Wings in the Dark (5 page)

Amelia wore two-toned saddle shoes with light-colored heels and soles. “Is that your footprint?”

She lifted her right foot, revealing a dark stain on the sole of the shoe. “I bent down to see if he was still alive.”

It's never a good idea to leave a bloodstained footprint at a crime scene. “Ever seen him before?”

“Of course. He's Hank Kalua, a fun-loving, hard-drinking sort; also a prominent Hawaiian businessman. He led the group that contacted George last summer and asked us to make the attempt to cross the Pacific. His real name is Haku, but he prefers the Americanized version of his first name. Anyway, they put up a prize of ten grand for the first person who crosses the Pacific from Hawaii to California. He's also a politician. Get a few drinks in him, and he'll talk about how he's going to get statehood for Hawaii.”

Not anymore he won't. The death of a man of his stature and Amelia Earhart…crap would soon hit the fan. “So, Kalua and his friends wanted to give aviation a boost, increasing tourism and trade and lining their own pockets?”

“And bring a ton of jobs to the Islands,” Laura added.

She was right. “Sure.”

“Jake.” Putnam held up a telephone. “It's for you.”

I crossed the hangar. I didn't like the look on his face when I took the phone. Who was on the other end? “Jake Donovan.”

“Jake, listen to me.” It was Mildred, my editor at Empire Press. She sounded even more agitated than usual. “I don't like getting calls at three in the morning.”

Putnam called Mildred? “You shouldn't have answered.”

“Don't even try to be funny. On the other end of the line was the old man.”

Putnam stood with his arms folded, watching my conversation. General Pershing in pinstripes.

“The old man received a call from George Putnam. He doesn't like being awakened in the middle of the night any more than I do. He wants you to help George Putnam.”

I stared at Putnam. He stared back.

“Mildred, we're on our honeymoon.”

“Do we have a bad connection, because I can hear you just fine. The old man doesn't
want
you to help Putnam. He insists on it. This involves Amelia Earhart, you know.”

“I get the picture.” I also knew there was no sense arguing, not if I wanted my books published by Empire Press or any New York publisher. Putnam was that influential. The squeeze tightened, making it tough to breathe. “Tell the old man I'll do whatever I can.”

Mildred's sigh of relief came through five thousand miles away. “This will be good for your career, Jake.”

Unless I discovered Amelia Earhart murdered her chief financial backer, or the killer shot me. “Goodnight, Mildred.” I handed the phone to Putnam.

He hung up. “I don't expect you to like this.”

“You're right about that.”

How could I tell Laura I had to break my promise to stay away from police business? I crossed the hangar, avoiding the detective, who'd finished interviewing the blond mechanic and was talking to a young man in a three-piece suit, who I hadn't noticed before.

Laura appeared to be keeping Amelia calm, but my wife jumped when I touched her arm.

“Sweetheart, we should talk.”

We stepped outside, away from the two policemen, the one smoking next to the black Cadillac and the young man guarding the entrance. Laura and I stood beneath a light a few feet from the hangar's open door.

“Sweetheart?” Laura looked me in the eye. “I don't like the look on your face.”

I didn't try to sugarcoat it. Laura wouldn't want me to. I told her about the squeeze George put on Mildred and how I'd agreed to investigate the murder.

Laura walked away for a moment and stood with her back to me. When she returned, she was angry, but not at me. “You had no choice really, but we'll be careful.”

“We?”

“You think you're going into this alone? What am I supposed to do while you're off chasing down a bad guy? Darn your socks?”

“But, sweetheart…”

“Don't ‘sweetheart' me. I can't let you prowl around in a strange city. You need my help.”

I glanced toward Amelia, who appeared to be arguing with her husband. “What if we discover she fired the shots?”

“Oh, Jake.” Laura chuckled. “This is no time to joke. Amelia would never do a thing like that.” She walked past me and entered the hangar.

I followed. “I'm just saying.”

Laura and I approached the body. Laura seemed to look at the deceased differently now we were involved. As Amelia and George joined us, I studied the body again. The back of his jacket contained a hole about twelve inches below his shoulders, an entrance wound.

I stood with my back to the plane, facing the open hangar door. If Amelia was telling the truth, she heard three shots. I crossed the hangar. In the doorframe was a thick circle in dark pencil lead, drawn by the cops, no doubt.

In the center of the circle was a bullet. Three shots had been fired. One struck the man in the back, one missed and struck the doorframe, and one struck him in the head.

I glanced back toward Amelia's airplane. I didn't like where the evidence was leading.

Any detective would conclude the shooter was someone standing beside the plane. The only person who had remained in the hangar was Amelia. If the suspect were anyone other than Amelia Earhart, they'd already have her at the station, grilling her for answers.

The dead man wore a tailored suit and expensive, spotless shoes without a single smudge mark. I bent down and rubbed a finger along the toe of one shoe. The end of my finger contained a thin layer of fresh shoe polish. I removed a handkerchief from my jacket, wiped the polish from my finger, and stuffed the cloth back into my pocket.

I stepped back and considered his appearance. The man wore fancy duds, as well as a fresh shoeshine, to visit an aircraft hangar. He'd come to impress someone important, someone like Amelia or George, but they both denied knowing why he was there.

A shout from the detective broke the quiet of the hangar. He approached with a scowl on his face, like he wanted to throw the whole lot of us in jail. Unlike homicide detectives I'd dealt with, the man wore a tailored suit, and a five-dollar haircut gave his thick silver hair the distinguished look of a politician.

I extended my hand to the detective. “My name is Jake Donovan, and this is my wife, Laura. Laura Wilson.”

When the detective ignored my hand, Putnam took charge. “Jake, this is Detective Henry Tanaka from the Honolulu Police Department. Detective, this is Jake Donovan. He's a licensed detective.”

My detective license expired after I moved to Florida five years earlier, but Putnam, a master promoter, was dubiously promoting me to detective.

Tanaka raised an eyebrow. “In Hawaii? How come I haven't seen you before?”

I shook my head. “Not in Hawaii.”

After a quick check of Laura, his eyes narrowed. “I know who you and your wife are, Mr. Donovan. You're a mystery writer. You looking for material for your next book or publicity for saysyour wife's next movie?”

Laura looked like she wanted to sock him.

Back in the day, I was used to handling local police who objected to my presence. “I have no intention of interfering, Detective. Mr. Putnam merely asked for my assessment of the crime scene.”

“The last thing I need, Donovan, is a couple of Hollywood types involved. There'll be enough publicity when the papers get ahold of this.”

Another reference to Laura and me as a Hollywood couple. I swallowed my pride, “Detective…”

A man in a rumpled suit and thick wire-rimmed spectacles jumped from the open door of the Lockheed plane. He removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Not a thing, Detective.”

He had to be Tanaka's partner. The look they exchanged confirmed the obvious. The detective suspected that Amelia Earhart had shot Kalua. Tanaka's bespectacled partner had searched her plane for the murder weapon.

I'd read that script before. The cops were just trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together even if they couldn't. The phone call to the Mambo Club had been accurate. Amelia Earhart and her husband needed our help.

Amelia finally seemed to understand the fix she was in with the cops.

Tanaka snatched my handkerchief from my jacket pocket and showed me the black polish on the cloth. “If you don't want to disturb the crime scene, why did you touch the deceased's shoes?”

I didn't want to help Tanaka. He suspected Amelia, but the detective had me boxed in a corner. “Before coming here, the deceased stopped for a shine.” I showed him the end of my finger.

Tanaka tossed me the handkerchief, which I stuffed back in my pocket. Then he showed me the black smudge on his thumb. “I saw that too. Why don't you tell me why that's so important?”

I shrugged. Tanaka understood the importance of Kalua's appearance in an airplane hangar.

And he'd drawn the same conclusion as me, no doubt.

To my surprise, his tone softened. He smiled at Amelia. “Because of my respect for Miss Earhart and Mr. Putnam, I'll give you five minutes, Mr. Donovan. After that you have to leave so my team and I can finish what we started.” He tipped his hat to Laura. “Miss Wilson.”

Putnam followed Tanaka. “Jake's a former Pinkerton detective and ran his own agency in Queens.”

Tanaka glanced toward me. “We're not in Queens, Mr. Putnam.”

He nodded to his partner, who approached from the plane. “Pete, make sure Mr. Donovan and Miss Wilson take a powder in five minutes. Not six.”

“Right, boss.”

I had little interest in the kid seated on a stool in the rear corner of the place who didn't look like he spent much time in airplane hangars. I wanted to talk to the blond chain-smoking mechanic before we left. She looked like she lived here.

I didn't want Pete listening in on the conversation. He couldn't follow both Laura and me around. I winked at Laura, who nodded and took Amelia by the arm. To my relief, Pete followed them.

“Putnam.” I gestured toward the blonde still studying the plane. “Who's that?”

“Fanny Chandler. She and Amelia have been friends for years. She's a damn good pilot herself and the best aircraft mechanic we have. She arrived in Hawaii a month before we did, to work with the organizing committee to make sure we had everything we needed. Let me introduce you.”

I followed him toward the back of the plane.

“Fanny, this is Jake Donovan, a former detective.”

Her blue eyes stood out, even without makeup, and like Amelia's, her skin was sun- and wind-damaged. I shook her hand. There was grease under most of her nails. Like Amelia and her husband she appeared to have adjusted to a dead body in the hangar. She looked more concerned about the aircraft.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Chandler. How'd you get mixed up with this?”

“I came by to check out the hydraulic system. It's been acting up since the plane arrived in Hawaii. We didn't need any more mechanical troubles.”

Amelia had mentioned that during our sightseeing flight earlier in the day. “Troubles?”

Putnam looked at the red glossy plane. “We took every precaution during the ocean voyage, but we've had more than our share of mechanical issues, particularly the hydraulic system.”

Fanny swallowed hard. “If there's a small leak, it might not show until Amelia was halfway to California. She'd lose control of the rudder, and she wouldn't be able to regulate the…Well, you get the picture.”

Were they describing something more than routine mechanical problems? “Sabotage?”

Putnam blew out a puff of air like I'd socked him in the gut. “I hadn't considered that until now.”

“Miss Chandler.” I hoped to come across as less threatening than Tanaka. “You arrived before or after the shots?”

“I guess I was in my car when that happened. I parked in back and climbed out. George was running toward the back door. I didn't hear anything.”

“Did you see anyone leave in a hurry?”

She shook her head. “Seeing George run like that, I thought maybe Amelia was hurt, so I ran inside and saw the body. I couldn't believe it. Amelia was standing beside the plane, looking like I felt. I didn't know it was Mr. Kalua until later.”

“Fanny, I have to ask this.”

She nodded, looking fearful of my question.

“Was Mr. Kalua meeting you here?”

Fanny scoffed. “Why would he be meeting
me
?”

I didn't like rhetorical answers to yes or no questions.

Fanny shrugged. “I only saw him around the hangar once before, when he took a tour with a bunch of other suits.”

Putnam shook his head. “He had no reason to be here.”

I rubbed my forehead and glanced back at the body. A chilling possibility crossed my mind. Perhaps the shooter came for Amelia. When Kalua arrived, he might have surprised the killer, tried to stop him, and was shot for his troubles.

“What's wrong?” Putnam's eyes widened.

I didn't want to share the theory quite yet, and not in front of Fanny. “Just trying to wrap my brain around what happened.”

As Pete approached, staring at me over the top of his glasses, I ended my talk with the mechanic.

Tanaka returned to the body and began to search the contents of the man's wallet. He looked up and tapped his watch.

I shook Fanny's hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Chandler.”

“Fanny.”

She got the message, lit another cigarette, and went out back.

I checked my watch. “I need your story, George.”

“I can't add much to what Fanny said.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I heard two shots, then another, and came running, half expecting…the worst. This is horrible. It could postpone Friday's attempt to cross the Pacific.”

Three days. A man was dead and Putnam's own wife might be a suspect in the murder, and this guy seemed more worried about Amelia's next record-breaking flight.

He apparently read my mind. “I don't mean to sound insensitive.”

The signs suggested the dead man came to talk to Amelia or George, whether or not either was aware of his intentions. “I need to find out why Kalua showed up here tonight.”

“I have no idea.”

“Then give me your best guess.”

“I suppose he must've come by to talk to me or Amelia, perhaps both. Now we'll never know what about.”

Tanaka signaled to Pete, and the two men chatted quietly.

“I don't want you to worry, but you need to be careful. I'd suggest more security…around Amelia.”

“What are you saying?”

Reluctantly, I shared my theory that the shooter might have been targeting Amelia.

Putnam placed his hand on the wall and steadied himself.

“It's just a theory. One theory.”

Putnam ran a hand over his face, straightened his suit coat, and appeared to regain his composure. He looked to the corner and snapped his fingers. “William.”

The young man hopped off the stool and shuffled toward us like a kid summoned to the principal's office.

Putnam made the introduction. “William Thornton, this is Jake Donovan. He's married to Laura Wilson, the actress.” He pointed to Laura.

It was obvious the kid hadn't heard of either of us. The young man with round wire-rimmed glasses couldn't be more than twenty. He shook my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

He stood with his back to the body, as if making a big deal of avoiding seeing the dead man. “What can I do for you, Mr. Putnam?”

Putnam spoke to me. “William is my personal secretary. He's prelaw at Yale and works for me part time. He's organized, efficient, and resourceful. He's learned a great deal about aviation and studied up on Hawaii before we left. I'd like him to go with you to be at your disposal.”

“What!” Was he joking?

The kid's eyes darted between Putnam and me. He didn't want to come along any more than I wanted him to.

Having him tag along would only complicate the investigation if things got dicey. “Mr. Putnam…George, Laura, and I don't need any help. We've—”

He placed a hand on my shoulder and walked me away from Laura and the young man. “You say that now, but if you'll give William a chance, the kid can help.”

I suspected Putnam wanted the kid along to fill him in on anything I was reluctant to share. I didn't like the idea of a spy one bit. “You got me to investigate this case. Don't make the job any harder.”

Putnam's eyes narrowed. He glanced at the kid and lowered his voice. “Jake, in case you hadn't guessed, until this plays out, you work for me.”