War Lord (11 page)

She held up a large document wallet then unzipped it, examined the contents.

‘And?’

‘Passport, FAA security pass, FAA license. All in the name of Randy Sweetwater. The photos are consistent. They’re Randy’s.’

‘Or forgeries,’ I suggested. Petinski didn’t respond to that. Assuming they weren’t, the documents said Randy was behind the wheel. Was it unusual that he would leave the scene of the crash with his clothes but not his ID? Maybe. People often behaved irrationally under intense stress. I once pulled a woman from a house fire who wouldn’t leave because she couldn’t find a pair of socks in her washing basket to put on.

Looking around, I noticed a collection of magazines wedged in the space between the pilot seat and fuselage, jammed there by an aluminum rib bent out of shape. I reached forward and, working them up and down, eventually pulled them free. Six glossy magazines. ‘Hey, Petinski, you found any moisturizer up there?’ I said, flicking through them.

‘What?’

‘Moisturizer. You found any?’

‘No.’

‘How about tissues?’

She popped her head up, curious. I showed her the magazines, which brought on a look of supreme distaste.

‘Inflight entertainment,’ I said. ‘I don’t recognize the language, although
her
I understand in any language.’ I held up a spread of a naked black woman doing the splits; she reminded me a little of Sugar if I looked at the page with a squint.

‘Show me that,’ Petinski demanded, climbing back over the center console. I handed over the mag and she examined the spread intently.

‘Something wrong?’ I asked. There seemed to be.

‘This . . . this woman here. Her name’s Emanuel. She’s an Olympic gymnast, or was. Brazilian.’ Petinski shook her head, disappointed. ‘Mani . . . She was a finalist in the uneven bars.’

‘You sound like you know her,’ I said, having difficulty hiding the sloppy grin spreading across my face.

‘
Knew
her. I was on the US team.’

‘You were an Olympic gymnast?’ That explained her body type, at least from the waist down.

‘My specialty was the floor. Rolled my ankle in a warm-up session the first day of competition. And that was the end of me.’ She shook her head with dismay, apparently as much at seeing a fellow champion gymnast plying a new trade as at the memory of her own career. ‘Mani was good.’

‘She still is, in a bad kinda way, if you know what I mean.’

Petinski did, and she wasn’t impressed. ‘Where’d you find this?’ she snapped. ‘I told you not to touch anything!’

I showed her. Botox wouldn’t have budged the frown on her face. ‘Did Randy speak Portuguese?’ she asked.

‘No, as far as I know he didn’t. Though I’m sure that if he did, he wouldn’t have brought those along to
read
. Hence my question about the moisturizer.’

Petinski pursed her lips. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘And you’ve got nice-looking friends.’

‘Just because these magazines are here,’ she said, ‘doesn’t mean Randy brought them on board. As he didn’t speak Portuguese, that suggests to me a previous pilot or passenger left them behind.’

A reasonable assumption, but it was also not impossible that, despite the presence of his FAA license and so forth, perhaps Randy wasn’t the pilot at all and that someone else was, a Brazilian maybe, who brought the pornos along to help pass the time.
Un
reasonable, it seemed to me, was Petinski gravitating to a particular view about it while so readily excluding other likely theories along the way.

‘I’m taking them back with me,’ I said, holding my hand out, wiggling my fingers, gesturing at her to hand them over.

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s a long trip.’

A
thin female pathologist with gothic makeup and lank purple hair accompanied Coroner Jim Hunt. Detective Inspector Grubb, Petinski and I stood on the opposite side of the stainless-steel dissection table and all of us were staring at what was laid out on it: a small portion of skull and spine, a few ribs, a butt cheek and scrotum, some thigh, and an arm with hand attached.

‘He’s not your bloke,’ said Hunt.

‘You’re sure about that?’ Grubb asked.

‘Yep.’

‘You still don’t have his records,’ said Petinski.

‘No, but you and Vin both said Sweetwater was a little over six feet two inches.’

I nodded.

Petinski nodded.

‘This fella’s a short arse,’ Hunt continued. ‘Five eight in his socks.’

Hmm. I stared at the remains. This didn’t come as such a surprise after the contradictory items we’d found in the plane wreck, but it did raise a bunch of questions, such as how someone who wasn’t Randy Sweetwater came to have Randy’s watch, wallet and documentation. Why had he taken Randy’s place in the King Air’s pilot seat? Had it been done under duress? And was the plane’s crash due to random accidental factors, or was it somehow brought down with intent, linked in some way to Randy, the severed hand and the ransom note – some kind of botched cover-up, maybe? I didn’t have any answers and if Petinski did, she was reluctant to confide. Still, I could now inform Alabama that her boyfriend hadn’t become an entrée – at least not down here in a northern Australian swamp. And the focus would again return to Thing, the ring and the ransom note FedExed from an address in Brazil. Was Randy Sweetwater still alive and kicking? Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. It was hard to deny though that there were pieces of body claiming to be Randy Sweetwater scattered all over the planet, and none of them appeared to fit together.

The fingertips of the hand attached to the arm on the pathology table were inked blue-black. ‘Where’ve you sent the prints?’ I asked.

‘The United States Department of Defense,’ said Hunt.

‘You mind forwarding a set to my boss?’ I wrote Arlen’s email address at Andrews AFB on the back of my OSI card.

The coroner took the card and examined it under his bifocals. ‘No problem.’

‘And to my office, please,’ said Petinski.

Jim Hunt assured us that the detailed forensic analysis of the remains would also be sent to both our respective offices, and then the meeting concluded. Hunt brought his hands together and gave them a rub. ‘Who’s coming to the pub? Grubby?’

‘Jeez, is it that late?’ The DI glanced at his watch. ‘Bloody oath.’

It was ten-thirty in the morning.

‘Kim? Vin?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’m on vacation.’

Petinski waved him away. ‘Love to, but I have to write up a report.’

Love to? Seemed to me Petinski was keen to exit the immediate area forthwith.

‘When are you leaving?’ I asked her.

‘Soon,’ she said.

‘When, exactly?’

She drew a deep breath. ‘One a.m.’

‘Qantas to LAX. We must be on the same flight. Maybe we can get our seating changed – sit together?’

‘Maybe.’ She managed to make it sound like, ‘I’ll scream if they try.’

‘Come for a Diet Coke.’

‘Can’t, sorry. I have to make some calls. And I wasn’t lying about the report. I want to write it up here in case I have questions.’

Questions were
all
I had. Now that there was some closure on these remains, I also had a call to make to Alabama.

Petinski gave Hunt, Grubb, the Goth and me a curt goodbye, and walked out the door. I watched her go and thought: an abrupt, blunt, aloof, snooty, humorless, uncommunicative, teetotaling, former Olympic ice maiden . . . with hot friends who did porn. The universe does love balance.

*

It was on the approach to LAX that I found myself waking up beside Petinski in economy, a deep-vein-thrombosis leg stocking balled up and stuffed in my mouth.

‘You were snoring,’ she said as I pulled the thing out hand over hand like I was part of some magician’s act. I thanked her for her understanding and drank a bottle of water to wash away the taste of cotton.

‘You talk in your sleep, you know that?’ she said eventually, after we’d landed and were taxiing to the jetway.

‘Did I say anything sensible?’

‘What do you think?’ she answered out the corner of her mouth, no eye contact. ‘You did say something about coincidences, and that you didn’t believe in them. You were talking very loud and acting out, pushing the coincidences away – at least, I think that’s what you were doing. The flight attendant and I had to restrain you. What were you drinking?’

‘I’ve been drinking?’ I said. I gave the back of my neck a one-handed massage. It felt like someone had worked over my cerebellum with a blunt instrument. Those Aussies sure were a thirsty bunch.

Petinski pursed her lips and fussed with some personal effects, keen to get up and out, the conga line down the aisle finally starting to shuffle.

I pushed myself out of the seat and stood up, swaying a little.

‘If you’re looking for your bag, it’s in the overhead locker,’ Petinski said, nodding in the general direction. ‘So, you don’t believe in coincidences?’

If I wasn’t feeling like something had coughed me up, then I could have given her an eloquent lecture on this belief system of mine. But instead I collected my bag and concentrated on not hurling.

‘Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous, you know,’ she persisted.

‘And I don’t believe in him, either,’ I managed to say. ‘Unless I’m in a fix.’

‘You always so sure of yourself, Cooper?’ she asked me as I moved forward. I didn’t answer. All I was sure of was that if she didn’t stop talking then I really was going to heave. Maybe she knew that and was just having fun. Wait, I’d already established that Petinski had no sense of humor. I concentrated on the guy in front of me, and moved forward when he did.

Petinski and I got separated from each other at customs and immigration and I didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye, not officially, but I was feeling way too seedy to care. I had half an hour to make the connecting flight to Vegas, so I stopped off at the head, donated the contents of my stomach, and swore I wouldn’t drink again – at least not till the next time I drank. I bought another bottle of water and some breath mints and made the Continental flight as the last of the passengers were checking through the gate. I sat in an aisle seat, kept my head down, and snoozed away the short flight to McCarran. Things looked brighter with the extra sleep and I managed to get in a few pleasant thoughts about the pool area at Bally’s before I heard a familiar voice behind me as I stepped from the Boeing’s hatch into the jetway.

‘I thought you were going back home to DC.’ It was Petinski. She sped up and fell into step beside me.

I shook my head. ‘No. Some unfinished business.’

‘The severed hand, the ransom note?’

‘Something like that,’ I said. In fact, my intention was just to give Alabama the courtesy of a face-to-face report on what I’d seen in Australia, and officially come off the tit of her Visa card.

‘Staying in town long?’ Petinski asked.

‘Long enough to lose a little more cash to Sleeping Beauty.’

‘Who?’

‘Friend of mine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be heading back East tomorrow. You?’

‘Not sure.’

Sure she wasn’t sure. ‘You’re gonna pay Ty Morrow a visit at Nevada Aircraft Brokers, aren’t you?’

‘I think I told you – I’ve got some questions. Hey, I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ she said, deflecting, as she stopped at the escalator. ‘That’s all you took with you, right?’ She motioned at the overnight bag by my side.

‘Yep.’

‘Well, I guess you don’t take a hair dryer when you travel. I have to go and collect my baggage.’ A smile sputtered across her face like sparks that failed to light a fire, and she held out her hand to shake. A delicate hand with slender fingers – clipped nails, no rings. All business. ‘Goodbye, Cooper.’

‘Petinski.’ Unlike the first time we shook, this time her grip was warm, dry and firm. Somewhere along the way she’d changed into clean work clothes – black slacks and a blue and white casual shirt, both fitted. She stepped onto the escalator and I watched her descend. Her hips were narrow, but perfectly in proportion to her legs and tiny waist. She was, well, built like a gymnast. I asked myself whether she could do the splits like her friend Emanuel.

Bells chimed electronically through a thin rattle of coinage. I turned and walked past a bank of slots in the center of the wide corridor. They formed an island on which a handful of departing vacationers were temporarily marooned while Vegas siphoned off the last of their money.

I made a beeline for the cab rank and gave the driver the address for Nevada Aircraft Brokers over on the other side of McCarran. Petinski wasn’t the only one who had questions for Morrow. And, as I had no luggage to collect, maybe I’d get there before her.

A short while later, my cab pulled into the forecourt outside the familiar white box with its gold windows. I paid the driver. A new black pickup with heavily tinted windows and big chrome wheels was parked by the front door, opened out, oddly, to let in the morning heat. Something felt different about the place. I stood with my overnight bag in the parking area and wondered what it was. A sheet of paper wafted out the open front door. Through the mesh cyclone fence cordoning off the ramp from the public, I saw a guy run to a small twin-engine plane, climb up onto the wing and jump in. A vehicle turned into the forecourt behind me and parked – a beige Ford Focus. Petinski got out. She’d made it here quicker than I expected. Must have had a rental ready and waiting. She and her frown stormed toward me.

‘What are you doing here, Cooper?’ she demanded. ‘I thought you were done.’

‘Satisfying my curiosity.’

‘And who’s paying for it now?’

An aircraft engine chugged, coughed then fired into life nearby, followed by a second engine. The plane on the ramp.

‘I’m here on my own time – just interested.’ I was interested because Randy Sweetwater was a guy I’d shared a laugh or two with in a war zone, over a crate of a superior officer’s illegal single malt, and bonds like that run deep.

Two Latino types in boots, shorts, tattoos, undershirts and tightly plaited hair appeared in the doorway carrying Sleeping Beauty between them. They heaved the slot up onto the pickup’s bed. An air of panic: that’s what was different about this place now.

‘You wanna continue this later?’ I suggested. ‘I’ve got a feeling we should maybe go in and see what’s up before the whole place gets hauled away.’

Petinski was about to say something but changed her mind and gave a curt nod instead. We squeezed behind the pickup as it inched forward and went in through the open door behind it. The reception area was empty this time, having lost its couch, cappuccino machine and the aforementioned slot. Shouting was coming through the walls and glass of the boardroom, and I could see darkened areas where several parties were standing and pointing at each other as they argued. While I could make out the details of the conversation and the names mentioned, none of it meant anything to me, other than I had no doubt that the tension had been triggered by Randy Sweetwater’s disappearance and the events linked to the crash in northern Australia. I was nosing around the reception desk awash with papers and folders for a bell or buzzer with which to announce our presence when the door to the boardroom swung open. Carol the receptionist came out, looking a little disheveled and distressed, strands of brassy hair escaping from the bun on top of her head and her tan caftan rumpled and askew.

‘Yes?’ she said.

Petinski said, ‘Investigator Kim Petinski from the National Transport Safety Bureau and Special Agent Cooper, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, here to see Mr Ty Morrow.’

From the look of horror on Carol’s face Petinski might as well have said, ‘This lizard and I are from outer space and we’ve come to conduct experiments on your unanesthetized body. You must accompany us immediately before we decide to probe you here and now.’

My cell buzzed against my leg to let me know that I’d just received a text. I ignored it.

The loose skin quivered under Carol’s chin, her mouth moving a couple of times without sound coming out. She swallowed, her throat working up and down like a pump action chambering a round. When her voice box finally kicked in, she said, ‘I’m sorry, but Mr Morrow . . . Mr Morrow has gone.’

‘Gone where?’ Petinski asked.

‘We think he just . . . we think he just left.’

‘Left to go where?’

‘I . . . we . . . No one knows. Everyone’s wondering what’s going on.’

‘You’ve got no idea?’ Petinski said.

‘Last night, around six-thirty, Mr Morrow received a phone call. It made him nervous as hell. Next thing I know he’s taking files, shredding papers. Then he . . . he jumped into a Citation and just, you know, took off.’

I glanced at Petinski.

‘Can you give me the aircraft’s registration?’ she asked.

‘Yes, certainly.’ Carol riffled through paperwork on her desk, then provided Petinski with the numbers and letters.

‘Carol, I’m going to have to ask you to touch nothing, okay?’ Petinski said. ‘Do you have a key for your filing cabinets?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I want you to lock them and give me the keys.’

It appeared that Carol was about to protest this, but her objection was quickly wrestled to the ground and hogtied by common sense. She opened a drawer, took out some keys on a ring, secured the cabinets behind her and put the keys on her desk.

Petinski scooped them up and pocketed them. ‘Thank you. Now, please turn off the computer and write down any user names and passwords.’

‘Before you do that, Carol, can you print out the flight plan submitted to the FAA by Randy Sweetwater?’ I interrupted.

‘Yes,’ said Petinski, hurriedly chipping in. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

Carol nodded, her hands shaking.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ I reassured her. It probably wasn’t, but I doubted any of it would touch her, at least in a legal sense.