Tailspin(19)

“We got to her car, discovered the damage to the wheel, had no choice but to walk here. Found Brady White. That’s it. Just like I told you at the start. That’s everything I know. So can we wrap this up?”

But Rawlins wasn’t finished with him. “You said you were on the radio with Brady. What was his last transmission?”

“He asked if I was nervous.”

“About what?”

Rye smiled.

“What’s funny?”

“That’s what I came back to Brady with. My exact words. He was asking if I was nervous about the landing. I indicated I wasn’t. He said I was due a couple of beers. That’s the last I heard from him. I transmitted that I saw the runway lights, but he didn’t respond.”

“Why do you think?”

“I think because he’d been knocked cold. The radio wasn’t on when Dr. O’Neal and I got here. I checked.”

Rawlins said, “Okay,” but not in a way that sounded like it was okay.

He then went through a series of routine questions: Had Rye seen any other persons or vehicles; had he touched or disturbed anything; did it appear to him that anything had been disturbed; had Brady White said anything? He answered no to all.

The older deputy came back and reported to Rawlins. “Mallett here checks out. That Dash character went nuts when I told him about his plane, but I calmed him down. He’s emailing you the flight plan that Mallett filed, along with the paperwork on his cargo.”

Rawlins pulled out his phone. As he accessed his email, he said to Rye, “Why didn’t you give me all this?”

“You didn’t ask for it.”

Rawlins scrolled through the documents and stopped on the air bill. “Under client’s name it says Dr. Lambert.”

“I assumed that’s who Dr. O’Neal was till she told me different.”

“She came on Dr. Lambert’s behalf?”

Brynn had said to him that she’d come in Dr. Lambert’s place. There was a fine distinction between in his place and on his behalf. But Rye nodded in response to the deputy’s question, because when you didn’t have a freaking clue how to answer, a nonverbal reply was the safest.

“Black metal box,” the deputy said, still reading from the shipping form attached to the email. “Doesn’t say what’s in it.”

Rye gave another shrug. “Like I told you.”

The deputy closed out the email and slid his phone back into the pocket of his puffy jacket. “You and Dr. O’Neal know each other before tonight?”

“No.”

Rawlins tilted his chin down in apparent doubt.

“No,” Rye repeated. “Never heard of her. Never saw her before she came walking out of the foggy woods. Didn’t even know she was a woman. When I was told the client was a Dr. Lambert, I automatically figured a man.”

“Feminists would jump all over that.”

“I’m not proud of it. I’m just telling you that’s how it was.”

The deputy tried to stare a lie out of him, but ironically that answer was the unvarnished truth, so Rye stared back and didn’t blink. Rawlins was first to back down. He used the toe of his boot to nudge the leather duffel at Rye’s feet. “What’s in the bag?”

“It’s my flight bag.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Help yourself. But there’s a nine-millimeter in there. I have a permit.”

Rawlins extended his open palm. Rye pulled his wallet from his back pocket and produced the concealed carry license. The deputy inspected it as though Rye was on a terrorist watch list, several times comparing the photo on the license to Rye’s face, then handed back the wallet, squatted down, and unzipped the bag.

He mumbled something about the contents looking like a hardware store wrapped in leather, but, right off, he located the zippered pocket with the Glock inside. He stood up with it in his hand and looked it over. “There’s a bullet chambered.”

Since he’d stated the obvious, Rye didn’t say anything.

“How come?” the deputy asked.

“Bears.”

“Bears?”

Rye hitched his thumb up toward the painting on the wall behind him. “Before I saw Dr. O’Neal’s flashlight, I heard thrashing in the woods, something coming my way. I didn’t want to come face-to-face with a bear or any other kind of predator. So I chambered a bullet just in case.”

It was a logical explanation. Which wasn’t to say that Rawlins believed a word of it. But before he could test its veracity with a follow-up question, the deputy who’d been questioning Brynn called, “Rawlins? Talk to you a sec?”

“Stay here,” he said to Rye as he moved away to join his partner.

The crowd of personnel had thinned out. Apparently they’d come to the conclusion that the crime of the century hadn’t been committed on their watch after all. Of those who remained, one was shuffling through White’s paperwork as though to determine if any of it was relevant and would shed light on who had walked in and clouted him for no apparent reason.

Another was dusting the desk for fingerprints. When his interest moved to the collector’s items on the shelf above it, and he was about to reach for the airplane model, Rye pushed away from the wall. “Hey! Don’t mess with that.”