The Flying Circus (32 page)

Henry watched her with a sickness growing in his belly. A small voice called out from deep inside him,
You think you’re going to convince the sheriff to look for someone else? Convince the Dahlgrens? You can’t even answer Cora’s questions.

Then panic launched its own questions:
What if they never come to get me? Would I be throwing away my life for nothing?

But it was more than the film. He couldn’t live the rest of his life hiding, lying . . . wondering. That little voice spoke again:
At least you
’d still have a life.
If he couldn’t convince the sheriff to consider the pos
sibility of another killer, to do a thorough investigation, that life was over—this time not to be replaced by a new one.

“You can’t go back,” she finally finished. “It’s foolish.” She stopped pacing. “You can’t.”

“I have to. That newsreel proved that somehow, someday, they’ll find me.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“No. But I can’t live the rest of my life wondering every day if this will be the day they show up—hell, worse, wondering if I did it. Did we get into a fight? Did she surprise me and I reacted? I need to know the truth. And if there is a killer out there, I want him caught. As long as I’m running, they won’t even look for anyone else.” He dug deep, examining the reasons the need to go back was growing so much stronger and finally understood the one holding the whole stack of others. “And I need to apologize to Mr. Dahlgren for the disrespect of running like a coward.”

“Then write him a letter.” Cora sounded angry. “We can mail it from Miami. Don’t throw your life away.”

“I’ve already come to terms with this, Cora. I can’t live with this hanging over me. I should never have run. I’m going back.”

She was quiet for a moment, staring out the window. Henry was familiar with the look on her face, one that said her brain was buzzing, looking for a way around an obstacle.

Finally she said, “Not without a good lawyer, you’re not. A
very
good lawyer. We need someone who will push them to investigate. Maybe we should hire a detective. Both of those will take money.”

“I have a few dollars tucked back.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of a lawyer yet. He didn’t even know one.

“Not that kind of money, Henry. Real money.”

“Don’t they have to give me a lawyer—if I go to trial?” The word was bitter on his tongue. It started to come brutally clear how ignorant he was about arrests and trials and lawyers. And investigations.

She scoffed, “Sure they do. One that doesn’t care about anything but getting you checked off of his list so he can go home and have dinner with the family. And if the sentiment around there is what you say, I
doubt he’ll even believe you’re innocent. How hard is he going to work to free a man he believes is guilty of murdering a young woman?” Cora paused for a moment. “So, if we assume this murderer is a man, do you have any idea at all who it might be? Even the vaguest notion would be a place to start. She was sneaking around meeting someone. Maybe she jilted him and he went crazy. Maybe someone knows who that boy is. Maybe there was someone else she’d been cruel to?”

“Emmaline was manipulative, vindictive, and mean. She finally pushed the wrong person too far.” When Cora’s startled eyes met his, he realized how vicious he sounded, that his hands were balled into fists. “I’m not saying she deserved to be murdered.”

“Of course not.” Cora’s face softened a bit. “Of course not.” She paused. “First things first. We’ll leave the memory jogging for later. Now, we need a plan. And money. Evans is paying me well for flying his plane. We can take that—”

“This isn’t your problem to solve.”

She started pacing again. “My cut of the purse for winning the race should be enough to get a really good lawyer. I need to make sure I’m good enough to win—”

“Cora!” Henry snagged her hand and pulled her down onto the bed.

She stared at him. “If you think for one minute I’m going to let you go back to Indiana alone, you’ve lost your mind.” Her hands came up to cup his face. “Henry Schuler, everyone in your life might have abandoned you, but I will not.” Tears shone in her eyes. “I. Will. Not.” She leaned in and kissed his lips. Then she hovered close and whispered, “Promise me you’ll wait. At least until after the race. Then we’ll have a fighting chance. Promise me.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I promise.” The words were a choked whisper. He was weak. So shamefully weak.

“All right then.” She nodded. Then she went to the chest of drawers and brought the ribbon-tied box. “I think you should open this now.”

He took it from her and pulled the ribbon. Inside was a shiny brass box, just a little bigger and thicker than a pocket watch. On the lid was the inscription
MERCURY’S DAREDEVILS
.

Cora picked it up. She released the top and it sprang open. It was a compass, its needle quivering from the movement and then settling on magnetic north. She shifted it so the inside of the lid was facing Henry. Inscribed there:
SO NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU GO, YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING
.

“I may not be able to navigate,” she said, “but I’ll always count on you to.”

Henry wrapped his hand around hers and snapped the compass closed. He held it and their hands over his heart when he kissed her. “Thank you. For this. For believing in me.”

She smiled and lay down beside him on the narrow bed. He put his good arm around her and pulled her close. A few minutes later, she was asleep with her head on his shoulder and their hands still over his heart.

23

T
wo days later, the EV-1 showed up. Watching it land, Henry was surprised to see a low-winged monoplane, not a biplane.

Even before its wheels touched the ground, Cora said, “Well, what do you think?”

“Nice paint job. Can’t tell more than that from here.” Her faith in a completely unfamiliar craft was far too high for Henry’s liking. You couldn’t take a machine’s performance for granted. Nor could you simply take a man’s word that it was as airworthy as he claimed.

Henry’s initial inspection of the EV-1 revealed no obvious fault in the plane’s design or quality. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on its powerful Wright J-3 radial, air-cooled engine. He grilled the pilot, who seemed quite experienced, and received a glowing report of the craft. Of course, the man was on Evans’s payroll. Henry’s full approval would be reserved until he inspected it in more detail and flew it himself. And right then he was too weak to get it done. He’d only been out of bed since yesterday afternoon.

He was shocked by Cora’s uncharacteristic patience as she acquiesced to wait for her chance in the cockpit until after he was sure of the craft. Maybe good sense was finally beginning to counterbalance desire.

Reece took the plane up on its first trial while Henry talked to Evans’s pilot. When Reece landed and deemed it “respectable,” Reece’s father drove the pilot to the train station to return to Texas. Before he left, though, he had Cora pose with the plane for several photographs. Mr. Evans was going to use them for publicity.

Henry flew the plane the next morning, after he’d examined the mechanics in detail. Reece was in the front cockpit, just in case Henry’s shoulder gave him trouble. The thing that struck him the instant the wheels left the ground was the lack of noise. It had none of the hum and whine of the wind singing through wires and struts he was used to on the Jenny. Without the drag of the second wing, the responses to controls were so much sharper. Overall it felt smoother. And the power! It was fast. Really fast. A hare to the Jenny’s tortoise—even those JN-4s with the upgraded Hisso engines. He could have flown this beauty all day long.

When he landed, he gave the EV-1 his official approval. Cora clasped her hands over her heart, giddy as a little kid.

“Calm down. And take a few minutes to just sit there and feel it, figure out where everything is,” he cautioned as she climbed into the cockpit. He stood on the wing and went over the additional instrumentation that the Jenny didn’t possess.

“Get a feel for that throttle on the ground, taxi it around a bit before you take it up. Test the response of the rudder, too. Remember it has a swivel wheel on the tail instead of a skid, so take that into consideration.”

She looked up and nodded, excitement gleaming in her eyes.

“And, Cora, this plane is fast. The controls sharp. She reacts much more quickly. Don’t forget that. And she doesn’t scrub off speed like you’re used to when the nose goes up. That means you can get into trouble a whole lot faster. Take it easy until you get accustomed to it.”

Again she nodded.

Then he climbed in the other cockpit.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going up with you until you get more familiar with it.”

She surprised him again by shrugging. “Suit yourself.” Then she signaled for Reece to prop it.

She actually did as Henry had instructed before she taxied to the downwind end of the field and took off.

The plane lifted into the air, wheels going silent, bumping ground
giving way to silky smoothness. Cora’s takeoff was perfect. Henry wanted to look back, watch her face as she flew, but didn’t want to distract her. She took it around the pattern; not a single herky-jerky movement from the sensitive controls. The air was cold, the sun behind a haze, making the air glidingly perfect.

He felt the plane’s speed even more as a passenger; he wasn’t sure he liked feeling this out of control.

Cora kept the plane too low, cutting sharp turns that set the wings nearly perpendicular to the ground. She didn’t know this plane; she needed to give herself some room if something went wrong. Henry signaled for her to take it higher. He was actually a little surprised when she did.

It ate up miles so fast, they were quickly over unfamiliar terrain. Henry wondered if she’d be able to find her way back. Was she paying attention to all of the things she needed to, not just the handling of the craft, but the 101 other things a good pilot had to observe?

She must have paid enough attention. In fifteen minutes, they were back in the pattern to land on Reece’s farm. The plane dropped right into place, landing like a feather touching the earth. When she cut the engine, she whooped. “Now that’s flying!”

They climbed out. “You did great,” he said.

Cora reached up and linked her hands behind his neck. “Now I have to get perfect. I
have
to win this, Henry.”

Pressure could lead to mistakes. “No, you don’t. You only have to keep Evans’s plane in one piece. That’s enough for your first race. I might not need a lawyer. I won’t take your winnings to pay for him, in any case.”

He could see the wheels turning in her head. “You know I don’t do things halfway. I
want
to win this. I can make a name for myself. This plane is incredible! This is my shot, Henry. Winning has nothing at all to do with you.”

“Bushwa.” He used her own term on her.

She put her fingers on his lips. “I want this, Henry. All the way down to the marrow of my bones. And I’m going to do it.”

He took her hand in his and kissed the palm. “Of that, I have no doubt. But that doesn’t alter the objective. You crash this plane or cause someone else trouble on the course, you’re done. There are no second chances for women in aviation.” He didn’t know that for a fact, but imagined it’d be damned hard for a woman to recover her credibility when most men were already looking for the slightest reason to banish them from most everything outside of keeping house and having babies. “That would be it. Dream out the window. Remember that.”

“I have no intention of doing anything stupid.”

If it wouldn’t add additional weight, he’d insist she fly the race with Mercury in the plane with her. She’d never risk that mutt’s life.

T
he next day, they laid out a three-mile course with turns at a windmill—the closest approximation to a pylon they could come up with—a neighbor’s barn, and the place where Reece’s lane intersected the road. She practiced first at a much higher altitude than she would race at, getting the feel for the turn and the angle at which she needed to come out of it to set up for the next “pylon.” Henry climbed onto the roof of Reece’s barn to see the whole course over the trees. She ran the course lower and lower, ultimately making the turns around the windmill and the neighbor’s barn at even altitude. That’s when he got skin-crawling nervous. That speed at that low altitude, as sharply as that plane reacted, if she lost her concentration long enough to swat a fly, she could be in trouble.

He’d told her to cut those first low-altitude turns plenty wide. There’d be time to shave seconds off once she had some practice. The first low-altitude lap she cut too close around the barn. Henry sucked in his breath and cringed, but she cleared it. He muttered curses and signaled for her to take the next one wider. The windmill turn, the tightest on the course, required the plane to bank to almost ninety degrees. She took that one too close, too. At least the turn at the intersection didn’t have anything she could possibly hit.

She ran it two more times, each just a gnat’s ass from clipping the
“pylons.” By the time she landed, Henry was on the ground, hopping mad.

As soon as she climbed out, he had her by the shoulders. “You were supposed to work your way up to those close turns.”

“I did. I flew above the pylons seven laps before I got down to altitude. I think I can cut them even closer. There was plenty of wiggle room. You just can’t tell from so far away.”

Reece didn’t help when he came driving up in the truck. “Jake said she was a natural, and by God she just proved it! Well done, lady!”

She tossed a look at Henry. “See. I bet if Gil had cut those pylons that close, you’d be slapping him on the back.”

“Probably. But Gil didn’t just start flying three months ago.” He shut up then. She did have a point.

The next morning, Henry took up one of the Jennies and had her keep her speed low enough that he could fly with her as another racer would. He wanted her to learn to keep track of another plane in proximity. At least this time she did cut the first few laps wider around the pylons. Henry had to force himself to fly close enough that it would do her some good, his inclination being to keep a distance that ensured her safety. He varied his position—inside, outside, above, below, slightly ahead, slightly behind. Finally, she gave it full throttle and ran the course with him tagging behind, way behind.

After they landed and got out of the planes, she threw her arms around Henry’s neck. “It’s even better with another plane up there!”

He smiled as he wrapped her in his arms, his shoulder giving only minimal complaint. All of this movement had kept it from getting stiff. “You amaze me.”

She grinned back. “Why, Henry, no reprimands? You’re actually complimenting my flying skills?”

“I’m complimenting your nerve. . . . Remember, overconfidence—”

She cut him off with a quick kiss. “I know. I know. Trust me.” She looked into his eyes. “The way I trust you.”

Although he and Cora hadn’t talked about Emmaline’s murder again, the undercurrent meaning was in her eyes. Henry had spent ev
ery night trying to float on the boiling river of his memories, but nothing new surfaced. He did however lose plenty of sleep to nightmares.

The kiss that sealed her vow was anything but quick. Henry tumbled, falling as if he’d jumped out of an airplane without a parachute. His arms went around her, and he lifted her off her feet. Only with reluctance and necessity from his painful shoulder did he set her back down. When he lifted his head, he saw Gil standing at the edge of the field, a rucksack on his shoulder, looking like a man who’d lost his best friend.

Henry quickly set Cora away from him and nodded in Gil’s direction.

Cora turned. Her intake of breath was audible.

Gil took a pull on his cigarette, then put a forced-looking smile on his face and walked over to them. His appearance was worse the closer he got. He looked as if he’d spent the past weeks taking a daily beating. His eyes were shadowed and sunken; that broken look was back. He’d lost enough weight that his pants bagged.

Reece called out, “If you’d let us know, we would have come and picked you up at the train.”

“I needed the walk.”

The train station was at least fifteen miles from here.

“Where did you come up with this beauty?” He gestured toward the plane but kept his eyes on Cora.

She seemed to have recovered from her fluster, while Henry’s heart was still racing with guilt. She told him about meeting Evans and how she was going to race in Miami.

Gil’s smile was mechanical and no joy was in his eyes when he looked at her. “I knew you were destined for big things.”

Something sharpened in Cora’s gaze. Henry got the feeling that suddenly he and Reece were on a different planet from Cora and Gil. “How was your family?”

If she’d meant to hurt him, she’d clearly hit her mark. Gil’s shoulders slumped slightly; a man defeated. “Well. Quite well, in fact.”

Henry stood there feeling like a Peeping Tom as Gil and Cora con
tinued to stare at each other. Thank God Reece opened his mouth. “If you walked all of the way from Greenwood, you’re probably starving. Let’s get you up to the house so Nell can feed you.”

Gil’s gaze lingered on Cora for so long Henry thought Reece’s comment hadn’t been heard. Finally, Gil turned away and said, “Lead the way.”

Henry kept his eyes on Cora. Instead of watching Gil walk away, she looked to the ground, her cheeks slightly flushed. Her reaction, compounded by Henry’s own creeping guilt, told him that while Gil might have been the glue that initially bound Henry and Cora together, he would also always be the barrier that kept them apart.

T
wo nights later Henry awoke to the slow, steady back-and-forth creak of the porch swing’s chains against the hooks that held it. He smelled cigarette smoke drifting up to his open window. He hadn’t had a chance to talk with Gil alone in the two days he’d been back. Cora, Reece, Henry, and Gil had spent every waking moment together, working on improving Cora’s skills and going over the EV-1’s engine making sure it was operating at optimum capacity. Gil was able to instruct Cora and push her in ways Henry could not, so it was a good thing he’d come back when he did. Yet, deep inside, Henry selfishly wished Gil had waited just a little longer, given Henry and Cora more time to solidify what was between them. If he’d had that time, maybe he could have erased that blush Gil brought to her cheeks.

Although they’d all reverted to their old ways, an undercurrent was between Cora and Gil and Henry that hadn’t been there before. Or maybe Henry’s guilt was manufacturing it. Even though Gil was married and Henry
shouldn’t
feel guilty over his feelings for Cora—or she for him. But there they were.

He got out of bed and pulled on his pants, unsure if he was going down to talk to Gil about Cora, or if he was going to tell him about Emmaline. He knew he needed to do both, but they didn’t belong in the same conversation. He left his shoes off, opting for quiet footsteps
that would be less likely to wake anyone else in the house. As he crept down the stairs, he decided that talking about murder charges against him would be easier than talking about Cora. And more necessary.

The front door was open to the screen, letting in the cooler night air. As Henry got near it, he heard Cora’s voice rising in question. Outside. With Gil.

He stopped dead, then moved closer to the door and listened.

They were quiet for a long while and Henry’s imagination conjured images he wished it hadn’t.

Gil’s deep sigh was sad, not sexual. “I did love her, when I was a boy and capable of love. Now . . . there’s nothing left in me. I tried to convince her to divorce me, especially after I saw how obvious it was she loved, and is loved by, the man who owns the house she and Charlie live in—which explains the cheap rent. She is as against divorce now as she had been four years ago—more so, now that Charlie’s almost seven and old enough to know. My God, that boy looks like John.” The last words carried all of the sadness Henry imagined was stored up in Gil’s soul.