CHAPTER 1
What a perfect morning to fly, Megan Walton thinks as she watches a gas jockey pump fuel into the high-winged Cessna 210N she’ll be piloting on a city sightseeing tour on this, the last morning of her life. The robin’s-egg-blue aircraft, which is emblazoned with the scarlet Windy City Sky Tours logo, glistens in the September sunshine on the tarmac at the Chicago Executive Airport. Megan pops a stick of Juicy Fruit gum into her mouth and pockets the foil wrapper. The smell of the gum is a welcome antidote to the acrid odor of the avgas, especially with her stomach still roiling from last night’s party. She’d woken up just after seven with a jackhammer headache and not enough sleep, having gotten back into town from her cousin’s Labor Day weekend wedding in St. Lucia a little after two o’clock this morning. What a party! Cousin Emerald’s parents had chartered a Gulfstream G280 executive jet to fly select wedding guests to and from the Caribbean. Now, there was an aircraft, complete with a uniformed flight attendant who catered to Megan’s every whim, be it for booze or eats. Someday, Megan plans to be flying Gulfstreams instead of a Cessna.
The mechanics Uncle Jonathan hired to service the Windy City aircraft are working on a little plane beside hers. Megan meets their eyes and looks away without acknowledging them. She forgets their names, not that it matters. They’re just hired help. Megan, a pretty twenty-three-year-old dressed in tight designer jeans and a form-fitting red company polo shirt, knows she looks good. Guys like these two, dressed in oil-stained coveralls and grimy baseball caps, can gawk at her all they want, but they’ll never touch what they’re pining after.
Megan tucks her long, glossy blond hair into a ponytail while she watches the refueler disconnect the fuel hose from the Cessna and wind it back onto his truck. As soon as he departs, she shepherds the four waiting guests toward the six-seat Windy City aircraft. Leading the way is a cute tyke of four or five wearing jeans, a miniature New York Yankees jersey, and little sneakers that light up with every step. His smiling mother is close behind as he bounds along with unbridled excitement. She’s an elegant woman wearing a canary-yellow sundress and sandals. A single strand of pearls the size of marbles circles her throat. A beaming, well-dressed older couple, no doubt Grandma and Grandpa, bring up the rear.
After her customers climb into the passenger compartment, Megan shuts the door behind them, pulls the chunky, black-and-yellow rubber wheel chocks away from the tires, and tosses them aside. Then she walks around the nose of the plane, climbs into the pilot’s seat, straps herself in, and fires up the single-piston-powered engine. The initial roar blasts a burst of blue smoke into the air before the engine settles into a pleasing purr, just as it should. As she releases the brakes and begins to roll toward a taxiway that leads to the runway, one of the mechanics starts running across the tarmac while frantically waving to her. She looks away. Whatever he wants can wait until she gets back. Megan just wants to get this flight over with so she can unwind a little and maybe sneak in a nap before her eleven o’clock tour.
Five minutes later she’s flying into the sun, passing over Navy Pier and out over Lake Michigan, happy to let the rich bitch in the back narrate the sights for her kid and the old folks. It’s not easy to keep the thirty-minute flights interesting, especially three or four times per day. Too bad the woman’s high-pitched voice is so damned grating.
“Ferris wheel, Mommy!” the kid squeals.
Shut him up! Megan pleads silently.
“Fast boat, Mommy!” the little noise box shouts while a speedboat races beneath them.
Megan winces. It’s going to be a long half hour. The pounding in her temples won’t quit, not even after she downed a handful of Extra Strength Tylenol with the Venti-size Caramel Brulée Latte she’d scored at Starbucks on her way to work. A second cup rests in a cupholder tacked onto the armrest of her seat. Probably shouldn’t have had that second glass of champagne on the Gulfstream, she thinks as her lips curl into a devilish grin. Or the third, fourth, and fifth glasses—hell, she’s not sure the bubbly is completely out of her system even now. What the hell, it was a party flight. Thank God she’s wearing a pair of Bvlgari sunglasses to keep the blinding sun out of her eyes… and to keep her bloodshot eyes out of sight. That was $600 well spent. She’d given herself an extra spritz of perfume to mask any hint of hangover seeping from her pores. The Juicy Fruit should mask any unwelcome odor escaping her curdling stomach.
The back seat falls blissfully quiet as Megan flies out over the lake at a height of 3,020 feet at a ground speed of eighty knots. That’s a little too fast, so she eases back on the throttle. She plans to travel a couple of miles offshore before turning south to let her passengers ogle Chicago’s iconic skyline for a few minutes. Then she’ll loop around downtown on her way back to the airport.
“I wanna see the Ferris wheel again, Mommy!”
Jesus Christ! Shut the brat up already! Megan fumes as she glances in the mirror. The kid’s seat belt is off and he’s bouncing on the rear seat. Did she check that he was strapped in before they taxied? Screw it, she isn’t gonna fight with them about it now… or tell them to shut the kid up. After all, they’re apparently Very Important People—politicians or something. She’s already forgotten the family name they seem to think is so impressive. Probably the types who will kick up a stink if Megan isn’t the polite little lackey they’re treating her as. She knows about people like this. Her mother, for example.
Megan had enrolled in the aviation associate degree program at Parkland College on a whim, mostly because the guy she was interested in at the time had done so and it looked like fun. Her affection for the boy fizzled soon enough, but her love for flying blossomed. After she graduated, her parents poured a small fortune into rental aircraft so Megan could build the hours she needed to get her commercial license. When Uncle Jonathan and his friends bought Windy City Sky Tours to mess around with, Mother had put the heat on her brother to give his favorite niece a job… and when Mother wants something, Mother gets it. It was turning out to be a good gig that kept Megan in pocket money for parties and shopping. The hours were reasonable and she was generally able to milk the family connection to avoid early-morning shifts, leaving her free to stay out late and party—the whole point of living at her age.
BAM!
“Mommy!” the little kid exclaims while a shudder passes through the aircraft.
The engine backfires again. What the hell?
“Miss?” the old guy in the back asks uncertainly.
Megan shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly and replies with an airy “Just a little backfire” to shut the guy up. Then she digs into her foggy mind, struggling to remember what she knows about backfires. It’s been forever since flight school and all the boring shit about stuff like this.
Megan’s stomach lurches when the engine coughs and dies with a final convulsive shudder. What the hell do I do now?
From the back comes a screeching “Mommeeee!”
“That’s enough, Pumpkin,” the man in back tells his grandson in a soothing voice. “Let’s get you strapped in.”
“No, Grandpa!”
“Shush, sweetheart,” he purrs to the kid. “Let the pilot do her job.”
Bless you, Gramps, Megan thinks gratefully. Okay, so now what? She runs her eyes over the bank of gauges and dials on the khaki-colored instrument panel in front of her. Altitude 3,105 feet. Airspeed seventy-three knots. Okay. She has a little time to work things out.
The mother and kid start whimpering while Megan tries to organize her thoughts.
Restart? Yes. There’s a checklist for that. Her eyes dart around the cockpit. Where the hell is it? There’s plenty of crap tucked away here and there but no sign of the engine-restart checklist. Okay, then. How hard can it be? She fiddles to reset the fuel mixture, hopefully to the correct mix. Then she cranks the ignition switch and pushes the throttle forward. Nothing. She tweaks the fuel mix and tries again. Still nothing. Shit!
“Shouldn’t we turn back, Miss?” the old guy asks.
Not a bad idea at all, Megan thinks as she gazes through the windscreen at the flat blue expanse of Lake Michigan stretching away into the distance. It’s strange and unnerving to see the scimitar propeller blades locked into place at eleven, three, and seven o’clock. Something about their appearance bothers her, but whatever it is remains just out of reach. Whatever. It’s probably just seeing them stopped in flight. She relaxes her death grip on the control wheel while struggling to recall something that might get her out of this mess. At least I’m flying a Cessna, she thinks. Cessnas glide pretty far. How far? They’d joked at school that a small aircraft would glide pretty much forever without power, but the 210N is bigger than the pissy little planes they’d trained on at school. It wouldn’t glide forever, but she had time. They couldn’t be more than a minute into the emergency.
“I’m scared, Mommy!”
“Turn back!” the woman in the back shouts. That sets the kid to wailing again.
Megan glances in the mirror at the kid’s tear-stained face and his mother’s enormous, panicked eyes, then tunes them out while she studies the airspeed and altitude indicators: 2,800 feet; sixty-eight knots? Already? What the hell was the sink rate of this damned plane? Megan tries to work out her next steps, but nothing comes to mind. She squeezes her eyes shut and fights to control the rapid, shallow breathing that presages one of her panic attacks. How the hell had she gotten herself into this mess? Flying was fun but she hadn’t bargained on a morning like this. Her uncle greasing the palm of a pliable flight instructor had seemed like an inspired move when she struggled a bit to master the 210N rating qualifications, but it wasn’t looking like such a good idea at the moment. Sure, she can fly well enough, but this is a bit more than she can handle with her limited experience—especially while severely hungover.
Fragments of her training finally float into her mind. She takes a deep, cleansing breath and lets it out slowly, taking stock of the situation and tapping the tips of her French-manicured fingernails on the edge of the wheel as she thinks. The first thing she needs to do is get the damned plane headed back toward Chicago. She’s only what—a mile offshore? Maybe two?
“Miss?” the man in the back ventures. “Maybe we should radio for assistance?”
The radio can’t help them now. It’s up to her. “I’ve been gathering my thoughts,” she tells Grandpa in a bid to shut him up. Her eyes drift across the instrument panel. Fifty-eight knots, 2,200 feet? What the hell is going on? They aren’t going anywhere if she keeps losing height and speed at this rate. The altimeter drops to 2,100 feet, and another knot bleeds off their airspeed in the time it takes her to process the thought. Should she radio for help? And look like an ass?No.
“Turning back now,” she mutters over her shoulder as she banks the Cessna into a tight 180-degree left turn to get back to safety. If the damned plane isn’t going to fly, she needs to get closer to shore before she sets it down in the water. She’ll be okay then—she was on swim team in high school.
“Miss!”
“Mommy!”
Megan doesn’t register the panicked chaos in the back seat as the wing loses lift and her aircraft drops nose first out of the turn. She’s now fully absorbed in her own horror as the surface of Lake Michigan fills the windscreen of the plummeting Cessna.
Fuel starvation? Megan wonders as she finally starts to make sense out of what’s happening. No fuel reaching the engine would explain things. Did I bleed the tanks? She doesn’t remember, but she suddenly realizes that she didn’t feather the prop after it shut down. That’s what bothered her when she was looking at the blades. With the flat surface square against the wind instead of turned edge on, they’d been acting like a speed break. Then she notices the Gear Down indicator light glowing green by her right knee and the landing-gear handle locked in the down position. She even forgot to raise the landing gear after taking off. No wonder the damned plane was sinking like a stone when it should have been gliding. Her final mistake was not using the rudder to make a longer, flat turn back to shore to preserve lift under the wing.
Megan adds her own screams to those coming from the backseat. She pins the wheel to her chest in a futile bid to defy the laws of gravity for the thirty seconds it takes the Windy City Sky Tours September eighth morning flight to complete its death dive. As they plunge into the cold depths of Lake Michigan, Megan finds the silence she’s been craving over the final fifteen minutes of her young life.
CHAPTER 2
“Damn it!” I mutter as I lose yet another game of computer solitaire in my executive office at the oh-so-very prestigious law firm of Brooks and Valenti, a fifty/fifty partnership I own with Penelope Brooks. I think more than a few people familiar with the firm refer to us as Brooks and Dum; maybe they think we’re the country-and-western duo Brooks and Dunn? Whatever. I roll my faux leather executive chair across the bruised tile floor toward my office door, a classic wooden one with a frosted glass insert. A cheesy fake brass plaque glued on the outside surface announces that this is the office of one Tony Valenti, Partner.
“Any sign of my one o’clock?” I shout to our receptionist/legal assistant/paralegal/office mother, Joan Brooks. She’s Penelope’s mother, a homey former Midwestern farmwife with a biting sense of humor she generally keeps hidden behind a taciturn demeanor.
Joan shakes her head and scowls at me. “Decorum, young man! This is a law office.”
That’s right. Shouting is frowned upon in the hallowed halls of Brooks and Valenti.
“What she said!” Penelope hollers from the slightly larger executive suite beside mine. Her office is twelve feet by twelve feet. Mine is twelve feet by eleven feet, six inches… and yes, I have measured. Her office is also quieter, not sharing a common wall with the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant next door.
I roll my chair back to my naturally distressed oak desk to start a new game.
We’re not really the two-bit, low-rent law firm we appear to be in our current premises. We’re on day sixty-three in our temporary 1960s-era strip-mall digs while a contractor completes renovations on our permanent offices in a slightly more upscale heritage building a few blocks away in downtown Cedar Heights, a small suburb tucked just beyond the southwest corner of Chicago. Low rent is the point of being shoehorned into this dump. Oddly enough, the place is growing on me. It fits us: Brooks and Valenti—Lawyers to Little People and Lost Causes.
I’m delightedly dragging my fourth king into place when a discreet knock on my door interrupts my progress. I glance up to find Mama Brooks standing in the doorway.
She says, “Your one o’clock appointment is here.”
“Please inform Mr. Likens that I shall be with him presently.”
“Certainly, Mr. Valenti,” she replies in mock deference as she backs away.
I frown at my interrupted game—I might have won this one, damn it!—and unfold my lanky frame out of my chair. It would be extremely poor form to keep Mr. Likens waiting while I finish the game.
“How the hell are you, Billy?” I boom as I stride into the reception area, pluck my visitor off the ground, and give him a heartfelt hug while his feet dangle several inches off the floor. Billy is five foot eight or so of aircraft mechanic. I’m six foot five. I wrinkle my nose at the sickly-sweet scent of whatever new floral air freshener Joan has plugged in today to do battle with the cooking smells that permeate our office from our neighbor, The Golden Dragon. I prefer the smell of Chinese food to most of the scents Joan tries to smother it with.
“Put me down!” Billy whispers furiously. “You know I hate it when you do this.”
“I can’t help myself,” I say with a laugh as I set him down. “You’re just so darned cute!”
Billy, the baby brother of the probable love of my life, Melanie Likens, blushes like a little beef tomato. It looks adorable on his cherubic face, which still sports a little baby fat in the cheeks at forty-three or whatever age he is now. I’ve been picking him up since he was nine or ten years old. It’s been pissing him off since he was eleven or twelve. His dark, curly hair echoes my own, albeit without the touch of gray I’m developing. That said, when his baseball cap is off—which isn’t often—his mane has started to show the first hint of receding. He’s dressed up for his visit. New blue jeans, a dark-blue Chicago Cubs windbreaker over a Cubs polo shirt, and hiking boots. His customary attire is ratty jeans or sweatpants, logoed T-shirts, and sneakers.
Something in the blue eyes set into his angelic face gives me pause. Real anger over being manhandled? Nope. I see worry on Billy’s face. Maybe even fear. I wrap an arm around his shoulders and walk him into my office, where I close the door and wave him toward a worn chrome-and-fabric stacking chair positioned in front of my desk. We drop into our assigned seats and stare at each other.
“What’s up?” I ask.
Billy doesn’t seem to know where to begin.
“Have you had lunch yet?” I ask. “I haven’t eaten.”
“Too nervous to eat, but you go ahead,” he mutters. Spoken like a true lunch-bucket guy who brings his midday meal to work every morning.
Me? I don’t even own a lunch box. “We attorneys generally dine out with clients.”
Billy looks at me uncertainly. My sparkling wit doesn’t seem to be putting him at ease.
“Sorry for the jackass humor,” I add with a frown.
He waves the apology aside.
“Seriously though, it’s after one o’clock and I haven’t eaten,” I continue. “There’s a sandwich place down the block. We can talk there if you don’t mind.”
He nods and gets to his feet, tucking a manila envelope into the pocket of his jacket. I hadn’t noticed it. Maybe he’s actually here on a legal matter? I figured he was just dropping by to bullshit for a bit. We’ve been getting together to do so every couple of months since I moved back to Cedar Heights a year ago.
We stick to small talk while briskly covering the two blocks to the imaginatively named The Sandwich Emporium, which is located in a converted 1920s-era bungalow. I open the door for Billy and inhale deeply of the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread. I’m disappointed that the co-owner who usually greets guests is conspicuously absent. Maiko is a big part of the attraction of coming here. Day off, I guess. We cross the black-and-white checkerboard floor to a little counter topped with a very old-style cash register. After ordering a pair of eight-inch Italian grinder sandwiches, a couple of kosher dill pickles, and two glasses of whatever beer is on tap, we sit on a pair of unbalanced chairs at a wobbly Formica-topped table set against a wall. We talk about his kids while we wait for our food. I pick it up when it’s ready, pay, and carry it back to the table.
When Billy pulls out his wallet, I hold up a hand, grin, and wave him off. “I can’t accept, pal. If, as I suspect, you’ve come to avail yourself of my legal expertise, the cost of this meal will end up on your bill.”
He shakes his head and chuckles. “You’re in fine spirits today. Working in a run-down noir law office seems to agree with you.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Noir… that’s good. We think of it as a dump. Noir is much better!”
His expression turns serious as he pulls the manila envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Actually, I am here for legal help.”
I don’t like the fear and worry radiating off my friend. I promised his sister before she died that I would keep an eye out for her baby brother. He’d run a little wild in his midteens but sorted himself out on the baseball diamond as one of the top junior ballplayers in Chicagoland. When his Major League Baseball dreams petered out, he settled down and started a family. My job is to make sure he doesn’t backslide. I’ve always called him on Mel’s birthday to keep in touch. Back in the days when I lived in Atlanta, I made a point of hooking up with Billy for lunch or a beer at least once a year when I was in Chicago. It sounds as if I’m about to be called upon to keep my promise to Mel.
“Tell you what, Billy. Let’s eat and finish our beer, then I’m yours all afternoon to talk about whatever you’ve come to discuss. Okay?”
He nods, lays the envelope down alongside his paper plate, and says, “Fair enough.” Then he digs into his sandwich with gusto.
I join in, downing a few mouthfuls of sandwich and quaffing half my beer before my eyes focus on Billy’s envelope. It’s addressed to his company, R & B Ramp Services, but it’s the return address that horrifies me. The envelope is from Butterworth Cole, a prestigious legal behemoth with which Penelope and I have some complicated history. Butterworth Cole doesn’t piss around with legal issues unless there’s big money involved. Billy doesn’t have big bucks. I can’t imagine his partner, Rick Hogan, is any better off. Ergo, they’re mixed up with someone who can afford the services of Butterworth Cole. I can’t think of a way this spells anything but trouble.
A sense of foreboding suddenly curbs my appetite, but I make myself down another couple of bites while Billy polishes off his sandwich and pickle. Might as well let him enjoy the meal before we get down to business.
“Glad you made me eat,” Billy says as he pushes his plate aside. He wipes his lips and chin with a couple of paper napkins. “That was good.”
“Best sandwiches in Chicagoland!” I exclaim, purloining The Sandwich Emporium’s tagline. Some of the sloppiest sandwiches, too. I’ve been to the dry cleaner a few times after spilling food and/or sauce on my suits and ties. I’m not always the tidiest guy when it comes to eating, but I’ve managed to get through today’s lunch without a mishap.
Billy’s expression sobers when he picks up the manila envelope, cracks open the flap, and pulls out a sheaf of papers that I, in all my glorious legal expertise, instantly recognize as lawsuit paperwork. I’m distressed to spot R & B Ramp Services among a laundry list of defendants. I look up to meet Billy’s eyes and wait.
“Did you hear about the tour plane that crashed into Lake Michigan the morning after Labor Day?” he asks.
“Congressman’s wife and parents?”
“He’s actually a senator named Evan Milton, but yeah. His wife and son died. Parents, too.”
The story swims into focus. A tour plane had inexplicably landed nose first in Lake Michigan. Nobody swam away. “R & B is involved?”
“We did their maintenance,” he replies, then lifts a corner of the paperwork with his pinky finger. “This legal stuff is way over my head. Fortunately, Windy City’s owners have plenty of money.”
“Windy City? What’s that?”
“The owners of the plane. They’ve set up a meeting with me and Rick to go over this thing.”
“Who are these people?” I ask. “Where does their money come from? At $100 bucks per trip or whatever tour operators charge, I can’t imagine anyone is getting rich from the air-tourism business.”
“Windy City is owned by some rich kids who work at the Board of Trade. The air-tour gig is a sideline. I figure they want a tax write-off and access to their own plane whenever they want it. One of them goes to football games at his alma mater, another goes on weekend jaunts to shop.”
Alarm bells are going off all over the place. “And these nice people are anxious to help you and Rick, huh?” Billy gives me an uncertain look as I fold the legal papers back into the manila envelope, pocket it, and get to my feet. “I’m glad you brought this to me. Let’s go back to the office and kick it around with Penelope. She’s the brains of our little operation.”
We chat about our kids on the walk back to the office.
“I’ll pay you for your time,” Billy says while I hold the outside door open.
That’s kind of funny, I think as he walks past a baby-blue copy-paper notice taped to the wall immediately beneath our firm’s temporary sign. An excerpt from Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” that adorns the pedestal base of the Statue of Liberty is printed on the page:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
That pretty much spells out the mission statement of Brooks and Valenti. The poor creatures referenced in the poem constitute far too much of our client base. Billy is a good fit for our firm—someone in no position to pay us anything near what a legal battle with Butterworth Cole is likely to cost.
“I mean it, we’ll pay you for your time,” Billy reiterates as we enter Joan’s cramped reception area.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll work something out,” I say as I knock on my partner’s open door and poke my head in.
“Work what out?” Penelope asks, then sits up straighter when she sees Billy easing in behind me. “Sorry, I didn’t realize we had company.” She smiles, gets to her feet, and extends a hand to Billy. “Penelope Brooks.”
“Billy Likens,” he says as they exchange a crisp handshake.
Penelope waves us into her visitor chairs and meets my gaze. “Business?”
I nod.
She points at the office door. “Get that?”
I reach back to push the door closed, then place the Butterworth Cole envelope into her outstretched hand without saying a word. We sit quietly while she reads. Penelope’s a wholesome and athletic Kansas country girl with shoulder-length brown hair cut with bangs across her forehead. She stands barely above five feet tall and is a remarkable reproduction of her mother, right down to the hairstyle. She’d been drawn to the law by her admiration of a grandfather who was elected local judge after their family hardware store had been put out of business by Walmart coming to town. Penelope loved how he did the job—“armed with a bushel of common sense and integrity but not a law degree.” He inspired her to go to law school. Penelope’s mother had worked in her father’s judge’s chambers after the kids were in school, developing the skills she now employs on our behalf. Joan has been widowed for something over two years. Filling her empty days with us seems to be good therapy.
Penelope lifts her enormous chocolate eyes to us, bounces her eyebrows, and whistles softly. “They’re looking for quite a payout.”
I’ll say. Twenty million dollars is a fair chunk of change.
“I assume you’re one of the defendants?” she asks Billy.
“R & B Ramp Services.”
“Who are the rest of these folks?”
“Windy City Sky Tours owned the plane,” he replies. “We serviced it.”
“And the lawsuit names everyone else who might have touched the plane in passing any time over the past few years?” Penelope asks drolly.
“Pretty much,” Billy replies with a chuckle.
She thinks for a moment. “What does the NTSB say?”
The National Transportation Safety Board investigates aviation accidents, among other things. It never ceases to amaze me that she knows things like this off the top of her head.
Billy shrugs. “They’re investigating. It’ll probably be a few months before they reach any conclusions.”
Penelope leans back while her eyes drift to the ceiling. It’s what she does when chasing a thought or a bit of information that’s just out of reach. My eyes follow, and I watch with interest as a particularly large dust mote breaks free from an old fluorescent overhead light fixture and floats down to land on one of my shirt sleeves.
“Haven’t they been giving public updates?” Penelope asks as I flick the speck of dust aside.
“Just the facts, madam,” Billy says with a goofy little smile he flashes whenever he thinks he’s being clever. In this case, he’s parroting Dan Aykroyd’s Detective Joe Friday in a 1980s motion-picture parody of the classic old television series Dragnet. How in hell Mel indulged Billy by watching that movie with him a thousand times is beyond me. I mean, the movie was okay, but how many times? But that was Mel—anything for her baby brother. His eyes cut to mine to make sure I didn’t miss his witty moment. I reply with an indulgent eye roll.
Penelope’s eyes pass between us before she purses her lips, drops her head, and continues reading. When she finishes, she tosses the paperwork on the desk. “They’re fishing.”
That they are. The lawsuit has no particular focus. Instead, it throws a wide blanket over every potential defendant they can think of and makes every conceivable claim of negligence and malfeasance… and then a few more.
“Butterworth Cole is staking its claim as lawyers for the plaintiffs,” I tell Billy.
“What does that mean?”
“They’re pissing on the case to mark it as their territory in hopes the family won’t look elsewhere for representation.”
“Don’t lose any sleep over it for now,” Penelope tells Billy.
“I’m plenty worried,” he says with a frown. “How long will this last? A couple of months?”
“No,” Penelope replies. “Cases like this last months, maybe even a year or more.”
“But it’s only been a month since the crash,” Billy says. “They seem to be moving plenty fast.”
“Like I said,” I say. “They’re marking their territory. With that accomplished, things will slow down. Butterworth Cole will drag things out as long as they can to milk their client for every possible billing hour.”
Penelope tilts her head to the side and studies Billy. “How long have you been working with these Windy City people?”
“A little over a year now,” he replies.
“Did you know the pilot?”
“Megan Walton. I was introduced when she started, but we didn’t get to know her. The pilot turnover at Windy City is atrocious. As Rick says, ‘If they paid their pilots more than a couple of bucks above the going hourly rate for flipping burgers, maybe they’d stay longer than a month or two.’”
“Who’s Rick?” Penelope asks.
“Rick Hogan, my partner at R & B. He was never comfortable with Megan flying the Cessna and wondered if she was properly qualified. That question gnawed at me from the day she arrived, never more so than on that morning.”
Penelope cocks an eyebrow. “Tell us about Megan.”
Billy frowns. “She’s Jonathan Walton’s niece.”
“Who’s Jonathan Walton?” she asks.
“One of the Windy City owners. He seems to be the guy in charge.”
Penelope nods. “Okay. So, back to Megan. Why was Rick concerned?”
“She barely looks—looked—old enough to have a driver’s license. We wondered how she built enough flight hours to qualify for the gig at Windy City.”
Penelope knits her eyebrows together. “She had her pilot’s license, right?”
“Yeah, and she was rated for the 210.”
“So, why were you concerned?”
“The 210 has retractable landing gear and other complexities that necessitate more than basic private piloting skills. It demands an aviator with experience, not someone who happens to look ravishing in aviator glasses and tight clothes.”
Penelope’s eyes narrow. “That sounds a little sexist.”
Billy shrugs. “That’s not how I meant it, Penelope. The family connection concerned me, and Megan was very much a ‘look at me!’ kind of gal—hard to take seriously. It was so typical of Windy City to exploit the looks of their employees to promote business. All their pilots look good—guys and gals. Anyway, the owners seem much more focused on appearances and marketing than safety. Even before the accident, we decided not to re-up the contract when it comes up for renewal.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Too much trouble. I’m tired of fighting with the cheap bastards to spring for the money to keep their planes airworthy.”
“How long had this Megan been around?” I ask Billy.
His brow furrows while he thinks. “Coupla months, maybe three?”
Not long, then. I follow up with “What happened that morning to concern you?”
“We were on the ramp next to her while she prepped the Cessna,” Billy replies with a faraway look. “When she started to taxi, I realized that I hadn’t seen her bleed the fuel tanks. Neither had Rick, so I ran after her, trying to get her attention so I could make sure she had done it. If she hadn’t, we could do it before she took off.”
“This might be a dumb question, but I don’t know what bleeding the tanks means,” Penelope says.
“You want to make sure you’ve worked any air bubbles out of the fuel tanks before flying,” Billy explains. “The last thing a pilot needs is to have an air pocket block a fuel line in flight.”
I think of air in the fuel lines of lawn mowers and such. “No gas gets to the engine?”
“That’s right.”
“How long does the problem last?” Penelope asks.
Billy meets her gaze. “Until the pilot manages to glide to a landing or the plane crashes.”
Penelope winces. “Is that what you think happened?”
“Could be, but nobody knows,” Billy replies. “I’m sure the NTSB will look into it.” Then he taps a finger on the paperwork he brought in. “I don’t get this lawsuit, guys. Shouldn’t it wait until the NTSB finishes investigating?”
“Welcome into the pool with the legal sharks, pal,” I mutter.
“This isn’t exactly our area of expertise, Mr. Likens,” Penelope says.
“Billy, please.”
Penelope smiles. “Billy it is. Are you sure you want us to represent you in this matter? We could do a little research and recommend a firm with more experience in air accidents.”
Billy looks at me and shakes his head. “Mel trusted you. I trust you. I watched your dad’s trial and that business with the village where you saved Liberty Street from the wrecking ball. You folks are big time!” he concludes with a grin.
“Big time, my ass,” I say with a chuckle. He’s referring to the one and only criminal trial I’ve been involved in, and what was essentially a zoning battle with a village of several thousand people. Both had gotten a little press about a gazillion media cycles ago.
Penelope smiles at Billy. “Guess we’ve got a deal.”
Bless her. No questions about billing, no equivocation whatsoever, just “How can we help?” This is why our firm’s monthly billings generally cover the rent with just enough left over to keep the partners in mac and cheese.
Billy tells her about the Windy City invitation to drop by to discuss things, including a brief explanation of what he knows about the owners.
Penelope’s eyes cut to mine. She doesn’t seem to like the idea any more than I do. She cups her chin in her hand and taps the end of her index finger on the tip of her button nose while she ponders the situation, then says, “I don’t like the idea of you meeting with the Windy City people.”
“At least not by yourself,” I add.
Penelope dons a half smile and shoots Billy a sideways glance. “Uh-oh. That’s his ‘Scheming Valenti’ tone of voice.”
I feign an indignant expression. “Me? A schemer? Maybe I plan ahead a little now and then. That’s a crime?”
“Come on,” Penelope says with a soft chuckle. “Out with it, partner. What have you got in mind?”
“An observant fly on the wall in that meeting might learn quite a bit.”
Penelope’s eyes twinkle. “Would this fly on the wall happen to go by the name of Tony Valenti?”
I wink at Billy. “Behold the legal and feminine intuition of my partner, Billy, my boy. You’re in good hands.”
Penelope may be smiling as she chuckles and shakes her head, but her eyes are wary as she looks at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You make for a pretty big fly.”
She has a point. There aren’t many flies my size buzzing around town, not even in a city the size of Chicago.
“You’re pretty recognizable these days, too,” Penelope adds.
I shrug. Since the aforementioned murder trial and village squabble ended, I may as well be the Invisible Man. All that was months and months ago—ancient history in today’s media landscape. Besides, Billy’s would-be benefactors are Board of Trade creatures. “I doubt those people watch much news beyond the market reports.”
“But they may recognize you,” she cautions.
“I doubt they’ll shoot if they do.”
Billy’s eyes have been tracking between Penelope and me as we’ve batted our ideas back and forth. His expression lightens and his eyes settle on mine when understanding finally dawns. “You’re coming with us?”
Well, that hopeful expression settles things, doesn’t it? I can’t say no to that face, which is so similar to Mel’s. I reach over and squeeze his shoulder. “We can’t be sending an innocent little Christian boy like you off to the Board of Trade Colosseum to face those Chicago Loop lions all by yourself, can we?”
Billy grins. Penelope looks mildly skeptical. I belatedly wonder what the hell I’m getting us into.
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