Kiernan watched irritably as the stewardess eyed first Siebert, then her big suitcase. The head stewardess has the final word on carry-on luggage, she knew, With all the hassle that was involved with this business anyway, she didn’t want to add a confrontation with the stewardess. She dropped the crutches and banged backward into the wall, flailing for purchase as she slipped down to the floor. The stewardess caught her before she hit bottom. “Are you okay?”
“Embarrassed,” Kiernan said, truthfully. She hated to look clumsy, even if it was an act, even if it allowed Siebert and her suitcase to get on the plane unquestioned. “I’m having an awful time getting used to these things.”
“You sure you’re okay? Let me help you up.” The stewardess said. “I’ll have to keep your crutches in the hanging luggage compartment up front while we’re in flight. But you go ahead now; I’ll come and get them from you.”
“That’s okay. I’ll leave them there and just sit in one of the front seats,” she said, taking the crutches and swinging herself on board the plane. From the luggage compartment it took only one long step on her left foot to get to row 1. She swung around Siebert, who was hoisting his own suitcase into the overhead bin beside hers, and dropped into seat 1-D, by the window. The elderly couple was settling into seats 1-A and 1-B. In another minute Southwest would call the first thirty passengers, and the herd would stampede down the ramp, stuffing approved carry-ons in overhead compartments and grabbing the thirty most prized seats.
“That was a smooth move with the stewardess,” Siebert said, as he settled into his coveted aisle seat.
“That suitcase is just about the limit of what they’ll let you carry on. I’ve had a few hassles. I could see this one coming. And I suspected that you”-she patted his arm-“were not the patient person to deal with that type of problem. You moved around her pretty smartly yourself. I’d say that merits a drink from my client.”
He smiled and rested a hand on hers. “Maybe,” he said, leaning closer, “we could have it in Phoenix.”
For the first time she had a viscerally queasy feeling about him. Freeing her hand from his, she gave a mock salute. “Maybe so.” She looked past him at the elderly couple.
Siebert’s gaze followed hers. He grinned as he said, “Do you think they’re thieves? After your loot? Little old sprinters?”
“Probably not. But it pays to be alert.” She forced a laugh. “I’m afraid constant suspicion is a side effect of my job.”
The first wave of passengers hurried past. Already the air in the plane had the sere feel and slightly rancid smell of having been dragged through the Altera too many times. By tacit consent they watched the passengers hurry on board, pause, survey their options, and rush on. Kiernan thought fondly of that drink in Phoenix. She would be sitting at a small table, looking out a tinted window; the trip would be over, the case delivered into the proper hands; and she would feel the tension that knotted her back releasing with each swallow of scotch. Or so she hoped. The whole frustrating case depended on this delivery. There was no fallback position. If she screwed up, Melissa Jessup’s murderer disappeared.
That tension was what normally made the game fun. But this case was no longer a game. This time she had allowed herself to go beyond her regular rules, to call her former colleagues from the days when she had been a forensic pathologist, looking for some new test that would prove culpability. She had hoped the lab in San Diego could find something. They hadn’t. The fact was that the diamonds were the only “something” that would trap the killer, Melissa’s lover, who valued them much more than her, a man who might not have bothered going after her had it not been for them. Affairs might be brief, but diamonds, after all, are forever. They would lead her to the murderer’s safe house, and the evidence that would tie him to Melissa. If she was careful.
She shoved the tongue of the seat belt into the latch and braced her feet as the plane taxied toward the runway. Siebert was tapping his finger on the armrest. The engines whirred, the plane shifted forward momentarily, then flung them back against their seats as it raced down the short runway.
The FASTEN SEAT BELT sign went off. The old man across the aisle pushed himself up and edged toward the front bathroom. Siebert’s belt was already unbuckled. Muttering, “Be right back,” he jumped up and stood hunched under the overhead bin while the old man cleared the aisle. Then Siebert headed full-out toward the back of the plane. Kiernan slid over and watched him as he strode down the aisle, steps firmer, steadier than she’d have expected of a man racing to the bathroom in a swaying airplane. She could easily imagine him hiking in the redwood forest with someone like her, a small, slight woman. The blond woman with the violet eyeshadow. She in jeans and one of those soft Patagonia jackets Kiernan had spotted in the L.L. Bean catalog, violet with blue trim. He in jeans, turtleneck, a forest green down jacket on his rangy body. Forest green would pick up the color of his eyes and accent his dark, curly hair. In her picture, his hair was tinted with the first flecks of autumn snow and the ground still soft like the spongy airplane carpeting beneath his feet.
When he got back he made no mention of his hurried trip. He’d barely settled down when the stewardess leaned over him and said, “Would you care for something to drink?”
Kiernan put a hand on his arm. “This one’s on my client.”
“For that client who insisted you carry his package while you’re still on crutches? I’m sorry it can’t be Lafite-Rothschild. Gin and tonic will have to do.” He grinned at the stewardess. Kiernan could picture him in a bar, flashing that grin at a tall redhead, or maybe another small blonde. She could imagine him with the sweat of a San Diego summer still on his brow, his skin brown from too many days at an ocean beach that is too great a temptation for those who grab their pleasures.
“Scotch and water,” Kiernan ordered. To him, she said, “I notice that while I’m the investigator, it’s you who are asking all the questions. So what about you, what do you do for a living?”
“I quit my job in San Diego and I’m moving back to Phoenix. So I’m not taking the first Friday night flight to get back home, I’m taking it to get to my new home. I had good times in San Diego: the beach, the sailing, Balboa Park. When I came there a couple years ago I thought I’d stay forever. But the draw of the desert is too great. I miss the red rock of Sedona, the pines of the Mogollon Rim, and the high desert outside Tucson.” He laughed. “Too much soft California life.”
It was easy to picture him outside of Show Low on the Mogollon Rim with the pine trees all around him, some chopped for firewood, the ax lying on a stump, a shovel in his hand. Or in a cabin near Sedona lifting a hatch in the floorboards.
The stewardess brought the drinks and the little bags of peanuts, giving Jeff Siebert the kind of smile Kiernan knew would have driven her crazy had she been Siebert’s girlfriend. How often had that type of thing happened? Had his charm brought that reaction so automatically that for him it had seemed merely the way women behave? Had complaints from a girlfriend seemed at first unreasonable, then melodramatic, then infuriating? He was an impatient man, quick to anger. Had liquor made it quicker, as the rhyme said? And the prospect of unsplit profit salved his conscience?
He poured the little bottle of gin over the ice and added tonic. “Cheers.”
She touched glasses, then drank. “Are you going to be in Phoenix long?”
“Probably not. I’ve come into a little money and I figure I’ll just travel around, sort of like you do. Find someplace I like.”