Plane in the Lake Page 5

  “Bunch of other retired cops looking for things to do.”

  “What’s really going on, Valenti?”

  “You know Papa’s been hassled a bit since the trial,” I reply. “We’re just playing it safe.”

  Pat senses that something more is up, something to worry about. The fear on her face hits me hard. She’d been shot in our kitchen ten months ago when the son of Papa’s shooting victim sprayed the back of our house with bullets from a .22-caliber handgun. The bricks still bear the scars from the slugs. Pat lost an eye.

  “You’re a crappy liar, Valenti,” she says. “The drama around your father died down a while ago. Now there’s suddenly a bunch of retired cops babysitting him. What’s up?”

  I shrug.

  “So, don’t tell me what’s going on,” she says irritably before spinning her laptop around to face me. “Read this while I get changed.”

  A Chicago Sun-Times article is open on the screen. The headline reads:

  Milton Crash: Maintenance and Fuel Vendors Under Microscope

  I do a slow burn as I read the article, the gist of which is that the NTSB investigation is focusing on tainted fuel and/or shoddy maintenance as likely causes of the crash. Or so the Sun-Times reporter’s unnamed sources tell her. The writer goes on at some length to establish that the fuel vendor at the airport, AAA Avgas, has reputed ties to organized crime. I resist the urge to slam down my coffee mug as I finish reading, limiting myself instead to an angry, “Son of a bitch!”

  “Quite a smear job, huh?” Pat asks as she slides onto the black fabric barstool next to mine, plants her elbows on the butcher-block countertop, and rests her chin on the knuckles of her clasped hands.

  I look at her in surprise, not having heard her come back downstairs. “No shit. Where did”—I scroll back to the top of the article for the reporter’s byline—“Sandy Irving get this crap?”

  Pat purses her lips and lifts a shoulder. “That’s a good question. Maybe Ben Larose can shed a little light on that.”

  Larose is the aviation writer we’re meeting for lunch. I stab a finger at the laptop. “You think he’s the source for this?”

  “I doubt it.”

  I lean back and look up at the ten-foot ceiling. “Billy Likens assures me they did nothing wrong.”

  Pat shrugs as she slides off her barstool. “He’s your client, of course, but to play devil’s advocate for a moment, what if that’s not true?”

  “It is a good question,” I allow, but when Billy’s angelic face appears in my mind’s eye, I just can’t buy it. “I don’t think Billy’s lying.”

  “Fair enough,” Pat says, then pauses to give me a long look. “That name rings a bell. Billy Likens, as in Melanie Likens’s little brother?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Did you and Mel stay in touch after school?” she asks. After I nod, she frowns. “I heard she died. Hard to imagine… she was always so full of life.”

  Until she wasn’t, I think morosely. Mel’s death had devastated me. The topic of Mel is a dark place I try not to visit.

  Pat rests a hand on the counter, reaches back to grab the toe of a white-and-orange Asics running shoe, and pulls her foot up to her butt to stretch her quadriceps muscles. She’s clad in form-fitting, jet-black spandex, whereas I’m dressed in what might be euphemistically called shabby chic or, perhaps more accurately, like some bozo trapped in an athletic wear time warp. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing. Things are about to get worse.

  She glances up at an antique wall clock with a different breed of bird pictured for every hour. “C’mon, Valenti. Limber up and let’s get moving. We can talk about the Milton crash and Ben Larose while we run.”

  My eyes track up to the clock. Eight thirteen. She’s right, we do need to get moving. I’ve got a prospective client meeting in just over two hours. While Pat goes through an elaborate prerun routine, I do a couple of stretches, polish off my coffee, and admire the main floor of Pat’s house. Lots of hardwood, plenty of sunshine pouring in through oversized windows, tasteful minimalist leather and wood furnishings, several nice pieces of art, and a fascinating collection of bric-a-brac she’s brought home from her extensive travels through Africa, Asia, Europe, and, well… everywhere. There’s a tenant in a self-contained basement apartment. Upstairs, the second floor contains a remodeled master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, a guest room, and a home office. A painting studio fills the converted attic space. It’s a great house.

  Pat finishes a couple of stretches on the floor, bounces up, and pulls her shoulder-length red hair into a ponytail that she stuffs through the back of a Chicago Blackhawks ball cap. She waves me along as she jogs to the front door.

  “We’ll start easy,” she assures me as we cross Division Street to enter Humboldt Park in the crisp mid-October morning air. The park is a 207-acre gem, one in a series of elegant West Side urban parks developed by William Le Baron Jenney in the 1870s.

  I focus on my stride as we head deeper into the park along a cracked ribbon of tree-lined asphalt. Pat’s “easy pace” has me sweating inside a minute. At five foot ten, she has a long, loping stride that eats up a lot of real estate with every step. In high school, she’d been mockingly called “Stick,” a reference to her tall, slender frame and lack of curves. Understanding that it hurt her more than she let on, I did what I could to shut the assholes down, but it was high school, and I had limited success. Still, she noticed, appreciated it, and we became friends, although she wasn’t welcome among the crowd of cool kids I ran with.

  “The full trail is about two miles,” she says conversationally after we’ve covered a couple of hundred more yards.

  “Okay,” I wheeze. “I’ve never understood the point of running.”

  Pat cocks an eyebrow my way. “No?”

  “What’s the point if a scary monster isn’t chasing you?”

  She shoots me a bemused sideways glance. “You’re such a doofus.”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “I’m a little surprised the Milton crash didn’t get much attention after the initial feeding frenzy,” she says a moment later as she coasts along.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Senator Milton qualifies as something of a celebrity these days, right? Potential presidential run, all of that.”

  I chug along beside her and nod while focusing on my somewhat ragged breathing. My legs may be limbering up a bit. Or maybe I’m simply going numb below the waist. Either way, I’m hopeful that the worst is over. By silent agreement, she talks, I listen.

  “The NTSB has pulled out all the stops for precisely that reason,” Pat continues. “Feed the media beast, satisfy the clamoring politicians.”

  She’s right. The Windy City Sky Tours Cessna has been retrieved from the bottom of Lake Michigan. The investigation seems to be moving quickly.

  “It’s kind of sad how little mention is made of the victims,” Pat mutters. “Lots of talk about the forty-three-year-old junior senator with higher-office aspirations and how this might impact his political career. What about Tiffany?”

  When I don’t reply, she throws her hands up in exasperation. “See what I mean? Tiffany Walton, his thirty-two-year-old wife who won’t turn thirty-three. Then there’s Cameron, all of four years old, and let’s not forget Cameron’s apparently doting grandparents, dead in their mid-sixties. This isn’t just about politics and money.”

  This is one of the reasons Pat is such a great reporter. She’s interested in people. She shines a light on how the news affects the people touched by events. She’s got a big heart—one that currently seems to be pumping a lot more oxygen to her body than mine is.

  “I’m not terribly familiar with how the NTSB works, but I’m told leaks like what we saw this morning are extremely rare,” she continues. “So rare, in fact, that leaks generally originate from people working in some other facet of an investigation.”

  “I’ve… heard… that… too,” I manage to gasp. The truth is t
hat I don’t really know what the hell I should be doing at this point in an aviation accident case. I’m still trying to get up to speed. The NTSB does have what seems to be a well-deserved reputation for playing things close to the vest.

  Pat asks, “Is Billy Likens in trouble?”

  The question surprises me. I slow to a walk to catch my breath, hopefully enough to carry on a bit of a conversation. “Why do you ask?”

  Pat isn’t even breathing hard as she jogs circles around me while I suck in as much life-sustaining air as I can. She grabs my sleeve and tugs until I start running again, then answers my question. “Sandy Irving has good sources in law enforcement circles, which makes me wonder if she’s getting her information from the police. My understanding is that the NTSB only brings in law enforcement when there’s a suspicion of possible criminal activity.”

  That’s a disturbing possibility. Billy and Rick have talked with the NTSB and turned over all their records, but they haven’t spoken with law enforcement. Not that I know of, anyway. I push that thought aside, ignore my burning thighs, and work to keep up while wheezing out an answer. “They haven’t… talked… to… the cops.”

  “Let’s pick up the pace,” Pat suggests over her shoulder as she surges ahead.

  Is she kidding? I’m a jogger of sorts; she’s a runner. There is a difference. I belatedly recall that Pat was the queen of cross-country running in high school and has apparently completed a couple of full marathons and a bunch of half marathons. “You. Can. Keep. This. Up. All. Day. Can’t. You?” I shout at her back as I fall behind.

  She turns back to circle behind me and comes alongside wearing a smirk. “Not all day, Chubby, but I can go for a good while yet—especially at this pedestrian pace of yours.”

  We’ve finally rounded the north end of the park and are heading south when it first occurs to me that Pat may be out to kill me. She’s loping along effortlessly with plenty of bounce in her step. I’m plodding along on legs of stone. We’re now running into a middling breeze, which feels good but may well arrest my forward progress before much longer.

  “Back to Ben Larose,” Pat says.

  “Yeah,” I gasp hoarsely.

  “He mentioned vendors, said he has some info about them, right?”

  I nod.

  “Why talk to you about that?”

  “You. Tell. Me.”

  “Maybe Irving’s source reached out to Ben and he’s fishing for more information?”

  They’re good questions. I’m in no condition to speak, so I nod in reply and wonder why Larose would want to compare notes with me. Maybe Pat’s right to be skeptical of the guy’s motives.

  “I’m not sure I want to be seen with him around our newsroom,” she says. The meeting is set for noon at the Tribune. She suggests meeting Larose at my office instead.

  “No way,” I reply flatly. How the hell can I expect Larose to take me seriously if he sees our office? Strip-mall lawyers going up against Butterworth Cole? Right. “Someplace… neutral.”

  “Ideas?” she asks as we start to round a lagoon.

  I wave her off.

  “When we stop?” she asks with an amused lilt in her voice.

  I nod gratefully. We pass tall stands of wild grass and a mixture of yellow and blue wildflowers that hug the shore of the lagoon. The imposing Humboldt Park Fieldhouse Gymnasium is at the water’s edge on the far side. I admire the graceful sweep of its base, a low ribbon of concrete dotted with arches along its length. Several stories of brown brick tower above it. Twin turrets capped with greened bronze roofs anchor the two wings running out from the center block. This would be an enjoyable jog if Pat weren’t bent on breaking the Humboldt Park land speed record. Maybe we can stop and admire things for an hour or two while I catch my breath?

  “So?” she prompts as we slow on the approach to North Humboldt Drive, a city street that bisects the park from north to south. She continues to run in place after I lumber to a stop beside her. “What have you got in mind for someplace neutral to meet for lunch?”

  “The Sandwich Emporium?”

  “Great idea! I haven’t been there in months!” she exclaims with a smile. “I’ll meet you at eleven forty-five.”

  The walk light comes on, and Pat trots across the street with me in her wake. She eventually stops in the parking lot outside the Boat Pavilion and looks back at me with abject pity. Having lost my forward momentum waiting to cross the street, I can’t coax my legs back into action. I stagger up and stop with my hands on my knees. My head sinks almost as low while I struggle to inhale a thimbleful of precious air.

  “Poor Valenti,” she says in a sing-song voice as she runs in place.

  I sink to my haunches and look up. Her eyes are tracking a pair of Spandex-clad mothers who breeze by, chattering away while they effortlessly push tank-sized baby strollers with a single hand each. Pat’s eyes drop to mine, then cut away to the running mommies as a grin spreads across her face. “I’ve got a stroller like that at the house to push my niece around when she visits. I could nip home for it and push you around for a bit if you feel up to it?”

  She’s lucky that she’s a girl… and that I can’t catch her.

  I’m a sopping bucket of sweat when we arrive outside Pat’s house ten minutes later. I’d originally planned to make a pit stop at home to shower and shave before going to the office, but no way am I going to soil the leather seat of my Porsche Panamera with the river of sweat currently streaming off me. “I’ve got a set of sweats in the car. Mind if I change here?”

  Pat wrinkles her nose. “All right. Try not to drip all over the house.”

  I grab a gym bag out of the back seat and follow her inside.

  She points toward the main-floor bathroom. “Knock yourself out, Valenti. I’m gonna run upstairs and check my email.”

  More running?

  The bathroom is off an alcove between the kitchen and living room. I push the door most of the way closed behind me and start to strip by pushing my shorts down around my ankles. While I try to kick them off, I attempt to multitask by pulling my shirt over my head, where it promptly gets stuck around my shoulders. I hate it when this happens, yet never seem to learn that a thoroughly soaked shirt doesn’t come off easily. Shouldn’t garments slide right off when a person is slick with sweat? Oh shit, I think as my feet get hopelessly tangled and I begin to topple sideways, unable to free a hand to break my fall. My head glances off the corner of the sink vanity as I crash to the floor in a pathetic heap of tangled limbs.

  “Are you okay?” Pat asks anxiously when she rushes in a moment later.

  “Yeah,” I mutter in embarrassment as she works the shirt the rest of the way over my head. With my arms free, I quickly yank the shorts over my feet and squirm into my waiting sweatpants. In addition to being found in my jockey shorts helpless as a baby, it occurs to me that I probably smell like rancid locker room socks. Pat grabs the hand towel off the rack and starts running it under cold water. When I touch above my eye, my finger comes away with a smear of blood.

  “Stay down there where I can reach you,” she says when I start to stand, putting a hand on my shoulder and dabbing the cold cloth to my forehead. Her eyes go wide when they settle on the shoulder her hand is resting upon. “What happened here?”

  She’s staring at a patch of puckered red scar tissue running across the back of my shoulder and down to the shoulder blade. It’s a couple of inches wide and five inches long.

  “Just a little cooking incident,” I reply.

  She narrows her eyes. “On your back?”

  In a fit of temper during our marriage, my ex-wife, Michelle, had clobbered me upside the head with a frying pan full of bacon grease. The grease spilled down my shoulder and back, scalding me before we could rip off my shirt. Thankfully, I emerged with my love of bacon intact. “Long story,” I mutter without elaborating.

  When it’s clear that I’ve said all I’m going to, Pat mutters, “Okay,” drawing the word out while handing me th
e top of my sweat suit.

  I quickly pull it on and zip up. She’s uncharacteristically quiet while I gather up my running clothes and stuff them into a plastic Jewel shopping bag. “See you at lunch,” I say as I steal away with my secret.

  I’m the first to arrive at The Sandwich Emporium a couple of hours later, where six or seven people are already tucking into their lunches. Maiko Campbell, who runs the joint with her husband, Brian, looks up when I push the door open and the bell above it tinkles. As I do every visit, I inhale deeply and savor the yeasty air. Deano would suffer olfactory overload here… and love every minute.

  “Tony-san!” Maiko exclaims happily as her round face bursts into an enormous smile. Maiko’s short body is as rotund as her face, which is framed by a jet-black pixie haircut. It’s a face and smile that could light up even the darkest dungeon.

  “Hello, Maiko,” I reply with an answering smile. I’ve never seen anyone respond to Maiko’s greeting with anything but a smile. She’s a delightful force of nature. “Missed you when I was here a week or two ago.”

  She smiles. “Of course you did!”

  “Tony,” her husband, Brian, grumbles as he looks up from behind a modest sandwich-assembly table and wipes a hand on his apron before lifting it an inch or two in greeting. He’s as taciturn as Maiko is effervescent. They met while he was stationed with the United States Navy Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka Japan. He had the good sense to marry her and bring her home to Cedar Heights.

  Maiko points at my forehead. “You made someone mad?”

  “Such touching concern,” I retort lightly. “I met a grumpy sink.”

  Apparently not inclined to pursue the details of my assault at the hands of Pat’s washbasin, Maiko slides behind the cash register. “What will you have today?”

  I lift my eyes to the wall-mounted menu behind her that lists the standard sandwich shop fare in black-plastic lettering on a white background. Under that is a slate chalkboard where Maiko writes the daily special in a big splash of brightly colored chalk. The Sandwich Emporium Daily Special is an institution. Maiko shops at several local grocery wholesalers every morning, where she buys whatever happens to be on sale. She and Brian create daily specials from whatever she brings home, which makes for some highly unusual sandwiches. “Shouldn’t the prices be lower if you get everything on sale?” I’d once asked her playfully. That had gotten me a good-humored slap on the arm but no deals on sandwiches.