“My Lord,” she breathed. She sagged into the chair.
“Now, there are other possibilities that we’re checking out,” I said. “There may be other explanations. It’s possible that your husband was flying the airplane somewhere, and Salinger was just watching. Perhaps the plane crashed, and Salinger took a piece as a souvenir. Then, later, he stumbled into the trouble up on the hill. That’s possible.”
“But you don’t think that’s what happened,” Mrs. Barrie said, so faintly I could hardly hear her.
“Mrs. Barrie,” Estelle said, “I’ve been able to find no witnesses that your husband was flying model airplanes the last few days. There is a place out by the airport where enthusiasts fly. No one has seen your husband flying for months.”
“I never realized that he was particularly interested,” she said. “He told me once that he was learning to fly radio control so that he would know something about the products. Good for business, he said.” She looked at me beseechingly. “You don’t really think David was responsible for that boy’s death, do you? I mean, he couldn’t do a thing like that. Could he?”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Holman said when the silence stretched just a second too long. “Mrs. Barrie, I think I should take you home.” The woman agreed readily. She wasn’t ready to cope with the implications of her husband’s sudden flight to who knew where. “Bill, I want to talk to you later today. When you’re finished here.”
“Right,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal. “Don’t forget the good doctor.” I watched them go and then turned my attention back to the airplane box. I made notes, and Estelle went out to the car and got her field kit. She carefully lifted prints from several places in the store.
“What do you think?” she said finally.
“I think I want to see a print comparison. These against the one partial from the Magnum casing.”
“What do you think Barrie was up to?”
“Only one thing fits…drugs are involved. Look at the record. His daughter killed in a car wreck. And hell, before that, she was best friends with another girl who OD’d. Scott Salinger knew Barrie’s daughter was involved in drugs, but didn’t know what to do about it. And then he gets himself blown away, and Barrie splits, taking all the money he can lay his hands on. And that may be plenty, if he was dealing on the side. It’s the only thing that fits, Estelle. The only thing that fits.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go home and go to bed,” I said, and Estelle looked surprised. I leaned back against a counter, feeling suddenly exhausted and light-headed. “I think I can stand up long enough to get to the car. That’s about it. Call whoever is available, and I’ll have them run me home. Then they can come back and give you a hand.”
“I can run you home.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you to leave here until you’ve combed every particle of dust. And let me know as soon as you process the prints.” There was plenty more to do at the store, but Estelle would handle it far better than I. Bob Torrez’s patrol car idled up to the curb a few minutes later, and I sagged into the passenger’s seat wearily. On the way to the house, I called the office and made arrangements for 310 to be dropped off at my house.
The adobe was dark, cool, and welcome. I didn’t bother to look at my watch…time had no real meaning, anyway. I undressed and made sure the telephone was carefully placed. Then I lay down and almost instantly fell asleep.
The phone had become my alarm clock. This time, I wasn’t groggy. It was Estelle Reyes and my pulse jumped.
“Prints match,” she said. “I’m sending off to the lab for an official verification. But it’s obvious, even with the casing print being a crummy partial.”
“You’re one-hundred-percent sure?”
“I am.”
“Then get a warrant out for David Barrie’s arrest. And call the Register. Give them an exclusive. That’ll make Leo Bailey happy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?” I asked, and Estelle hesitated, as she did when she’d just done something no one else had thought of.
“Well, I drove out and talked with Jim Bergin at the airport.”
“Oh?”
“There hasn’t been much going on lately out there.” She paused. “The only local traffic was Harlan Sprague’s plane. He came back yesterday from Albuquerque.”
“So?”
I could almost hear Reyes shrug. “I wouldn’t have thought anything about it, but Jim Bergin was uneasy.”
“Why?”
“Well, from hearing him talk, I gather that he’s a real stickler for following the book. He changed the oil on Sprague’s Centurion last week. He logs all that kind of stuff…in the plane’s engine log, and in one of his own…some maintenance record he keeps for regular customers.”
“Again, so?”
“So, it’s a two-hour flight from here to Albuquerque in Sprague’s plane. A round trip would be four hours.”
“Duh,” I said, irritated at being led like a child.
Estelle chuckled. “Even with some sightseeing, not much more than six. The point is, the Hobbs meter in the Centurion shows almost fourteen hours.”
“So somebody made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so. The tachometer roughly agrees. And nobody in Albuquerque refueled Mike Bravo one-seven-eight. And nobody in Mid-Valley. Or Socorro. Sprague has always paid for av-gas with a credit card. Somebody would have a record.”
“Unless he paid in cash.”
“Bergin says that fixed base operators would remember the plane.”
“When did he leave Posadas?”
“Bergin says the day before yesterday.” Estelle Reyes waited a minute and listened to me thinking. “It’s about thirty minutes airtime to Las Cruces-Crawford, sir.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“And if he picked up Barrie there…”
“Right. They could have slipped across into Mexico as easy as can be. Jim Bergin says all you’d have to do is fly low, and it’d be a piece of cake.”
“And so you think he took Barrie out of the country?”
“Well, I’d be a little slow to jump to that conclusion except for one thing. He made another long flight a few days before.”
“Bergin is sure?”
“Reasonably. But you know, Sprague flies to conventions all over the place.”
“What catches your eye about that particular flight, then?”
“Bergin isn’t sure when Sprague left, but he knows when he returned. He landed back in Posadas late in the afternoon on the day you were in Gallup at Art Hewitt’s funeral. Very late in the afternoon. Just about dusk.”
“Did he have anyone with him?”
“Bergin doesn’t know. Sprague put the plane away. Bergin had already gone home. It was after five.”
“Then how does he know that’s when Sprague came in?”
“He said he saw him. He was getting a backyard cookout ready. He saw Sprague’s plane fly over. Low.”
“That’s the day Scott Salinger was murdered,” I said, as if Estelle needed reminding.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Yes. I looked in the aircraft engine log. There’s a signature from a mechanic who checked and corrected a shimmy in the front gear. The work was done at Guaymas.”
“Mexico,” I added.
“Right. That’s three hundred miles from here.”
“He goes fishing at Bahia Kino. That’s about eighty miles up the coast from Guaymas.”
“Right. It’s just that I can’t help thinking-this last flight. Seven hours in a turbo Centurion would get you pretty deep in Mexico.”
“Mazatlan. Guadalajara. Any of those, even at tree top level.”
“You think there’s enough cause to link him with David Barrie?”
“I can see him laying a trap for Barrie, maybe even blowing him away, if he discovered the man was a drug dealer and responsible for his daughter’s death. But working with him? Hardly.”
“Any ideas?” Estelle asked.
“Yeah, I got an idea. I’ll ask him.” I outlined what I planned to do, and Estelle hesitated. “Hey, look, Holman says I need a vacation, right?”