Contraband

30

Max allowed a sullen Dix to make a phone call, then put him in an interrogation room and sat him down. She didn’t know if Dix had called a lawyer, but if he had, she didn’t have much time.

“Okay, Dixie,” she said, while Tommy watched through the two-way mirror. “Let’s start with your last flight. When was that?”

Dix blinked a few times. “It’s all kind of hazy,” he said. “Oh yeah, I worked on crosswind landings with a student.”

“Which student?”

“Hazel... I can’t think of her last name. She was scared of crosswind landings, y’see, because we’ve got an east-west runway, and we often get northerly or southerly winds — brisk ones, too.”

“Got it,” Max said. “And after that flight?”

“Next thing I remember I was in the hospital, and somebody was trying to kill me.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember you telling me that,” he replied.

“Tell me about the flight that ended in the drink at Fort Jeff.”

“What flight?” Dix answered craftily.

“The one when you broke your ribs and got choppered out.”

“I remember something about a helicopter. I don’t like them.”

“You know, Dixie, I think it might improve your memory, if we just put you in a nice cell for, say, thirty days, then resume this conversation.”

“What conversation?” Dix asked, looking puzzled.

There was a sharp rap on the door, and a man in a bad suit carrying a bulging briefcase entered the room and slapped his card on the table. “Ray Cochran,” he said, “attorney. This conversation is over. Come on, Dixie, let’s get out of here.”

“Mr. Cochran,” Max said, “Mr. Dix is under arrest on a charge of public drunkenness. You’ll need a judge’s order to get him released.”

“What? Four drinks in a bar? That’s what people do in bars. Was he annoying other customers? Was he loud and abusive to the staff? Did he stagger or fall down? Of course not,” he said, having answered his own questions. “Come on, Dixie.”

“We’re not finished,” Max said.

“Oh, yes you are,” Cochran said. “You don’t even have any witnesses.”

“We have the bartender.”

“The bartender never spoke a word. There was no complaint to answer, thus no conduct to arrest him for. Dixie, get your ass out of that chair!”

Dixie got his ass out of the chair and made to follow his lawyer.

“This isn’t over, Dixie,” Max said. “You’d better start remembering and call me.”

The two men left, slamming the door behind them.

Tommy came into the room. “Well, that had to go that way,” he said. “We didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Tell me about it,” Max replied.

“You’re getting desperate,” Tommy said. “Oh, there was a call for you from the Coast Guard.”

Max went to her desk, found the note, and returned the call.

“This is Commander Bob George,” said the man who picked up the extension. “Detective Crowley?”

“Call me Max.”

“All right, Max. We got a call this afternoon about some suspicious activity offshore. The call was from an air traffic controller at Boca Chica.”

“Tell me more,” Max said.

“On her radar, at around four this afternoon, she observed a primary target — no transponder transmitting — coming from the direction of a point ten or so miles from Fort Jefferson, descend from three thousand feet and disappear under five hundred feet. Not seen again.”

“A crash?”

“There was no Mayday call and no report of a crash. She reckons the airplane unloaded something into a boat, then took off and flew somewhere at a very low altitude and landed, between Key West and Key Largo. She suspects something illegal.”

“Commander, that’s a hundred and fifty miles of coastline with hundreds of places to conceal a seaplane.”

“Don’t I know it. It’s my job to report it to you, and I have. Good evening to you.” He hung up.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“Seems like Dixie might have made a flight today.”

“That would explain the hundred he put on the bar earlier.”

She told him about the call.

“Gee, that information is about as good as no information at all.”

“I know it.”

“Time to go home and get some sleep, Max.”

“Okay. I’ll drop you off.”

They drove to Tommy’s house in silence.

“Sleep well,” Tommy said.

“I haven’t got anything else to do,” Max replied, then drove home and went to bed, still thinking about that flight the commander had reported.