Amy Salinger must have been watching my face, because all she did was lay a small hand on my shoulder. If she hadn’t been leaning forward in her seat, she wouldn’t have heard my exchange with Baker over the loud drone of the airplane’s engine. But she had heard enough, and knew where the Consolidated access road was as well as I…close to town and close to a well-traveled highway. There was no good reason to be stranded there.
In another three minutes, we flashed over the lake at something like 130 miles an hour, and Jim Bergin reached out and pulled back the throttle. My stomach flopped a little as the Arrow nosed up. Our airspeed fell away and we started a big circle around the Consolidated Mines complex. The place had been abandoned for almost four years. A company security man drove through on rare occasions to check the locks. The access road swung off County Road 43 and wound around the complex, gradually dropping down to the huge “boneyard,” where the detritus from thirty years of active mining filled a good five acres: junked machinery; probably thousands of feet of drilling pipe and cable; even a long, neat rick of aspen mine-shaft supports. The access road didn’t belong to Consolidated. In fact, it continued down the hill, rough and rut-gouged, to peter out finally several miles later behind the county landfill. It wasn’t picturesque country.
We looked down and saw Baker’s car parked behind the Bronco. The small vehicle was pulled off the road, nestled in the shade of several small scrub oaks.
“Three-oh-six, any sign of the driver?”
“Negative, Airborne.”
We peeled away toward Posadas, and I looked back over the wing. The sun was just right, brilliant on the back walls of the tin equipment sheds that were built practically on the edge of Consolidated’s artificial mesa. Even though we were flying away at eighty miles an hour or so, I could plainly see the figure sitting in the sun, back against one of the shed walls like a Mexican sitting on the patio at noon. “Tight turn and head right for the lake,” I shouted. Bergin did so, banking hard enough that I could feel the g’s make my cheeks sag. As soon as we were wings-level again, he could see my target as well, and he pushed the nose down. We flew over the tops of the buildings low and hot, turning toward the south to avoid the rising hillside. When we flew over the figure, we were no more than three-hundred feet away. Whoever it was paid us no heed. His knees were drawn up with his arms resting on them, and his head was down. And then we were past. Bergin didn’t have much room to play with, but he brought the Arrow around smoothly, concentrating on his flying and not the scenery out the window. I radioed Baker, and by the time we were lined up to make another slow pass, this time headed downhill, his car was rolling.
None of us in the plane said anything. Because of the fence, Baker had to park a hundred yards away from the shed. He clambered over the chain link, and we saw him trot across the open, sun-baked space. For a long moment, Consolidated was out of view as we turned again. Maybe it was just as well.
I keyed the hand-held. “Three-oh-six, is the subject the owner of the vehicle?”
“Ten-four, Airborne. Ten-fifty-five.” My insides sagged again, and it wasn’t from a tight turn.
“Get back to the field, Jim,” I snapped, and he didn’t hesitate. For the next thirty seconds or so, I kept busy on the radio, too gutless to turn around and say anything to Amy Salinger. When I did, I saw that words were unnecessary. She was looking out the window, staring at nothing. Her hands were balled into fists, held close to her mouth. She was crying. Amy Salinger had the training and the nerve, but there are limits for anybody. She had heard the confirmation from Baker that the figure seated against the building was her brother. And she had worked around emergency personnel enough to know that 55 was a call for the coroner.
Chapter 17
The light plane touched down smoothly and Jim Bergin fast-taxied toward where I had parked 310. The propeller clicked to a stop and the Arrow rolled quietly the last few yards.
I unlatched the door while we were still rolling, and when the plane stopped I clambered clumsily out, then turned to help Amy Salinger while Bergin held the seat forward. “I’ll get squared away with you later, Jim,” I said, and he shook his head, face sober. He was watching Amy Salinger as she deplaned.
“On the house,” he said quietly. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
I hustled Amy into the car, and we drove away from the airport. “I think I should go up there first,” she said as the car pulled out onto the paved road. “I can’t tell Mom and Dad without knowing for sure. I mean, there’s a chance, isn’t there?” She looked across the room at me. “There’s a chance.”
“Amy,” I said patiently, “The deputy knows your brother. Baker’s worked enough games at school, or seen his picture in the paper often enough.”
Her hands were tightly clenched together on her lap. “I want to go up there first,” she said simply.
We drove in silence for a couple of minutes as we passed through Posadas. I didn’t waste any time, but I avoided the red lights and siren. There wasn’t much need. Only after we had started up the hill did Amy shake her head slowly and say, “I just didn’t believe he’d really do this.” She dug out a wad of tissue and through it whimpered, “I don’t know if I can take this.”
“I wish I could say something that would help,” I said. She shrugged her shoulders simply and looked away, her body occasionally shivering like a little cold kid caught unhappy and out in the rain.
We turned into the access road, and I saw one of the county cars pulled diagonally across the narrow right-of-way. Eddie Mitchel, who had probably been just about ready to go to bed when he received the call, bent down as I lowered my window.
“Sir, you can drive through the gate just up ahead there on the right. We haven’t located the security guard yet, but I took the liberty of cutting the lock off.”
I nodded. “Don’t let anyone down here except department personnel without my say-so, Eddie.” I looked at him hard and added, “Nobody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you might move your car back up the road-right at the turnoff from the pavement. I want all of this closed off.”
He nodded and made for his car. I picked up the mike as we drove down toward the gate.
“Posadas, three-ten.”
“Go ahead, three-ten.”
“What’s Detective Reyes’s twenty?”
“Uh, three-ten, I’m still trying to locate her.” For the first time that I could remember, Gayle Sedillos sounded a little flustered. With good cause, I thought.
“Find her,” I snapped, and hung up the mike.
Todd Baker had moved his unit to the gate, and he met us there. “Stay in the car,” I said to Amy. My guess that maybe a brusque approach might be helpful paid off. She nodded quickly, responding to the desperate need for direction.
No one else had arrived, and I told Baker to stay with Amy Salinger until Estelle Reyes arrived. I didn’t want Amy alone, and I certainly didn’t want her alone at the gate, acting as a greeter for all the law-enforcement personnel who were bound to arrive during the next few minutes.
I started across the hot, packed surface of the boneyard at a fast walk, and after the first fifty feet realized it wasn’t just apprehension that was putting a garter around my insides. I tried for a deep, calming breath, and the pressure under my sternum subsided a bit. I swore pointlessly at the high altitude and slowed my pace, trying to calm my pulse. I reached the shed and turned the corner.
I leaned against the warm metal of the building and looked at Scott Salinger. I had investigated probably a dozen suicides during my years in the military and later as a cop. Some of those incidents seemed to be the result of spur-of-the-moment decisions. If the victim had given himself a few minutes, there might well have been some reconsideration. But others-they showed planning and determination. So twisted had their lives become that nothing anyone could say or do would have mattered an iota. That was the impression I had then.