Low Pressure

Chapter 12

The fist came out of nowhere and crashed into Rupe’s face like a wrecking ball.

He landed hard on his butt. Lightning bolts of pain pierced his skull and ricocheted off the inner walls of his cranium. His ears rang, and he was momentarily blinded.

Before he could even cry out, he was grabbed by his shirt collar and jerked to his feet with teeth-jarring, bone-shaking velocity. The planet teetered, then spun out of its orbit, making him sickeningly dizzy. He gagged on the nausea that filled his throat. His head wobbled on his neck uncontrollably. Blood streamed from his broken nose into his slack lips.

“Hey, Rupe, long time no see.”

Being shaken like a rag doll, Rupe blinked against the skyrockets of pain still exploding from within his skull. The earth righted itself and, finally, the multiple blurred images wavering inches from him coalesced into one of an older, heavier, uglier Dale Moody.

“How’re you doing, Rupe?”

Dale knew the extent of the other man’s pain, because Dale had had it described to him before. He’d landed a blow just like the one he’d delivered to Rupe on a fellow cop, who’d later waxed poetic about the various levels of excruciating pain to be found on the receiving end of Dale’s right fist.

In answer to Dale’s question, Rupe mumbled unintelligibly.

“Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

Dale, still gripping a fistful of expensive, imported silk/cotton blend, hauled Rupe by his shirt collar over to his rattletrap Dodge and propped him against the rusty, dented rear quarter panel. “Would you take this heap for a trade-in?”

“Fgnuckyoo.” With his rubbery lips and swelling nose, that was the closest Rupe could come to correct pronunciation.

Dale grinned, but it was a nasty expression. “I’ll take that as a no.” Keeping his grip on Rupe with one hand, he used the other to open the back door of his car, knock the top off a white foam cooler, and take from it a bag of frozen peas he’d brought for the occasion.

“Maybe this will help.” He crammed the bag over Rupe’s brutalized nose.

Rupe cried out in fresh pain, but he reached up and snatched the bag of peas from Dale’s hand. He applied it more gently and glared at the former detective from behind the smiling Green Giant. “I’m filing charges of assault.”

“Will that be before or after your eyes swell shut? I hope you don’t have any TV commercials to do this week. You’re gonna look like shit for a while. Maybe you can buy shirts that’ll match your bruises.”

“You’re a…”

“I know what I am,” Dale said brusquely, all traces of humor vanishing. “And I know even better what you are. Now, we can stand here all night swapping insults. I’ve got nothing else to do. But you’re a busy man. You’re also the one who’s bleeding and hurting like hell. Your better option is to talk to me like you’ve been itching to do. I drove halfway across the state to get here. So talk, you son of a bitch.”

Rupe continued to glower at him, but Dale knew better than anyone that the former ADA was good at thinking on his feet. Even in a tight spot like this, he would be searching for an angle that would turn the situation to his advantage. Knowing this about his nemesis, Dale wasn’t surprised when Rupe cut to the chase.

“The Lystons’ younger daughter. Remember her? Bellamy? She’s written a book.”

“Old news, Rupe. Low Pressure. I know all about it. I also know about the tabloid writer who’s exploiting it. I stopped on my way here to gas up and saw today’s issue in a rack by the register. Bet the cashier would’ve been blown away if she’d known she was selling a copy to one of the featured personalities.

“I fared better than you, Rupe,” Dale continued conversationally. “I was only mentioned as the ‘former lead investigator, unavailable for comment.’ But Van Durbin went on at some length about you. Reading between the lines, I’d say he wasn’t all that impressed with your public service to Travis County. He said you couldn’t give him a ‘definitive’ answer when he asked you about hard evidence, which in this case was a pair of lacy underwear. Van Durbin relished that.”

“I read it.” Rupe lifted the makeshift ice pack from his nose, looked with disgust at the imprint his blood had made on it, then tossed it aside. It landed on the pavement near his feet with a loud splat. Rupe looked down at it and used that opportunity to take in the parking lot at a glance.

“Nobody’s around,” Dale told him. “Nobody to rush to your rescue. Which is your own fault for parking way out here at the edge of the lot. What? Are you scared somebody will notice you coming and going out of that young lady’s apartment up there?

“You really should choose another place for your shabby rendezvous, Rupe, or you’re liable to get caught with your pants down. How old is she, anyhow? Eighteen? Nineteen at a stretch? Is she even legal? Shame on you, diddlin’ a girl too young to buy beer. You being a church deacon and all.”

If looks could kill, Dale would be dead. “Your pal Haymaker?” Rupe spat. “Is he your snitch?”

Ignoring that, Dale continued taunting him just for the hell of it, just because it felt good. “Does your wife know you’re banging a hot young thing? Come to think of it, your missus might not be all that upset about it. She might be glad to learn you can still get it up.” Dale leaned in and whispered, “But you’d better hope Van Durbin doesn’t get wind of it.”

Rupe scoffed. “He has a column in a cheap rag that people line their birdcages with. So what? What harm can he really do me?”

“Austin’s King of Cars?” Dale mocked.

Rupe wiped dripping blood from the end of his nose and shook it off his fingers. “That was the ad man’s suggestion.”

“Whatever, Rupe. Whatever. You’ve done real good for yourself. But it could all go away like that.” He snapped his fingers half an inch from Rupe’s brutalized face.

“You think I’m scared of Van Durbin?”

“No, but you’re scared shitless of me.” Dale crowded in on him. “First the book, and now Van Durbin, have stirred up the dust, but I’m the one who could choke you on it.”

“You’d choke, too.”

“But I don’t have anything to lose.”

With both hands, Rupe pushed against Dale’s broad chest. Dale fell back a step, and Rupe gave him and his car a scornful once-over. “That’s readily apparent.”

Dale ignored the insult. “You, on the other hand, have made a large target of yourself. You’re easy pickin’s for a media crucifixion.”

“Save your threats. If you tried to destroy me, you’d fail.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re already beat, you just don’t know it,” Rupe said. “That’s why I’ve been trying to reach you, to tell you that if you get to feeling sentimental about Allen Strickland, law, justice, and the American way, you’ll be digging your own grave and yours alone.”

“If the Susan Lyston case was reopened—”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. Beat before you start.” He looked at Dale and shook his head sorrowfully. “Do you think I’d let that case file just languish there in the PD like a ticking time bomb?” He barked a laugh, which caused him to wince with pain. “Hell, no, Dale. That file was adiosed weeks after Strickland’s conviction.”

Dale balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth. “That file contained all my notes on the case.”

“And you were awfully cooperative to hand everything over to me when requested, Dale. I really do appreciate that.”

Dale closed the space between them. “Where is it?”

“I didn’t just have it sneaked out of the PD, Dale. I lit the match, watched it burn, then scattered the ashes to the four fucking winds. So if anybody tried to find it now, they would be SoL.”

Again, he looked Dale up and down and laughed. “You came out of hiding and got all dressed up for nothing. Sorry, Dale.” He raised his hands and shrugged elaborately, assuming the smug air that made Dale despise him.

But Dale waited, knowing it was coming. He waited. Waited.

And when the King of Cars smiled his billboard smile, Dale slammed his fist into the grillwork of dentistry, destroying it with knuckles of iron and almost two decades of pent-up wrath.

Rupe howled, covered his mouth with both hands, and slid down the side of the car.

Using the toe of his boot, Dale pushed him away from the wheel so he wouldn’t impede him when he drove away. Then, standing over him, he said, “You put the squeeze on Haymaker again, I’m gonna come back and hack off your sagging balls with a dull pair of pinking shears. I had a case once, a guy did that to his poker-playing buddy. He got three years for it. But it taught the other guy a lesson on cheating that he never forgot.”

During the flight back to Austin, neither Bellamy or Dent was very talkative. Parting with Steven had made her terribly sad, because now she knew he had deliberately excised her from his life, whereas before, she’d deluded herself into believing that circumstances were responsible for the rift.

But her somber mood was largely attributed to what he had revealed about himself and Susan. “How could I have lived in the same house with them and not have known?”

She didn’t even realize she’d posed the question out loud until Dent replied. “You were a kid. Maybe you sensed something between them but didn’t recognize it for what it was.”

“I just thought they didn’t like each other much.”

After a moment, Dent said, “He could be making it up.”

“He wouldn’t invent a lie like that. It’s too painful and embarrassing for him.”

“Would he lie about something else?”

She looked at him, her question implied.

He said, “Steven didn’t see you at the boathouse just before the storm. But you didn’t see him there, either, did you?”

“I might have. I can’t remember.”

“Okay. But he told us that he went to the boathouse to get contraband beer when he didn’t even like beer. Kinda struck me as strange.”

“You think he’s lying about where he was when Susan was killed?”

He raised his shoulders. “It’s something to think about, that’s all. He admitted to having motive.”

“So you believe that part, that Susan came on to him sexually.”

“Yeah, I believe it.”

They lapsed into silence. Eventually she said, “She was selfish and vain. But I had no idea that she could be that cruel-hearted.”

“Didn’t you?” Speaking with quiet intensity, he said, “Your quest for the truth could turn up more ugly surprises, Bellamy. Are you sure you want to continue?”

“I have to.”

“No you don’t.”

“I won’t stop now, Dent.”

“Maybe you should. Why keep going when there may be other land mines out there?”

“Nothing could be as bad as the secret we uncovered today.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then, without saying anything more, faced forward.

“The other boys,” she said haltingly. “The ones she boasted having been with…”

“What about them?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Sure I knew.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I didn’t care.”

They spent the remainder of the flight in pensive silence and didn’t speak again until they exited the Austin-Bergstrom terminal for the parking garage where he had left his Corvette.

Bellamy offered to call a car service to take her home. “If you’d rather not drive me all the way to Georgetown.”

“I’ll drive you. But Gall’s airfield is between here and there. I’d like to stop on the way.”

Gall’s pickup was the only vehicle around. The wind sock hung limply on its pole in the late evening heat. Dent drove his car into the hangar, and, as he and Bellamy climbed out, Gall walked toward them, wiping his greasy hands on a faded shop rag.

“How is she?” Dent asked, referring to his airplane.

“Coming along. Want to take a look?”

Dent peeled off in that direction. Gall looked at Bellamy and angled his head toward the office. “It’s cooler in there. Air’s on. Watch the back leg of the chair when you sit.”

“Thank you.”

She went into the office and gingerly lowered herself onto the seat of the chair with the unreliable leg. As she watched Dent and Gall discussing the airplane, she took her cell phone from her shoulder bag.

It had logged three missed calls from her agent, two from the publicist. She could only imagine the tizzy the new edition of EyeSpy had caused. They were probably celebrating the boost in publicity.

She hadn’t yet read the copy Dent had given her that morning. She admitted to a morbid curiosity about what Van Durbin had written, and only if she knew the content of his column could she prepare a rebuttal against any untruths, but she couldn’t bring herself to read it now. After the visit with Steven, she felt emotionally whipped.

Disinclined to return the professional calls, she punched in Olivia’s number. An automated voice mail answered. She left a message. It still seemed underhanded that she’d gone to see Steven without his mother’s knowledge. Olivia made no secret of missing him terribly and often lamented that she didn’t see enough of him.

Bellamy wondered—well, she wondered many things. But there were questions she couldn’t put to Olivia without breaching Steven’s confidence. As curious as she was to know what Olivia knew about his private life, she would abide by the pact they’d made as preteens to keep each other’s secrets.

Gall and Dent were now looking at another airplane that was parked inside the hangar. Gall motioned Dent toward it. He seemed to hesitate, then walked over to it.

Gall stood with him for several seconds, then turned and, leaving Dent, came into the office. He was chuckling to himself as he moved behind the desk and sat down. “Knew he couldn’t resist.”

“Is that a new airplane?” Bellamy asked.

“Less than fifty hours on it.”

“Who does it belong to?”

He told her, and she recognized the name. “He’s a state senator, isn’t he?”

“Yep. Plus he owns about a third of the land between Fredericksburg and the Rio Grande. Beef cattle.”

“Oil and gas, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

Gall nodded. “He’s offered Dent a job as his private pilot, but he’s too stubborn and too proud to take it.”

She looked out into the hangar, where Dent was running his hand along the wing of the airplane, following its curvature. Rather like he had run his hand over the shape of her hip last night, outside and inside her pajamas. His hand had been as unshy as his kiss, both taking what they wanted.

The recollection made her face feel hot. Caught in a fog of erotic memory, she missed Gall’s question the first time and had to ask him to repeat it.

“I asked what you thought of him.”

She tried to regard Dent objectively, which was impossible. “I’m still forming my opinion.”

“Your folks didn’t like him.”

“I’m not my folks.”

He didn’t remark on that.

“You’ve known him for a long time.”

“Sure have.” He tossed the soggy remnants of his cigar into the trash can and unwrapped a fresh one.

“Do you ever light those?”

He frowned cantankerously. “Haven’t you heard? Smokin’ is bad for your health. God knows he drummed that into my ears till I either had to quit or kill him just to shut him up about it.”

“Dent lectured you on smoking, when he’s so reckless in his own right?”

Gall fixed his rheumy gaze on her. “Reckless? I guess in some areas of his life he could exercise more caution.”

“He drives way too fast.”

“Yeah, he likes speed. And on occasion he drinks too much and wakes up in a bed he ought not to be in. But I’ll tell you one damn thing.” He held the cigar between two fingers as he wagged them at her. “He’s the best damn pilot I’ve ever run across.”

When she didn’t comment, he took it as an invitation to expand.

“Some pilots are taught to fly, and they learn good enough to keep the airplane from crashing. If the machine is in working order, and the pilot doesn’t fuck up, the thing will fly. You gotta use your hands and your feet and you gotta have a pretty good head on your shoulders and at least a little common sense, so you don’t make a stupid mistake or take a gamble that gets you killed. But even the smartest of men can be the lousiest pilots. You know why? They make it mental. They don’t do it from their gut.”

He gave his belly a loud smack. “The good pilots do it from here. They feel it. They know how to do it before they ever take a lesson. Sure, you gotta learn about the weather, how to read instruments. There’s a lot that can be taught to improve natural skill, but, in my book, that skill—something you’re just born with—is essential. I don’t have it. But I know it when I see it.”

He removed his cigar from his mouth and studied the end of it as he rolled it between his fingers. “I got to shake hands with Chuck Yeager once, out at an air base in New Mexico. I was just a kid, a grease monkey, but in my work I got to rub elbows with lots of flyboys who later became astronauts and such. Damn good pilots. The kind I’m talking about. The ones who do it by instinct.”

He tipped his chin down and looked at Bellamy from beneath the shaggy line of his eyebrows. “But I wouldn’t trade ten of them for one Denton Carter.” As though to underscore the statement, he jammed the cigar back into the corner of his mouth and anchored it there with his teeth.

Amused, she said, “I don’t intend to dispute you.”

“Well,” he grumbled, “just in case you were of a mind to.” He looked beyond her. She turned so that she, too, could see into the hangar where Dent was still inspecting the airplane. “Only a nekkid woman would hold that much fascination for him,” the old man remarked with a cackle.

“When he first started coming out here, he was a moody little bastard, full of piss and vinegar and lots to prove, ready to take offense at the drop of a hat. But when he got around the airplanes, I saw the look that came over his face. There’s an expression for it. Uh… What’s the word?” he asked, rapidly snapping his fingers.

“Rapture?”

“Yeah. Rapture. Like somebody that ought to have sunlight shining on him through a stained-glass window. That’s the way Dent got whenever he looked at an airplane in flight.”

“He told me about the first time you took him up. He said he fell head over heels in love with flying.”

Gall shifted his eyes off Dent and back to her. “He told you that?”

“In those words.”

“You don’t say? Huh.” He tilted his head and studied her for a moment. “I’ve never known him to talk about it before.”

She weighed the advisability of asking her next question, but decided she would never know the answer if she didn’t ask. “What happened in the cockpit during that flight that nearly went down? I don’t think either the media or the public got the full story.”

“What has Dent told you about it?”

“Nothing. He changes the subject.”

“Well, then, you won’t hear it from me. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you his own self.”

Her cell phone rang and when she saw the calling number on the LED, she answered before it could ring a second time. “Olivia? You got my message? How’s Daddy?”

To give her privacy, Gall left the office and rejoined Dent in the hangar.

“Admit it, Ace, it’s a sweet puppy.”

“It’s a nice airplane.”

Gall scoffed at the understatement. “Yeah and Marilyn Mon-roe was a blonde.” He continued to admire the airplane as he said, “The senator wants you bad. He thinks you got a raw deal from the airline.”

“What does he know about—”

“He wants to give you a chance to reinstate—”

“I don’t need to prove—”

“Just shut up a minute and hear me out, okay? He’s now willing to take only ten percent of your charters, and he’s upped the offer on your salary. Upped it a lot. It’s a cream puff of a deal. The guy’s bending over backward to get you to say yes, and you’d be crazy—Are you listening?”

He had been, but he’d become distracted when Bellamy emerged from the office. He had only to look at her face to know that something was dreadfully wrong.

She walked quickly toward them. “It’s Daddy. I’ve got to go to Houston. Can you drive me home right away so I can get my car?”

Dent responded immediately by taking her arm and ushering her toward the Vette. “We’ll get there faster if I drive you.”

“I have a better idea. Fly this down there.” Gall motioned toward the new airplane. “He urged me to put you in the cockpit, give you a taste of it.”

“I’m not insured.”

“He insured you.”

“Without ever flying with me? Or even meeting me?”

“Shows how confident he is. He left it here for you to fly. Says it’ll get rusty otherwise. And the lady here has an emergency.”

Dent turned to Bellamy and took her shoulders between his hands. “Depends on you. I’m type-rated to fly an airplane this size, but I’ve never been in that cockpit.”

She shook her head in apparent confusion.

“It’s like the first time behind the wheel of a new car,” he said. “You gotta familiarize yourself.”

“How long does that take?”

“Coupla hours.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Or a coupla minutes.” He gripped her shoulders tighter and said without equivocation. “I can fly it, but it’s your call.”

In under two hours they arrived at the ICU waiting room, where Olivia was sitting alone, hugging her elbows, staring into space. She shot to her feet when she saw Bellamy, but made no move toward her when Dent appeared behind her.

Bellamy asked, “Are we too late?”

“No.” Olivia sat back down as though her legs had given out from under her. “He’s drifting in and out of consciousness. They’re afraid he’ll lapse into a coma. That’s why I called you when I did. This may be your last chance to speak to him.”

Bellamy crossed the room and put her arms around her stepmother. They clung to each other for several minutes, crying together. Eventually Bellamy pulled away and blotted her face with a tissue. “When can I see him?”

“The doctor is with him now. He’s trying to determine if there’s anything viable they can do. The nurse promised to come and get me when we can go in.”

She looked past Bellamy toward Dent, who had come no farther than the doorway. “Dent flew me here,” Bellamy explained. “Fortunately we were able to leave almost immediately after I spoke with you.”

Olivia thanked him with cool politeness.

He acknowledged her thanks with a nod, then said, “I need coffee. Can I get some for either of you?”

They shook their heads in unison. Then, as soon as he was out of sight, Olivia looked at Bellamy with a mix of bewilderment and annoyance.

Bellamy took a deep breath, reasoning that she had just as well be straightforward. “He and I have spent time together and have become better acquainted over the last couple of days. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Well, thank you for that, because I don’t understand. Not at all.”

“Then at least give me credit for being a grown-up who can make up my own mind about people.”

She hadn’t meant the rebuke to sound as stern as it did. Contritely, she reached for Olivia’s hand and pressed it between hers. “I can see why you and Daddy didn’t consider him an ideal boyfriend for Susan. He wasn’t like the sons of people in your circle. He was unpolished and disrespectful.”

“Our dislike extends beyond his lack of manners, Bellamy. We hold him partially responsible for what happened to Susan.”

The blame was misplaced and grossly unfair, but rather than dwell on that, Bellamy countered more diplomatically. “He didn’t come away unscathed. He’s never gotten over being a suspect.” She paused, then said, “Neither has Steven.”