Dead in the Water (Stone Barrington 3)

Simpson shook his head. “Nope. There’s a couple of people in the airport office, through there,” he said, pointing at a door that led from the main part of the hangar to the offices, “but they wouldn’t be out here at night. The runway lights are pilot-operated, you see. The approaching pilot just tunes in the local frequency and clicks his mike three times, and the lights come on.”

“I see,” Stone said.

“Mister, this is not the first time I’ve thought about this,” Simpson said. “I been over it in my mind a few times. I thought about how it was the morning of the crash, and everything was just like I left it.”

“Did Chester make it a habit of doing a runup before takeoff?”

“Well, he made it a habit sometimes, and other times he didn’t,” Simpson said. “If you know what I mean. Chester been flying that Cessna a long time; he didn’t have much use for checklists no more.”

He didn’t have much use for runups, either, Stone thought. A runup might have saved his life and those of his passengers.

“Chester was a good pilot, though,” Simpson said. “A natural-born pilot.”

“Right,” Stone said. Chester had been a cowboy; Stone had flown with him in the right seat when he had come to St. Marks, and the man was strictly a seat-of-the-pants pilot—no checklists. Stone walked over to the tool cabinet and looked at the array of tools inside; then he saw something familiar on the cabinet door. He touched it lightly. Fingerprint powder; he had seen enough of it in his time. “The police have been here?” he asked.

“Sure have; looked at everything, asked a lot of questions, took my fingerprints.”

Stone nodded. “Well, Harvey, thanks for your time.” He shook the man’s oily hand and walked back to the car thinking, I’ll never fly an airplane off a runway without doing a runup first. Not as long as I live.

He got into the car and headed back to English Harbour. He didn’t want to think about Allison right now; he tried thinking about Arrington instead and found that he missed her. He still hadn’t rewritten his letter to her; he would do it before the day was out.

Chapter

43

Stone parked Thomas’s car in its usual place and left the keys in it

, as Thomas often did. His business with Leslie Hewitt apparently concluded for the time being, he wanted now to talk with Jim Forrester again, and he was lucky enough to find him at the bar, talking to Thomas.

“Hi, Jim; have you got a few minutes for me?”

“Sure, Stone, what’s up?”

“I want to go through your testimony with you; make sure we’re both on the same page.”

“Great, let’s get a table.”

Thomas held up an envelope. “Fax for you,” he said to Stone.

“Thanks, Thomas,” he said, stuffing the envelope into his pocket. He’d read it when he was through with Forrester. He followed the reporter to a table, and they got comfortable. “Jim, I’ll just ask you some questions, the way I will at the trial, and you answer them as you see fit. If I don’t like the way you answer a question, we’ll talk about rephrasing.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Have you ever testified in court before?”

“No.”

“They’ll ask you your name for the record.”

“Right.”

“Now I’m on my feet in my robe and my wig, and…”

“Wig? You have to wear a wig?”

“I’m afraid so. You’ll have to try not to laugh; it wouldn’t look good for me in front of the jury.”

“I’ll do my best, but I’m not promising anything.”