Thin Blood Thick Water (Clueless Resolutions Book 2) (26 page)

Along the coast of Connecticut, Sunday began with an approaching weather front. It was forecasted to arrive coinciding with the 8:00 AM takeoff, which had been pre-filed by Max. An instinctive early-morning wake-up by Max, followed by his check on the weather channel, indicated that a request for an earlier takeoff would be prudent. He woke Maggie and explained the change in plans. Half asleep, she chastised Max for changing things at the last minute but when he repeated the revised weather forecast she, as a native New Englander, yielded to the ‘weather gods’ and sarcastically apologized for being such a grouch.

“You know, ‘if you don’t like the weather’……” she began.

“I know: ‘just wait a minute’…,” Max jumped in, completing the time-worn axiom.

Within fifteen minutes they were bathed, dressed, and out the door, toting their overnight bags.

At 6:25 AM the flight plan was revised.  Early on this Sunday morning, with the scheme of the plan becoming a reality, Max and Maggie did a pre-flight inspection of the rented Cessna which had been readied for their flight to Presque Isle. Maggie would be sitting in the co-pilot seat and Max familiarized her with the aircrafts various gauges and controls. He indicated that he intended to have her take over the controls at some point during mid-flight. Maggie questioned his intentions with that decision, and he explained that it was standard procedure between couples or family members, who flew together frequently, to have someone familiarize themselves with flight procedures and sensations of control in case of emergencies. Max paid the rental fee, bought the insurance, and filed their flight plan subject to a final weather briefing prior to takeoff.

After a final examination of the airplanes exterior mechanics and airflow surfaces, pilot ‘Captain Max’ and ‘acting co-pilot Maggie’ were in the cockpit of the rented Cessna 182S  getting a final weather check while the engine warmed up at idle.

At 7:05 AM they were airborne and climbing to altitude on a heading to Presque Isle, Maine.

Above the building cloud formations, the morning sunlight beaming through the co-pilots window highlighted Maggie’s classic profile, un-affected by the cumbersome headphones she wore.  Max glanced at his partner with a feeling of warmth for this spunky woman with whom he had become so deeply entrenched.  Sober thoughts took over at that instant when he realized that moving through the air climbing for altitude, moving along at 130 MPH in a reliable, but relatively small flying machine, was not the time for romantic impulsiveness.

Within 15 minutes after takeoff they were at the planned 5000 feet cruising altitude and Maggie was looking at the cloud tops passing just below their flightpath.

“Okay Mag, it’s time to take over control of the aircraft,” he commanded through the intercom earphones. She looked at him with a less-than-confident expression.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Maggie asked rhetorically, mostly to get reassurance from Max. Indicating a thumbs-up sign, Max listed the basic control procedures for manual flying such as turning the wheel to bank, applying left and right rudder for directional changes and pushing the control wheel forward to descend and pulling it back to climb. At this point in the flight, the auto-pilot was maintaining the flight settings Max had set previously, so only the monitoring of readings was necessary. He alerted Maggie that he was switching off the auto pilot and Maggie nodded. With a slight sensation of the change to manual flight, Maggie took control.

“It’s all yours,” Maggie heard through the earphones. She tensed up her grip on the wheel and the airplane began to bank slightly to the right and began to climb. Max told her to relax her grip and slowly turn the wheel to the left to level the wings and slightly push it forward to lower the nose of the Cessna. Her right foot was pushing on the rudder pedal, which was an automatic reaction of a cautious automobile driver on the brake pedal. In this case, however, it had been pointing the aircraft to the right, so Max brought it to her attention. After a few minutes Maggie felt more at ease and a broad smile came across her countenance as she looked at Max. After approximately ten minutes of this he indicated that he was switching back to auto-pilot. Maggie nodded and let loose of the controls.  She settled back in the co-pilots seat with an audible sigh of relief.

“What a great feeling that was,” she said, still beaming a smile as she looked at Max.

“There’s nothing like it,” he responded. “Well,…almost nothing,” he added, with that irascible twinkle in his eye that he had when he was in a comfortable setting with Maggie.

The remainder of the three hour, 386 mile flight was uneventful, but Maggie kept Max occupied in between his flying duties with questions about the instrument readings and how they affected the flying. Max realized that the keen interest she had could possibly result in Maggie wanting to take flying lessons.

The last twenty minutes of the journey was over a completely snow-covered surface. Contact with Presque Isle Regional Airport Tower was made and instructions for a visual landing were given. Touch-down was made at 10:10 AM.

After the taxi to the parking area the travelers shut down their airplane and made their way through the twenty-something degree sunshine to the pilots’ sign-in desk. They noticed that the indoor temperature wasn’t all that much warmer than the interior of the Cessna had been. Don Chace had preceded them, landing at 9:15 AM on a commercial flight. The flight desk manager had notified ‘Mr. Chace’ when Max, running a little late, radioed to request a full-stop landing, and Don had watched them land. He was there as a private citizen, to make arrangements for a private meeting, introducing himself as ‘Mr.’ rather than ‘Inspector’.

“That was a smooth looking landing guys,” was the greeting as he approached Max and Maggie from the lounge area. Extending her hand to receive a congratulatory shake Maggie thanked him for the compliment, surprising Don. He thought she must have piloted the landing.

“Gotcha!” Maggie said, laughing at Chace’s confused look. “I was wondering how you would react to that.” The three of them shared a laugh over what was an inside joke between them. It dated back to when Maggie first met Don during the East Haven murder investigation. Maggie and Max had pre-arranged to meet for lunch. She had approached from behind as Don and Max sat at a bar. She had mistaken Don Chace for Max since they looked very similar from behind, and she had made a sexually-inappropriate comment as she hugged him from the rear.  Maggie was embarrassed beyond words at the first impression Chace must have gotten, and Chace didn’t graciously let her off the hook. He teased her about it and, to make it worse, Max even went along with it. The trio had grown to be friends but Maggie never let a chance go by to catch Chace off guard, just to get back at him.

Chace had rented a car and they proceeded to the Country Vista bed & breakfast, twelve miles northwest in Fort Fairfield, to check in.

“Welcome to Fauht Fayahfield,” greeted the elderly proprietor, in her quaint native brogue. “I hope you’ll enjoy yoah stay heah.”

The rooms were impeccably clean and, furnished in an eclectic country motif, formed a cozy, comfortable environment. Televisions were lacking in the rooms but a 40 inch flat screen, satellite-fed model was available in the first floor living room between 7 AM to 10 PM.

After freshening-up in the rooms, the three ‘tourists’ met in the living room and agreed to drive out to the Customs house on the Maine/New Brunswick border to inspect the layout and decide on a suitable meeting space for the ‘sale transaction’.

Driving westward on Main Street, Fort Fairfield, they soon encountered the signs highlighting the up-coming border crossing with large instructional displays showing the crossing procedures and requirements. From a parking area, they walked to an information office. Upon entrance, they encountered a familiar face. ‘Mr.’ (Inspector) Maurice Leblanc greeted them and the foursome seated themselves in some corner chairs of the waiting area to discuss the situation quietly.

An important factor at the scene of the transaction, as a safety measure, was going to be situating the principals in separate areas, whereby both buyer and seller would be present during the signings and passage of the payment, but not face-to-face. It would simulate a legitimate transaction, but both parties would remain unseen by the other. That would be presented to the seller as a ‘quirky’ preference of the buyer.

Another factor was at what point the seller, Mahlah Bickford, would be approached by officials to be detained for questioning. Since she had demonstrated a status of being shielded by her Native Indian lineage in Canada, it would be best to detain her on the U.S. side of the border. She could be expedited to Canadian officials after the fact. If she feared crossing the border to consummate the transaction, she would be told that the deal was off. If she insisted that the transaction be done on the Canadian side, she would be told that the eccentric ‘cash buyer’ would not leave U.S. soil for any reason.

The customs office was too small to accommodate the transaction and there were no other enclosures near the border crossing point.

“Could we rent a large motor home, or travel trailer?” Maggie asked. The foursome looked at each other for a moment mulling over the suggestion.

“That’s it,” Chace stated. “I can arrange that. The buyer can stay in the motorhome, the seller can drive her vehicle through to the U.S. side. The cash can be viewed by the seller and placed in a separate vehicle, under-guard, during the document signings.”

“You can be at U.S. Customs to detain the seller for questioning, as a citizen and resident of New York State before she crosses back over,” Inspector Leblanc said to Chace. “I will be there with back-up to make an international co-operative arrest at the border. If there is any disruption because of her Native Indian backers, you can hold her on your side.”

“So I will be with the buyer and the attorney, and the seller will be there with her attorney, correct?” Maggie asked.

“Not exactly,” Don Chace answered. “Max will be there as the buyer’s ‘attorney’ and I will be there as a ‘guard’.

“If the seller is accompanied by Chip, who knows I’m not an attorney, won’t that spook them?” Max suggested.  Chace went on to explain that Max could stay in the motorhome with the buyer and the seller wouldn’t see him. He suggested that, even if he saw Max, Chip would assume that he had flown Maggie to the transaction location.

Maggie knew that she wouldn’t be expected to produce an actual cash buyer and assumed that a stand-in would be used. She suggested that the details of the transaction, however, should be as if it were an actual transfer of the Bickford Laboratory Real Estate. She would need a name in preparing the correct papers and would ask, through Chip, to provide the seller’s information and remind her to bring the keys to the property. All that was needed now was a date.

Max agreed to contact Chip to explain the sale proposition so that he could pass it along to Mahlah Bickford. He promptly dialed the USAP priority number.

“Hello Max. Is there an emergency?” Chip asked. Max knew by the immediate pick-up that he was at his office in Lakeside. If he had been away, the transfer to his cell phone would have taken a moment to process.

“Not exactly, but something has surfaced regarding the Lab,” Max responded. “I’m flying into Lakeside approximately two hours from now and I wanted to make sure you’d be there.” Chip indicated that he would be there at 4:00 PM. Max acknowledged and they said their goodbyes.

With that, the plan was set in motion. Max would fly directly to USAP headquarters to meet with Chip and from there to New Haven. He would return the rented Cessna at Tweed Airport and stay in touch with Chip by phone until a date was set for the transaction. Maggie suggested that Max drop her off at New Haven first so that any probing by Chip concerning the ‘sale’ could be avoided. Max could claim ignorance of the details and have Maggie call him later.

“Time won’t allow for that now, so you’ll have to handle it when we get there,” Max told her. Don Chace suggested that he could fly Maggie back to Hartford and she could take the commuter train to New Haven but it wouldn’t be until the following morning.

“Thanks Don, but I have to fly co-pilot for Max, otherwise he’d have to fly back all alone,” she said with an obvious wink. Chace expressed his understanding with a chuckle. The group parted ways and headed back to the Fort Fairfield Inn to check out. They would then drive to Presque Isle where Max and Maggie would initiate their flight to Ithaca, New York.

By 12:15 PM the group gathered for lunch in the lounge at the Northern Maine Airport, Presque Isle. Max filed his flight plan to Ithaca.  As usual, he would cancel the landing request after making contact with Ithaca flight control and divert to the nearby USAP Headquarters air strip.

After handshakes all around and a few burps resulting from the greasy hamburger lunches, the Ithaca-bound travelers taxied the Cessna rental to the assigned end of the runway. A clearance for takeoff was given by the tower and they were on their way southward.

Back at USAP headquarters Chip was on the phone when Brad Charles walked into his office with a questioning frown on his brow. Chip hung up the phone, motioned for him to be seated, and asked Brad which of the planes in the USAP fleet Max had checked out. Brad indicated that all were accounted for and Max didn’t have any of them. Chip explained that Max was flying in at 4:00 PM with news on the Bickford Property which he wanted to convey in person. Brad was indifferent, explaining that he had no idea what was going on and his suggestion was to wait for Max’s arrival. Chip nodded as if he agreed, but sat with a blank stare until Brad rose from his seat with an irritable look and went back to the flight office.