Low Pressure (29 page)

“Not now, Gall.”

Dent bypassed him as he made his way into the hangar and went over to his own airplane. “How’re the repairs coming?”

“Replacement parts are ordered. Some were promised by the end of the week. Others will take longer to get.”

Dent gave the wing of his airplane a pat, then went over to the computer table and sat down. “Have you checked out the airport in Marshall?”

“Its got two runways. One’s five thousand feet. Plenty long enough.”

As he and Bellamy left Haymaker’s house, Dent had placed a call to Gall, asking him if the senator’s airplane was still available and, if so, to get it ready for flight. He’d also asked him to look into the county-owned airport in east Texas, three hundred miles from Austin.

While he methodically went through his preflight routine, Bellamy was pacing the concrete floor of the hangar, her cell phone to her ear. He wondered who she was talking to. Her conversations with Olivia never lasted that long.

After filing his flight plan, he signaled to Bellamy that they were good to go. She ended her call and went into the hangar’s restroom, although the head on the two-million-dollar airplane was much nicer. She’d probably be too modest to use it during flight, though.

Dent, hoping to smooth things over with Gall after being so brusque with him earlier, approached the workbench where the older man was tinkering with a piece of machinery. “Thanks for helping out on such short notice.”

Gall just looked at him, waiting for an explanation for the sudden trip, which Dent felt he deserved.

“From Marshall, we’re driving on to Caddo Lake. It’s near—”

“I know where it’s at.” Gall gave his cigar an agitated workout. “Going fishing?”

“In a manner of speaking. Detective Moody, now retired, lives on the lake. He’s agreed to see us. And I don’t want any flack from you about it.”

Gall stopped chomping his cigar, removed it from his mouth, and pitched it toward a trash can, which he missed by a foot. “Flack,” he said with disgust. “How ’bout me giving you some common sense? Something you seem to have a shortage of these days. In fact, you haven’t acted like you have a lick of it since you got attached to that lady, who belongs to a family that damn near ruined your life. You show up this morning looking like Rocky. You’re on your way to see a man who you once vowed to kill. You’re packing. And I’m not supposed to give you flack?”

“How’d you know I was carrying a piece?”

“I didn’t. Till now.
Jesus!
You’re taking a pistol to a meeting with Moody?”

“Will you calm down? I’m not going to shoot him. We’re just going to talk to the man. He’s no threat to me anymore. He’s old, in bad health, reportedly on his last leg.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I have my sources.”

“He’s got his sources,” he muttered. He hitched his chin toward the wounds on Dent’s face. “Who beat you up?”

“The redneck I warned you about.” He gave Gall an abbreviated account of the attack.

“Did he cut you bad?”

“It’s okay.”

“You see a doctor?”

“Bellamy took care of it.”

“Oh, and she’s qualified to do that, I guess.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Gall. I swear.”

“You report it to the police?”

Dent shook his head. “We were afraid it would make the news. Bad enough that Van Durbin staked out my apartment last night, and he didn’t even know about the knife fight.”

“Van Durbin see her there with you?”

“He got pictures.”

If Gall’s scowl was any indication, nothing Dent told him had won his approval. “Back to the redneck—he have a name?”

“I think it might be Ray Strickland, Allen’s brother. But that’s only a guess.”

“Why would he come after you?”

“Retribution, maybe.” Dent raised one shoulder in a shrug. “That’s the best Bellamy and I could come up with.”

“Bellamy and you.” He snorted an expletive that Dent hadn’t heard since leaving the military. “Dent, why are you doing this?”

“I told you why.”

“Exoneration. Once and for all. Okay, I get it. But what? The shit your life is in isn’t deep enough? You need this to top it off?” He gave Dent no time to defend his actions. “You could get yourself killed. What good will vindication do you if you’re dead? As for her, do you think she’d want to partner with you if she knew—”

“She knows.”

Gall, shocked silent by Bellamy’s declaration, turned quickly to find her standing behind him.

“I know he was in the state park, quarreling with Susan shortly before she was killed. I saw them. My memory of it came back last night during a heated argument.”

Gall swallowed noisily and for once seemed at a loss for words. “Well . . .”

She smiled and even reached out and laid her hand on the sleeve of his coveralls. “I know you lied in order to protect Dent. Your secret is safe.”

“You’re not going to tell Moody?”

“I’m more interested in hearing what he has to tell us.”

“Speaking of which,” Dent said, “if we don’t get there soon, he may change his mind and refuse to see us.”

They went outside, but before they boarded, Dent drew Gall aside. “This redneck guy, whoever he is, means business, Gall. Watch your back.”

“Don’t worry about me, Ace.”

“I’m not. I’m worried about me.”

“How so?”

“I plan to hurt him for what he’s done to Bellamy and me. But if he hurts you, I’ll have to kill him.”

“Who were you talking to for so long?”

Bellamy had accepted Dent’s invitation to sit in the cockpit, and, despite her complaint about the discomfort of the headphones, she’d put them on and plugged in so they could communicate.

Staring at the horizon, she released a weary sigh. “Dexter. My agent. He had left twenty or more voice-mail messages, the last one threatening to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if I didn’t return his call. So I did.”

“And?”

“He’d seen Van Durbin’s column yesterday. It’s created renewed hype. He thinks I should reenter the arena and ramp up the publicity. I said no. The book has already climbed two spots on the best-seller list without my having to do anything. Dexter says that with just a little media coverage, it could go higher, stay longer. The movie deal would get sweeter. Et cetera. I said no. Again. Emphatically.”

“Will they be dragging the East River for his body?”

She laughed. “When I left New York, he threatened to jump from the Empire State Building. He hasn’t yet.”

He exchanged several transmissions with air-traffic controllers when they were passed from one’s airspace to another. The cockpit controls were as alien to her as the surface of Neptune.

When he was free again to talk to her, she asked, “How did you ever learn what everything is for?”

“I learned it because I have a very healthy respect for gravity. The ground is always there, trying to pull you down. It’s the most important thing to keep in mind.”

“Why are crashes usually attributed to pilot error?”

“Because they make the last mistake, and it’s hard for them to defend themselves or explain their actions if they’re dead.”

“That’s terribly unfair, isn’t it?”

“Can be, yeah. Pilots aren’t infallible. They screw up. But typically a crash is caused by a series of mistakes or mishaps. They stack up, and that’s what the cockpit crew is left to deal with. Have you ever heard of the Swiss cheese model?”

“I think so, but refresh me.”

“In order for a catastrophic event, such as a plane crash, to occur, a sequence of events precedes it. Think of these separate factors as slices of Swiss cheese lined up one behind the other. If any one of the holes in them doesn’t align with the others, the series of events is changed or curtailed, and a catastrophe is prevented.”

“But if all the holes line up—”

“The door is open for disaster.”

“The pilot’s mistake is the hole in the last slice of cheese.”

He nodded. “Say an airplane mechanic has a fight with his nagging wife, goes out and gets drunk, and is hungover at work the following day. During a preflight check, the first officer—co-pilot—spills his coffee over an electronic panel, which could result in its shorting out.

“He reports it, this mechanic is called to come and replace it. He doesn’t feel good to start with, now he’s working under pressure, knowing that the clock is ticking, and that everyone on board is disgruntled over the holdup. To make matters worse, the weather is deteriorating, and they want to get this bird out of there before the worst of it moves in, stranding passengers and crew for hours longer.

“The panel is replaced. The mechanic signs off on it. The captain and co-pilot are aware of the storms, but, between them, they’ve threaded a needle like that many times. They taxi, the tower clears them for takeoff, they check the radar one last time, and off they go.

“At about a thousand feet, they encounter some heavy turbulence. In an effort to get them out of it, the ATC instructs them to turn left. The captain responds. But as the plane goes into the turn, it gets struck by lightning, which in reality doesn’t cause an accident, but it can make things hairy.

“So now, the plane is in a steep left bank, flying in turbulence, trying to climb out of heavy rain and hail, at night, because the flight was delayed on account of the panel replacement. When . . .” He paused for dramatic effect and glanced over at her.

“When the fire warning for the left engine sounds and lights up red. The captain reacts immediately and does exactly what he’s been trained and conditioned to do for years on a 727. He pulls the fire warning lever, instantly shutting down that engine.

“What he
doesn’t know
is that he’s responded to a false warning. It sounded because it had grounded out after the coffee was spilled on it, which went unnoticed by both pilots and the mechanic. The turbulence, or the lightning strike, something, caused it to go off at that critical moment. The captain’s quick action to correct an emergency, which didn’t exist, actually created one.

“Remember, the plane was already in a left turn. Well, you
never
turn into a dead engine because the opposite one accelerates the plane into an even steeper turn. Wings quickly go vertical. Nose goes down. The airplane is doomed. Everyone onboard dies.

“But who do you blame for the crash? The captain made the last mistake. But you could also blame the clumsy first officer who spilled his coffee, or the mechanic who failed to notice that the fire warning had been damaged along with the panel he’d replaced. You could blame his wife for being a nag and driving him to drink the night before, making him feel like dog shit and not nearly as sharp as he normally would have been. You could take the blame all the way up to God for the crappy weather and that particular bolt of lightning.

“The sequence of events proved disastrous, but if only one of the contributing factors had been taken out of the equation, it might never have happened.” He paused and gave a shrug. “That’s a simplistic, layman’s explanation, but you get the gist of it.”

Bellamy hesitated, then asked, “What happened on Flight 343?”

He turned his head and looked at her for several beats. “I just told you.”

The gravel road wound through the thick grove of cypress trees and dead-ended in front of Dale’s cabin. He heard their car approaching long before it appeared.

He couldn’t explain, even to himself, why he had listened to Haymaker’s earnest pitch that he agree to see them. He should have hung up on him, should never have answered his call in the first place. But he found himself listening, and there was some logic to what his friend had said.

When Haymaker finished his spiel, which ended with his telling Dale that an interview might do his mind and body good, Dale surprised himself by asking Haymaker to hand the phone over to Bellamy.

They wasted no time on an exchange of phony pleasantries. She asked him the name of the nearest regional airport, and when he told her, she asked if he’d be there to meet her.

“No. Rent a car. Got a pencil?” After giving her directions from the airport to his place, he said, “Come alone.”

“Dent Carter will be with me.”

“I’ll only talk to you.”

“Dent will be with me.”

She was unbending, and he could have used that condition to scotch the whole thing. But he figured that if Dent meant to kill him, as he’d once threatened to, he wouldn’t do it with her as a witness.

As of this moment, they were the only two people on the planet who knew his whereabouts, and that in itself filled him with misgiving. But it was too late now to change his mind. With a crunch of gravel, the car rolled to a stop.

Moody watched from his sagging porch as they alighted, she with more alacrity and eagerness than Dent, who’d been driving. Dale figured that behind his Ray-Bans the boy’s—the man’s—eyes were cutting like razors. Hostility radiated off him like mist off a bog.

Bellamy was less guarded. She came up the steps as though not noticing how dilapidated they were and extended her hand to him without a qualm. He shook hands.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us.”

He bobbed his chin once but kept an alert watch on Dent, who took the steps up onto the porch in a measured tread. They eyed each other like the adversaries they were.

Bellamy brushed a mosquito off her arm. “Maybe we should go inside,” she said. Dale turned and opened the screened door, whose squeak seemed abnormally loud. In fact all Dale’s senses had grown more acute since their arrival. He realized how lazy he’d become now that he no longer had to depend on his wits and constant awareness of his surroundings, which, while a cop, had been second nature to him.

Dale gauged the gashes and bruises on Dent’s face to be no older than a day, if that. It spoke to Dent’s character that he was unselfconscious of them. He’d been a tough bastard at eighteen. Maturity hadn’t softened him one iota. Which made Dale all the more cautious. Being that he was soft and inflated where Dent was hard and honed, he would lose in a fight. In a clean fight, anyway.

Bellamy was prettier in person than on television. Her eyes had more depth, her skin a softness that studio cameras couldn’t capture. She also smelled good, like flowers. Dale felt a pang of yearning to touch a woman, which he hadn’t had the pleasure of doing for several months now. It had been years since he’d had the pleasure without having to pay for it.