Marcia Muller - McCone And Friends

“Yes. One of my friends suffers from it. She’ll get very sleepy, drop off in the middle of a conversation. One time we were flying down to Southern California together; the plane was landing, and she just stopped talking, closed her eyes, and slept till we were on the ground.”

“Jesus, can’t they treat it?”

“Yes, with ephedrine or amphetamine, but it’s not always successful.”

“And neither the drugs nor the condition would be acceptable to an FAA medical examiner.”

“No. Besides, there’s and even more potentially dangerous side to it: A high percentage of the people who have narcolepsy also suffer from a condition called cataplexy in which their body muscles become briefly paralyzed in stressful or emotional situations.”

“Such as one would experience on a first solo flight.” Hy grimaced and signaled for another round of drinks. We were sitting at the bar at Zelda’s, the lakeside tavern at the top of the peninsula on which Vernon was located. The owner, Bob Zelda, gave him a thumbs-up gesture and quickly slid a beer toward him, a white wine toward me.

“You know, McCone, it doesn’t compute. How’d Scott pass his student pilot’s medical?”

“The condition was only diagnosed the day before you soloed him. And remember, those medicals aren’t a complete workup. They check your history and the obvious-blood pressure, sight, hearing. They’re not looking for something that may be developing.”

“Still doesn’t compute. Scott was a good, responsible kid. Went strictly by the letter as far as the regulations were concerned. I can’t believe he’d risk soloing when he knew he could nod off at any time.”

“Well, he wanted it very badly.”

“Christ, why didn’t he level with me? I’d’ve soloed him without getting out of the plane. He could’ve flown with absolutely no input from me, but I’d’ve been there in case. Doesn’t count for getting the license, of course, but his mother told you he’d already decided to give it up.”

We drank silently for a minute. I watched Hy’s face in the mirrored backbar. He was right: It didn’t compute. He needed answers and, now, so did I.

I said, “I’ll drive up to Reno tomorrow.”

Scott’s former apartment was in a newish complex in the hills on the northeast side of Reno, high above the false glitter of the casinos and the tawdry hustle of the Strip. I parked in a windswept graveled area behind it and went knocking on the doors of its immediate neighbors. Only one person was home, and she was house-sitting for the tenant and had never heard of Scott Oakley.

When I started back to my car, a dark-haired man in his mid twenties was getting out of a beat-up Mazda. He started across to the next cluster of apartments, and I followed.

“Help you with something?” he asked, setting down his grocery bag in front of the door to the ground floor unit and fumbling in his pocket for the keys.

“The son of a friend of mine lives here-Scott Oakley. Do you know him?”

“Oh God. You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” I asked, and proceeded to listen to what I already knew. ‘That’s awful,” I said when he finished. “How’s Christy holding up?”

“Christy?”

“His fiancée.”

“Oh, that must be the redhead.”

“She and Scott were engaged; I guess I just assumed they lived together.”

“No, the apartment’s a studio, too small for more than one person. Actually, I didn’t know Scott very well, just to say hello to. But one of the other tenants, is downstairs neighbor, did say that Scott told him he wouldn’t be living here long, because he planned to marry some woman who worked at the Lucky Strike down on the strip.”

The Lucky Strike had pretensions to a gold-rush motif, but basically it wasn’t very different from all the other small Nevada casinos: Electronic games and slots beeped, and whooped; bored dealers sent cards sailing over green felt to giddy tourists; waitresses who were supposed to be camp followers, clad in skimpy costumes that no self-respecting camp follower would ever have worn, strolled about serving free watery drinks. The bars, where keno numbers continually flashed on lighted screens, bore such names as The Shaft, Pick ‘n Shovel, and The Assay Office.

I located the personnel office and learned that Christy Hertz no longer worked at the casino; she failed to show up for her evening cocktail-waitressing shift on the day of Scott Oakley’s death and had not so much as called in since. The manager wasn’t concerned; on the Strip, he said, women change jobs without notice as often as they do their hair color. But once I explained about Scott’s death and my concern for Christy, he softened some. He remembered Scott Oakley from when he’d dealt blackjack there, had thought him a fine young man who would someday do better. The manger’s sympathy earned me not only Christy’s last known address, but the name of one of her friends who would be on duty that evening in The Shaft, as well as the name of a good friend of Scott who was the night bartender in the Assay Office.

As I started out, the manger called after me, “If you see Christy, tell her her job’s waiting.”

Christy Hertz’s address was in a mobile home park in nearby Sparks. I’ve always thought of such enclaves as depressing places where older people retreat from the world, but this one was different. There were lots of big trees and planter boxes full of fall marigolds; near the manager’s office, a little footbridge led over a man-made stream to a pond where ducks floated. I followed the maze of lanes to Christy’s trailer, but no one answered her door. None of the neighbors wee around, and the manager’s office was closed.

Dead end for now, and the friends didn’t come on duty at the Lucky Strike for several hours. So what else could I do here? One thing.

Find a doctor.

Years before, I’d discovered that the key to getting information from anyone was to present myself as a person in a position of authority-and that it was easy to do so without lying. Most people, unless they’re paranoid or have something to hide, will cooperate with officials; their motives may range from respect to fear, but the result is the same. I tailored my approach to the situation by first driving to the public library and photocopying the Yellow Pages listings for physicians. Then, in a quiet corner of the stacks there, I went to work with my cell phone.

“My name is Sharon McCone. I’m an investigator looking into the cause of a fatal aviation accident that occurred two weeks ago near Tufa Tower Airport, Mono County, California. The victim was a student pilot who reportedly had been diagnosed with narcolepsy; the diagnosis wasn’t noted on FAA form eight-four-two-zero-dash-two, so we assume it was made by a person other than a designated examiner. Would you please check your record to see if Scott Oakley was a patient?”