Her Last Flight(27)

She shaded her eyes and said, “I’ll tell you what would be new.”

“What?” he said.

“A woman.”





II




I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary lifetime.

—Charles Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis





Hanalei, Hawai’i





October 1947



The post office in Hanalei is the kind that does all kinds of business, including the sending and receiving of telegrams. After breakfast, with no sign of Lindquist spinning back up the road in her cherry Buick, I discover a bicycle in the shed and head into town.

I’ve already met the woman behind the counter, whose name I forget. The ancient nameplate on the counter reads lanalee, if you look closely. I smile and ask if there’s any reply to the telegram I sent yesterday. She doesn’t smile back but she fetches the yellow envelope. Before she hands it to me, she says I’ll have to sign for it.

“Of course,” I say.

She pulls out the list of telegrams—it’s not long—and I scribble my initials next to the entry at the bottom.

“Miss Eugenia Everett,” she says. “I hear you’re staying with the Lindquists?”

“Since five minutes ago. How did you know?”

“My brother is Mr. Lindquist’s cousin by marriage.” While I try to work this out in my head, she continues in a voice that grows more threatening by the vowel. “So Mr. Leo is my second cousin, you see?”

“I see.”

“He’s a fine boy, Leo.”

“I’d have to agree.”

“The Lindquists are good people. You’re lucky to be staying with them. Mr. Lindquist, he went right out to Oahu on the morning boat to take care of poor Kaiko.” She gives me this look that seems to lay all the blame for poor Kaiko’s accident at my feet.

“How is poor Kaiko?” I ask.

“He has a punctured lung,” she says, shaking her head, as if it were some form of incurable cancer and they might as well dig Kaiko’s grave this minute. “Probably Mr. Lindquist will stay in Honolulu for some time. Mr. Leo too.”

“Doesn’t Leo have a job?”

“Family is family, Miss Everett. There’s nothing more important. Here in Hanalei, we are all family. We would do anything for each other.” She holds out the yellow envelope. “Here is your telegram.”

“Thank you.”

“Will there be a reply?”

“Probably not,” I tell her, by which I mean probably not here, because I have the feeling that whatever ethics govern the sending and receiving of personal telegrams elsewhere in the world, they don’t apply in Hanalei. At least that’s what I understand from Miss Lanalee. (By now, I’ve read the nameplate on the counter.)



About a mile up the road, I stop the bicycle and tear open the envelope. The telegram was sent last night from this fellow I know at the Associated Press.

SENT HONOLULU CLIPPINGS AIRMAIL STOP ARRIVE DAY AFTER TOMORROW HANALEI POST OFFICE CARE OF YOU STOP COST MINT STOP THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD STOP BILL





I swear aloud, stuff the telegram back in my pocket, and climb back on the bicycle.



By the time I return to the white house called Coolibah, Lindquist has returned from taking the children to school. She sits in a wicker chair on one of the porches—lanais, they call them—with a large pot of coffee. I set the bicycle against the railing and climb the steps.

“You’re perspiring, Janey.” She gestures to the other chair. “Would you prefer water or coffee?”

“Coffee’s all right, thank you.”

“How was your telegram? Good news, I hope?”

My hand, pouring the coffee into the cup, veers off to the left. Lindquist clucks and reaches for a napkin. I blot the spilled coffee and fill my cup.

“I won’t be boring and ask how the devil you knew about the telegram. That rat Miss Lanalee, I guess.”

“She’s very protective. They all are.”

I sink onto the wicker sofa. “I have a friend at the AP who’s helping me with research, that’s all. He doesn’t know what it’s about, never fear.”

“Are you sure of that? Never trust a newsman, I always say.”

“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” I reach for the cigarettes in the pocket of my slacks. “I asked him to pull some clippings on your flight to Australia. It’s always useful to read the news as it actually unfolded.”

“Not all the details in those newspapers turned out to be true, you know.”

I hold out the cigarettes. She shakes her head.

“But before we get into all that,” she continues, “I wouldn’t mind knowing who snitched on me. It’s just not possible you tracked me here without somebody to point the way.”

“Haven’t you heard? A journalist never reveals his sources.”

“But it was a person, wasn’t it?”

I finish lighting the cigarette and take a long drag. “It was both. A wee birdie told me about a certain airplane that made its way out of Spain in May of 1937. It was up to me to figure out where it flew.”