Page 17

CHAPTER 17

After the serene peace of the ranch, Costa found himself unexpectedly bothered by the hustle, noise, and urgency of Tucson traffic.

Diana was once again in his passenger seat, quiet and pensive, though he didn’t think she was actually still mad at him. Vic and Delgado had headed out at about the same time, leaving Molly in the care of Costa’s relatives along with Emmeline. Vic would start nosing about in search of the local branch of the shifter fighting underground, while Delgado planned to head back to work and touch base with Agent Caine.

“So the place is called Desert Tours Aviation,” Costa said, glancing at his GPS. They navigated around the outskirts of Tucson and went on heading west, away from the city. “According to Caine, they do flightseeing tours, carry cargo and passengers, just general all-around small aviation stuff. They work with resource development companies doing site surveys or ferrying cargo to mines and facilities in remote locations, do custom passenger charters, that kind of thing.”

Diana nodded, and he realized belatedly that she probably knew most of this already from her earlier search and rescue. “Have they ever been involved with anything criminal?”

“Not that we know of.”

The company was based out of a small airport, little more than a cluster of buildings and hangars, a windsock, and a fence around a single small runway. Following his GPS, Costa pulled in behind a white and red painted building adjacent to a pair of hangars. There was a narrow parking area next to a large fuel tank labeled AVIATION FUEL ONLY. A small, bright yellow plane was pulled in next to it, and there was a man in coveralls standing with one foot in the door and leaning over the wing, fiddling with the fuel cap on top.

“Help you folks?” he called.

“Are you with Desert Tours?” Costa asked. “We’re investigators here to talk to the owners about the crash.” He briefly flipped open his ID, giving an impression of what was inside without really showing the contents.

“Another crash investigator? Well, sure, come this way.”

They walked towards the buildings. The coverall-clad man wiped his hands on a rag and shook hands with them, introducing himself as Benny. Costa simply introduced the two of them as Costa and Reid, leaving their actual titles vague.

“Really a hell of a thing about poor Morty, huh?” Benny said. “I mean, you always know it’s a possibility, but having it happen to someone you know—whoof, it really gets you in the gut.”

“Did you know the deceased—er, Morty very well?” Diana asked.

Costa wondered if it was just his imagination that Benny seemed to look a little evasive at this. “I mean, everyone knows everybody around here. We weren’t really buddies, if that’s what you mean. I’m ground crew, refueling and cargo handling, so I don’t really know the pilots all that well. The guy who died, he was one of—” He paused.

“One of what?” Diana asked.

“Oh, there’s a couple of pilots who get choice jobs, you know? The boss asks for them personally. I know there’s some resentment among the other pilots about it.”

“How much resentment?” Costa asked. “Enough to hurt someone over it?”

Benny looked shocked—genuinely, as far as Costa could tell. “Oh, wow, no. Not in the slightest. Forget I said anything. Anyway, here’s Thornburg’s office—he’s the guy in charge that you’ll want to talk to.”

He left them at the door to the office of Desert Tours, a small room with a couple of couches and some desks jammed together. A radio in the corner was producing bursts of static along with air traffic control chatter. The walls were covered with maps and charts, the desks cluttered with binders and more maps. A heavyset man with short gray hair was just getting up from the desk, presumably Thornburg.

“Hi there,” Costa said, shaking hands. “Quinn Costa with the SCB. This is my associate Diana Reid.” He flashed his badge again, briefly. “We just need to ask you some quick questions about the accident.”

“We’ve already had the sheriff, the NTSB, the FAA, the DEA, and a whole bowl of other alphabet soup in here asking questions,” Thornburg grumbled. “What’s one more, I guess. SCB—what’s that?”

“Special Crimes Bureau,” Costa said smoothly, and watched the man’s spine straighten, his eyes flash.

“Crimes? There hasn’t been any crime. My pilot made an error and it caused a tragedy. The FAA agrees, and the DEA said they didn’t see any signs of drug activity.”

“I’m sure we’ll agree too,” Costa said. “We’re just here to check out anything that’s not under the DEA’s mandate. I know you’ve already been over this, but could you show us the original flight plan?”

Thornburg sighed. “I wish you guys would talk to each other. At least I already have the papers handy. Here you go.” He pulled out a few sheets of paper and gave them to Costa, who glanced at it to confirm what he already knew and then passed them to Diana. “It was a charter flight to Alamagordo, New Mexico. He was picking up cargo. Left at first light, everything went fine, went off signal shortly after leaving Alamagordo. We reported in once it was clear that he wasn’t responding to radio signals.”

“What was the cargo?” Costa asked, although he already knew.

Thornburg pulled out another paper off the bottom stack. “Looks like he was carrying live cargo. Transporting some crates of chickens from a farm near Alamagordo.”

“People pay to transport chickens on a private charter?”

Thornburg shrugged. “People will pay for all sorts of things. I’ve had folks charter an entire plane just to carry a couple cases of beer to someone’s private mountain cabin.”

Diana cleared her throat. “We were at the crash site. I didn’t see any chickens.”

“Flew the coop?” Costa suggested.

“There are a lot of things that could’ve happened. The pilot might have jettisoned the cargo if there was engine trouble, or possibly a cargo door came open in mid-flight. The crates might break open on landing, letting them escape.”

“Leaving not even a feather behind?” Diana asked skeptically.

“Not my area, lady. Look, I have all the paperwork here if you need to see it.”

Costa flipped through the papers. “Big Clucking Deal Chicken Farms, Inc.” He snorted. “Did they get their feathers ruffled over the missing chickens?”

“Insurance paid out,” Thornburg said. “Look, I’d love to help, but I’ve got a business to run. The death of our pilot is tragic, of course, but there’s nothing mysterious about it.”

“No?” Diana said. “He just spontaneously fell out of a clear blue sky?”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, I’m sure some obvious cause will turn up eventually, a sudden updraft or an engine problem. I know that flying seems like a mysterious, magical art to laypeople, but it’s actually very straightforward?—”

“I am a pilot,” Diana snapped. “I know how straightforward it is. Nothing that’s turned up so far explains why an experienced pilot would crash on a clear day.”

Thornburg’s face set in angry lines. “I already told you everything I know. How long are you two going to waste my time? The case is closed as far as I’m concerned.”

“Unfortunately for you, the people who will be closing the case are us, and we’re not there yet.”

Diana studied the papers Costa had given her for a moment longer, her brow furrowed. He couldn’t help tracing the lines of her face with his eyes, wishing it could be his fingers instead.

Abruptly she looked up. “Can we charter a flight to retrace this flight path? Fly the exact same route?”

Thornburg threw his hands up in the air. “There’s no point!”

But Costa was looking at her curiously. “Why?”

“Due diligence. Would the SCB pay for it?”

“I don’t see why not.” In fact, as the person who had the final say on what his division paid for (well, except the budgetary higher-ups who controlled the master purse strings) he could guarantee it. “Could you take us out this afternoon?” he asked Thornburg. “Do you have anything available?”

Thornburg glowered sullenly, but it was clear he couldn’t come up with a plausible objection. With surprising suddenness, his resistance disappeared. “We do actually have a pilot and a plane. It’s a different type, a bigger one.”

“But it can still fly the same route? Would that make a difference?”

“I mean, sure. You’d see the same scenery.”

“Then let’s do it,” Costa said.

As they left the office following Thornburg, Diana said quietly, “Thanks for backing me up.”

“I’ll always back your play,” Costa said. “Although it’d be nice if I knew what it was.”

Diana leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Well, for one thing, when they reported the flight missing, they claimed it was flying to Alamagordo, not coming back after picking something up. That would’ve changed where we were searching. It means there’s a whole missing couple of hours.”

“What?” Costa gave her a sharp look. “Why didn’t that come up before?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible they reported it to the NTSB investigators as a mistake. It’s even possible that it was an honest mistake. Things can get scrambled in the first hours following an accident, and it might have been reported incorrectly to us. But I’d like to see what the flight is actually like and how long it takes. I get it if you don’t feel like flying all the way out to Alamagordo this afternoon.”

He didn’t really, but now he was as intrigued as she was, and it wasn’t like they were doing anything other than spinning their wheels here.

“I’m with you,” he said, and was rewarded by her eyes lighting up.

Thornburg had gone ahead of them and was talking to Benny and another man in the shade of a plane. He waved them over. “All right, this is what we’ve got available. You good to ferry these guys out to Alamagordo, Farley?”

“My pleasure,” said Farley. He was a big guy with a dark crew cut and aviator shades. When he clasped Costa’s hand, the tingle of shifter recognition hit hard. They both sized each other up; then Farley turned to shake hands with Diana. “Farley Dalton. I think we’ve got a copilot on this flight, isn’t that what you said, boss?”

“That’s right,” Thornburg said. “Since you’re flying out to Alamagordo anyway, I’m sending someone along with you. He’s a new pilot who needs more flight hours. I’m going back to file the flight plan now.”

Once he was gone, Benny went to fuel the plane, and Farley grinned at both of them. “Hey, nice to meet you. What are you folks flying out to Alamagordo for?”

“Private business,” Costa said before Diana could speak. “I heard you guys had a crash earlier this week. We’ll be safe in this, right?”

“Oh, safe as houses.” Farley slapped the side of the plane. “Come on in and check out your ride.”

They climbed up. Unlike the crashed plane, which had been tiny, more like the cab of an SUV, this one was like a scaled-down jet. It seated eight passengers in four rows of seats, one on either side of a narrow aisle. There was a pilot’s cockpit that had a lightweight folding door to seal it off from the cabin.

“It’s really not that different from flying in a 747, just smaller,” Farley explained. “If you’ve heard one preflight checklist, you’ve heard ‘em all. Emergency door is here. To open it, pull on the handle like this.”

He went on with the instructions. Costa glanced at Diana, expecting to see her eyes glazing over, but instead she was looking around the inside of the plane with a sharp interest.

When Farley wound down, Diana asked, “What’s it like flying one of these? How does it handle?”

“It should be a pretty smooth ride, don’t worry about it.”

Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I was asking from a technical standpoint. I’m a pilot.”

“No kidding?” Rather than warming up, Farley seemed suddenly, strangely distant. “What are you certified on?”

“Helicopters. I fly for the Park Service and do some S&R.”

Farley seemed to relax a little. “Fixed-wing aircraft aren’t that different. I’d offer you a ridealong in the cockpit, but I’ve got a copilot on this flight—oh, here he is now.”

“Howdy.” The second pilot had an indoor look to him, barely tanned, also large and heavyset—and distinctly tingling in Costa’s shifter sense. He had a square, freckled face and a baseball cap. Farley introduced him as Jim, and they shook hands all around.

“Well,” Farley said, clapping his hands together, “let’s get rolling. You folks just pick your seats back here, and we’ll have you in Alamagordo in no time.”

Diana picked a seat absently. She was frowning, looking after the pilots as they went up to the cockpit.

Costa texted the office to let them know about the side trip, then put his phone away. The plane’s engines fired up, and he turned to grin across the aisle at Diana. But she was still looking up the aisle through the opening into the cockpit, as if something was bothering her.