Майкл Коннелли - Two Kinds of Truth

She pulled the car away from the curb and made a three-point turn. She punched it to get down to El Dorado and made the same turn the van did. They caught up to the van as it made another right at Pierce and then drove north, crossing San Fernando and the Metro tracks before entering Whiteman Airport.

“Didn’t expect this,” Lourdes said.

“Yeah, weird,” Bosch added.

The van pulled up to a gate across from an entrance to the private hangar area, and the driver’s window came down. An arm extended from the window and held a key card to a reader. The gate lifted and the van went through. Lourdes and Bosch couldn’t go through but there was a perimeter road that ran parallel to the internal road and allowed them to follow the van from outside the restricted area. They watched it pull into an open hangar and then lost sight of it from their angle.

They parked on the side of the perimeter road and waited.

“What are you thinking?” Lourdes asked.

“No idea,” Bosch said. “Let’s just see what happens.”

They watched in silence after that, and a few minutes later a single-engine plane, its prop a spinning blur, emerged from the hangar and started moving toward the runway. After it cleared the hangar, the van pulled out and headed back toward the gate.

“The van or plane?” Lourdes asked.

“Let’s stay here with the plane,” Bosch said. “I have the plate off the van.”

Bosch counted seven windows running down the side of the plane behind the cockpit. Shades were pulled down inside each window. He pulled a pen and notebook out of his pocket and wrote down the tail number of the plane. He also noted down the time. Then, raising his phone again, he started taking photos of the plane as it taxied to the runway.

“What the hell are we looking at here?” Lourdes asked.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “But I got the tail number. If they filed a flight plan, we can get it.”

Bosch checked the hangar and saw the big, wide door slowly coming down. There was an advertisement in faded paint on the corrugated metal.

TAKE THE PLUNGE!

SFV SKYDIVING CLUB

CALL TODAY! JUMP TODAY!

Bosch turned his attention back to the runway and watched silently as the plane moved down the tarmac. It was white with a burnt-orange stripe running down its side. It had an overhead wing and a jump deck below the outline of a wide passenger door.

Bosch switched the camera to video and filmed as the plane picked up speed and then lifted into the air. It flew off to the east and then banked south below the sun.

Bosch and Lourdes watched until it disappeared.

The air traffic control tower at Whiteman was up a staircase from a small general administration building. There was one receptionist between the public and the stairs and she folded at the sight of the police badges. Bosch and Lourdes went up the stairs and knocked on a door with a sign on it that said A.T.C. — NO ADMITTANCE.

A man answered the door and started raising his hand to point to the words “No Admittance,” when he too saw the badges.

“Officers,” he said. “Is this about the drag racers?”

Bosch and Lourdes looked at each other, not expecting the question.

“No,” Lourdes said. “We want to ask about that plane that just took off.”

The man turned and looked back into the room behind him and out the window to the airfield as if to confirm he was at an airport and that a plane had just taken off. He then looked back at Lourdes.

“You’re talking about the Cessna?” he asked.

“The jump plane,” Bosch said.

“Yeah, the Grand Caravan. Also known as the minivan. Not much else I can tell you beyond that.”

“Is there room in there for us to come in and talk? This is a homicide investigation.”

“Uh, sure. Be my guests.”

He held his arm out for them to enter. Bosch pegged him as late sixties with a military background — something about his bearing and the way he held out his hand like he was snapping off a salute.

The tower was a small space with the requisite windows offering a full view of the airfield. There were two seats in front of a radar-and-communications console. Bosch signaled Lourdes to take one of the seats and he leaned against a four-drawer filing cabinet next to the door.

“Can we start with your name, sir?” Lourdes said.

The man took the remaining seat after turning it to face the two detectives.

“Ted O’Connor,” he said.

“How long have you worked here, Mr. O’Connor?” she asked.

“Oh, let’s see, about twenty years now over two different stints. Came here after the Air Force — put in twenty-five there, dropping napalm and shit on foreign lands. Then I came here for ten, retired, then decided I didn’t like being retired and came back after a year. That was twelve years ago. You might think sitting up here all day is boring but you try spending a summer in a double-wide with a single-wide AC unit, you want hot and boring. Anyway, who gives a shit, really? You want to know about that Cessna.”

“Do you know how long it has been here?”

“Offhand, I can tell you it’s been hangared here longer than I have and it’s changed hands quite a few times over the years. The owner for the past couple years is a company from down in Calexico. At least that’s where Betty downstairs tells me the hangar and fuel invoices go.”

“What’s the name of the company?”

“Betty will have to get you that. She told me but I don’t remember. Cielo something or other. It’s a Spanish name and I don’t have much Spanish.”

“Is it still used for skydiving?”

“I hope not. The people I see getting on that plane wouldn’t make it to the ground alive.”

Bosch leaned forward and looked out through the windows. He saw that O’Connor had a direct line of vision into the hangar. The binoculars on the console would give him a close-up view inside when the big door was open.

“So, what do you see going on in that hangar, Mr. O’Connor?” Bosch asked.

“I see a lot of people coming in and out,” O’Connor said. “A lot of people as old as... well, me.”

“Every day?”

“Just about. I’m only here four days a week, but every day that I am, I see that plane either landing or taking off and sometimes both.”

“Do you know if that plane is still configured inside for skydiving?”

“As far as I know.”

“Long jump benches on both sides?”

“That’s right.”

“So, how many people can they put in there at once?”

“That plane’s a stretch model with the big tail section. You can get fifteen, maybe twenty, in there if you have to.”

Bosch nodded.

“Did you ever report what you saw to anyone?” Lourdes asked.

“Report what?” O’Connor said. “What’s the crime in getting on a plane?”

“Did they file a flight plan today?”

“They never file a flight plan. They don’t have to. They don’t even need to check in with the tower as long they’re flying VFR.”

“VFR, what’s that?”

“Visual flight rules. See, I’m here to provide radar to those who request it and to guide instrument fliers in or out if they need it. Trouble is, you mighta noticed we’re in California, and if it’s sunny out, you’re gonna go VFR, and there is no FAA rule requiring a pilot to make contact with the tower on a general aviation airfield. The guy flying the Caravan today? He said one thing to me, and that was it.”

“What was it he said?”

“That he was positioning for an easterly takeoff. And I told him the field was his.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, except he said it with a Russian accent. I think because we have a westerly wind today, he was letting me know he was going down to the other end in case I had somebody coming in.”