Palindrome (25 page)

Germaine laughed. "Maybe you're right." She jotted a note on a pad. "Choose guest to send to Lake Whitney on foot. I've got just the one, too; he sent the wine back last night; I had to drink it myself, and now I'm hung over."

"Poor Germaine."

"And that's not the worst of it. Ron went back to school yesterday, and I'm already horny. What am I going to do?"

"Poor, poor Germaine! Hung over and horny."

"I can see I'm not going to get any sympathy from somebody who's so well supplied with a man. How is my little brother, anyway? I haven't seen him for days."

"I'm not sure," Liz replied.

"You haven't seen him either?"

"I saw him last night, but I'm not sure how he is. It was the first time I've seen him depressed."

"Well, you're one up on me; I've never seen either of them depressed. They've always been the happiest people I know."

"Germaine, Keir's got me worried about something, and I don't know who else to ask about it but you."

"Shoot. I'll help if I can."

"It's something he said to me last night. He said he couldn't love somebody without destroying something else."

Germaine looked astonished. "Keir said that?"

"He did."

"I've never heard either Keir or Hamish say anything of the sort, and if I heard it from anybody else but you, I wouldn't believe it. Certainly it has no foundation in any fact I'm aware of."

"There's something else. He said it in connection with Jimmy; it was almost as if he were saying he had something to do with Jimmy's death." Germaine said nothing, just looked at her.

"Do you think Keir is capable of... I mean, he was very upset about your grandfather's refusal to make a will—he said that if Angus died intestate, Jimmy would automatically inherit a chunk of the island."

Germaine looked as if she was trying to decide how to respond. "No," she said finally, "I don't think Keir could do that, no matter how much he hated Jimmy. He's right about the line of inheritance, though."

"Then what was he talking about?"

"I think you'd better screw up your courage and ask him."

"I don't think I have that much courage."

"Then you'd better learn to live with it."

Liz sighed. "There's something else. I think I may have contributed to... whatever is bothering Keir. There was something I knew that I didn't tell him until last night. I haven't told you or Hamish, either, even though Angus didn't really ask me not to."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Angus invited me to dinner awhile back—right after his lawyer was here with the congressman and the Forestry Service people. After dinner, he produced a will and asked me to witness it." Germaine's eyes grew wide.

"He's made a will, then? You're sure?"

"I'm sure. He told me that he had made it himself, without his lawyer's help, and that he was of sound mind and all that, and that he wanted me to witness it."

Germaine leaned forward in her chair. "What did it say?"

"I don't know. I only saw the signature page. He did say, though, that he had arranged things so that Jimmy wouldn't be able to get his hands on any of the island."

"Well, that's a moot point, now. The important thing is that he's made the will, although with Jimmy out of the picture, it probably won't make much difference. Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"I was worried that might seem to be meddling in your family business."

"You aren't meddling; you just did what he asked you to. It was a perfectly straightforward thing to do."

"There's something else, something that may make me seem the meddler again."

"Oh, no, Liz," Germaine said. "I know he likes you a lot, but I hope you don't mean he's made you a beneficiary."

"Please don't be alarmed about that, Germaine. I know I'm not a beneficiary, because he said the reason he was asking me to witness the will was that I was the only person around who didn't have an interest in it."

Germaine leaned over and placed a hand on Liz's arm. "Please forgive me; I know I must have sounded like the disinherited relative talking to my grandfather's doxy."

"It's all right; I understand."

"A will has to have two witnesses, though, doesn't it?"

"Yes. He said he would find another one."

"I wonder who? He was right; you're about the only person he knows who isn't mentioned in the will; certainly he would remember the servants."

"There's something else," Liz said slowly.

"What?"

"I think I am truly meddling in family business, now, but it might be worse if I didn't. I couldn't tell Keir this last night; I thought he might be too depressed to react properly."

"What are you talking about, sugar?"

"It's James Moses."

"You mean he's mentioned in the will? I should hope so, after all the help he's been to Grandpapa."

"James may be a more... significant part of the will than that."

"How do you mean, more significant?"

"Angus told me that James is his son."

Germaine's face collapsed. "He what?"

"Surely that doesn't come as a complete surprise? There is a resemblance, after all."

Germaine put a hand to her breast. "Surprise? Honey, that's the single greatest shock I've had in my life!"

"I thought everybody in the family must at least suspect it was true."

She could see Germaine's mind begin to work, now. "Well, I wasn't around when James was born. My ex had taken me away at that point. I guess James must have been five or six when I came back to the island." Liz waited while Germaine's mind got around to the point.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Germaine said suddenly. "I hope to God he has made a will, because if he hasn't..."

"Keir told me about Aldred Drummond's will, about how the estate would be divided if the owner died intestate."

"The children inherit first, then the grandchildren,"

Germaine breathed. "So that must not be how Angus wants it to happen; otherwise, he wouldn't have made the will." Germaine laughed. "It's just coming to me; James Moses is my... Well, I'll be... shit, I almost said, I'll be a monkey's uncle. That's wrong; I'm a monkey's niece!"

"Germaine!"

"I'm sorry, I know it's not nice to call them monkeys. I'm just a little addled, I guess, having found a brand-new uncle."

"Are you upset?"

"Just stunned."

"I'm sorry I shocked you so. I figured you must have an idea about it. Do you think Hamish and Keir know?"

"Probably. They're smarter than I am."

"Well, why don't you see if Hamish knows, and I'll tell Keir."

Germaine shrugged. "Okay."

Liz got up to go. "Germaine, your grandfather loves you and the twins; he wouldn't do something crazy at your expense, even if he loves James, too."

Germaine put her head in her hands. "Jesus, I hope not."

That night, Keir took the news about his new uncle differently. "I've always liked James." He shrugged. "I guess I can't like him any less because he's my grandfather's son." He smiled wryly. "It's a good thing Jimmy isn't around to hear the news. Jimmy would have murdered the boy."

CHAPTER 39

Miami was hot and humid, and Lee Williams didn't like it much. He liked it even less when he found that Bake Ramsey's alibi for the weekend was practically impenetrable. He confirmed the football player's every move during that weekend, and he couldn't prove that Ramsey was not in his hotel room between 10:00 P.M. Friday and 8:00 A.M. Saturday. Not yet, anyway. There was still the airport check to do. First, he checked with Miami Flight Service and discovered that no aircraft had filed a flight plan from the Miami area to Atlanta Dekalb-Peachtree Airport during the hours in question.

When he sounded disappointed, the man explained that airplanes aren't required to file flight plans. "Any light aircraft could just fly to Atlanta under visual flight rules, if the weather was okay, and as long as the pilot checked with air traffic control before entering a terminal control area on his route of flight," he said.

"Are you saying that such a flight would be untraceable?" The man nodded.

"It might be untraceable, even if the pilot didn't care if it was traced. If he didn't want to be traced, he could use a false tail number to identify himself, or he could just do what the drug dealers do: turn off his transponder and stay off the radio."

"I see."

"Would your man have made a round trip?"

"Yes."

"In that case, he'd probably need fuel. Miami-Atlanta-Miami has got to be farther than the range of just about any light aircraft I know about. Of course, he could buy fuel at any number of airports along his route that would be open all night."

Williams thanked the man and left. Now his only hope lay in legwork, checking all the airports. He climbed into his rented car, turned the air conditioning up full blast, and started driving. He started southwest of the city at Tamiami Airport, checking with each charter service and flight school, and he came up empty-handed. He then worked his way north to Miami International, with no better luck, then to Opa-Locka and the smaller Opa Lock West. In each place he could find no trace of an airplane flying to Atlanta and back on the Friday night. He stood next to a small Beechcraft trainer at Opa Lock West and mopped his brow. "I've checked all the Miami airports I could find," he said to the flight instructor he had been questioning, listing the fields he had visited. "Have I maybe missed one?"

"Well," the young man said, "there's Dade-Collier."

"Where the hell is that?" Williams asked, searching his road map again.

"It's this really wierd place out in the Everglades. It was built purely for airline training purposes; there's a ten-thousand-foot runway and an instrument landing system, and that's about it."

"A ten-thousand-foot runway in the Everglades?"

"Yep, you can go out there and practice instrument approaches in a 747, if you've a mind to." Williams mopped his brow again and asked directions. An hour and a half later, after getting lost twice, he drew up to a gate in the middle of nowhere. A sign said, DADE-COLLIER TRAINING AND TRANSITION AIRFIELD. He drove slowly until an enormous runway appeared, heat shimmering from its concrete surface. There was a tower, which looked deserted, a low building, and only one airplane, a small, twin-engine job, parked on the apron, some distance from the tower. No other aircraft of any kind was in sight, in the air or on the ground.

"What a fucking waste of time," he shouted, banging on the steering wheel. Then he took a deep breath and drove toward the building. As he pulled up, a man came out to meet him. "What can I do for you?" the man asked. "This field isn't open to the public."

Williams flashed his badge. "I'm trying to trace the flight of a light aircraft from the Miami area to Atlanta last Friday night, and I wonder if you could help me."

"Mister, that sort of stuff don't fly in and out of here," the man said, shaking his head. "This is purely a training field; general-aviation aircraft can't take off or land here without a permit from Dade County, and nobody's even applied for a permit in weeks."

Williams slumped. This had been his last hope. He was hot, tired, annoyed, and thoroughly defeated. "Well, thanks, anyway," he said to the man. "Don't mention it," he replied, and started back into the building.

"Excuse me," Williams said.

The man turned around. "Yeah?"

"If general-aviation aircraft have to have a permit to use this place, and nobody's applied for a permit recently, then what's that over there?" He pointed to the twin-engine airplane parked some distance away.

"Well, you got me there, mister," the man replied. "It turned up last weekend, and nobody has a clue what it's doing here."

"Why don't you and I go over there and have a look at it?" Williams proposed.

The man shrugged. "Sure." They got into the car and drove toward the airplane. "It's a Cessna 310," the man said. "A nice one, too."

Williams stopped the car and made a note of the airplane's registration number, which was painted in twelve-inch letters on the fuselage. Both men got out and approached the aircraft. "How do you get into it?" Williams asked.

"There's only one door; it's on the other side." They walked around the aircraft, and the man stepped up onto the port wing and peered inside. "Uh, oh," he said. He hopped back down to the pavement. "I'm not opening that door. You do it."

Williams stepped up onto the wing, as the man had done, and looked inside. Someone was slumped over the pilot's control yoke. Flies buzzed about him, and the odor of corruption leaked through the door seals. Williams hopped down from the wing. "I think we'll let your local sheriff's department open that door," he said.

An hour later, Williams phoned his captain from the airport office. "I think I found the guy who flew Bake Ramsey to Atlanta and back," he said.

"What did he have to say?" Haynes asked.

"He didn't say anything; he died of a broken neck a few days ago. We found him in his airplane at an almost-deserted airfield about forty miles north of Miami."

"Oops," the captain said. "Listen, one of our guys checked at Dekalb-Peachtree and found out that an airplane refueled there about three A.M. on Saturday morning. I've got the tail number." He read it out. It matched the number on the piece of paper in Williams's hand.

"Bingo," he said. "Can we tie Ramsey to the airplane?"

"The Dade County Sheriff's Office is dusting the plane right now." He paused. "But, Captain, I've got a fairly certain feeling that they won't find a trace of Ramsey on that airplane. I think the sonofabitch has snookered us again.

"Come on home, Lee," Haynes said. "You've had enough Florida sunshine."

"You're damn right, I have," Williams replied, trying hard to suppress his fury and failing.

CHAPTER 40

Liz found Angus Drummond at the family cemetery, where there seemed to be excitement among the group of students and their leader, Dr. Blaylock. She stayed on the other side of the low wall that enclosed the graveyard and watched them. They crowded around a large hole and watched as small amounts of earth were expelled by someone down so far that Liz could not see his head. "It's intact!" a voice said from the grave, and there was a little round of applause. "I can get my hand under the coffin; the supports have held, too."