“Are there specialists in this field? Expert paper airplane builders?”
“Yes, absolutely. May I ask why you need one?”
“You know of the attack on one of our captains?”
Wilkes nodded. “I read about it — horrible. A remote-controlled lift toppled bricks onto him, right? To be honest, when Ben called, I thought you might have wanted me to examine that device.”
“That might not be a bad idea, but I’m here tonight because of a paper airplane. The captain had this one in his pocket.” Frank extended the box to Wilkes. “We think it was used as a lure, so that he was positioned where the bricks would fall — but since the plane is so unusual, I wondered if it was also a signature of sorts. I’m hoping you might recognize the style.”
Wilkes opened the box and took the plane out, then shook his head. “Unfortunately, I do recognize it.”
“Unfortunately?”
“This is a textbook paper airplane, I’m afraid. Literally.” He set the box on his desk, then scanned his bookshelf. He pulled out an oversize paperback, a book called Winging It. “For the classes, we use this one by Bray and Killeen, one by Blackburn and Lammers, and a few others.” Without needing to use the index, he opened the book to page 98 and handed it to Frank. There was a large photograph of a paper airplane, a plane nearly identical to the one found in Bredloe’s pocket. Instructions for making it began on the next page.
“So it’s not unique,” Frank said, disappointed.
“Dinterman’s Stunt Flyer,” Wilkes said. “I would have given a failing grade to the student who turned this in — an F for plagiarism and for failing to make progress in the class. We show them how to make this one during the first week of the course. We even demonstrate it at the festival.”
“So dozens of people know how to make this?”
“More than dozens, I’m afraid,” Wilkes said ruefully. “A little over a hundred at the very least.”
Frank studied the folding instructions in the book for a moment, then said, “This looks like origami — aerodynamic origami. It can’t be that easy to learn.”
“Oh, no — most people won’t fold it as precisely as is necessary. I will say this much for your airplane maker — he or she is patient and loves precision. You can see that in the quality of the work.”
“Tell me more about this Stunt Flyer — what is it supposed to do?”
“Acrobatics. The plane is designed to slowly loop its way downward from the height at which it is launched. It’s not designed for distance, but you won’t have to run after it, and it stays in the air longer than most.”
“So it would be ideal for use in an enclosed space,” Frank said.
“Yes.”
“How many paper airplane contests are there each year — locally, in Las Piernas?”
“In Las Piernas? One. Ours. This year’s was our third event.”
“Only open to students?”
“No — anyone can enter. The event is actually several contests — prizes for distance, duration — that’s time aloft — aerial acrobatics, and so on. Within each, there are categories of competition. We have faculty, student, and public competitions. The same man takes the faculty competition every year, so we may start handicapping.”
“You?”
He laughed. “No. Professor Frost.” Seeing Frank’s smile, he asked, “Do you know him?”
“We met briefly this evening. But about the contest — do you have any lists of competitors? Entry forms perhaps?”
“Yes, both, if you need them.” He moved to a file cabinet, halted, and said, “I probably shouldn’t be giving this information to you, but — well, Ben speaks highly of you. Can I trust you not to sell the names and addresses to a mailing list or telephone solicitor?”
“I’m only looking for one name — I’m not sure whose name it is. But I suspect the attacker is someone who knows the captain, so maybe he learned how to fold this plane here. Maybe somewhere else, but I’d like to give this a shot.”
Wilkes pulled three thick folders out of a drawer. “I do wish I could stay around to help with this.”
Frank declined Wilkes’s offer of a ride to his car. The air had cooled considerably from the heat of the day, and a walk on this quiet, moonlit night would be pleasant, he decided. It would give him time to think.
He made his way across the campus alone, carrying the plane’s box and the three bulky file folders. During the spring or fall, even at this hour, groups of students would have been leaving classrooms, talking in the halls. But now, during summer session, the quad was nearly deserted. He saw a few students walking toward one of the libraries, but no one else. A little later, as he passed an open window near one of the art buildings, he saw lights and heard the sound of steel drums beating, caught a peculiar mix of scents of paint and brush cleaner and linseed oil — someone listening to music while working late in one of the studios.
He took the shortcut offered by a path through the campus sculpture garden. As he strolled past the abstract metal shapes, he wondered if he had jumped to conclusions about the paper airplane. Maybe Bredloe had some other enemy and the paper airplane was just a coincidence. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Lefebvre’s killer — maybe he had assumed a connection that wasn’t really there just because he had come from seeing the wreckage of Lefebvre’s plane not long before.
He had a sudden sensation of being watched, and halted. He was nearly in the center of the garden, surrounded now by an alien landscape of rising curves and sharp angles — a few of the large sculptures reflected moonlight off their highly polished surfaces, but most eclipsed it, darkening the pathway.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned quickly — and beheld nothing more than the garden’s odd patchwork of shadow and light. He waited. The faint pulse of the drum music reached him, and the distant, intermittent sound of cars on a campus road. He walked a little farther, then quickly stepped behind a tall, flat piece of metal with a single, four-inch hole in it. A placard at the base said the title of the piece was “Mother.”
He watched the pathway. Although he had seen nothing more, he now felt sure that someone had followed him. From where? He would have seen anyone who waited in the hall outside Wilkes’s office. Outside the engineering building? That was a possibility. There were many places — including inside other buildings — from which someone could have watched his progress until he reached the garden. At that point, the watcher would have been forced to follow him or give up pursuit.
He considered circling back to try to come up behind the follower, but just then he thought he heard a hesitant step. He stayed still, listening, watching.
Again he caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow cast where one had not been a moment ago. He shifted the folders, keeping his right hand — his gun hand — free. Suddenly he heard running footsteps on the path, moving away from him, back toward the art studios. He followed, cautiously at first, leaving the pathway to dart between sculptures, staying low.
He reached the edge of the garden, but did not step out into the open. His pursuer could have used any one of several bordering buildings as his means of escape. Again Frank waited. The steel drum music stopped. Its absence seemed to amplify the silence left in its wake, until a mockingbird began a noisy chant in a nearby ficus. Frank moved back among the sculptures.
He stayed on the grass planted between the works of art, off the concrete path. When he reached the other side of the garden, he studied his surroundings, but now he was as sure that the follower had given up as he had been sure of his presence earlier. Still, he stayed alert on the walk from the garden to the nearby stairs, from the stairs to the adjoining lot, where he was parked. He saw no one, and no other cars were parked near his own. He got into the Volvo’s front seat and started the engine.