The Whistler

40

They had no trouble finding the general aviation terminal at the Valdosta Regional Airport. As Lacy locked her car, she glanced around one more time and saw nothing suspicious. Gunther was inside, chatting up the girl behind the desk, and he hugged his sister as if he hadn’t seen her in years. She did not introduce him to JoHelen because she did not want to use names.

“No luggage,” he said.

“We’re lucky to have our handbags,” Lacy said. “Let’s go.”

They hurried out of the terminal, passed several small planes on the tarmac, and stopped at the same Beech Baron Gunther had used to rescue Carlita. Again, he said it belonged to a friend. As the day wore on, they would learn that Gunther had some good friends. Just before she climbed through the small door, Lacy called Allie Pacheco for the latest. He answered immediately, said the grand jury was still in session and working hard, and where in the hell was she? She said they were safe and about to go flying. She’d call later.

Gunther strapped them in and climbed into the cockpit. The cabin felt like a sauna and they were instantly sweating. He started both engines and the airplane shook from its props to its tail. As he began to taxi, he cracked a window and a slight breeze broke the stifling heat. There was no other traffic and he was cleared for takeoff. As he released the brakes and they lurched forward, JoHelen closed her eyes and grabbed Lacy’s arm. Thankfully, the weather was clear-still hot and sticky, though it was October. October 15 to be exact, almost two months since Hugo’s death.

JoHelen managed to relax as they passed through five thousand feet. The air conditioner was on now, and the cabin was comfortable. The constant roar of the two engines made it difficult to talk, but JoHelen tried. “Just curious. Where are we going?”

Lacy replied, “Don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Great.”

The Baron leveled off at a cruise altitude of eight thousand feet, and the engine noise quieted from a roar to a hum. JoHelen had spent the past two nights in cheap motels, on the run and expecting the worst, and fatigue hit her hard. Her chin dropped to her chest as she fell into a deep sleep. Lacy, with nothing to do, also took a nap.

When she awoke an hour later, Gunther passed back a set of headphones. She adjusted her mike and said, “Hello.” He nodded and kept his eyes forward, on his instruments. He said, “So, how you doing, Sis?”

“Fine, Gunther, and thanks.”

“She okay?”

“She appears to be in a coma. Been a rough two days. I’ll fill you in on the ground.”

“Whenever. Just happy to help.”

“Where are we going?”

“Up in the mountains. I’ve got a friend with a cabin no one can find. You’ll love it.”

An hour and a half later, he reduced the throttles slightly and the Baron began a slow descent. The terrain below was far different from the flatland they had covered fleeing from Florida to Valdosta just a few hours earlier. As far as Lacy could see there were ridges of dark, rolling mountains already in shades of red, yellow, and orange. They drew closer as Gunther positioned the plane for final approach. She shook JoHelen’s arm and woke her. The runway was in a valley, beautiful hills all around, and Gunther touched it perfectly. They taxied to the small terminal, passing four other parked aircraft, all small Cessnas.

When he killed the engines, he said, “Welcome to the Macon County Airport, Franklin, North Carolina.” He crawled out of the cockpit, opened the cabin door, and helped them onto the deck. As they walked to the terminal, he said, “We’ll meet a guy named Rusty, a local who’ll take us in, about a thirty-minute drive, straight up. He watches some of the cabins around here.”

“Are you staying?” Lacy asked.

“Sure. I’m not leaving you, Sis. How about this weather? And we’re only at two thousand feet.”

Rusty was a bear, with a thick beard and chest and a big smile that seemed to leer a bit at the two attractive ladies. He drove a Ford Explorer that gave every appearance of having spent its entire life on mountain trails. As they left the airport, he asked, “Are we stopping in town?”

Lacy said, “A toothbrush would be nice.”

He pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store. “Is the cabin stocked?” Gunther asked.

“Whiskey, beer, popcorn. You want anything else you’d better buy it.”

“How long might we be staying?” JoHelen asked. She had said little, as if in shock at the change of scenery.

“Couple of days,” Lacy said. “Who knows?”

They bought toiletries, eggs, bread, and packaged deli meats and cheese. At the edge of town, Rusty turned onto a gravel road, leaving the asphalt far behind. He climbed a hill, the first of many, and Lacy realized her ears were popping. He talked nonstop and far too casually as he sped along the edges of cliffs and across wooden bridges with rushing creeks beneath them. As it turned out, Gunther had been there only a month earlier, with his wife, for a week of cool temperatures and early foliage. The men talked; the women in the rear seat just listened. The gravel road yielded to a narrow one of dirt. The final charge uphill was straight and terrifying, and when they topped a ridge a beautiful lake was before them. The cabin sat snug to its shoreline.

Rusty helped them unload their supplies and showed them around the cabin. By the time they arrived, Lacy was expecting some rustic lean-to with outdoor plumbing, but she was very wrong. The cabin was spectacular, an A-frame with three levels, decks and porches, a dock over the water with a boat moored at its end, and more modern conveniences than her apartment in Tallahassee. A shiny Jeep Wrangler was parked in a small carport. Gunther said its owner, a friend, had made a mint in hotels and built the place to escape Atlanta’s muggy summers.

Rusty said good-bye and told them to call if they needed anything. Cell phone service was good, and all three had calls to make. Lacy called her apartment manager and asked him to ask her neighbor Simon to take care of Frankie. She called Pacheco and explained that they were hiding in the mountains and were as safe as they could possibly be. JoHelen called Mr. Armstrong and asked him to watch her house, something he and Gloria did at least fifteen hours a day anyway. Gunther, of course, had some deals pending and was frantic on the phone.

Slowly, they relaxed. Fresh from the Florida heat, they marveled at the clear, light air. According to an old thermometer on the porch, it was sixty-four degrees. The cabin, at an altitude of forty-one hundred feet, had everything but air-conditioning.

–

Late in the afternoon, with the sun setting behind the mountains, and with Gunther on the phone and pacing along a porch far away, Lacy and JoHelen sat at the end of the dock, near the small fishing boat, and sipped cold beer from cans. Lacy said, “Tell me about Claudia McDover.”

“Wow. Where to start?”

“Day one. Why did she hire you and keep you for eight years?”

“Well, let’s say I’m very good at what I do. After my first divorce, I decided to become a court reporter, and I worked hard at it. I trained with the best, worked with the best, and kept up with the evolving technology. When Cooley found out that Claudia needed a new girl, he pushed me to apply for the job. When I got it, his master scheme fell into place because he suddenly had someone on the inside. Court reporters know everything, Lacy, and when I took the job I was already suspicious of Claudia. She had no idea and that made it easier. I noticed some things. Her wardrobe was expensive but she tried to conceal it. If she had a big day in court with a lot of people around, she would dress down. But, a slow day around the office and she would put on the fine things. She couldn’t help it; she loved designer stuff. Her jewelry was always changing, lots of diamonds and rubies, but I’m not sure anyone else noticed, especially in a place like Sterling, Florida. She spent a fortune on clothes and jewelry, more than you would expect from a person with her salary. She got a new secretary every other year because she didn’t want anyone to get too close. She was aloof, distant, always tough, but she never suspected me because I kept my distance. Or so she thought. One day we were in the middle of a trial and I snatched her key ring. Cooley ran by the courthouse and I gave it to him. He had a full replica made. After a frenzied search, she found the keys near a wastebasket and had no clue they’d been copied. Once Cooley had access to her office, he had a field day. He tapped her phones and paid a hacker to get into her computer. That’s how we got so much information. She was careful, especially when she dealt with Phyllis Turban. She used her desktop for official business and one laptop for personal. Then she had another laptop she used for a lot of the secret stuff. He didn’t tell Myers all of this, because, again, he was afraid that if something happened to Myers, then the entire operation would be compromised. He fed Myers just enough to convince him to convince you to start snooping around.” She took a long sip. They watched the water ripple where the fish were feeding.

“The clothing and jewelry caught my attention, but when we realized she and Phyllis were jetting here and there-New York, New Orleans, the Caribbean-we knew there was a lot of money coming from somewhere. And all the jets were booked by Phyllis, nothing in Claudia’s name. Then we discovered an apartment in New Jersey, a home in Singapore, a villa in Barbados, I can’t remember everything. And it was all well hidden, or so they thought. But Cooley was watching.”

“Why didn’t he go to the FBI and leave us out of it?”

“They talked about it, but neither really trusted the Feds, especially Myers. In fact, he said he would not be involved if the FBI was involved. I think they screwed him when he got busted and he was afraid of them. Since the state police have no jurisdiction over the Indians, they finally settled on the plan to involve BJC. They knew you had limited powers, but the investigation had to start somewhere. There was no way to predict how it would unfold, but no one expected dead bodies.”

Lacy’s phone vibrated beside her. Pacheco. She said, “I need to take this.”

“Sure.”

She walked back toward the cabin and softly said, “Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere deep in the mountains of North Carolina. Gunther flew us up here and he’s standing guard, sort of.”

“So he’s still involved?”

“Oh yes. He’s been great.”

“Look, the grand jury adjourned for the day. It will reconvene tomorrow. We have arrest warrants.”

“When?”

“We’re meeting now to decide. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Be careful.”

“Careful? This is the fun part. I think we’ll be up all night.”

–

At dusk, they built a fire in a stone pit by the lake and huddled under blankets in old wicker chairs. Gunther found a jug of red wine that Lacy deemed suitable for drinking. She drank a little, JoHelen even less. Gunther the teetotaler sipped decaf coffee and tended the fire.

JoHelen wanted to hear the story of the awful crash and Hugo’s death, so Lacy gave her best version. Gunther wanted to know all about Cooley and his astonishing efforts at stalking McDover. JoHelen talked for an hour. Lacy wanted to know how her brother had survived three bankruptcies and was still in business, and Gunther’s war stories carried the evening. They dined on ham and cheese sandwiches, white bread of course, by the fire, and talked and laughed until late in the night.