A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery (18 page)

Syd peeled the quilt down from her face and looked at him. He was tired but determined. He reminded her of Clarence when she was a teenager and they fought so much. Or more recently of Jim Yesler, trying to make his intentions clear to her and Charlie. She felt badly for these men who worked so hard to communicate their emotions to women they obviously cared for, but who ultimately misunderstood them. Deliberately misunderstood, in some cases. She felt another pang of empathy for Olivier.

“I trust you already, I think,” she said. She would rather he remained silent for the moment. The morning was quiet and gentle, and the fog was more welcome than any clarifying sunshine might be.

He ignored her attempts to dissuade him. “I flew here in June, in my own plane. Well, it's my father's plane.”

“I know all this. Jim told me.” She tried again to silence his confessions. The peaceful reprieve of the morning started to slip away.

“But I wanted you to know it from me.”

“I explained to Jim that your joyride on Clarence's plane was coincidence, and that the will hadn’t been changed yet.” Olivier's eyebrows rose. He clearly had a plan of what to tell her, but he couldn't help his curiosity. “What did he say to that?” he asked.

“He said you could have used the accident as leverage to change the will,” she jeered back at him, making it clear how ridiculous she thought the theory was.

“Risky,” he muttered.

“That's what I said.” They stared out at the river, which was covered in an inversion layer of churning fog.

“I came here because I needed to leave my family for a while,” he began again, choosing his words carefully. “My father, to be exact. I left our winery right after Crush, last March. In South America our season is opposite yours here. I flew around the North region for a while before making it to Panama. I stayed in Panama for a few weeks. Then I made my way up to Mexico. I had to wait a while for clearance to the States. I spent a long time in Oaxaca City and then flew over to the Yucatan. In mid-June I flew into Texas and then flew up here for a short visit. My plan was to make it to Alaska and then come here for a longer visit. But then Clarence had his accident while I was in Canada and I came back here as soon as I heard, albeit two weeks late.”

“So you came back here then?” she asked, interested in spite of her plans to stop the confession.

“I flew back here. I stayed across the river for a while, never intending to intrude on the house here. I spent the days with him while he recovered. I helped with some of the winery tasks; some bottling and blending trials, and getting ready for Crush. But mostly we played chess and talked about wine and the past.” He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing away the emotion that thickened his voice.

“And then he rewrote the will?” she asked. She knew he would be offended by the implication of her question. At least it would bring him out of his fragile emotional state and back into anger, she thought. She found his anger less jarring on her nerves.

He looked sideways at her, his mouth tight. “I did not ask for anything Clarence gave me. I did not encourage it. He begged me.”

She nodded without making eye contact. They sat in silence for a few moments again. She found herself much more comfortable with a wall of tension between them than the intimacy of shared grief.

He cleared his throat again a minute later. “When Clarence found out that he was ill, he had a change of heart about the winery. Before, he was weary and tired of the politics and the business end of it, especially over the last few years. I think he was beginning to feel the futility of it all. He had worked so hard to build a winery, but for no plausible end. He had worked so hard . . . for a dream. So he decided to sell it. But then he found out about the investor selling it behind his back, and then he had his accident and then the cancer...”

“What do you mean he worked for a dream?” She sounded more defensive than she wanted. She was feeling bruised again over Olivier's knowledge of Clarence's intimate life, while she remained confused and in the dark.

“My mother,” he answered, defiantly.

“Your mother?”

He nodded and kept his eyes on the river of fog. Syd's mind whipped around the details Olivier laid out before her. Clarence's mysterious entanglement in the Argentine winery that she had known about since childhood was always a source of intrigue for her. Her uncle was gone for many long visits to Argentina during her childhood, under the pretense of helping out at Crush during the winter months. He did this while their own barrels of wine silently struggled through winter malolactic fermentation in a cold barrel room. She and Rosa would enjoy long movie binges by the wood stove and eat Mexican food every night for dinner. Rosa became her sole guardian during those stretches of his absence. The trips often seemed interminable, and Syd resented his time away from her. One of these longer visits was the impetus for a particularly ugly fight they had when she was sixteen. It was a fight Syd replayed in her mind so often that it morphed into a kind of dreamlike memory that she grew to distrust. But Clarence said one thing in that fight that stayed with her. He pleaded with her through her slammed bedroom door, “Aren't I entitled to some kind of hope?” She knew at the time that it wasn’t a statement meant for her alone. Instead it was some kind of desperate query made to the universe at large. She was furious at him for presenting his fragile adult male wounds to her self-righteous teenage mind, however convoluted and mysterious they might be.

Now she sat picking the skin off of her lip. Olivier patiently allowed her to remain adrift in her memories, piecing it all together while he collected his thoughts.

“Are you Clarence's son?” she asked timidly.

“No,” he answered after a moment of hesitation.

“But he loved her? Your mother?”

“Yes, he loved her. They were lovers. But I am not his son. I would have liked to have been. He was a good man. To her and to me.” He sighed deeply and she sensed his raw sadness, “My father hated him, of course. Hated everything about him. His love for my mother. His love for me. His skill as a winemaker and his grief over your mother's death. All of it. My father thought he was weak and called him the–”

“What? What did he call him?”

“Something rude about his manhood. It doesn't matter. He is Argentine. Only, it is ironic.”

“Were they openly involved? I mean, how could Clarence keep going back if your father knew about them?”

“Well, he didn't know, exactly. He only vaguely knew. And he denied it all anyway. No man of his upbringing and culture could be a cuckold. So he joked about Clarence being gay, and then he started to believe it. My mother was in love with Clarence. There is no doubt that she married the wrong man. She was young when she married and then very shortly after fell in love with another man, your uncle. They were discreet. But not so much that I didn't question it when I was young. My father is an obtuse chauvinist, mostly unaware of my mother as a human being. But I was very close to her when I was small, and I was aware of her emotions. I could feel her cringe at my father's loud voice at the dinner table or go to a distant place when he began a tirade on every trivial thing. I saw her light up when your uncle came to help at harvest. She woke up completely then. She would laugh and sing and blossom. Her art flourished.” His face contorted with unabashed bitterness. “She should have come here years ago. He asked her often enough.”

“So why didn't she leave?”

“Me. When I was little she stayed for me, not wanting me to be raised in a broken home. And, of course, divorce was not made legal in Argentina until the late-‘80s. There is still a stigma in my country for divorced women.”

“But they must have been lovers for decades.”

“Yes. Thirty or so years, I think. Clarence would stay away, but only because she asked him to. And then he would come back because she asked him to. She had him on hold for his entire life, all because of me.”

“Or because it wasn't even legal to get a divorce. Jesus.” she muttered under her breath.

“Yes, we are backwards in some ways. Culturally more so than politically. We have a woman president, you know.” He sounded peevish when he was defensive.

“Yeah, and my country has eradicated racism by electing a black president. We’re all so progressive. And isn't your political system a ruse for corruption and misspent IMF loans? Don't your elected leaders fleece the public?” She knew her criticism of his country was ridiculous, but her desire to appropriate blame for her uncle's heartache grasped at the first culpable source.

“Don't yours? Our systems are the same, only your politicians are more sly about it. Argentine still remembers the dictatorship. We move through life with a veneer of political compliance and the heart of deep mistrust. At least that is what Clarence would say.” Olivier smirked at her.

Syd searched his face. His features were sharp and smooth. Only his full lips offered a softness to his face. His eyes could be dark and clouded or sharp and bright, depending on his thoughts. He didn't look like Clarence in the least. But he did look like someone familiar. He was familiar to her in a way she couldn't name. She tried to puzzle her way through the pieces of her memory – what she knew of her childhood – but it was an impenetrable fog to her.

“But women are still treated badly in your country, right? Is your mother treated badly by your father?”

“No, no. Well, he is not violent with her. I have never seen him hit her. He only bullies and abuses with words and meanness. He humiliates her. She is an intelligent woman with talents and aspirations. She paints. But she remained with him for too long, and she is worn down. She is a gentle, passionate person with a natural buoyancy. But news of Clarence's death put her in a terrible place. She is staying with her brother's family now.”

“Do you need to go see her? Do you need to go home?” She felt more like a burden than ever. A streak of guilt settled deep in her stomach.

“I have a duty here.”

“You have a duty to your mother.”

“She wants me to stay here and see this through,” he said slowly. “And I made a promise to Clarence. Why? Do you want me to leave?”

“No. Well, not unless you’re still the number one suspect. In that case, you might want to get in your plane and hightail it south.”

“I thought you would be upset by all of this.”

She sighed. “I don't know what to think of anything anymore.”

He nodded, “Can I ask you to do something for me, Sydney?”

“Yes, I think.”

“Would you please accompany me to the hangar? I would like to check out the plane I am suspected of tampering with.”

“Absolutely.” She paused, feeling relieved to be offered a task other than waiting. “Jim won't like it though.”

Syd and Olivier had to wait several hours for the museum to open. Olivier had morning winery duties to finish, and Syd found herself rummaging through the two suitcases of clothes and accessories that Charlie brought down for her from her apartment. Her clothes were fitting her quite loosely now. She would have welcomed the idea a few weeks ago, but now she felt light and willowy, unsubstantial. For the first time ever she wished for her size-10 jeans to fill out better in the thighs and not require a cinched belt. She spent too long dressing, which was completely foreign to her usual routine. Memories of Clarence crowded her head, and she found herself lost in a haze for long periods of time. Then she would get up and search for some reassurance in the mirror, reaching for a tube of mascara or to fiddle with her hair. She was only thankful that Charlie was still passed out on the couch, allowing her to escape the endless teasing she would attract with her girlish primping. But this was less a departure into vanity than an exercise to keep her preoccupied mind from floundering. So much of what Olivier told her was something she suspected in the recesses of her mind. But the story unfolded into more tragedy than she could have imagined.

Syd's body felt airy as she walked across the gravel to the winery truck. The truck itself was enough of an antique to be featured in the museum they were headed for. Olivier sat in the idling vintage Ford for a few minutes, quietly waiting for her to come out of the house. She emerged a moment later, slammed the door, and settled herself in without a word. He drove off into the cloudy cool autumn morning along a road lined with red and yellow trees that glowed like fire.

~

The 1929 Waco Taperwing was on permanent loan to the Western Antique Airplane & Automobile Museum across the Columbia River in Hood River, Oregon. The museum was adjacent to the small municipal airfield, and all of the machines in the museum were in working order. The airstrip allowed pilots to fly their antique planes during fly-ins or demonstrations without requiring a hangar rental. Almost all of the airplanes were in excellent condition or in the process of being restored. Syd had not been to the museum since it opened a decade earlier. Before the museum opened, Clarence kept his plane in a hangar in Vancouver, covered in a tarp, alone in the dark. She remembered how excited he was to have his plane on display in the museum for the rest of the aviation world to salivate over. For a man who put little stock in material possession, Clarence was prodigiously proud of his biplane.

The plane was in a hangar for restoration, still being patched up after the bumpy landing Clarence made last June when he deftly pulled out of a perilous stall. It took Sydney a good deal of time to explain their circumstances to the tiny, ancient docent at the museum. He was perplexed that they were so interested in the restoration hangar while they had so many lovely examples of biplanes of a similar make in front of them.

“We’d like to look at that particular plane,” she said, wondering if she was giving too much away. “It belonged to my uncle.” She knew the nature of their mission needed to stay secret. But the doddering old man was either feeble-minded or he was determined to deflect their questions. After five minutes she realized they were getting nowhere and she would have to divulge more information.

“Clarence's Waco?” he asked, his sharp eyes looking her over with renewed interest. Syd was instantly aware that this crooked body standing before her, bent over in what had to have been at least 80 decades of life, housed a youthful and sharp brain. His eyes sparkled and he winked at her.

“A Skamania County Sheriff was asking questions about that plane yesterday. He spoke with Frank, our primary mechanic, for a long time.” He smiled a toothy grin, revealing an astonishing set of perfect dentures. He winked at her again. “But he left disappointed.”

“Can you take us to the plane, sir?” Syd asked, smiling sweetly.

“Albert, sweetie. Call me Albert.” He winked at her again and turned sharply on his heels. She would have wondered if it was a tick but for the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

He set off at an astonishing clip for his bent body. Olivier, who remained completely silent during their short interview of the docent raised his eyebrows at Syd as they followed Albert’s echoing footsteps through the vast and airy hangar. Syd grew instantly fond of the little man; at his sense of humor and apparent glee at the Sheriff's expense. This suggested an independence of mind that she welcomed in the elderly. He reminded her of a feisty leprechaun.

They wended their way through two hangars that housed hundreds of planes and antique automobiles. Now and then, Albert pointed out a subject of particular interest as they passed without slowing down. He paused for a moment in front of a gorgeous black 1959 Austin Healey 3000 without a word. Syd smiled sadly, longing to climb back inside the machine and wait for the purr of the engine and the comfort of her uncle driving. But Albert kept moving and Syd jerked out of nostalgia to follow his trot from one hangar to the next. They entered a side door large enough to run an airplane through and were hit by the odors of oil and machines carried on an inexplicable draft that whirled through the massive hangar. The giant space was overwhelmed with the carcasses of dead machines in various states of dilapidation, waiting for the attention of a loving mechanic or the scrapyard. Shells of Model T’s took up a large portion of the space, while the airplanes sat in the far corner. Only a few specimens were in the center of the hangar, each in some form of repair or restoration. On the far side she saw a gorgeous 1929 Waco Taperwing that stood out in the cavernous room full of machine expiration. It was bright red with black features and nine black engines circling the propeller. It was truly a bastion of bygone days. The prop shone bright with deep wood grain, highly polished and elegantly curved. It was the belle of the room, poised and ready, its nose pointed toward the ceiling in unabashed pride.

As they walked across the concrete floor of the hangar, Syd squinted to make out the elegant writing on her uncle's beloved plane. It was a lovely script in black with tiny traces of white trim that let the lettering stand out on the deep red fuselage. It read
Belle Donna
. Syd always found her uncle's flashy red plane to be far too much of a plebeian cliché for such a modest emblem. It needed a motif of a larger than life blond bombshell, breasts popping out of a yellow polka dot dress. Or some kind of humanoid animal, like a bulldog or a shark, bearing its teeth with threatening bravado. Instead, it bore a simple and discreet inscription, like a wedding invitation. Syd traced her hand over the lettering, feeling the groove of the paint through the polish.

“My mother,” Olivier said, speaking for the first time since they left the house.

“Hmm?” Syd looked at him confused, still mesmerized by the beauty of the machine.

“My mother is Donna,” he said. He walked around the plane and stopped at the nose.

Albert clicked his way across the hangar to a set of rows of high metal shelves that apparently housed every imaginable spare part for the contents of the hangar. He disappeared, but they could hear the faint murmuring of voices, peppered with the sharp echoing percussion of tools hitting metal in a random clattering. Syd continued to walk slowly around the Belle Donna without lifting her hand from the cool surface. Held in the spell of the machine, she surrendered herself to so many memories of her uncle in this plane, and his constant cajoling to get her to fly with him. She always preferred to watch him fly from the safety of the tarmac. The haunting memory of her parents’ untimely end in a fast moving machine had always made her leery of her uncle's sports car and antique plane. But standing here she could finally understand his passion for such a lovely machine. As a child she feared the plane would be the death of her uncle, and the irony of its namesake wasn’t lost on her. But she never knew it was named after his beloved. She always assumed he named it after the deadly herb as a joke. He had cared for this plane with painstaking affection, and he was not a man to obsess over possessions. He could have left for Donna at any time, she thought to herself. She was suddenly struck by the futility of the hope he suffered.

Olivier had found a stepladder and expertly removed the engine cover off the nose of the plane. He pulled a small Maglite out of his pocket and stood on the top step, meticulously inspecting every engine housing. She watched him from the tail of the plane as she stroked the smooth red paint and the contours of the rivets. Olivier's dark head bobbed in concentration. She knew he must have stood by quietly watching the tragedy of his mother and Clarence for decades.

“Why did you come here?” she asked him thoughtfully, alarmed at how her voice echoed in the hanger.

He swung his head around the nose to look at her incredulously. “To look at the plane.” His furrowed eyebrows were pinched tightly. “To figure out how it was tampered with.”

“No. I mean, why did you fly up here in the first place?” she tried to speak quieter to avoid the acoustics.

“Oh,” he said, scowling in thought. He clamored down from the ladder and walked over to her, the workings of his brain clearly displayed on his face. His eyes squinted and relaxed. His sighed and smiled sheepishly. “I'm not so sure now.” His face was open and readable for the first time. Sydney's heart lurched in her chest.

“Would she have followed you if you had decided to stay?”

“I think that might have been my plan,” he answered, looking perplexed over the discovery of his own behavior. “But I came because my father and I had fought, and I was finished with him.” He raised his hands in supplication. “It's a long story.”

“You fought about
her
?”

“Yes. In the end I think it was about her. At the time I thought it was something different.” He returned to the stepladder and the task of inspecting the engine. Syd pondered the intensity of a love for a child that could outbid the love of a man. She may have known such a love when she was small. It was the kind of love that offered no choices or wins, and always trumped personal happiness. But Olivier saw that kind of love to fruition, and felt the terrible burden of it in his own life. He fled to her uncle to free himself. She let out a deep resolute sigh.

She waited a few more minutes before patting the side of the plane and trotting off to find Albert. His muffled voice could be heard coming from the innards of a library of oily steel and iron parts on the other side of the hangar.

“Albert?” she called out.

Albert called back to her. He was hidden behind bookshelves holding an array of manuals. She walked over to him, standing next to another old-timer in classic blue work overalls smattered with oil stains and white chalky stuff.
Frank
was embroidered on a patch over his right breast, mended several times with yellow and red thread. He was an unkempt man with wispy white hair combed over the top of his head, floating like feathers in the ambient breeze. He had the same white powdery stuff on his whiskered face, and Syd smiled as she suspected a penchant for powdered sugar donuts. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot, sad and unfathomably blue.

“I'm so sorry for your loss, dear,” he said gently, taking her hand and patting it. His huge hands were rough and stained black in the creases, and his thick fingers were sprinkled with sugar. The kindness in his eyes instantly cut through Syd in the worst way, and she withdrew her hand and cleared her throat reflexively. She could see his forgiveness for her in his empathetic smile and warm eyes.

“I’ve known your uncle for years now,” he said, nodding toward a door in the far corner of the hangar. “Me and him played checkers sometimes.” Syd smiled at the thought of Clarence playing checkers in the greasy side room of a machine shop. She wondered if he ate powdered donuts with Frank. “Clarence asked me questions about airplane mechanics too,” he said, nodding and winking. It was clear both men viewed winking as a common means of communicating with women.

“Are you working on the plane now?” she asked.

“Not really. Nothing wrong with her, I suspect.”

“Not after the accident?”

“Nope. Just some dings from a hard landing. Her landing gear shocks was bent up a bit, but I'm pretty much done restoring her from that. She was built for rough landings on sod fields. I'm just trying to match the paint and get the woodwork in the cockpit refinished.” He looked thoughtfully up at the top of the hangar. “Nothing wrong with her before the accident neither. We inspected her together, Clarence and me. Before every flight.”

“So what happened then?”

He squished his mouth in an upside down C. “A clamp in the wrong place, I reckon.” He lowered his voice a little.

“What do you mean?” She whispered back.

“A clamp on the elevator cable preventing the correction of pitch fully. Also one on the rudder cables. The ailerons are stable on that craft, so he was able to rudder into a slow barrel roll in spite of the cable range and pull the gimbal hard to level her out when he got the chance.”

“Are the clamps still on the cable?”

“Nope. I took em off. And I gave em to Clarence.” He sucked his teeth and shuffled his worn boots.

“How did they get there? Didn't you see them before he took off? You said you checked the plane before every flight.” She sounded accusatory and the old man looked hurt.

“I did check it. Not an hour before he left the tarmac.” Syd wondered for a moment if Frank could be trusted.