Some Die Hard Page 5

  He finished by reaching his arm around before him for a handshake.

  Well, what can you do? I liked Helen Bishop, and I don't think much of husbands who use their wives for a punching bag. But by the same token a man and a woman's troubles ought to be their own unless they want it otherwise. And he was right. There was a lot of hate going on around here already. Certainly enough to last the night out.

  So we shook hands.

  Besides, Susan had said he was a good guy once you got to know him.

  "Water under the bridge," I assured him. Then, because I'd been wondering about it, I asked, "Any idea what this big surprise of Mr. Court's is?"

  He smiled. "Every idea in the world. I'm the one who helped him pick it out." Then he looked beyond me, but didn't lose his smile. "Take a look for yourself."

  We were just coming out of the woods, leaving the treeline for the beginning of the endless prairie I'd seen from the house. Only I hadn't seen the surprise. It was too close in. The view from the Court place had overshot it.

  A sailplane, a glider, sat there in the sun waiting for us. She was a reddish orange craft with a yellow stripe running along either side and across its tail. Sleek, stiletto-thin, its long wings stretched out from either side giving it an almost futuristic appearance.

  It sat on a long dirt road that ran parallel, east-west, to the treeline. A guide rope ran from the missile-like nose to the back of a jeep a few yards away, and Jinx Moran sat in the jeep expectantly, looking back at us.

  Hanley and Court slowed down to let us catch up and pretty soon we were all clustered together around the thing. Court turned, looking happy as a kid on Christmas morning.

  "Well, here she is," he beamed, patting the craft's nose. "I just got my license this morning, and right now you are about to witness its—our—maiden flight."

  It was a surprise, I'll say that. I'd read about the sailplane rage sweeping the country, but this was the first one I'd seen close up. It looked interesting, all right, but it didn't look all that safe. At least, not to me. I don't fly enough to be totally at ease in the air, and I sure as hell wouldn't feel at ease in a plane without an engine, which was just what I was looking at.

  Susan Court must have felt the same way. She stepped forward, touching a hand to her father's arm.

  "Dad., are you sure it's safe? I...I don't know if you should—"

  Tommy spoke up from just behind me. "Relax, sis. Dad knows what he's doing. This glider flying is supposed to be a real trip, right, Dad?"

  As before, Carlander Court ignored the boy. He gave his daughter's hand a touch and proceeded to gently remove it from his arm.

  "It's perfectly safe, honey," he said. "The idea of flying silently, completely in control of yourself like this, has always fascinated me. I researched the subject thoroughly, decided on just the right model, and had George here shop around for it for me." He smiled warmly. "You know I wouldn't just rush into something, don't you?"

  "It's a Schweizer 1-34," George told her in particular and the rest of us in general. "One of the best models going. There's nothing to worry about."

  "I've done a little reading on these things myself, Carl," Hanley broke in. "There's a nice breeze blowing up. It should be a good flight."

  "It will be a good flight," Court answered. Then he lifted his arm and gave a wave, calling, "Get set, Jinx. We're almost ready!"

  "Okay, Mr. Court!" Moran turned, kicked the jeep engine to life and let it run at low idle.

  Court turned, climbed into the cockpit and looked back at us. "Well, wish me luck," he said cheerily.

  "Good luck, Dad," Susan said softly.

  Hanley leaned over the cockpit, gave Court a pat on the shoulder. "Have a good flight, Carl. I wish I were up there with you."

  Court nodded. "Thanks, Alex. I'm sorry it's a single-seater."

  Helen Bishop stepped up from behind us, her arms clasped before her, beneath her breasts, as if she were cold. "Good luck, Mr. Court."

  "Hell, luck's got nothing to do with it," Tommy Court said in what was almost a sneer. Then he looked back at the glider. "Right, Pop?"

  Court looked straight ahead. "Right," he said, and it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd heard him even respond to the kid.

  There wasn't much more to say. If Court was a little nervous, he wasn't letting it show. He lifted an arm, gave another wave, and pulled the arm down again to slide the plexiglass cover shut over his head. Up ahead the jeep slipped into gear. The pull-rope drew taut and as Jinx moved forward, so, with a sudden jerk, did the craft, pulling away from us. They moved off slowly at first, down the road, gaining speed steadily as they went, picking up the right amount of momentum needed for the launching. The two of them had obviously gone over the preparations for this moment many times before. The execution was smooth, seemingly effortless.

  And then the moment came.

  The magical moment when all of the training and worrying must suddenly seem worthwhile to the beginning pilot.

  And maybe the professional, as well.

  Kicking up a thick, swirling cloud of dust behind it, Carlander Court's sleek new toy was suddenly airborne like the graceful, manmade bird it was, the pull-rope falling away, the craft itself now free to the open, cloudless sky above.

  Soundless as it was, it was quite a sight.

  I was distracted then as I felt someone pull close against me. I turned and saw it was Susan.

  "Rock, it's beautiful, but...I'm scared..."

  I slipped a comforting arm around her, a not altogether unpleasant experience. "I don't see why. Your dad isn't the careless type, is he?"

  "No. No..."

  The glider was about a quarter of a mile away by then and about sixty feet in the air when it unexpectedly seemed to arch and began climbing even higher.

  "Good!" cried Hanley. "He's caught an updraft. It'll be smooth sailing now."

  Bishop smiled. "You keep talking like that, Doctor, and it looks like I'll have to go back east shopping for another one."

  It was said lightly but that's not the way Hanley took it, if he heard it at all. His eyes were still on the sky. "God, how I'd love to be up there with him. To feel free, like a bird!"

  "Not me," said Tommy, again in almost a sneer. "Let me keep my two feet right down here where they belong. You won't find me up in one of those contraptions."

  After gaining about another two hundred feet, and after reaching about a mile's distance away from us, Mr. Court really began working the controls, pulling into a beautiful banked curve, arching around in a full circle until he was heading right back towards us, dipping slightly on the air currents as he approached. Without a sound he swooped down low over our heads.

  "There he is! I see him!" called Helen Bishop, pointing upwards, and she wasn't the only one.

  There he was, sitting in the cockpit behind the plexiglass, his face shining proud and happy. He had time for one quick wave, which Susan and I both returned, before he was pulling up and away into the west.

  From the opposite direction there was movement on the ground and Jinx Moran pulled the jeep to a stop in our midst. He pushed himself up and followed the glider with his eyes, shielding his gaze from the sun like a movie Indian trying to spot smoke signals.

  "Looks like the boss is doing okay," he said proudly.

  No one answered. Court was pretty high up, even higher than he'd been before, and I'd say about two miles off, when he went into another full circle curve and began heading back toward us.

  "Oh, I hope he comes down this time..."

  That was Susan, of course. She was shivering against me like someone with a chill. But after a few moments, it was apparent that she wouldn't have to worry too much longer.

  For this flight, at least.

  The glider dipped, a little prematurely I thought, and the closer it got, the lower it got.

  The first hint that something might be wrong came from Moran. He winced at the downward direction of the craft's nose as it approache
d the relative smoothness of the dirt road.

  "She's gonna be a tough one," he said.

  Susan Court got the hint too. She grasped at her throat. Her mouth opened.

  "Oh, God...Dad—"

  Hanley reacted immediately to the potential panic in her voice with an ease that must be part of his profession's bedside manner. He didn't even look down from the sky, but spoke evenly as if there were no problem at all as far as he could see.

  "Nothing to worry about, Susan. Your father knows what he's doing."

  Bishop nodded a little too quickly. "He's just coming in a little steep. He'll make it."

  It was a tense moment, all right. I felt my own stomach muscles tighten and untighten as I waited with the others to see what was going to happen.

  "Up, Boss. Pull 'er up!" That was Moran in the jeep, behind the wheel, mumbling half to himself and half to the glider coming in down the dirt road. "Pull 'er up!"

  It was a moment that in the movies would have been underscored by that tense, suspenseful, sparse music on the soundtrack as the camera panned each person's upraised face, etched simultaneously with expectant hope and fear around squinting eyes. But this wasn't a movie and the only sound accompanying the tableau there in the field as we waited was the soft swishhhhhhhh! of disturbed air over our heads as the glider finally coasted in.

  Mr. Court didn't pull 'er up and when he hit it was with the nerve-pulling, screeching, scraping, tortured sound of skidding metal on gravel.

  It was over in seconds.

  The tail of the craft reared up high, jutting from the shooting clouds of sand and dirt like some ancient holy temple, then settled back down as the whole damn thing finally ran out of steam and managed to slide to a stop on its belly about twenty feet from where the flight had begun.

  Moran sank back into his seat. "I knew he'd make it," he half-laughed. "The boss is something else!"

  "Oh, Dad—" Susan broke away from me and began running, and the rest of us followed.

  By the time we reached the thing it was apparent that something was wrong. Carlander Court could be seen plainly in the cockpit—but he was making no attempt to climb out.

  We all circled around the craft and Helen Bishop was just behind me. "Something's the matter...I think he's hurt..."

  That really touched the girl off.

  "Dad! Dad!!"

  We all made the lunge forward for the cockpit together then but I reached it first and I didn't waste any time. I leaned over and pulled back the sliding panel...and almost wished I hadn't.

  The old guy sat there behind the control stick, his arms stiff and rigid at his side, his white-knuckled hands clasping either side of the pilot's seat.

  A wide-bladed hunting knife had been rammed to the hilt into his upper stomach area, and the light colored pullover sweater he wore was a horror of thick, dark, running red.

  We were all about him then, standing around looking down. His eyes were wide open, facing us in a death stare of ultimate, unforgettable, wide-eyed horror. A thin trickle of blood was already hemorrhaging from the side of his mouth.

  I stepped back and let the others gawk and babble among themselves. I'd seen enough.

  Carlander Court, the man I'd been hired to protect.

  Dead on arrival.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Things didn't stay quiet for very long after that.

  Dr. Hanley made a quick examination and made the official pronouncement, and George Bishop volunteered to make the hike up to the house to call the police while his wife led Susan Court closer to the woods, away from the glider, and did her best to comfort her. Tommy Court stood around with his hands again in his pockets, looking

  down at the ground, not saying a word, while Hanley and I shook our heads and tried to figure it all out and got nowhere in a hurry. Jinx Moran went back to his jeep and sat there silently, fiddling with the steering wheel, looking at nothing.

  And if we were more than a little confused, we had nothing on the boys in blue when they arrived. It took us nearly two hours just to describe what had happened, and even then they didn't believe it. And I didn't blame them. A man in a glider, up by himself, landing with a knife in his chest. It wasn't real. It was a variation on the old locked room puzzles of Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr.

  Only this time it had happened—and I don't think any of us were ready for it.

  A few minutes after the first squad car arrived, the ambulance and seven more cops showed up, and then things really got hectic. It was a case of everyone for himself then. I was cornered by a pair of them, a young-looking rookie in his mid- or early twenties and an older, gray-haired vet in his fifties, who made me go over the whole thing, from the moment we'd left the back patio until the moment of Carlander Court's landing, over and over again until they were sure that my story jibed each time, that I hadn't left anything out, either by accident or design. They found out that I was a private investigator, naturally, and that interested them somewhat but they didn't push it, and I didn't tell them about the bus ride that morning, or about the fact that I was currently Susan Court's employee. That would all come out sooner or later anyway, I knew, and right now—well, right now all they wanted was the poop on Mr. Court and his glider, and from me that was all they got.

  After the vet had brought me through the tale for about the fifth time, and after the kid had finished writing it all down, I was told that that was all—for now, it was emphasized—and they gave me the old line about staying in town where they could reach me.

  I smiled and nodded and told them they didn't have a thing to worry about, and I meant every word of it, I was the most obliging bastard you ever saw. But then, I could afford to be.

  I wouldn't have left Langdon Springs then for all the graft in Washington.

  It was dark by the time they left and the "party" had moved back up to the house during the course of the questioning. All of the others—Hanley, the Bishops, Moran, and Susan and Tommy Court—had been through what I'd gone through; probably worse. And it showed in their empty eyes and zombie-like movements as they stood silently in the terribly still living room. A combination of shock/horror and fatigue had dissipated the energies of everyone there. Mr. Court's body was gone now, taken downtown to the morgue, and so was his glider, and there was nothing else left to be done. Nothing to say.

  Mumbling habitual "goodnights" to each other, those that were left began straggling out to their parked cars.

  But I waited behind, just for a moment. Even Tommy had gone and there was just Susan and I now, and she was holding up remarkably well. Any instant she was going to break wide open, but not while I was there. Not while there was business to be taken care of.

  "Rock, you'll...you'll help me? You'll stay and find out...what happened out there?"

  I wanted to hold her but I didn't think she wanted that, so I settled for reaching over and touching her hair as gently as I could and there in the dim, indirect lighting our eyes met and held and became lost in each other for a hundred years before I spoke.

  "You shouldn't have to ask that. Of course I'll stay."

  "I'm so glad. Here are my keys. Please, take my car and find a room in town. I—I'd rather be alone here for now."

  "Susan, I'm not sure that's safe."

  "It will be. I've just got to be alone in the house tonight, to think. We've got to find out what happened, Rock. We've got to. For Dad's sake."

  "We will," I said, and there was another lull and I couldn't help myself.

  I moved my face forward and kissed her.

  It was our first kiss and it was gentle too. As gentle as I could make it. There was nothing erotic about it. The charge that coursed between us in that instant was more than sex. Already, in the brief time we had known each other, because of the things that had happened in that brief time, our relationship had transcended the mere demands of the body, although that would come in time as well.

  But now it was something beyond that.

  It was something her
body, and her mind, and her soul needed; at what must have been one of the most horrible, lonely points in her life. And I was lucky, because when she looked at me she found what she needed.

  And then she was in my arms, clinging to me, but only for a flash. And it wasn't sexy now either, even though the scent of her hair was fresh in my nostrils and the contours of her young body molded as one against my own.

  It wasn't sex. Not yet. It was still that something else. That something even better.

  "Thank you, Rock. Thank you..."

  And she turned and was gone, running back up the stairs, her breath shallow and fast-paced, ready to cry.

  It was an unsatisfactory ending to a wholly unsatisfying day. But a guy has to know when to charge and when to put it down.

  I elected to put it down, and took off to find a bed for the night. An empty bed, dammit, filled with nothing but me and the memories—some pleasant, some disturbing—of a young lady who could quite logically follow her father to a premature grave.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dr. Alex Hanley had his office in a modern, modest red brick professional building on the eastern edge of town.

  It was a chilly, clear, blue sky morning, and the sharp tingling scent of Fall in the air was a distinctive sensation all to itself. All things considered, I had to admit I felt pretty damn chipper. It must have been the change of seasons, I figured.

  Or, maybe, it was the fact that Dugan was in love...

  * * *

  I parked the Toyota in the small black-topped lot, found the doctor's office, and told the receptionist my name, that it was business and that it was fairly important that I see the doctor as soon as possible.

  She was a middle-aged woman, all business and very conscientious, and it was apparent she didn't like anyone doing anything without an appointment. But she did leave her desk and check and a moment later she came back to tell me that I could go right in, that the doctor would see me.