He shook his head and continued looking through the plane, the stench becoming more overpowering. He was silently grateful that he had not been here when the bodies were still in the plane, and he still wondered what he was doing here anyway, even now.
He knew that the report had proved indication of an explosion prior to the crash. There had been no structural failure or malfunctioning of the aircraft itself. The explosion had occurred in the cabin, and the remnants of the bomb had shown it to be a homemade job. He’d learned all this in the past few days, with the cooperation of the CAB. He also knew that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military police were investigating the accident, and the knowledge had convinced him that this was not a job for him. Yet here he was.
Five people had been killed. Three pilots, the stewardess, and Janet Carruthers, the married daughter of his client, George Ellison. It could not have been a pleasant death.
Davis climbed out of the plane and started toward the ridge. The sun was high on the mountain, and it cast a feeble, pale yellow tint on the white pine and spruce. There was a hard gray winter sky overhead. He walked swiftly, with his head bent against the wind.
When the shots came, they were hard and brittle, shattering the stillness as effectively as twin-mortar explosions.
He dropped to the ground, wriggling sideways toward a high outcropping of quartz. The echo of the shots hung on the air and then the wind carried it toward the canyon and he waited and listened, with his own breathing the loudest sound on the mountain.
I’m out of my league, he thought. I’m way out of my league. I’m just a small-time detective, and this is something big...
The third shot came abruptly.
It came from some high-powered rifle, and he heard the sharp twang of the bullet when it struck the quartz and ricocheted into the trees. He pressed his cheek to the ground, and he kept very still, and he could feel the hammering of his heart against the hard earth. His hands trembled and he waited for the next shot.
The next shot never came.
He waited for a half hour, and then he bundled his coat and thrust it up over the rock, hoping to draw fire if the sniper was still with him. He waited for several minutes after that, and then he backed away from the rock on his belly, not venturing to get to his feet until he was well into the trees.
Slowly, he made his way down the mountain.
“You say you want to know more about the accident?” Arthur Porchek said. “I thought it was all covered in the CAB report.”
“It was,” Davis said. “I’m checking further. I’m trying to find out who set that bomb.”
Porchek drew in on his cigarette, and leaned against the wall. The busy hum of radios in Seattle Approach Control was loud around them. “I’ve only told this story a dozen times already,” he said.
“I’d appreciate it if you could tell it once more,” Davis said.
“Well,” Porchek said heavily, “it was about 2036 or so...” He paused. “All our time is based on a twenty-four-hour clock, like the Army.”
“Go ahead.”
“The flight had been cleared to maintain seven thousand feet. When they contacted us, we told them to make a standard range approach to Boeing Field and requested that they report leaving each thousand-foot level during the descent. That’s standard, you know.”
“Were you doing all the talking to the plane?” Davis asked.
“Yes.”
“All right, what happened?”
“First I gave them the weather.”
“And what was that?”
Porchek shrugged, a man weary of repeating information over and over again. “Boeing Field,” he said by rote. “Eighteen hundred scattered, twenty-two hundred overcast, eight miles, wind south-southeast, gusts to thirty, altimeter twenty-nine, twenty-five. Seattle-Tacoma, measured nineteen hundred broken, with thirty-one hundred overcast.”
“Did the flight acknowledge?”
“Yes, it did. And it reported leaving seven thousand feet at 2040. About two minutes later, it reported being over the outer markers and leaving the six-thousand-foot level.”
“Go on,” Davis said.
“Well, it didn’t report leaving five thousand and then at 2045, it reported leaving four thousand feet. I acknowledged this and told them what to do. I said, ‘If you’re not VFR by the time you reach the range you can shuttle on the northwest course at two thousand feet. It’s possible you’ll break out in the vicinity of Boeing Field for a south landing.’ ”
“What’s VFR?” Davis asked, once again feeling his inadequacy to cope with the job.
“Visual Flight Rules. You see, it was overcast at twenty-two hundred feet. The flight was on instruments above that. They’ve got to report to us whether they’re on IFR or VFR.”
“I see. What happened next?”
“The aircraft reported at 2050 that it was leaving three thousand feet, and I told them they were to contact Boeing Tower on 118.3 for landing instructions. They acknowledged with ‘Roger,’ and that’s the last I heard of them.”
“Did you hear the explosion?”
“I heard something, but I figured it for static. Ground witnesses heard it, though.”
“But everything was normal and routine before the explosion, that right?”
Porchek nodded his head emphatically. “Yes, sir. A routine letdown.”
“Almost,” Davis said.
He called George Ellison from a pay phone. When the old man came on the line, Davis said, “This is Milt Davis, Mr. Ellison.”
Ellison’s voice sounded gruff and heavy, even over the phone. “Hello, Davis,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Ellison. I’d like out.”
“Why?” He could feel the old man’s hackles rising.
“Because the FBI and the MPs are already on this one. They’ll crack it for you, and it’ll probably turn out to be some nut with a grudge against the government. Either that, or a plain case of sabotage. This really doesn’t call for a private investigation.”
“Look, Davis,” Ellison said, “I’ll decide whether this calls for...”
“All right, you’ll decide. I’m just trying to be frank with you. This kind of stuff is way out of my line. I’m used to trailing wayward husbands, or skip-tracing, or an occasional bodyguard stint. When you drag in bombed planes, I’m in over my head.”
“I heard you were a good man,” Ellison said. “You stick with it. I’m satisfied you’ll do a good job.”
“Whatever you say,” Davis said, and sighed. “Incidentally, did you tell anyone you’d hired me?”
“Yes, I did. As a matter of fact...”
“Who’d you tell?”
“Several of my employees. The word got to a local reporter somehow, though, and he came to my home yesterday. I gave him the story. I didn’t think it would do any harm.”
“Has it reached print yet?”
“Yes,” Ellison said. “It was in this morning’s paper. A small item. Why?”
“I was shot at today, Mr. Ellison. At the scene of the crash. Three times.”
There was a dead silence on the line.
Then Ellison said, “I’m sorry, Davis, I should have realized.”
It was a hard thing for a man like Ellison to say.
“That’s all right,” Davis assured him. “They missed.”
“Do you think — do you think whoever set the bomb shot at you?”
“Possibly. I’m not going to start worrying about it now.”
Ellison digested this and then said, “Where are you going now, Davis?”
“To visit your son-in-law, Nicholas Carruthers. I’ll call in again.”
“Fine, Davis.”
Davis hung up, jotting down the cost of the call, and then made reservations on the next plane to Burbank.