Strawberry Scandal, page 2
I shrug, feeling useless as I mumble through the facts as I know them. “Marianne and I were going to have flying lessons today. The lessons were a gift from my aunt and her friends.”
“Do you fly often?”
“Never,” I admit. “It was supposed to be something to push us out of our shells. Do something crazy.” It all sounds so silly now.
Her expression is composed, even though the tightness in her throat betrays her internal dishevelment. “That’s a nice gift. Where did you say you were from?”
I pull out my license again, even though I showed it to another officer when we arrived at the Hamshire police station. “Sweetwater Falls. Not too far from here.”
She takes down my address while Marianne slumps in the seat beside me. My poor best friend is mute and utterly spent, even though it’s not even midday. “Very good. Did you hear anything? See anything off? I’m trying to figure out why you two were in the hangar in the first place if you were there for lessons. Usually, one wouldn’t wander into the hangar unescorted. They tend to be locked to keep out non-employees and protect the planes.”
My neck shrinks as if I’ve done something wrong and need to explain my culpability. “The office was locked. When we saw no one was there, we walked over to the hangar to see if anyone was working this morning.” I tag on a plea for her to believe we had nothing to do with the murder. “We had a lesson scheduled. They were expecting us.”
“And you saw…” Sergeant Williams jots down a few notes that I try not to be nervous about. There are several other officers at nearby desks, while others stand in clusters discussing whatever has them scratching their heads. There’s constant movement, with a seriousness that communicates this is a place that has seen many a murder.
Even though I moved here from Chicago, I very much feel like a country mouse, smack in the middle of the bustling big city. I keep my elbows close to my body and try to stay out of the way, while still making myself as useful as possible.
I clear my throat while Marianne whimpers beside me. “I saw the same thing you all did. The door was popped open a little, so I thought the person might be there for us to start our lesson, but when I opened the door the rest of the way, I saw… well, you know the rest.” I swallow hard, trying to forget the details, even as I am being asked to remember them. “He was slumped forward, beaten and, well, dead.” My voice quiets to a respectful whisper by the end of the sentence.
“His clothes were filthy,” Marianne chimes in, a hollow look to her eyes. “Gary, is it? Like he’d been rolling in the grass.” She pauses to gulp audibly. “Or perhaps he was dragged through it.”
I try to pick out anything, even if I can’t guess how it might be important to the grand picture. “The grass was overgrown,” I add. “Maybe there’s something there.”
The officer nods, though she doesn’t look like she thinks there’s anything to that supposition. “The grass is usually overgrown a little on the airfield, but I’ll write that down, just in case.”
Sergeant Williams asks us a few more perfunctory questions, but we are useless for information. I’m useless for just about anything that doesn’t involve a bed and a shower.
Sergeant Williams motions around the interior of the bustling police station. “This is a bigger city than Sweetwater Falls. Lots of moving parts. Sometimes people get lost in the shuffle. But I knew Gary. Well enough to feel the sting of this.”
I nod empathetically, guessing that to be the source of the tension she’s trying so hard to hide. I would be all kinds of messed up if I had to do my job after finding out someone I knew had died. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t understand who would do something so terrible to him. He’s a nice guy. Brings us donuts sometimes as a joke.” Her eyes flicker with sadness. “Brought. He brought us donuts.” She clears her throat. “Good guy.”
I tilt my head because the joke is lost on me.
Sergeant Williams collects herself enough to offer a small smirk. “Cops and donuts.”
“Ah.” I chide myself silently for missing the obvious pun. I really am all turned around today.
Marianne frowns. “He brought you all donuts just to make you smile? That’s very nice.”
Sergeant Williams nods. “Nothing wrong with being nice. In our line of work, we don’t get a whole lot of people doing good things just because. Makes Gary stand out as one of the good ones.” She shakes her head. “This is the part of the job I hate. It’s easier when I don’t know the victim. I can be more academic about it.”
I lean forward and rest my hand atop hers, seeing her humanity beneath the uniform. I can tell she wants to cling to professionalism, which is a noble goal. But some things are just plain too hard to muscle through with a bland expression. “I’m sorry you lost your friend. It stinks that you have to dig deeper into the muck to find out how this happened.”
Marianne’s lips purse. “I think it was foul play.”
Sergeant Williams shrugs. “I think it’s an odd place for a pilot to die—inside his fully intact plane. Almost poetic with sadness.”
Marianne nods. “That’s exactly what it is.” I can tell her story-prone mind is latching onto the details so she can sort through them more clearly when she goes back to her shift at the library. “Did he have any family? Close friends?”
Sergeant Williams sighs heavily. “All things to be answered with an investigation. I’m afraid I’m not much use for information at the moment, but I intend to rectify that.” She holds her small notepad aloft, letting us know that a thorough deep dive will be conducted.
Part of my angst begins to settle at her commitment. “Is there anything we can do to help?” Other than never attempt to fly a plane again?
Sergeant Williams shakes her head. “I think you’ve done enough by calling it in the moment you found him. That was the right thing to do.”
Marianne lifts her hand like a child asking her teacher a question. “I left my book at the hangar. I’m sure the crime scene is sealed off by now, but I’d love to be able to grab it. It’s a library book. I don’t want to be fined.”
I turn my chin toward her. That’s an odd thing for her to request. Marianne is the Head Librarian in Sweetwater Falls. She can vanish late fees with a few clicks on her computer.
Sergeant Williams nods. “I can make that happen. You two head on over there, and I’ll make a call to the officer on the job. They’ll either let you in, or they’ll grab the book for you.”
Marianne smiles gratefully. “I appreciate it.”
My brows furrow as we stand, heading for the exit. “I got you a purse specifically to hold a book. It’s got a compartment and everything. Is it broken? I can return it for you and get you a new one.”
Marianne links her arm through mine. She keeps her voice low so as not to be overheard. “I left it there on purpose.”
I whip my head at her, thankfully remembering to keep my reply quiet, even as we make our way to my car in the parking lot. “Come again?”
I knew her angst over accruing late fees was off.
Upon closer inspection, Marianne doesn’t look nearly as shaken up as I do. She’s got her planning face fixed firmly in place. I know that look. Our long morning is about to become a long day. Possibly a long week. “They shuffled us out of the hangar so quickly; we didn’t have a chance to really look around. I don’t know about you, but I want to get to the bottom of who did this to the pilot.”
I balk at her. “Are you serious? What help do you imagine we could be?”
Marianne, my meek librarian, raises her chin as we shut ourselves inside my red sedan. “I’ve come to learn that when you and I put our heads together, there’s nothing we can’t do.” She motions to the main road. “This pilot was willing to risk his life, teaching us how to fly a plane.” It is not an overstatement. Marianne and I have no business being anywhere near a cockpit. “I owe this Gary person for his faith in me that I didn’t have in myself. I want to track down his killer, so this never happens again.”
Moments ago, I was content to let the police handle this, but when Marianne gets that wild look in her eyes, I know all bets are off.
We drive toward the airfield, the air conditioning doing all it can to combat the heat. Whatever adventures we thought today might hold, things are about to get a whole lot more harrowing.
3
PEEKING BEHIND POLICE TAPE
Marianne’s plan of leaving her library book at the hangar so we would have a reason to return to the crime scene to retrieve it wasn’t the all-access pass we were hoping for.
“Oh, thank you,” Marianne says as if someone just deflated the air from her tires. “Good thing I didn’t have to cross the police tape to grab it.” Her tone suggests she is anything but grateful, but she takes the “forgotten” book with her best attempt at a smile.
The officer is older than his partner, perhaps in his fifties. He nods to Marianne, effectively dismissing us.
So much for digging around.
Marianne is crestfallen, so I do what I can to scope out the inside of the hangar from behind the police tape, which is unfortunately keeping us just outside the action. The two officers are taking pictures of everything while they discuss with the paramedics the logistics of when and how the body should be moved.
I link my smallest finger through Marianne’s, whispering to her while we watch the scene we should definitely be leaving. “I don’t remember the barrels stacked nicely like that. Weren’t they toppled over?”
Marianne lifts her chin with renewed interest. “They were! I remember seeing grease rings on the concrete from where I’m guessing they usually sit. I wanted to pick them up, but I was afraid to touch anything that I wasn’t told to.”
That sounds like my timid best friend.
I snap a picture on my phone. “Maybe the officers righted the barrels because whatever is in there shouldn’t be spilled. But right now, I want to know anything that looks different than when we left it. You wanted to search the crime scene? Here you go, Marianne the Wild. Make it count.”
Marianne straightens, taking my suggestion as a directive. “The barrels are positioned differently. There’s that for sure. We found Gary with the door popped open, so that’s the same, but they would have had to open it anyway to get the body out if we’d closed it, so that’s not a smoking gun.” She squinches her eyes shut. “I’m trying to remember the details of how we found the body. Gary’s forehead had a bloody gash across it. He was slumped forward. Anything else? Foaming around the mouth?”
We can’t see the body from here to confirm any of this, so we bounce macabre mental images off each other until we can paint ourselves an accurate picture.
I nod at her last guess. “There was a giant bloody cut across his forehead. Dried blood on the control panel where his head was resting. I’m guessing a blow to the head was the cause of death.”
Marianne glances around the hangar with a frown weighting her features. “I see about a dozen things around here that could be used as the murder weapon. Everything is heavy, metal, and a tool of some sort. So every item could belong here, which means nothing will stand out as the anomaly and possibly be spotted as the murder weapon.”
I narrow my eyes, honing my sight as much as I can to see if obvious gore is dripping from anything that might have been used in the altercation. “There’s something black and shiny on that toolbox over there.” My shoulders drop. “But it’s probably grease, and not blood.”
Marianne takes pictures while the professionals do their job of removing the body carefully, documenting the scene to the best of her ability. The thin blanket over Gary is to be expected, but it doesn’t give us the last glimpse we were hoping to see.
We stand together in perfect stillness, wishing not that we’d had our flight lesson, but that we’d been able to help this man who no doubt didn’t deserve to die like this. I can’t imagine a single person who might deserve to be murdered and left alone to rot in his own airplane. We stand together for countless minutes, but when the body is carted away in the ambulance, we are no closer to solving the mystery than we were before we arrived.
The older officer of the two sidles up to us on the other side of the tape. “You girls need anything else? Because we’ve got some work to do here. Best you run along.”
I shake my head. “Just wishing we had a way to be helpful. We’re the ones who found the body and reported it.”
The man gives us a succinct nod. “I appreciate that. The way you can be helpful is to go on home and hug your loved ones. You called in the murder. That’s the best thing you could have done for old Gary.”
I offer up a friendly expression, because he’s being polite to us even though we’re being annoying by lingering and watching over his shoulder while he does his job. “That’s good advice.”
Marianne reaches forward to shake his hand. “Thank you, Officer Barton,” she says, reading his nametag. “We’ll go home and do exactly that.”
Marianne and I take the scenic route through the field toward my car, because we don’t want to go straight home. As soon as Officer Barton’s back is turned, we move diagonally through the tall, thick grass instead of going straight to the parking area.
We spread out, per Marianne’s instructions, looking for anything that might be hidden in the grass. It’s not our best plan, given how thick the grass is, but it’s all we’ve got. The grass is thick and goes up to our knees in spots. If there was a murder weapon thrown here, I’m not sure we would be able to see it through the bramble.
“Wrong way, ladies!” Officer Barton calls to us.
I turn to answer him, but my foot snags on something hard, sending me pitching sideways. The grass closes in around me, nearly burying me in the green.
Marianne squeaks at my fall, quickly jogging over to me. “Charlotte, are you okay?” She extends her hand to help me sit up.
I’m sure that only my ego is bruised, but when I stand and put the smallest ounce of weight on my foot, pain shoots up my left leg. “Oh!” I’m on my knees, hissing through my teeth at the discomfort I did not see coming.
Should I have been traipsing through the brush that goes up past my knees, searching for a weapon, of all things, that may or may not exist? Probably not. There are many ways to murder a man that don’t require the use of a…
Marianne gasps, lifting a long, black tool using the edge of her sweater. “A crowbar?”
I blink at the tool. More acute than the pain in my ankle is my need to understand how a crowbar was left in the middle of the field, and for what purpose it might be used so far from the hangar.
Marianne looks at me with wide eyes, just as breathless as I am. “Did you just trip over the murder weapon?”
My ankle throbs, but more urgent than that is the need to understand who could have done this to the pilot, and why.
Marianne stands, her hand resting atop my head, anchoring my temple to the outside of her thigh. She holds the crowbar aloft, her voice triumphant. “Excuse me, Officer Barton? I think we found your murder weapon.”
4
EXECUTIVE LEVEL GOLD-STANDARD FLYERS
Iam frustrated when I can’t drive us home, but I am humiliated when I find I can’t walk into the house without assistance. The smallest bit of pressure sends agony up my leg, nearly toppling me to the ground. Marianne acts as my crutch, helping me hobble to the porch. She keeps me secured to her side as we make our way into the two-story white painted home with pale blue shutters that I share with my great-aunt. The east side of the house sports ivy-threaded trellises stretching from the garden all the way to the second story. It’s beautiful, and today I am supremely grateful it is my haven and home.
Marianne calls out the second we cross the threshold. “Winifred! Winnie, are you here?”
My great-aunt Winnie shuffles around the corner with her best friends Karen and Agnes at her sides. All three women’s smiles falter when they take in the scope of my bedraggled state. “Oh, Charlotte! What happened to you?” Aunt Winnie exclaims, her hands cupping her cherubic cheeks. She is in her early nineties, but she wastes no time springing to action. She darts into the kitchen and comes back with a bag of frozen peas.
This is truly the best place to be injured. I have three post-menopausal women fawning over me and trying to get to the bottom of how I could be returning to them injured. When I lived by myself before I moved here, there was no one to notice or care when I came down with a cold or needed help carrying things to my apartment. Despite the pain in my ankle, gratitude swells in me at the sweetness I’ve found here.
Karen frowns at me while Agnes helps Marianne maneuver my form around the antique furniture. Then my bestie deposits me on one end of the couch and props up my ankle on a pillow at the other end. “I thought they were supposed to teach you how to fly an airplane, not throw you out of one.” Karen moves to the kitchen and comes back with two glasses of water for Marianne and me. “What happened?”
I gnaw on my lower lip, trying to keep the dramatics out of my tone. “Change of plans.”
Marianne fills in the gaps, thank goodness. “A murder! Can you believe it?” She situates a throw pillow behind me while Aunt Winnie drapes the bag of peas over my ankle. “No one was at the front office when we got there. When we wandered to the hangar, we saw the plane’s door ajar. We opened it and found the pilot…” Marianne hesitates, then whispers a scandalized, “dead.”
Agnes clutches her pearls, her pink painted lips molding into a horrified “O” shape. “Oh, gracious! The poor dear.” Her short white curls are pinned back, leaving no part of her expression veiled.
Marianne sets my purse and hers by the front door for us while she speaks. “It was awful. We called the police, of course, but it was the Hamshire cops, so we don’t know them. It was hard to get any real information about the murder. Not like if it happened here in Sweetwater Falls.” She jerks her thumb to me. It’s no secret that Logan Flowers, my cop boyfriend, could have given us an all-access pass to the scene of the crime information if we asked.
