep-fried.”

Savich ended up with scrambled eggs and wheat toast with some gooseberry jam Suz promised was the greatest. She nodded at Sherlock and Rachael. “Your two pretty ladies sure thought so.”

He looked up to see Rachael grinning at him. “Something tells me you don’t eat many deep-fried fish sticks, Agent Savich.”

“No, but our kid would eat them every day if we let him, between tacos and hot dogs.”

Rachael’s eyes flicked over them. “What’s your kid’s name again?”

“Sean’s our boy, big into computer games and football, wants to help the Redskins build a dynasty, though he doesn’t really know what that means.”

“Married FBI agents. I never imagined such a thing, and Sherlock tells me you work together.”

Savich nodded.

Sherlock turned to him. “When you came in, Dillon, Rachael was refusing to tell me what’s going on with her. You’d think what with sharing a lovely brunch that I offered to pay for, she’d have a bit more trust in me, would’t you?”

“It’s tough to trust someone, Sherlock,” he said slowly, “when you’re scared to your toes. I’ll tell you one thing, though, we can’t let her leave because she’s clearly a material witness.”

Sherlock looked straight at Rachael. “Who’s to say she wasn’t more directly involved in bringing down Jack’s plane? You know, the spotter on the ground?”

Rachael banged her fist on the table, making her spoon jump. How could they know so quickly that she was in trouble? It wasn’t fair. She was an idiot, dead for only two and a half days. If she wasn’t more careful, she wouldn’t make being dead to the end of the week. “What did you say? A material witness? I know more about the plane crash? Listen, you can’t hold me, I was only an innocent bystander, you can’t—”

Sherlock leaned forward to touch her ring finger. “Maybe you’re running away from your husband?”

Husband?
She choked down a hysterical laugh and felt panic shoot through her. She grabbed her purse and duffel bag, slithered out of the booth, and was out of the café in under five seconds.

Suz, carrying Savich’s plate, the scrambled eggs steaming, stopped to stare after Rachael. “Isn’t this par for the course—a sexy guy with two girls—I’ll just bet the little redhead here threatened to whomp the blonde with that cute braid, right?”

“You’re very observant, Suz,” Savich said.

Sherlock rolled her eyes, tossed her napkin down over the one cold bacon strip left on her plate, and headed after Rachael.

“At least if there’s a catfight, it’ll be in the street and not in here. Tony would hate that, remind him too much of his mother-in-law.”

EIGHT

S
herlock caught up with Rachael at Bobolink’s Bakery on the corner of Old Squaw Lane, leaning against the display window, her old duffel beside her, staring down at her scuffed boots.

Sherlock lightly touched her shoulder. Rachael didn’t move. “You know,” Sherlock said, “when things get tough, it doesn’t mean you have to deal with everything alone. I’m a fed. I do tough really well. Dillon and Jack do tough well, too. That means it’s your lucky day since I figure we all owe you.”

Rachael said, “I don’t need tough, I don’t need help. All I need is to have my car fixed so I can leave. I’ve got to go—there are people expecting me. I want Agent Savich to tell me where he had my car towed.”

Sherlock smiled. “Well then, let’s go back to the café and ask him.”

“I couldn’t get away from you, could I? Maybe coldcock you?”

“Probably not. Dillon pulls his moves on females. I don’t.”

“Since I don’t have any transportation, I don’t have much choice but to go back with you.” She could walk to Slipper Hollow if she had to, but it’d be stupid not to have a means of escape—just in case. She prayed Agent Savich hadn’t cleaned off the license plate. He could run the plate and find out exactly who she was, probably in under a minute. She was worrying herself nuts over this when Sherlock asked, “Where were you headed, Rachael, when your car broke down?”

“Cleveland,” Rachael said brightly. “All the way to Cleveland.”

Sherlock thought,
Another big whopping lie.

Monk’s Café was filling up with the early lunch crowd. Conversation stopped dead when they walked in. Sherlock had no doubt the gossip winds had blown directly into the café when the federal agents had arrived.

When they sat down opposite him, Savich said, “I spoke to Dr. Hallick at Franklin County Hospital. He said Dr. MacLean’s still not conscious. They have more tests to run before they can give a halfway decent prognosis. I asked Sheriff Hollyfield to send a couple of deputies to guard Dr. MacLean until federal agents arrive.”

Rachael raised her head at that. She wanted to pin him immediately, ask him where her damned car was, but what came out of her mouth was, “Jack—Agent Crowne—said something about a bomb, then he clammed up.”

“Could be. An expert will be arriving sometime today to see what brought down the plane. If it was a bomb, he’ll be able to tell us why the Cessna didn’t explode into a fireball when it detonated, not that it should have mattered, given the terrain.”

“Why would someone want to kill this Dr. MacLean?”

Why not? Sherlock thought. It wasn’t a state secret. After all, trust was a two-way street. “Well, let me just say that Dr. Timothy MacLean, psychiatrist, has lots of very high-profile people scared of what he might say about them.”

“You mean, he was breaking patient confidentiality? A shrink?”

“So it seems,” said Savich.

Rachael sat forward. “Agent Savich, truly, it’s been a pleasure to meet you and Agent Sherlock, but I must leave. Please tell me where you had my car towed.”

“I’ll take you over to the garage when we’re done here. But the thing is, Rachael, the way I’m figuring it is that we need you. You’re the only witness to Jack’s forced landing. You saw everything. You’ll remember more details, trust me. Are you willing to stay with us for a while?”

Rachael looked from her duffel bag to the two agents. For the time being, until her bloody car was repaired, she was stuck in Parlow, and all she could do was pray that no one recognized her. Secrets never stayed secrets, even in the boondocks. At least, she thought, she would be safe with a pack of FBI agents. “I’d planned on getting to where I was going by now. I don’t have much time left, or money.”

“Where do you need to go?”

“Like I told Agent Sherlock, I was driving to Cleveland, a job interview, family, you know the deal.”

Savich thought, Yeah right, and said easily, “A day or two then, if that’s all right with you. Now, Suz tells me there’s a fine B&B over on Canvasback Lane. The FBI will pick up the tab.”

As Suzette toted up their bill, Sherlock asked, “What’s with all the strange street names in Parlow?”

Rachael opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. This was, after all, her first time in Parlow.

Suzette said, “Horace Bench, the rich guy who founded the town back in the thirties, he bred and raised ducks—hookbills, rouens, runners, calls—the calls are real small, I’m told, like toy ducks. He figured not many folks would recognize those names, so he threw in some common ones, as well, like canvasback, rosy bill, old squaw. He himself lived on Runners Road, and his daughter, whom he didn’t like so it’s said, lived on Old Hooknose Lane.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow went up. “Hooknose? I thought the duck was called a hookbill.”

“Yep, that’s right,” said Suz, and grinned.

“Where’d the name Parlow come from?” Sherlock asked.

“Parlow was an Indian chief back in the eighteenth century who sought out any settlers he could find to celebrate Thanksgiving with him and his people every year. He always brought trout for the feast. Isn’t that a kick?”

“And where is the sheriff’s office?” Savich asked.

“Oh, that’s on the main drag, First Street, one block over. Sheriff Hollyfield, now he’s so honest you could put your money under
his
mattress. Smart, too.”

“Duck names,” Sherlock said as they walked out of Monk’s Café, Savich carrying Rachael’s duffel bag. “It always amazes me what strikes people’s fancy.”

The three of them were checked in by the manager, Mrs. Flint, thankfully not a longtime native who could recognize Rachael. She told them Greeb’s Pond was the best of Parlow’s upscale lodgings. It was also the name of the current owner’s grandfather’s favorite duck.

They found their rooms decorated with a duck motif, from the wallpaper, to the hooked rugs on the floor, to the bedspread, to three small stuffed duck heads on the walls. “The only one I recognize is the mallard,” Sherlock said, shaking her head. “Imagine stuffing a duck’s head. And look at that little tiny one—you think that’s a toy duck, what’s the name—a call? And what do you bet the alarm clock will start quacking to wake us up?”

Since Sherlock had no intention of letting Rachael out of her sight, the two of them went back to the Parlow Clinic, waded through half a dozen patients to the desk, where Sherlock flashed her FBI shield at a very young receptionist who had short spiky red hair tipped with black and was vigorously chewing gum. She waved them back to the small room where they’d left Jack sleeping. Sherlock stopped by the door and tried her cell again. No luck. When she walked into the room, Rachael was saying, “You look better, Agent Crowne, and that’s a relief. We thought you’d still be out of it.”