Deadly Reckoning Read online

  What caught her attention instead was an aging American Legion color guard and a tearful reunion between a returning soldier on crutches and just about everyone else in the airport, including several people in traditional Indian dress. Mesa quickly recognized she was in the middle of someone’s tribal welcoming.

  She eased her way to the outskirts of the crowd, ducking apologetically in front of a woman in a long, buckskin coat with turquoise-beaded fringe, poised with a camera to her eye ready to record the moment. Once Mesa reached the half-moon shaped baggage carousel, she offered her own silent prayer that her luggage had made the connection.

  Just as well, Chance was late. Once the plane had left Cincinnati, she spent most of the eight hours of travel time rehearsing how she would break the news to him. Five weeks before, she had succumbed to his relentless pleas for help with the family newspaper. Circulation had dropped and advertising numbers were down. They needed her. Initially, she had felt a rush of adrenalin thinking about what she could do to turn the paper around. But little did she know how the timing would suck.

  Her dream job had finally opened up—arts and entertainment editor for Pacifica Magazine in Portland, Oregon—and she had a bona fide inside track. Derek Immelmann, Pacifica’s managing editor and her former boss, wanted her badly, and soon. Her interview was scheduled for Friday, and she didn’t plan to miss it.

  While she waited for her luggage to appear, a ceremony began around the wounded soldier. The crowd parted as an elder in a buffalo hide vest stepped forward to present the soldier with a war bonnet of eagle feathers and intricate beading. One of the greeters lit a smudge pot and began to wave the smoke around the soldier’s head. The sweet smell of sage permeated the lobby. Another of the Indian elders began a chant. Mesa looked around half-heartedly, curious to see if some Homeland Security type might object. Thankfully, no one appeared. Mesa smiled. Only in Montana.

  She watched the tense expressions of the soldier’s family and friends softening as the ritual came to its conclusion and they swarmed to touch him. While she understood little of the symbolism involved, Mesa understood enough about Indian custom to realize that a ceremony for a returning soldier, a warrior—modern or otherwise—had significance, and she also knew enough not to do anything that would disrespect it.

  The luggage carousel droned to life as the chant ended and half a dozen suitcases, backpacks, and fly-rod cases circled into the terminal. Relieved when she saw her three jumbo-sized nylon bags, Mesa wheeled them behind the color guard and toward a chair by the revolving exit door.

  The airport soon emptied, and Mesa found herself settling into a more relaxed pace. She sat near a glass-encased fly-fishing display and stared out the window at the wide, open space.

  It was hard to convey to someone back east the sheer size of Montana. Butte’s Summit Valley could hold a city four times its size, and once did. To the south, the Highland Mountains filled the horizon. To the west beyond the Copper Baron Hotel, open fields of sagebrush edged rolling foothills that quietly spread away from city streets.

  Uptown Butte, as the locals referred to the oldest section of the city on the side of the mountain, was majestic, even if rough around the edges. Its tallest building, the Hotel Finlen, stood a mere seven stories. Moulton and Sheepshead Mountain rested beyond at the edge of the Deerlodge National Forest. Everywhere the skyline was easily visible, and the feeling of vastness lay at the front door of any Butte home.

  She was thinking of her grandmother’s house when she caught sight of her brother’s vintage Land Rover, circling the parking lot. The vehicle represented everything she loved about her brother. He had pulled the World War II relic out of some rancher’s field and spent months repairing it. If something had historic value and he could restore it, Chance was smitten.

  He came to a screeching halt right in front of the airport’s revolving door. With its steering wheel on the right side, Chance deftly stepped out of the car and swept into the airport in three quick strides. She could feel the dampness of his biking shirt when he hugged her with all his might.

  “I know, late as usual,” he said as he picked up her bags and herded her out the door before she could even say hello. Amidst welcoming chitchat, he started the Rover and made a quick turn into the Silver Bow Aviation’s parking lot on the way out.

  Before she could ask what they were doing, Chance had jumped from the Rover and run toward the building next to the terminal. “Bet you’re tired out,” he said over his shoulder. “This will only take a second.”

  Mesa sighed, took her cell phone out of her purse, and clicked on the speed dial. “This is the Ducharme residence,” she heard her grandmother’s clipped but polite British accent on the answering machine. “Kindly leave a message.”

  “Hi, Nana,” Mesa said, feigning nonchalance. “I made it. Chance and I are on our way. See you soon. Bye.” With a sudden swell of emotion, she tucked the phone back into her purse. She imagined her grandmother lying in bed listening to the voice on the answering machine.

  Mesa thought back to the Fourth of July weekend two months earlier, when Chance had called to say Nana had had a heart attack. She was out of ICU in two days, but Mesa and Chance had remained anxious since. At seventy-three, Nana Rose Ducharme kept as busy as someone half her age, running the Mining City Messenger, immersed in local community projects. Slowing down would be difficult.

  The thin, aluminum car door clicked shut, and Mesa watched her brother while he cranked the engine. “Sorry about that little side trip. I’m working on this story about a plane crash. Some guy tried to land on a street Uptown, and didn’t make it.”

  “I thought you only took photographs and edited the sports page,” Mesa said. Chance’s impassioned plea about the fate of the newspaper rested on the fact that he didn’t have the know-how, and his concerns about what it would do to their grandmother if the paper folded. Mesa also knew that Chance’s real passion was restoring old buildings, of which there were plenty in Butte. Better she should be here to rescue the paper than leave it to him.

  “Well, I probably won’t write this,” he said, his smile implying hopefully, you will. “But I took some great shots, and Tyler can give me an inside angle.”

  Tyler Fitzgerald, one of Chance’s longtime buddies, had recently taken over the management of Silver Bow Aviation from his aging father. Mesa could imagine the two of them with their heads together, figuring out how to tell a story. “You sound almost glad the pilot’s dead,” she said.

  “Of course not, but it’s not like I knew the poor bastard,” her brother answered with another grin. “So how are you? Doesn’t look like the flight pushed you over the edge. Nan’s gonna be mighty glad to see you.”

  How was she? That was a good question. She looked toward the mountains and considered the question. Not bad, she guessed, for a thirty-year-old woman who had caved into her brother’s pleading to return to the wilds of Montana to nurse an ailing grandmother and rescue the family business, right when the career opportunity of a lifetime had been tossed into her lap. At least she hadn’t died in a plane crash.

  * * *

  Precious little had changed in Rose Ducharme’s neighborhood in the four years since Mesa had last visited—too long away, she knew. Mesa took a long look at her grandmother’s storybook house and tried to shake off the feeling that by returning to Butte she had somehow failed to make it in the larger world.

  “Open the door,” Chance said. He stood next to her on the porch, her luggage balanced precariously in his arms. Mesa knew she should move but found herself paralyzed.

  “Go ahead,” Chance urged. “She’s probably in the parlor, or the sitting room. She’s using it for a bedroom these days so she doesn’t have to walk up all the stairs. I’m sure she can hear us,” he said with a rare show of irritation.

  Mesa didn’t know what to say. She had talked to her grandmother weekly since her recovery began, but still she had dreaded coming face-to-face with Nan’s debilitation.
Once she saw her, the illness would be real.

  Finally, she pushed open the wide walnut door and took a step inside. To her left the mahogany double doors of the sitting room stood ajar. Muffled voices rose. Chance called out, “Hey, Nan, she’s here,” and headed up the stairs with Mesa’s bags, taking them to the room she always occupied when she stayed with her grandmother.

  Mesa looked after him and, for a moment, considered following him. Why delay it, you chicken? “Hello,” she called and peeked through the open door.

  The sitting room looked stately, as always, dominated by a large, claret-colored Oriental rug, and delicately crocheted ivory curtains. Only the daybed across from the sage green settee signaled anything unusual. Her grandmother sat on the settee, a shawl around her shoulders, hands folded in her lap, talking to a dapper looking gray-haired man in a jacket and tie who sat in the Queen Anne chair next to the lamp table.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming in,” she said with a smile. “Give us a hug, and take that look off your face. I’m not dead yet.”

  Then, without skipping a beat, she motioned gracefully with an open hand toward her companion. “Perhaps you remember Philip Northey.”

  Mesa didn’t know whether to chuckle or scratch her head. Her grandmother looked just fine. Her eyes were bright and full of the usual liveliness. She certainly didn’t look pale and wan. Mesa couldn’t help but be relieved.

  Mr. Northey was none the worse for wear either, and he did look vaguely familiar. Nana had never been short of companionship since Grandpa Ducharme had died more than a decade ago. Not that she ever thought of remarrying, but an escort was always nice, she would say.

  Mesa recovered her manners, nodded to Mr. Northey, and quickly came forward to give her grandmother a hug and join her on the settee. All the pressure about her decision—when she would hear about the Portland job, how she would make Chance and Nana understand—temporarily disappeared with the warm embrace.

  “Rose, I should be going and let you help Mesa get settled,” Mr. Northey said. “Where is that grandson of mine? Perhaps I should phone again.”

  “You mustn’t fret, Philip. He’ll be along. Let’s hear about Mesa’s trip.”

  No sooner had Mesa begun to describe her landing over the Pit and the welcome-home party at the airport when the b-r-r-ring of the old-fashioned doorbell reverberated through the hall. Mesa sprang to open the door to a tall, fair-haired, thirty-something man, dressed in a blazer, dress shirt, and jeans. Only the telltale smokejumper boots kept her from thinking she was back east.

  “You must be the returning granddaughter,” he said with a smile. He reached out his hand and said, “I’m Shane Northey, the footloose grandson.”

  * * *

  Midnight approached and Mesa still sat in front of the small maple dressing table with its matching stool where her mother had overseen the nightly brushing of her daughter’s hair. Now she could barely get her long legs under the table.

  Her grandmother had changed nothing about the room. The poster from Legends of the Fall with a shirtless Brad Pitt hung on the opposite wall. She had conned an usher at the mall theater into giving the advertisement to her one summer.

  She wondered if the appearance of Shane Northey had been a setup. When he came in for a few moments to exchange pleasantries, Nana and Philip Northey had seemed all too delighted.

  After they had gone, Nana had confided, “Philip doesn’t drive anymore, bad hip.” But wasn’t Shane nice, she had continued. He’s running for the legislature, you know. Just broke off an engagement this summer. Too bad, really, he has such nice manners.

  Mesa picked up her brush and began to stroke her hair, staring into the mirror at the reflected image of the room. So many times Mesa had arrived here and fallen asleep in the bed after some long journey from an Air Force base halfway across the world. Nothing felt more secure than the knowledge that the house never changed. And in it, she had her own room.

  The house had its share of sad memories too. Her mother had come home to die here. But Mesa and Chance had faced that horror with their grandparents’ steady hand to support them. She would never contemplate leaving her grandmother in a predicament, if in fact that was the case.

  A soft knock interrupted her thoughts. Chance stood at the door.

  “This is just temporary, you know,” he said. “Tara’s lined up a bunch of apartments for you to look at. Tomorrow, if you want.”

  Tara McTeague, Mesa’s best friend since childhood, had grown up in the house across the street from Nana’s. Now she was a real estate agent when she wasn’t having babies. “And here’s a key to my place.” He put it on the dressing table. “You know, in case you need a little more privacy in the immediate future.”

  Mesa grinned. Chance tended to approach the potentially intimate details of her life shyly. She picked up the key with a snicker. Like she would have the time or inclination even to strike up an intimate conversation with anybody in the next week.

  “This will do for the time I plan to stay,” she said. “I’m beginning to think Nan’s not going to require as much help as I thought. I’ll need to check out the lay of the land at the paper before I decide how long I’m staying.” She could see a small cloud come over her brother’s otherwise sinfully cheerful expression. He had a way of making her feel guilty like no one else in the world, not that she wanted to burst his bubble on the first day.

  “Tyler called while you were helping Nan get tucked in,” he said, using his typical ploy of changing the subject when he didn’t like what she had to say. “He told me something curious about that plane crash today. Turns out Kev—you remember Tyler’s mechanic?”

  Even she knew Kev Murphy, a strapping, down-on-his-luck disabled vet. His reputation as a heavy drinker made keeping a decent job difficult, so Tyler hired him to overhaul plane engines instead. There’s logic for you.

  “He told Tyler that this pilot in the plane that crash-landed didn’t go up alone. I think I’ll talk to Murphy myself first thing tomorrow. What are you going to do, hang out with Nan?”

  “I thought I’d go into the office. I’m not here for a vacation, you know.”

  “Well, it is Labor Day, the last day of the rodeo. Half the town, not to mention the staff, will be there. Sure you don’t want to wait ’til I can go into the office with you?”

  The Labor Day weekend rodeo in Dillon was the largest in the state, and it attracted whoever wasn’t already out of town. But Mesa had reason not to drag her feet. “Why?” she asked. “Nobody there bites, do they?”

  Chapter 3

  Between swigs from the orange juice carton the next morning, Chance made two phone calls. The first was to Consolidated Controls, Inc. of Lincoln, Nebraska, an agricultural equipment outfit, which held the crashed Cessna’s registration.

  Chance had checked the tail number on the FAA website, but what he had learned was irritatingly uninformative. When he called Consolidated, a recorded message informed him that the corporate offices were closed for the Labor Day holiday and would reopen on Tuesday, September 8. So much for direct sources.

  Next he called Nick Philippoussis, hoping to meet him for breakfast. His wife answered and said Nick was asleep and she wasn’t about to wake him. He had been out most of the night with a traffic accident. Somebody driving to Helena on I-15 had hit an elk, then careened across the highway and hit a pickup. Two dead, not counting the elk.

  So much for phone leads. Pavement pounding was next, but he would need some hefty fare to soak up the rotgut coffee he would have to drink while listening to Kev Murphy. Chance decided to stop by the Butte Hill Bakery for one of its giant cinnamon buns before heading out to Silver Bow Aviation.

  He hopped into the Land Rover and turned left onto Silver Street, taking a quick, two-block detour south to drive by the crash site. The plane remained intact, the morning sunlight reflecting off its windows. Yellow police investigation tape still surrounded the southwest corner of the block, but the
wooden barriers had been removed from the middle of Washington Street. Instead, a black, Butte Silver Bow police cruiser was parked strategically at the corner of Washington and Porphyry, keeping a silent vigil.

  He pulled up next to the police car where Brock Van Zant, who had gone to high school with Chance, sat hunched in his seat. Only in Butte would somebody try to strip down a plane at a crime scene in the middle of the night.

  “I’m headed for a cinnamon roll,” Chance said after greeting the yawning cop. “Want one?”

  Brock sat up and declined the offer. He was getting ready to go off duty, explaining that the sheriff had asked him to baby sit the scene to keep the federal crash investigator happy.

  The sheriff was back. Now that was news, Chance thought moments later, while he waited in line at the bakery. Sheriff Solheim was building a retirement cabin on the Wise River. Coming back into town before the end of the long weekend had definitely been a concession.

  By the time Chance reached the airport, nothing was left of his cinnamon bun but the brown-sugar glaze on his fingertips, which he meticulously licked off. He parked in the small lot outside Silver Bow Aviation and went inside. The office, the reception area and the pilot’s lounge, all of which he could see from the doorway, were deserted.

  He meandered through the pilot lounge, which reminded him of the lobby of a dingy hotel. A gray, metal, government-surplus desk and chair took up the wall space under the window from which the runway was visible. A couple of worn upholstered chairs that had come from Tyler’s mom’s basement, accented by a perennially stained coffeepot and a sink that had long ago lost its shiny stainless steel luster, completed the ensemble. A rumpled copy of the Montana Standard and an empty paper coffee cup on the desk were the only signs of human presence. The place had a ‘last outpost’ feel to it, save for the smell of recently brewed coffee which hinted that somebody might be around.

  He stopped at the door of the hangar, where he saw Kev working on a Beechcraft’s engine. As usual, he had plenty to say about the plane that had gone down.