Dead Center (21 page)

• • • • •

L
ET’S GO
”
are the first words out of Laurie’s mouth when she hears my story. I dropped Tara off and came here to her office, and within three minutes Laurie and I are back out and in the car.

“We’re going out to the airstrip?” I ask.

“That’s right. We’re going to check it out.”

Ever the lawyer, I point out, “You don’t have a search warrant.”

“I’ve got something better than that,” she says. “I’ve got a citizen who reported seeing a possible crime taking place.”

“That would be me?”

She nods. “It would.”

Laurie drives right up to the airstrip with no apparent hesitation, but makes a rather obvious concession to the possible danger by taking out her handgun as she gets out of the car.

We walk to the smaller door, the one that lets in people but not planes, and Laurie rings the bell. We hear it sounding loudly through the building, so if anyone is in there, they could not help but hear it as well. Laurie holds her gun at her side, concealed but ready.

There is no answer, so she tries twice more. Still no response.

“Can you kick it in?” she asks.

“Excuse me?” I ask, though we both know I heard her quite clearly.

She takes out a small device, which looks a little like a can opener, and calmly pops the lock. The door swings open.

I shake my head, showing my disapproval. “Illegal entry, said the defense attorney to the judge.”

“I had a perfect right to do that,” she says. “I believed that someone might be in distress; the citizen I was with thought he heard a scream.”

“That would be me?” I ask.

“It would.”

We enter the hangar and see the plane, the hold open and empty of cargo. There are no people around, no trucks, and no evidence of what might have been on that plane.

Laurie says, “So a plane comes in on Christmas Day, leaving a cargo that is taken off in a dairy truck. Doesn’t sound terribly normal to me.”

“Maybe somebody needed a cheese transplant, and they flew in a Gouda.”

We close up the hangar and leave. Laurie drops me back off at the house, and she heads to her office. We make plans for her to come over for dinner, at which point we’ll try to figure out where we go from here.

I call Sam Willis at home and ask him to get on the computer and see if he can find out anything about R&W Dairies. It only takes him about forty-five minutes to call back and tell me exactly what I expected: He can find no record of such a company.

What I believe happened today is that a cargo plane landed at the Center City airstrip, its contents were unloaded and placed on a truck, and that truck was driven away by Alan Drummond.

In legal terms I have only circumstantial evidence of this; I certainly didn’t see the unloading and loading take place. Theoretically, the plane could have come in empty, and the truck could coincidentally have left empty a short while later. But as the old example goes, if you go to sleep with the streets clear, then wake up in the morning and they’re covered with snow, it’s a good bet it snowed that night, whether you saw it happen or not. The airstrip scenario is not quite as clear as that, but it’s clear enough for me.

By the time Laurie comes over, I’ve formulated some theories well enough to bounce off of her. “There is no doubt in my mind,” I say, “that whatever those kids were afraid of that night has to do with Alan Drummond and that airport.”

She’s not quite so convinced. “We’re making some assumptions here,” she says. “We don’t know for a fact that they were afraid of Alan Drummond, only that Madeline thinks so.”

“Eddie said he was afraid I was Drummond,” I point out.

“He could have meant Stephen, and it could have been because Stephen is the number two man in that church. Stephen represented authority, and Eddie could have been afraid of that authority.”

“You don’t believe that,” I say.

“That’s true, but it is possible. And while we’re talking about what’s possible, it’s also possible that there is nothing criminal going on at that airport. All we know for sure is that a plane came in and a truck left.”

“A cargo plane with no flight plan came into an airstrip that according to the FAA does not exist.”

She doesn’t seem happy with this, so I continue. “Laurie, I agree that I am making assumptions here. But that is the only way I can move forward. If they’re wrong, then they’re wrong. But for now I have to assume they’re right.”

She nods; that makes sense to her. “Okay, make some more assumptions.”

“I assume that the plane was carrying illegal merchandise of some sort, maybe drugs, maybe counterfeit money. Whatever it was had to be small enough to fit on that truck.”

“Where was it coming from?” she asks.

“Canada. I spoke to Donna Girardi again today and bounced some ideas off of her. If it originated across the border, came in over Lake Superior, and flew low enough, it likely wouldn’t be picked up on radar in this area. But if it flew over the U.S. most of the time, the chance of it not being detected would go way down.”

“And if it weren’t crossing a border, there would be no need for a plane,” she says. “They could just load it on a dairy truck in the first place.”

“Right… so here’s my theory: Alan Drummond, probably acting on behalf of his father and Wallace, has been smuggling illegal goods from Canada by plane. Liz, Sheryl, and Eddie somehow found out about it. Perhaps Sheryl was the first one to discover it, since she was Alan’s girlfriend, and she told her friends. Alan realized what they knew, and they were all too aware how dangerous Alan could be, so they tried to run. Liz and Sheryl didn’t make it, and Eddie made the mistake of calling me.”

Laurie thinks about this for a long while, weighing the possibilities. “Okay, but something else bothers me,” she says. “You had someone staking out that airport for weeks, and nothing happens. The day you pull your guy out of there, in comes a plane.”

“Maybe they saw Larson on his stakeout and then followed him. Maybe they were smart enough to track the guy tracking them.”

“It’s possible, but a stretch,” she says.

“Or maybe Christmas Day was always going to be the day they did it. I’m sure the Centurions don’t celebrate Christmas, but they know that nobody’s out on the roads… everybody’s home with their families…”

She still looks dubious as she considers the possibilities.

“Laurie, I’m a lawyer. I come up with my theory of a case, and I pursue it. This is no different; in fact, there have been plenty of times that I’ve had a lot less to go on. The only difference for me is that usually I have to convince a jury, but now I have to convince you.”

“Why me?”

“Because I need you to take the next step.”

“Which is?”

“To be there when this happens again, stop the truck, and search it.”

She thinks about this for a few moments and says, “I can’t spare people to watch that airport for another flight to come in. It took three weeks last time; this time they could be waiting for Memorial Day.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll have Larson watch it; he’ll be much less noticeable this time.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he doesn’t have to get close to the airport. He’s just watching for a plane, and we know what direction it’s coming from. He can be a long distance away.”

“And where will your police officers be stationed?” she asks. It’s a not-so-subtle dig at me for trying to use her department as my personal investigative staff.

I pretend not to notice. “They don’t have to be stationed anywhere,” I say. “From the time Larson sees the plane, we’ll have at least an hour to get in position to wait for the truck. I’ll call you or Parsons, and then your officers come out and stop the truck along the road.”

She spends a few more minutes trying to poke holes in my plan but is unable to make a dent. Finally, she says, “Okay. I’ll set it up.”

“Good. I’ll tell Larson.”

I give her my best boyish smile of victory, with just a touch of humility thrown in. It’s a specialty of mine, and to my knowledge women have no defense against it. When I use it, they are genetically compelled to kiss me.

Laurie, it turns out, must have some kind of genetic defect, because all she does is leave.

• • • • •

L
ARSON’S CALL
takes me by surprise. It’s only been three days since we put our plan into action, much sooner than I expected.

“I’ve got incoming at twelve o’clock” are his first words. He sounds like he’s talking to his tail gunner, but I resist the impulse to say “Roger” or “Wilco.” Instead I say, “Got it,” and I hang up the phone and call Laurie.

Laurie and Parsons have been alternating days being on call, and today is her turn. She wastes no time in telling me that she and her people will meet me at the designated area. I drive out there, hiding my car behind nearby trees. Laurie and three officers arrive a few minutes later in three cars and set up for the roadblock.

Larson, as per our plan, drives toward the airport, though he keeps a safe distance away. He is to call me when the truck leaves and to confirm that it is again an R&W Dairies truck.

An hour and ten minutes after the original call, Larson calls me on my cell phone. “It’s heading towards you,” he says. “R&W.”

We’ve estimated that the truck will take five minutes to reach us, and it makes it in four. Once it’s in sight, Laurie and her team execute a roadblock, using two of the cars. The third car circles behind the truck, blocking a possible escape to the rear. It’s done with great precision, and as I watch, I feel a flash of pride and admiration.

The truck slows to a halt, and I can see Alan Drummond in the driver’s seat. This time he is alone; or at least there is no one in the passenger seat. There could certainly be someone in the back with whatever merchandise was transferred from the plane.

Two of Laurie’s officers have their guns drawn, though Laurie does not. “Step down from the truck, Mr. Drummond,” Laurie instructs.

Alan Drummond does as he is told. He may be intimidating to the youth of Center City, but he couldn’t be further from that right now. Unless I’m a very bad judge of emotions, he is close to panic-stricken at what is taking place.

“What’s the matter? What’s going on?” he asks.

Laurie instructs him on the proper position to assume, with his hands against the squad car and legs spread. He does so, and one of the officers frisks him, signaling with a shake of the head to Laurie that he is not armed.

“Is the back of the truck locked?” she asks.

“Hey, come on. I didn’t do anything wrong” is his answer. It comes across as a bit of a whine, reflecting his fear at the way events are moving.

“Is the back of the truck locked?” Laurie repeats.

“Yes.”

“Where is the key?” she asks.

His mind seems to be racing for a way out of this, so much so that he forgets to answer the question. Laurie repeats it, and he says that it’s on the key ring that is still in the ignition.

One of the officers gets the key, and he gives it to Laurie. He then handcuffs Drummond and leads him back to one of the patrol cars, putting him in the backseat. Laurie and the other two officers go around to the rear of the truck. They both draw their guns while Laurie unlocks the door and opens it.

The odor of cheese slams into us the moment the door opens. Looking inside, I can see about fifteen barrels, the type that would ordinarily contain cheese, but this time they had better not. The smell is not a good sign, and Laurie makes eye contact with me that indicates she doesn’t like where this is going.

It takes an hour and twenty minutes for the officers to search through the truck’s cargo, though it feels like about a week. They find nothing but cheese, which I suppose on some level makes sense, since they’re searching a cheese truck.

When they finish, Laurie just gives me a shake of the head to indicate what a waste of time this was. An officer takes Drummond out of the car and uncuffs him.

“What is R&W Dairies?” she asks him.

“It’s a… it used to be a dairy company in this county,” says Drummond. “They went out of business a few years ago, and we bought their stuff. We never bothered to change the name on the truck.”

“What was the cargo on the plane that just landed at the Center City airstrip?”

“Nothing… it was empty.”

Laurie asks him some more questions, but he’s feeling increasingly confident, and he deflects them. She doesn’t want to probe too much, so as not to reveal the little that we do know.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Drummond,” she says.

His face is a mask of surprise and relief. “I can go?” he says, to make sure he heard correctly.

“That’s correct,” Laurie says, and Drummond wastes no time in getting back in the truck and hauling his ass, and his cheese, out of here.

Laurie walks over to me. “Well, we did it, Andy. We smashed a Parmesan cartel.”

She and her officers get in their cars and leave, my humiliation complete. I have no idea what went wrong, but I’ll have plenty of time to think about it. Unfortunately, thinking has not been my strong point of late.

I was wrong about what was in the truck, but no matter how many ways I look at it, I don’t believe I was wrong about the big picture. Even if there had been no murders, and no one had expressed a fear of Alan Drummond, what took place today would still be absurd.

It is simply preposterous to assume that a cargo plane flew into that airstrip, set in the middle of a community whose only product is cheese, and delivered a load of cheese. Yet that is exactly what seems to have happened. What I need to figure out is why.

By the time Laurie comes over for dinner, I have it narrowed down to two possibilities. One is that our adversaries are watching Larson, and once they found out that he was still staking out the airport, they set us up to look foolish.

The other possibility, perhaps more likely, is that Laurie and I weren’t careful enough and left some evidence that we searched the airstrip hangar the last time the plane came in. It signaled that we were on to them and would continue to be watching. So they set us up.

Laurie, to her credit, is not angry about what happened. She accepts the responsibility, since she went along with it willingly. But even though we both agreed on what should be done, she will suffer the most for it. Stephen Drummond will certainly file a complaint over the way his son was treated, and Laurie will at the least receive a severe reprimand.

We talk about it through dinner and afterward. It’s only when we’re finished and heading for bed that I think of something that I noticed on the road but hadn’t thought about since. “Did you think Alan Drummond looked scared when he came down off that truck?”

She nods. “Petrified. That’s one of the reasons I was so surprised when we didn’t find anything.”

“I felt the same thing. And I think he really was afraid. He couldn’t be that good an actor, and he would have had no reason to even try.”

“Which means he thought he was in trouble.” Then, “Do you think it’s possible he didn’t know what he was carrying? That he was as surprised as we were when it turned out to be barrels of cheese?”

“Yes, I absolutely think it’s possible. But if
he
didn’t know what was in that truck, who did?”