Steven Havill - Final Payment

Without touching either rock or hangar, Estelle examined the sheet metal closely for a moment. The evidence of a fold in the metal extended all the way down to the foundation. And once folded, the steel panel would never close back against the stud properly. At midpoint, it gaped more than an inch. When folded back, the panel formed a clever entry, but one for a pint-sized intruder. Someone as burly as Jerry Turner would have created a far larger doorway than this, where the rough edges of the metal would grab and tear at fabric or skin.

She pivoted and surveyed the jumble of scrub behind the hangar, looking out toward the roadway. Twenty yards of open space separated the row of hangars from the dilapidated chain-link boundary fence. Unless the intruder stood up and waved his arms, he would blend with the shadows and scrubby vegetation, impossible to see. At night, a simple crouch would make him invisible.

During their patrols, sheriff’s deputies routinely swung into the airport. Sometimes it was for a quick cup of coffee with Jim Bergin, sometimes just to check for vagrants or unlocked hangars. If the security gate was open-as it always was if airport manager Jim Bergin was working or if one of the aircraft owners was on the premises-the officers would drive onto the tarmac. If the gate was closed, deputies turned around in the parking lot, using the vehicle’s spotlight to inspect each of the buildings and the gate.

Despite the fence, with its three loose strands of barbed wire atop six feet of chain-link, the airport was not a secure area. Each aircraft owner had a key to the main gate, as did the county manager’s office and the sheriff’s department.

The gate was left open as often as not. Estelle had found it so a dozen times herself. In addition, the security fence did not extend the length of the taxiway, but marked only the perimeter of the outer parking lot. If the facility was locked, anyone wanting access had only to trot west a hundred feet and slip through the four-foot-high barbed-wire property fence.

Estelle turned back and looked at Bergin. “This isn’t something that Mr. Turner had told you about before?”

Bergin scoffed. “Hell, no. If this was flappin’ in the wind, he’d likely say something. But who’s going to notice?”

“This isn’t a setup for a one-time thing, though,” Torrez said. “Someone made themselves a door. Pretty clever.”

Estelle examined the undisturbed rivets beside the suspect panel, comparing them with the bright-rimmed holes left when the metal was pried loose. “Planning ahead, it looks like,” she said. “Interesting, interesting.” She stepped back and looked at the rock-strewn gravel that passed for prairie soil. “The only way we’re going to find tracks that amount to anything is to pour some plaster and hope they come back and step in it tonight.”

Bergin chuckled. “Now that’s a thought. I wondered how you guys did that.”

“How’d you happen to notice this?” she asked Torrez, and the sheriff just shrugged.

“Drivin’ in. Spotlight picks it up.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed it in a thousand years,” Bergin said.

“And you say Turner wouldn’t have seen it, either, at least under normal circumstances. How often does he use this airplane?”

Bergin’s left eyebrow drifted up. “Not nearly enough. But that’s true of most hobby flyers.”

“Once a week? Once a month?”

Bergin hesitated. His fingers drifted toward the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket, but he thought better of it. “Maybe once a month or so. And I’ll tell you one thing-that ain’t enough flyin’ to stay current or safe, either one, Estelle. That’s flyin’ on luck.” He shrugged. “Lots of pilots do that. For most of ’em, a plane’s like a boat, or an RV. When the novelty wears off, the thing just sits.”

“Turner’s plane just sits?”

“Most of the time, yep. Like I said, he’s flyin’ on luck. That’s what I call it. As long as nothing goes wrong, as long as he don’t fly into some sort of problem, then it’s okay. That’s a nice airplane Jerry has there, that 206. Older model, but still real strong. A real workhorse.”

“Maybe on both sides of the border,” Estelle added. “What’s he actually use it for?”

Bergin grinned. “Drinkin’ coffee? That’s another one of his hobbies I think. He flies over to Cruces with a friend and has a cup. Or to Socorro. Or Grants. Wherever there’s a coffeepot.” He shrugged. “There’s good Mexican coffee to be had south of the border, but that would surprise me, Jerry doin’ something like that.”

“I was under the impression that coffee was always part of your operation right here at home, Jim.”

“Well, it is. But it always tastes better after a good flight, Estelle. Old Jerry just likes to cruise, is all. He don’t need a 206 to do that…but that’s the plane he likes, and he can afford it.” He shrugged. “He should fly it a little more often, is all.”

“So most of the time the airplane just sits inside the hangar gathering dust?”

“Sits, anyway. He keeps ’er clean and waxed up, fair enough. But he don’t fly ’er enough. That’s no way to treat a lady.” Bergin grinned.

“Somebody’s using her now,” Estelle said, turning back to the bent wall section. “I want to take a few pictures of this, and then can I ask your help to fold this back? I want to see how it works.”

“You bet.”

“I called Mark,” Torrez said. “He’s bringin’ Sebastian over.” Sebastian, a State Police dog who had earned his stripes dozens of times, lived in semiretirement with the State Police lieutenant.

“Good move,” Estelle said. “We need his nose.” More vehicles turned into the airport driveway. Linda Real’s small red Honda sedan was followed by a county pickup truck, County Manager Leona Spears’ preferred wheels.

“Something else,” Torrez added. “Tell her about the fuel, Jim.”

“Well,” Bergin said. “She’s just about full, Estelle. Maybe a gallon or two down. Both wing tanks. You don’t fly eleven hours and end up with full tanks.”

She studied Bergin for a moment, digesting the possibilities. “So the pilot refueled somewhere.”

“Yep.”

“You sell gas right here.”

“Not to this airplane. Not recently. You can check my fuel logs if you want.”

“Then he stopped in someplace like Deming? Lordsburg?”

“Not and arrive back here with full tanks. That bird burns somewhere between eight and twelve gallons an hour, Estelle. She’s only down maybe one or two in each wing.”

“Could he have fueled it himself? Right here in the hangar? Estelle asked.

Bergin looked skeptical. “Could, I suppose. I ain’t sold avgas to someone with five-gallon cans.” He held up a hand, halted by another thought that burst into his mind. “Something else we should check,” he said, but before he could explain, two State Police cruisers braked hard and turned into the airport.

“Here’s Sebastian,” Torrez said. “Let’s do it.”

“Can you give us about ten minutes?” Estelle asked the State Police lieutenant, and Mark Adams grinned.

“You can have all night as far as I’m concerned. We’re not going anywhere.” He bent down and looked through the windshield of the patrol car at his backseat passenger. Sebastian sat on the wreckage of the backseat, tail thumping his blanket expectantly. Estelle was eager to learn what the dog’s awesome nose would discover, but once that process started, other evidence could be destroyed forever.

She turned to Jerry Turner. “Show me the grass,” she said, and followed him back into the hangar.

“Bobby called me sayin’ that someone might have been in the hangar, so we came down. Now, in a preflight check, we always look at the tires pretty carefully. And it’s obvious when you do that. See right there?” He aimed his flashlight, and Estelle knelt beside the right main wheel skirt. “I saw that tuft of grass stuck where it shouldn’t be stuck. I saw that, then I saw some other marks on the skirts…like I don’t know what. Then I looked at the prop tips.” He lowered his voice as if the information might be confidential, and squatted down beside Estelle. The wheel skirt’s fiberglass was cracked in various places, including around one of the bracket bolts. Several bits of grass had been caught there.