Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (7 page)

"That's not evidence! That's what my eighth
grade math teacher used to call a WEG, a Wild-Eyed Guess. No way
they can hold him on that."

"There's more. They found blood in the
ship."

"Mack's helicopter? Have they matched the
type to the victim? Did Mack have any explanation for it?"

"I don't know," he said miserably. "We only
got to speak for a minute last night. He couldn't really tell me
anything."

I reached out to touch the back of his hand.
Clearly, he was upset about the mess Mack was in, and I wasn't
helping much. All I could do was try to reassure him that it would
all work out.

"Tell me more about Mack."

"He's been in his own business here about
five years. I've worked for him three. I think he's a pretty
straightforward guy. Competition here is fierce, and Mack is a
scrapper. But I know he's honest, and he works hard for what he's
got. He learned to fly in Vietnam, and has been at it ever since.
He's flown all over the world."

"What about his personal life?"

"Single, no kids. I think there was a brief
marriage years ago, but he never talks about it. A helicopter
pilot's nomad life doesn't lend itself to lasting
relationships."

Drake's eyes focused briefly on a spot out in
the middle of the room, then he busied himself putting sugar in his
coffee. He didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask.

"Mack's got his problems, but basically he's
a good guy to work for. He gave me a job during an especially bad
time in my life, and he's always been fair with me."

The pancakes arrived then, and we devoted our
attention to them. They were heavenly—slightly crisp on the surface
with generous bits of macadamia nuts inside. I smothered mine with
pink guava jam.

“How did you get into flying helicopters?” I
asked Drake. Our initial hunger had been satisfied and we’d both
paused between bites.

“Vietnam, like most everyone,” he replied.
“After that, I put in quite a few years in South America, the Gulf
of Mexico, the Rockies.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years.”
He chewed slowly, remembering long-gone faces.

“Have you had a lot of close calls yourself?”
I pictured scenes of violent fiery crashes like in the movies.

He shrugged. “I guess I’m more cautious than
most. I check every aircraft I get into; I preflight them as though
each flight were the first. I’ve caught a lot of potential
mechanical failures that way. But it’s hard to catch them all. I’ve
had six engine failures over the years.”

My hand stopped midway to my coffee cup.

“Yes, I’m still here to tell about it,” he
chuckled. He patted my hand. “A helicopter’s a bit different than
an airplane. We execute a procedure called autorotation. As long as
we have a reasonably flat open space it’s not difficult to make a
safe landing. And you can bet I practice it with every new aircraft
I get into.”

He spoke offhandedly enough that I felt at
ease. Obviously, he knew what he was doing. The conversation turned
back to Mack and his problems while we finished the last of our
coffee.

The sun was fully up when we emerged from the
Tip Top. Traffic rushed by, cars in a big hurry to carry their
owners to work. Drake guided his truck down Akahi Street, made two
or three short turns and pulled in at the police station. The
yellowed cinderblock structure looked just the same as the last
time I’d visited—was it really less than twenty-four hours ago?—but
there were very few cars in the lot and no women waiting on the
front steps.

An hour later, we had Mack out on bond, and
were seated in his office. Although I had only met him briefly two
days before, he looked ten years older than I remembered. The
fluorescent office lighting cast a harsh glare on his face,
accentuating an underlying grayness in his skin. The furrows
between his brows had grown deeper and the outer corners of the
brown eyes drooped downward in resignation.

The man was worried.

He was clearly in no shape to fly tours, so
Drake offered to take the first one of the day. Melanie would
rearrange the rest of the day's schedule.

Drake left to preflight the aircraft, and I
decided I better get to know everything I could about Mack Garvey.
Naturally, my first question was whether he even wanted my help. I
wanted to think that I could easily walk out, and spend the rest of
my week guilt free on the beach, but I still seem to have a soft
spot for a guy who's getting an unfair shake.

"Drake seems to have a lot of faith in you,"
he told me wearily. "And it's a safe bet that Akito won't be
looking to clear me. He's already puffed up thinking he's solved
the case."

"But, Mack, without evidence they won't get a
conviction. A decent lawyer would have you off in no time."

"Yeah. That sounds good in theory, but there
are a few things you don't understand about life in the islands.
There's a good-old-boy system here that rivals anything I've ever
seen. If your last name isn't Fujimoto or Nakamura or ... well you
get the idea, then you ain't in.

“A white boy like me, a haole, is a
foreigner. Doesn't matter that I've been here ten years, I'm still
the newcomer. Finding an attorney that would really go to bat for
me will be tough. Drake told me a little about your background. I'd
really appreciate anything you could do for me. I'll be glad to pay
you, reimburse your expenses, whatever."

"I'm doing this as a favor to Drake," I told
him, trying to ignore his obvious prejudices. "Although you might
rather hire yourself a local investigator, someone who knows the
situation here better than I do."

He sighed deeply. "That's about the same as
hiring a local attorney. There's only one PI firm here on the
island, and the guy is in really tight with Akito. No way he'd save
my skin.

"Besides that, Charlie, no matter what the
verdict, just going to trial will cost me my business. Word gets
around. I'll lose all the contacts I've carefully built, those who
send customers my way. I can't afford not to be out there
flying."

His voice cracked, and I stared down at my
fingers. The poor guy really was desperate.

"Okay, then, let's get down to business. Tell
me everything the police have. Then tell me everything you know
that the police don't know yet." I had the distinct feeling there
was more to this story than Drake comprehended.

Mack buzzed Melanie on the intercom, and
asked her to bring us coffee. He closed his door softly behind her
after she brought the two cups. I stirred two lumps of sugar into
mine, giving him a few moments to put his thoughts together.

"The police believe the body was dropped from
a helicopter, because of the remote location. It was too far inland
to have washed up from the sea. The Kalalau hiking trail does go up
that valley, but the body was way off the trail, several hundred
yards, in fact. Apparently, the guy died as a result of a blow to
the back of the head. Seems to me, if he had wandered off the
trail, and fallen off one of those rugged peaks, there would have
been bruises and scrapes all over the body. But they said there was
only the one injury.

“The terrain was too rugged for a landing,
but they figure a helicopter could fly in there and hover a few
feet off the ground, and drop a body out." He paused, staring at
the wall.

"I guess the other incriminating thing they
have that ties me in is the blood they found in my aircraft."

"What can you tell me about that?"

"Same thing I told them. On my last flight
Friday, the day before the body was found, a little girl sitting in
the back seat had a gusher of a nosebleed. Her mother managed to
get it stopped, so it didn't become a medical emergency, but she
did leave a pretty good sized spot on my carpet. It was the end of
the day, and my mechanic wasn't around, so I cleaned it up the best
I could. I figured I'd get him out there in the morning with some
of that super cleaner he has, to work on it some more. By the next
morning, it had slipped my mind."

"Any chance of finding the girl and her
mother to verify that?"

"I doubt it." His shoulders sagged. "I had
Melanie look back over Friday's manifest. The woman's name was
Linda Smith, from Los Angeles. They were a walk-in, so we didn't
get their hotel. By now, there's a good chance they've left the
island.

“Well, there are always DNA tests, Mack. It
can be proven that it wasn’t Page’s blood,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I can’t afford to let it go that
far. Like I said, even the hint of involvement in this could put me
out of business.”

I jotted some notes in a little spiral I
always carry with me, and tried to imagine a possible sequence of
events that would tie in with what Mack was telling me.

"Mack, wouldn't it be physically impossible
for one man to fly a helicopter, and push a body out the door? I
mean, you have to keep your hands and feet on the controls at all
times, don't you?"

"Exactly. That's what I tried to tell Akito."
He stood up abruptly, and paced to the far side of the room.
"That's the frustrating thing. They just wouldn't listen to
me."

"So, how do they think you might have
accomplished the deed?"

"With the help of my mechanic, Joe Esposito.
We had scheduled maintenance at the hangar that evening. Joe was
supposed to change a tail rotor blade that had developed some
hairline cracks in the laminate, and then I was to come out and
start the aircraft, so we could track the blades."

"So you were both at the hangar that
night?"

"Well, that's the thing. I never did see Joe.
I finished my last flight, and left the ship parked at the hangar.
I grabbed a box of chicken at Kentucky Fried, and came to the
office to do some FAA paperwork. Normally, Joe would do the work,
then call me either here or at home to let me know when he was
ready for me."

"But he didn't call?"

"Drake called about ten o'clock. Teased me
about burning the midnight oil, and told me I was wearing myself
too thin. He suggested that I go on home. He could come out early
the next morning and do the tracking before the first flight. Truth
is, I
was
beat. I'd just done three days in a row, seven
flights a day. It didn't take much to convince me. I tried to phone
Joe at the hangar and let him know the plan. When there was no
answer, I went on home."

"Have the police talked to Joe?"

"I don't know."

"Okay, Mack, now I need to know the rest. You
knew Gilbert Page, didn't you?"

He stared out the window, toward the airport.
I could hear rotor blades in the distance. He was struggling to
decide how much he should tell.

"Mack," I said, trying to keep my voice
gentle, "you might as well tell me all of it. You can bet the
police will find out, anyway. I can't help you if you withhold
information."

He came back to his chair, and flopped
heavily into it. He ran his fingers through his hair, then leaned
his chin against his entwined fingers. His eyes closed for a
moment, while he took a deep breath.

"Yes, I knew Gilbert Page." His voice had a
ragged weariness to it.

I felt sorry for him.

"I met him about three years ago at a
helicopter convention in Las Vegas. He had money, and was looking
to invest in some type of helicopter operation. My old aircraft was
really tired. It was to a point where I'd either have to put about
two hundred grand into a major overhaul on it, or replace it. Going
to the convention is like visiting a new car dealer's showroom,
while your old clunker sits out in the parking lot. I wanted one of
those new ships with all the bells and whistles. I must have been
practically drooling.

"Gil had real business savvy, and we really
hit it off. He offered to put up five hundred thousand, and I'd use
my two-fifty."

I did a mental
whoa
. Seven hundred
fifty grand for one of those little whirlybirds? I know I'd counted
twenty or so such machines out at the heliport. Fifteen million or
so, just sitting out there on the ground.

"Gil said he didn't want to get involved with
the daily operations of the business. He had plenty else going on
in California, where he came from. We would treat the money
strictly as an equipment loan. That was fine with me. I didn't want
a partner trying to butt in and tell me how to run my business. I
can see now that I had stars in my eyes when I signed the contract.
I didn't realize that the interest rate he wanted was almost twice
what the regular aircraft financing companies were charging at the
time. And I didn't pay much attention to the clause that allowed
him to call in the loan, in full, at any time."

"So Gil came here, pressuring you for the
whole balance, and you didn't have it."

He nodded, staring at a distant point on the
carpet.

"And, I don't suppose you could have borrowed
it from somewhere else? Or satisfied him with part of it?"

He pulled himself up, waving one hand
vaguely. "Well, of course I have contacts."

He seemed about to go on in that vein, but
suddenly slumped again. "Gil just never gave me a chance to work
anything out. He wanted all the money, and he wanted it right
then."

I could see that he was emotionally drained.
I closed my notebook, and sat with him in silence for a few
minutes. It's a terrible thing to watch a man's dream fade
away.

Finally, he spoke: "Charlie, I began to see
Gilbert Page, not as the savior of my business dreams, but as a
slick con man, with degrading tactics and a terrible temper. I grew
to hate him, but I didn't kill him—I swear I didn’t. I need your
help."

It wasn't going to be easy. Money is a
powerful motivator, and Mack had about five hundred thousand
reasons to want Gil off his back. That fact, coupled with an
old-time grudge with the police, didn't make Mack's situation look
any too hopeful.