Jeff Sherratt - Guilty or Else

“Yeah, the bastards will nickel and dime you to death,” he said.

Fred pulled a leather-bound binder from a bookcase behind him. Spreading it out on his desk, he flipped through the pages.

“Here it is.” He ran his finger down a column. I glanced over his shoulder. “See, the jet left LGB a week ago last Friday. Flew directly to SAC. Total time from engines’ start until shutdown is recorded.”

He took a pencil and paper out of the drawer and began to figure. “One-point-one hours, that’s okay. The Citation cruises at four hundred-twenty miles per hour, Sacramento is about four hundred miles away, let’s see climb out and landing. Yeah that’s it.” Vogel kept working the numbers on the paper. “Returned Sunday, point-nine hours. Yeah, a little tailwind. Total time two hours.”

“No flights on Saturday?”

“None…you sure you don’t have a smoke?”

“I quit,” I said. “Was there only one pilot on this flight? No copilot?”

“Nope, no copilot. That’s the good thing about the Cessna Citation. The plane’s single-pilot rated.”

“What if the pilot didn’t log the flight?” I asked.

“That’s against the rules. It would be a federal violation.”

“Yeah, I guess a murderer wouldn’t want to piss off the FAA. Could get in big trouble.” I shook my head. “How do you check to make sure that all flights are logged?”

A smirk surfaced on his face. “The hours on the Hobbs Meter in the plane wouldn’t match the hours in the logbook. His tone was sarcastic. “I know what you’re thinking, but the cops checked that too. Sorry, pal.”

“The Hobbs Meter is some kind of hour meter, records the time of the flight, right?”

“Yep.”

“Could someone monkey with it? Change the time?” It didn’t seem to me that unhooking an hour meter would be a big deal. Used car dealers unhooked and rolled back odometers all the time.

“Look, O’Brien, your twenty-dollar service fee didn’t entitle you to my time for the rest of the day. Now be a nice guy and take a powder.”

“Vogel, my ass is on the line. Now, goddammit, couldn’t someone just roll back the meter?”

“I guess they could. If they knew what they were doing. Yeah, it’s possible.” He thought for a few seconds. “Wouldn’t work though-there’s an additional Hobbs Meter on the plane, hidden.”

“What do you mean, hidden?”

He sat down, folded his hands on the desk. “Karadimos has the plane on lease-back to us, means we can rent the jet out by the hour. We rent it to various charter companies, split the profit from these flights with the owner, Karadimos. We installed the other meter to keep these charter boys honest. Nobody’s cheated yet.”

“Did you check the secret meter after the Sacramento flight?”

“No, of course not. We don’t check the meter after the owner uses the plane. He’s not renting it. He owns it,” Vogel said.

“Let’s check it; can’t hurt.”

“I told you, I’m busy. Now get the hell outta here.” He started to climb out of his chair.

I laid another twenty on the desk.

His eyes focused on the bill for a moment before he ripped it from the desk. Then in a flash, he opened a drawer, took out a flashlight, a note pad, and a screwdriver.

“Wait here.” He darted out of his office.

I watched him through the glass window. He rushed to the starboard side of a blue and white Cessna Citation and with the screwdriver, he popped open a little trap door under the wing, bent over, peered inside, and wrote on the pad. He was back in the office in less than three minutes.

“Okay, sport,” he said. “I think it’s a waste of time, but it’s your nickel.”

He ran his finger down the open page of the book and stopped at the last entry. I peered over his shoulder again.

“One thousand-sixty-seven hours, total time on the plane.” He glanced at the paper in his other hand. His jaw dropped. He looked up at me. “One thousand-sixty-nine hours,” he said. “Two hours. I’ll be damned. Two hours not logged.”

We stared at each other. Vogel scratched the back of his head. I thought about the extra two hours, the exact time of a round trip to Sacramento. It would be an awfully big coincidence if the plane flew exactly two hours, off the books, on any other day than the Saturday of the murder.

“When was the last time the logbook and the hidden meter matched?”

Vogel dashed to the gray metal cabinet next to the bookcase and pulled out a file. “The weekend before the Sacramento flight. I remember that particular charter. Had to stock the plane with extra booze. The group was a bunch of Mormons flying to Cedar City, Utah for a family reunion.”

“Any flights after that?” I asked.

He was a little more humble and I was a whole lot more elated. “Nope. Guess not.”

“Who’s the pilot? And where can I find him.”

Vogel glanced at the book. “He’s not one of ours. Works full time for Karadimos, but we keep copies of the licenses of all the pilots who fly out of here.”

He looked at me and laughed. “You should know about that. It’s an insurance regulation, Mr. Biddle.”

I don’t know why, but I laughed too.

“What’s the pilot’s name?”

“Ron Fischer. I’ll you get his address and phone number.”

I left the hangar and ran to my car. It took me five minutes to find a payphone that worked. I didn’t want to use the telephone in Executive Aviation’s lobby; too many eavesdropping ears. There was a phone booth at the Union Oil gas station on the corner of Lakewood and Spring Street.

The door wouldn’t close, and the booth was filthy, sticky stuff on the handle and fast-food wrappers scattered about. But I got a dial tone when I picked up the receiver. I put a dime in the slot and dialed Fischer’s number. An operator came on and told me to deposit another nickel. I did, and asked the operator to stay on the line. I wanted to make another call if no one answered. After six rings, I gave the operator my office number. Rita answered on the first ring.

“Oh Boss, I’m glad you called. We’ve got trouble.” She sounded frantic.

“What’s the matter?”

“Someone broke in here, probably during the night. Whoever it was trashed the office. It’s a mess. Papers and stuff tossed everywhere. Jimmy, someone went to a lot of trouble. Who’d do such a thing?”

I immediately thought of Karadimos and his thugs. But maybe I was getting a little paranoid. Could’ve been anybody: kids looking for a couple of bucks, a burglar, or some guy down on his luck, trying to make a living the hard way.

“Did you call the police?” I asked Rita.

“No, I was waiting for you to call. And there’s some big fat guy here. He’s sitting at your desk. His name’s Jake. Says he knows you. He’s kinda scary.”

Big Jake? Oh Christ, you’d think they would’ve told me ahead of time that he’d be coming to the office. This could be a problem. “Jake’s okay. He’s on our side,” I said with a sigh.

“Do you want me to call the police about the break-in?”

“Did they take anything, the typewriter, stuff like that?”

After a short pause, she said, “Who’d want to take this junk?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Just the file on your desk.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The only thing missing.”

“What! The Rodriguez file is gone?”

“I was going to file it away for you, but now it’s gone.”

“Don’t call the police and don’t clean up yet. I’ll be at the office in twenty-five minutes.” The file hadn’t really held much-police report, crime scene pictures, and some notes I’d jotted down, my thoughts about the case, but Karadimos didn’t know that-until now.