Marcia Muller - McCone And Friends

“Tell me about him.”

“He was a nice kid, in his early twenties. From this area originally, but went up to Reno to attend the University of Nevada. Things didn’t go well for him academically, so he dropped out, went to work as a dealer at one of the casinos. Met a woman, fell in love, got engaged.”

He maneuvered the plane between its tie-down chains, shut it down, and got out, then helped me climb from the cramped backseat. Together we secured the chains and began walking toward the small terminal building where his Land Rover and my MG were parked.

“If Oakley lived in Reno, why was he taking flying lessons down here?” I asked. Tufa Lake was a good seventy miles south, in the rugged mountains of California.

“About six, eight months ago his father got sick-inoperable cancer. Scott came home to help his mother care for him. While he was here he figured he’d use the money he was saving on rent to take up flying. There isn’t much future in dealing at a casino. And he wanted to get into aviation, build up enough hours to be hired by an airline.”

“And other than being a nice kid, he was…?”

“Quiet, serious, very dedicated and purposeful. Set a fast learning pace for himself, even though he couldn’t fly as much as he’d’ve liked, owing to his responsibilities at home. A month ago his father died; he offered to stay on with his mother for a while, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Said she knew the separation from his girlfriend had been difficult and she didn’t want to prolong it. But he came back down for a lesson each week, and on that last day he’d done three excellent takeoffs and landings. I had full confidence that I could get out of the plane.”

“And you noticed nothing emotionally different about him beforehand?”

“Nothing whatsoever. He was quiet and serious, just like always.”

We reached the place where our vehicles were parked, and I perched on the rear of the MG. Hy faced me, leaning against his Rover, arms folded across his chest. His eyes were deeply troubled, and lines of discouragement bracketed his mouth.

I knew what he was feeling: He took on few students, as he didn’t need the money and his work for the international security firm in which he held a partnership often took him away from his ranch here in the high desert country for weeks at a time. But when did take someone on, it was because he recognized great potential in the individual-both as a pilot and as a person who would come to love flying as much as he himself did. Scott Oakley’s crash-in his full sight as he stood on the tarmac at the airport awaiting his return-had been devastating to him. And it had also aroused a great deal of self-doubt.

I said, “I assume you want me to look into the reason Oakley killed himself.”

“If it’s something you feel you can take on.”

“Of course I can.”

“I’ll pay you well.”

“For God’s sake, you don’t have to do that!”

“Look, McCone, you don’t ask your dentist friend to drill for free. I’m not going to ask you to investigate for free, either.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Ripinsky. Nothing in life’s free. We’ll come up with some suitable way for you to compensate me for my labors.”

My obvious starting place was Scott Oakley’s mother. I called to ask if I could stop by, and set off for her home in Vernon, the small town that hugged the lake’s north shore.

It was autumn, the same time of year as when I’d first journeyed there and met Hy. The aspens glowed golden in the hollows of the surrounding hills and above them the sky was a deep blue streaked with high cirrus clouds. In the years that I’d been coming to Tufa Lake, its water level had slowly risen and was gradually beginning to reclaim the dusty alkali plain that surrounded it-the result of a successful campaign by environmental organizations to stop diversions of its feeder streams to southern California. Avocets, gulls, and other shorebirds had returned to nest on its small island and feed on the now plentiful brine shrimp.

Strange that Scott Oakley had chosen a place of such burgeoning vitality to end his own life.

Jan Oakley was young to have lost a husband, much less outlived her son-perhaps in her early forties. She had the appearance of a once-active woman whose energy had been sapped by sadness and loss, and small wonder: It had been only two weeks since Scott’s crash. As we sat in the living room of her neat white prefab house, she handed me a high-school graduation picture of him; he had been blond, blue-eyed, and freckle-faced, with and endearingly serious expression.

“What do you want to ask me about Scott, Ms. McCone?”

“I’m interested in what kind of a person he was. What his state of mind was before the accident.”

“You said on the phone that you’re a private investigator and a friend of Hy Ripinsky. Is he trying to prove that Scott committed suicide? Because he didn’t, you now. I don’t care what Hy or the National Transportation Safety Board people think.”

“He doesn’t want to prove anything. But Hy needs answers-much as I’m sure you do.”

“Answers so he can get himself off the hook as far as responsibility for Scott’s death is concerned?”

I remained silent. She was hurting, and entitled to her anger.

After a moment Jan Oakley sighted. “All right, that was unfair. Scott admired Hy; he wouldn’t want me to blame him. Ask your questions, Ms. McCone.”

I asked much the same things as I had of Hy and received much the same answers, as well as Scott’s Reno address and the name of his fiancée. “I never even met her,” Mrs. Oakley said regretfully, “and I couldn’t reach her to tell her about the accident. She knows by now, of course, but she never even bothered to call.”

I’d about written the interview off at that point, but I decided to probe some more on the issue of Scott’s state of mind immediately before he left for what was to be his last flying lesson. After my first question, Mrs. Oakley failed to meet my eyes, clearly disturbed.

“I’m sorry to make you relive that day,” I said, “but how Scott was feeling is important.”

“Yes, I know.” For a moment it seemed that she might cry, then she sighed again, more heavily, “He wasn’t…He was upset when he arrived late the night before.”

“Over what?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

Sometimes instinct warns you when someone isn’t telling the whole truth; this was one of those times. “What about the next morning? Did he say then?’

She looked at me, startled. “How did…? All right, yes. He told me. Now I realized I should have stopped him, but he wanted so badly to solo. I thought, one time-what will it matter? All he wanted was to take that little Cessna around the pattern alone one time before he had to give it all up.”

“Give up flying? Why?”

“Scott had a physical checkup in Reno the day before. He was diagnosed as having narcolepsy.”

“Narcolepsy,” Hy said. “That’s the condition when you fall asleep without any warning?”