Wings in the Dark (9 page)

A sign across from Fanny Chandler's apartment read
F
IVE
M
ILES TO
W
HEELER
F
IELD
. I checked my watch: almost midnight. The simple one-story structure had a dozen apartments. The only light on was the one in Fanny's, Apartment 7.

I parked down the road behind a flatbed trailer stacked with crates of sugarcane. I didn't want the cops to see our car in front of Fanny's apartment, in case they had glimpsed the Oldsmobile when we sped away.

As we climbed from the car, Laura took one look at me and ripped the torn pocket from the jacket.

“Sweetheart, not in front of Billy.”

With a smirk, she straightened my tie, trying to make me look more presentable. “That'll have to do.”

“Fanny's a mechanic.”

“Don't be such a snob. You need to be presentable wherever you go.”

I held out my hand. “Maybe you should give me the vest gun.”

“I don't know…”

It didn't carry much of a pop, but Laura's gun would fit my purpose. “I may want Fanny to see I'm armed.”

When she handed the pistol to me, I stuffed the piece in the back of my trousers and led Laura and Billy to the apartment, where a jazzy Bing Crosby tune was playing.

We reached the front door, where Billy licked his palm. He slicked down his hair and straightened his tie, then noticed me watching. “What?”

Even in the dim light from a bulb above the door, Billy's blush showed.

“You have a Fanny crush.”

“Fanny? A crush? I work with her, that's all.”

Laura smiled. “Methinks he doth protest too much.”

I gestured to the door. “Go ahead.”

He rapped on the door. “Fanny, it's Billy…Billy Thornton.”

The clang of a chain being removed from a lock came from inside. Fanny opened the door a crack. “Billy, what a pleasant surprise.” She flashed a smile.

Billy gestured toward Laura and me. “I guess you've met Jake and Laura.”

I couldn't have been more shocked if I'd stuck my hand in a toaster. A freshly scrubbed Fanny wore a simple cotton dress, brown pumps, and a necklace of pearls. She looked like the girl next door instead of some grease monkey.

Her smile vanished as she stepped back and let us in. “Of course.”

Billy never took his eyes off her. She was quite a bit older than he was, but the look in his eyes revealed more than a crush.

Fanny lifted the record from the turntable that sat on a wooden cabinet. With great care she slipped the record into a sleeve and set it on a stack with a couple dozen others. She shut off the record player, a brand-new RCA Victor.

When Billy dropped onto her couch as if he'd been there before, I knew he had. No wonder the kid was speechless when Laura discovered Kalua's relationship with her.

The sparsely decorated room smelled of cigarettes and coffee. The kitchen, which consisted of a cabinet and a one-burner stove, sat in the far corner next to a wooden table and two chairs that didn't match. The rest of the room was furnished with a chair covered in plaid fabric and an uncomfortable-looking leather couch. On the wall alongside the kitchen was a doorway leading to a bedroom.

The only personal items hung on the wall beside the front door, seven framed photos of Fanny as a pilot or mechanic. Three of the pictures included Amelia. The photos reflected the hardworking dedication I'd noticed earlier.

The place looked like the kind of dive someone without a lot of dough would rent, except for the expensive phonograph—and her pearl necklace wasn't cheap either.

I hadn't interrogated anyone in a while, and I wasn't sure how to approach the situation. Should I question the shaken mechanic I met in Amelia's hangar or the sweet girl in front of me? I tossed my hat next to an ashtray on a table beside the door. “Sorry to bother you, Miss Chandler. I have a few questions…”

“What's this all about, Mr. Donovan?” Her pursed-lipped frown reminded me of our prune-faced high school librarian, Miss Morehead, a puritanical woman who kept pictures of her four cats on her desk.

“Jake used to be a Pinkerton. George asked him to look into the shooting tonight.” Laura's voice was soft and soothing. She was obviously going to play the role of the kindly cop, freeing me to question Fanny more aggressively.

“I already told you what happened.” Fanny broke eye contact and took a seat in the one comfortable-looking chair in the whole place. When she sat, her dress slid up enough to show plenty of leg, for Billy's benefit, or mine.

Behind the innocent look was something I couldn't quite figure out, but I intended to.

Laura joined Billy on the coach. Perched at the edge of the cushion, they both seemed anxious to learn what the woman would reveal about her relationship with Hank Kalua.

I unbuttoned my jacket and turned to make sure Fanny would glimpse Laura's gun and realize I was in charge, that I wasn't going to waste my time or hers. “I'm hoping you can clarify something that's troubling me.”

She set her hands primly in her lap. “What about?”

“About why your name, address, and phone number showed up in Hank Kalua's appointment book several times, next to the names of restaurants and nightclubs. Though sometimes the location was left blank.” I glanced toward the open bedroom door.

Fanny's air of confidence crumbled. She buried her face in her hands and let out a mournful groan. When she looked up, tears danced in her eyes.

Laura jumped up and handed Fanny a hankie.

Fanny dabbed at her eyes and crumpled the hankie in one hand. “Thank you.”

Maybe Fanny was the kind of dame who could turn tears on and off when it met her needs. Laura could do that for a stage or movie role, but in our personal lives, tears were rarely shed, at least in front of me.

Fanny struggled to regain her composure. “He needed my address because he wanted to send me flowers…for my birthday.”

Even Billy didn't believe that. His eyes narrowed. “Your birthday isn't until March.” He noticed my surprise that he knew her birthday. “Mr. Putnam has me mail birthday cards to employees.”

I moved closer to Fanny's chair. “I think you should get in the habit of telling the truth.”

“Why would I lie?” Her fingertips played with each pearl in her necklace, like they were rosary beads.

Her indignant reply was almost laughable.

“By now the cops have Kalua's appointment book. I'm sure they'll be here soon asking the same questions I am, starting with your relationship with Hank Kalua—only they might not be so nice.”

“You're being nice?” Her eyes narrowed with indignation. She got up and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the table. She lit a Camel, took a quickly glanced at Billy, then took a drag on the cigarette. “Why would the cops be interested in who I invite into my bed?”

Fanny returned to the chair and sat, avoiding my gaze.

I carried a chair from the kitchen table and placed it in front of her. I set one foot on the seat. “Miss Chandler, your name is in the appointment book of a man found murdered just a few hours ago.”

The cigarette shook in her hand. “You don't think…”

“It doesn't matter what I think. Detective Tanaka…now, he matters.”

With Laura's hankie twisted in one hand, Fanny took a long drag of her cigarette and let out a plume of smoke that blew past my shoulder. “Okay…Mr. Kalua stopped by…a few times. But I didn't kill him.”

I didn't know whether she did or not. “Was he here tonight?”

“No.” She answered a little too quickly and forcefully. I was starting to doubt everything she said.

“When did you last see him?”

She closed her eyes as if searching through her memory, or perhaps coming up with the most plausible scenario. “I…a couple of days ago. Why don't you check that appointment book?”

Billy rose and began to wheeze. He paced the room as if he had something important to say. He stopped beside me. “I'm just a kid…”

Fanny reached for Billy's hand, but he pulled it away. “Billy, you're not a kid.”

He handed her the ashtray from the table. “Okay, then, I'm just George Putnam's secretary. It doesn't matter whether
I
knew about your affair with Mr. Kalua, but I'm pretty sure you kept your relationship with Hank a secret from Miss Earhart and Mr. Putnam and from everyone working on this flight.”

“Billy…Mr. Donovan, I'm a nice girl.”

Maybe she was a good girl. Maybe she was a heartbreaker. I didn't care how many hearts she'd broken. I only cared about Billy's.

Fanny walked to the kitchen and reached into the cupboard. She returned with a bottle of scotch and a glass.

Billy's eyes glistened. His wheezing continued as he retreated to the couch, where Laura handed him a stick of gum for his asthma.

Fanny sat and poured herself a drink. She set the bottle beside her and took a sip. “I shouldn't've become involved with”—she glanced at Billy again—“with someone connected to Amelia's flight, but no one like Mr. Kalua ever showed an interest in me. I'm just a damn grease monkey.”

“It happens.” Laura took on an understanding expression.

Fanny took another swallow. “You know something about that, Miss Wilson?”

“Not personally.” Laura's face flushed a moment. “But some of my actress friends were…involved with married men.”

I thought back to my two years in Florida away from Laura. There had been women, especially the first few months after the move when I was still feeling sorry for myself, but she'd convinced me she hadn't seen anyone else while I was gone.

I shook off my doubts and focused on Fanny. “How'd you and Mr. Kalua become involved?”

Fanny sighed. “He met me at the pier and took me to lunch. It sounds corny, but there were sparks right away. You believe in love at first sight, don't you, Mr. Donovan?”

I believed in love at first sight, but I wasn't buying what Fanny was selling, not yet, anyway. “You called him and asked him to meet you at the hangar tonight, didn't you, Miss Chandler?”

“No…no. I broke things off with Hank. I grew tired of sneaking around and”—she crushed out the cigarette and kept her eyes on the ashtray—“and lying to people I really care about…like Amelia and George.”

“He's twice your age and you've barely known him a month! It doesn't make sense.” Laura waved her hand, obviously disapproving of Fanny's cavalier relationships with men.

“Maybe not to you, but love doesn't always make sense.” Fanny finished her drink. “Right away, Hank made me feel special for the first time in my life. He was swell to me and bought me expensive gifts.” She touched the pearls around her neck. “I…I didn't ask him to.”

Of course not. I scooted my chair closer, hoping to make Fanny uncomfortable and break through her exterior. “Was he coming to the hangar this evening to talk to you about your relationship?”

Fanny clenched both fists as she sat. “I have no idea why he came to the hangar. I was as surprised as anyone to see him there.”

I didn't believe that for a minute. “Of course, when you saw him, he was dead. That must've been a surprise.”

She glared like she wanted to slap my face. I recognized the expression, mostly from my gumshoe days. Sometimes the look hurt more than the sting of a smack.

“I'd like to know this. Were you hoping he'd leave his wife for you? Or were you using romance to further your career, so you can become the next Amelia Earhart?”

Fanny's hand shook as she took another sip. “Amelia once mentioned how nice you and Laura are. You're not very nice, Mr. Donovan.”

“I'm not nice to people who hide the truth.”

She covered her neck with one hand. “You think I'd use…that I became involved with a married man to further my career?”

“Like my wife said, it happens.” I pushed harder. “You're jealous of Amelia, aren't you? You think you're as good a pilot. You think—”

“I am a better pilot, damn it!” Fanny shouted. “Amelia has had more breaks than me, that's all.”

Billy's mouth dropped open. “She's always been so wonderful to you.”

Fanny's eyes narrowed. “Then why are you, Amelia, and George living in a fancy hotel, while I've been in this dump for six weeks?”

Laura raised her voice enough to wake the neighbors. “Amelia began to fly when you were a kid and so was aviation. She's given lessons longer than you've flown. Be patient and you might become famous for more than sleeping with men to further your career.”

Fanny swallowed the rest of her drink like she couldn't wait for another.

For a moment, I felt sorry for the young woman, but I couldn't let her see that. “You decided to make your own breaks by getting involved with one of the men financing the flight across the Pacific, but when he didn't replace Amelia with you, you shot him.”

Fanny raised her hand and tried to slap me, but I held her wrist.

Her eyes glistened again. “I do work hard, Miss Wilson. Sure, Amelia's success stung some, but she deserves everything she's accomplished. She's a swell person and a fearless pilot.”

“I don't think you believe that.”

“I don't give a damn whether you do or not. Sure, plenty of us women thought Amelia got some advantages because she married George. We work just as hard, but…” She yanked her hand away from my grip with surprising strength.

Fanny gazed past Laura. Her eyes pleaded with Billy. “Gumdrop, you know me. I didn't shoot Hank.”

Gumdrop?

Billy didn't blink. “I thought I knew you, but I was wrong, wasn't I?”

A tear slid down Fanny's cheek. “I'm not the girl you think I am.”

She faced me, her lip trembling, looking more believable than anytime since she let us in. “Hank was having second thoughts about Amelia. He did talk about replacing her with someone else. Maybe someone not so famous, who'd generate less preflight publicity. Nobody'd ever heard of Lindbergh until he crossed the Atlantic. Anyway, he thought if some nobody failed, it would just be unsuccessful attempt number eleven until someone finally succeeded.”