A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

hard to track down,” Joe said.  “Can’t have been that many planes in the air that day.”

“Even if there were,” McAllister said, “at least it gives us a starting point.”  He stood up and extended his hand.  “Thanks for coming in, Joe.  Flynn and Coello are out on another call, but I’ll fill them in as soon as they get back.  You be sure to tell Lily we’re on it.  And tell her we all hope she’s back on the job soon.”

. . .

The Port Hancock Regional Airport was a private recreational facility some twenty miles west of town.  It existed for the benefit of local flight enthusiasts with enough time and money to own and operate their own planes.  As it turned out, there were a surprisingly large number in the county.  With paved runways, clean hangars, and a well-trained staff of mechanics, almost a hundred small planes called the site home.

Joe didn’t intend to wait for Flynn and Coello.  He pulled up in front of the airport office at just after four o’clock.

“Long time no see, Joe,” Rick Hanlon, the airport owner, said, his hand outstretched.

“How’ve you been, Rick?” Joe responded, grasping the hand for a hearty shake.  He and Hanlon went all the way back to high school.

“Can’t complain.  So, what brings you out this way?”

“Need a favor,” the private investigator said.

“Name it,” Hanlon told him.  Their friendship wasn’t just about high school.  Fifteen years earlier, the airport owner’s son had gotten caught up in a sting operation involving drugs.  The boy was mentally slow, and had been duped by two classmates to make the drop.  While scooping up all those involved, Joe had managed to extricate Hanlon’s son from the mess, and his father had never forgotten.

“I need a list of all the planes that were up on Sunday, July 6th.”

“I can get that for you.  Mind telling me why?”

“It has to do with the explosion up at the Jansen cottage,” Joe explained.

“I heard about that,” Hanlon said.  “How’s Lily doing?”

“She’s getting better every day, thanks,” Joe told him.  “And she’s beginning to remember things.  That’s how come I’m here.  The pipe bomb that blew up the place -- she says it was tossed from a plane.”

Hanlon’s eyes widened.  “And you think it was from one of mine?”

“Well, you’re the only small craft facility within a hundred miles.  So I figured this was as good a place to start as any.”

“You’ll have that list in ten,” the airport owner declared.

Hanlon was as good as his word.  “Turns out, it was a busy day,” he said exactly ten minutes later, as he handed over two typewritten pages.  “We had thirty-five planes up on Sunday.”

The list contained not only names, but recorded flight plans as well.  Hanlon ran a tight ship, and took his responsibilities seriously.  Both takeoff and landing times were also documented.

“Roy Flynn and Teri Coello will probably be coming along, asking for the same thing,” Joe told him.  “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer if you didn’t tell them I was here first.”

“For you, anything,” Hanlon assured him.  “It was a damn shame what happened to Lily.   And I hope you find the son-of-a-bitch -- even if he is one of mine.”

Joe pored over the list well into the night, checking names, flight plans, and times.  He knew that anyone with a specific destination in mind, such as a bomb drop, would not be likely to post his actual flight plan, but there was nothing that person could do about masking takeoff and landing times, which were monitored by airport personnel.

Of the thirty-five planes that had filed flight plans for that Sunday, there were twenty-two that were recorded as having been in the air within the timeframe of the bombing.

With that list in front of him, Joe hit the computer, beginning with background checks, looking for anything he could find that would cut the list down further.  He found no criminal records associated with the any of the plane owners, no felony convictions, not even any misdemeanors.

Next, he checked out the families of the owners.  Again, no local felony convictions recorded, but there were a surprising number of misdemeanors -- mostly teenage stuff associated with vandalism and drug possession, a few drunk driving citations, a couple of attempted break-ins, and there was one case of assault that was later dropped.

Joe frowned thoughtfully.  There was something in the back of his mind about that assault case, and he tried to remember what it was.  It had happened about twenty years ago -- a couple of teenaged boys were involved in beating up another teenaged boy.

He couldn’t recall all the details, but something was telling him he needed to go back and take another look at that case.  Of course, he no longer had access to the file, but it just so happened that he knew someone he could ask who did.

. . .

Roy Flynn and Teri Coello were doing something else Joe Gideon could no longer do.  As Port Hancock police detectives, they were officially interviewing the owners of all thirty-five private airplanes that were listed as having had their planes in the air on July 6th.  They had received the same information from Matt Hanlon that Joe had gotten, and first thing Friday morning, they had begun the process of knocking on doors.

Joe, on the other hand, was back at police headquarters first thing Friday morning, looking for his pal Arnie Stiversen.

“Can you help me out?” he asked.  “I need to take a look at an old case file.”

“Sure,” Stiversen said.  “Which one?”

“I’m not sure,” Joe told him.  “It was an assault case, about twenty years ago, a couple of kids beat up another kid pretty bad.  It was dropped when the victim suddenly declined to identify his assailants.”

Stiversen led the way down to the file room, which took up most of the basement.  Cabinet after cabinet, and boxes upon boxes, representing decades of cases, were lined up against walls and stacked on