“Got it,” he said, and this time she could hear him clearly.
They banked sharply, turning back toward the northeast. Bergin backed off the throttle again, and the sensation of the ton of aluminum sinking out of the sky was unsettling. “He would have wanted to land headed toward the west,” he said. “The other way, the village lights on the horizon are in his eyes. That’d be tricky as hell. I don’t feel like bein’ tricky. And most of the time, winds would have been in his favor, coming out of the west.”
After a moment, the flaps spooled down and the plane humped as if someone had pushed it in the belly. “You see the runway?” he asked. Estelle stretched up, trying to see over the high dash. “Right there.”
If she imagined hard enough, she could see the ghost of moon- and starlight on asphalt, and what she thought might be the white roof of a vehicle pulled off into the grass.
“When we line up on the runway, Posadas will be behind us,” Bergin said.
They were so low that as they banked north on the base leg to the runway, Estelle could count four vehicles in the saloon’s parking lot.
“They would have heard it,” she said to herself, but Bergin’s voice popped in her earpiece.
“Not necessarily,” he said. The engine was idling, the prop windmilling as they settled. “We ain’t stealth, but it don’t make much noise when it’s not pullin’ power. And if the wind’s right…” In a few seconds, he added, “That’s pretty good,” and the Cessna banked left again, lining on its final approach. The strip looked ridiculously tiny through the windscreen, still indistinct and ghostly. Her stomach rose as the flaps hung low, two aluminum barn doors rattling gently in the airstream.
The approach seemed terribly steep, and Estelle glanced across at Bergin. His left hand held the yoke firmly, his right resting almost nonchalantly on the throttle. “It’s all visual,” he said, as if sensing his passenger’s unease, and Estelle tensed, wishing he’d narrate some other time. “If you turn on the instrument lights, you lose your night vision.”
He reached out and flipped a switch, and the shaft of the landing light lanced ahead from the left wing. The air was so smooth that it felt as if they hung suspended and motionless while the dirt county road approached at dizzying speed, rushing up to meet them. Only at the last moment did the rusted wire of the fence catch the light, and then they were over it and settling onto the pavement. The tires kicked dust and Bergin pulled the throttle to the stops, holding the front wheel off the tarmac as long as he could, using the big, flat wings and flaps for drag.
“Lots of room,” he said with satisfaction. The landing lights picked up asphalt and, along the edge, prairie vegetation, but nothing else.
“Can you swing around right at the end of the runway?”
“Going to have to.” Bergin laughed. “This boat don’t have reverse.” He swung wide to the right as the end of the strip approached, and Estelle could see the yellow crime scene ribbon. “You say when,” he said. “You want me to drop a wheel off, too?” He had been amused earlier at Estelle’s description of the maneuver.
“Yes.” She slipped off the headphones again and keyed the cell phone. “Bobby? Have someone mark the tire marks for us.” Bergin slowed the Cessna to a slow walk, and they saw Eddie Mitchell appear out of the darkness, pointing with both hands toward the cast print.
“We need to miss that, Jim,” she said. “Maybe you can swing around this side of it a bit.”
“Prop wash is going to blow sand,” he said. “Will that hurt anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
As they started their turn, Bergin shrugged. “He didn’t have any reason to drop off a wheel,” he said. “Runway is plenty wide, and this old bird will turn on a dime and hand you lots of change. With differential brakes, you can just pivot around one of the mains.”
That was evidently the case, since Bergin had to relax his turn considerably to run off the pavement on the opposite side of the runway.
“Maybe something distracted him,” he said. “You want me to stop?”
“Yes,” she said, and the plane jerked a little, the right wheel off in the sandy gravel beside the macadam. “He let them out while he was parked off the strip.” Her hand groped for a good handle as Bergin pulled the throttle back, the engine idling with a deep-throated burble. She paused, remembering that she had no passenger door. If the killer had been riding in the right front seat, he would have had to slip into the back-a contortionist’s maneuver if there ever was one-or wait for the pilot to deplane. If the killer was the pilot, he would have to leave the airplane untended while he got out and did his business.
She twisted in her seat and tried to look out the back. The Cessna’s small, sloping rear windows provided little visibility. Anyone deplaning would have done so into the darkness, with nothing other than their personal flashlights-if they had them. None had been found. There were no parked cars, with headlights to guide the arrivals. In all likelihood, she realized, the three victims had been herded like sheep, around the rear of the airplane, out beyond the end of the runway.
The prop ticked to a stop as the engine died, and Bergin set the plane’s parking brake.
“My side,” he reminded Estelle. “Take your time.” He slid out and Estelle followed, impressed with how awkward the whole process was.
Had the pilot not been involved, he might have remained with the Cessna, the engine running, unable to see what was happening behind his airplane. Estelle stood just aft of the wing. How many in the plane, then? Three victims, one pilot. A minimum of four. Maybe five. Perhaps even six.
Estelle turned at the sound of boots crunching on gravel. Sheriff Torrez appeared out of the darkness.
“Well?” he asked.
She moved away from the plane, toward the tail. “Why here, Bobby?” She reached out and rested a hand on the Cessna’s horizontal stabilizer. “We need to find out the answer to that.”
Chapter Thirteen
“He had to know this area intimately, Bobby,” she said. “And he’s top-notch. That much is obvious. It was no accident that he chose the airstrip.”
“We knew that.” Torrez regarded the Cessna skeptically. Bergin had switched off the engine and then remained with the plane, waiting patiently. “And so? What did you find out?”
“Awkward,” Estelle replied. “The airplane is awkward. The pilot has a door on the left side of the plane, but the passenger in the right front seat doesn’t. You have to climb across.”
“Okay. But you can fly from either seat, can’t you?”
“Yes. There are dual controls.”
“So there you go.” Torrez shook his head. Without giving Estelle time to respond, he added, “If someone was standing out in the parking lot of the saloon, they would have heard him come in. They sure as hell would have heard him leave if he took off to the east. I was thinkin’ that maybe Herb Torrance might have heard something. I sent Abeyta over to check that out. He was going to swing by the saloon, too.”
“We don’t know if the pilot was the killer,” Estelle said. “That’s the trouble. And heard isn’t the same thing as noticed.”
“He coulda been the pilot. Or not. Kinda don’t like it either way.” The sheriff shifted his weight with a sigh. “If he was flyin’ the plane, then we know where he went. We know where the plane ended up.”
“If he was a passenger, he might have been dropped off anywhere,” Estelle amended.
“For true. And I guess there’s a possibility the pilot didn’t know what was goin’ on. Visibility out the back of that plane can’t be too good.” He nodded at the Cessna.
“It isn’t. And it’s noisy. There’s every possibility that the pilot might not have heard the shots.”