“Got time to come pay a visit to Griffinair with me?” asked Maclean as they left the Kirsten building.
“Love to. I’ve got a class to teach at two o’clock. Can you get me back here by then?”
“I might have to embarrass you by putting the siren and flashers on, but sure, I think that can be arranged,” said Maclean. “Now I’d like to do a web search on the company before we talk to them.”
“Want to use the computer in my office?”
“We can check it out on my iPad on the way there, if you don’t mind doing the honors. It’ll save us some time, help make sure I get you back here on schedule.”
Within ten minutes, they were headed down Interstate 5, and Verraday had read Maclean a Wikipedia entry on the history of Griffinair as well as several articles about the company in aviation magazines. All of them conveyed the same story that Professor Lowenstein had told them. One community paper contained a paid obituary notice for Fred Griffin, son of the founder. It was written by Fred’s son, Jason. It did not reveal the cause of death, but suggested that donations could be directed toward a local mental health organization.
By the time they had exhausted the Google entries for Griffinair, they were cruising along Perimeter Road at King County International Airport, still referred to by the locals as Boeing Field. Built in the 1920s, it had since been eclipsed by the larger and newer Sea-Tac Airport and nowadays was used mainly for cargo operations, maintenance, and flight-testing.
Maclean spotted a hangar with a Griffinair logo on it, which had been updated from the midcentury crest on the uniform pin to a sleek, stylized emblem. Maclean pulled the Interceptor up beside it. The hangar door was open just enough for Maclean and Verraday to step through into the cavernous interior. As their eyes adjusted to the murky light, they saw a twin-engine commuter plane and a small executive jet parked inside. The door of the commuter plane was open, and an access panel under the crew compartment had been removed. From somewhere inside the plane, they heard the whine of an impact wrench.
At the back of the hangar, a door was ajar, allowing a single shaft of light to escape into the gloom. It appeared to be an office area. Verraday now noticed that there was a vintage car parked at the back of the hangar. As he got closer, he recognized the lines as belonging to a 1968 Dodge Charger, highly coveted by collectors. The hood was open, revealing a hulking engine that Verraday could identify because of the unusual way that the spark plug wires came up through the valve covers.
Verraday whistled low under his breath. “Wow, a vintage Dodge Charger with a Hemi. That’s one expensive piece of machinery,” he commented to Maclean.
She smiled to see him genuinely awestruck. Just then a man stuck his head out of the office. He was partially silhouetted by the office light and was difficult to make out, but they could see that he was muscular and appeared to be in his late twenties.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his tone solicitous.
“Let me take this for a sec,” Verraday whispered to Maclean.
“Just admiring your Charger,” said Verraday. “I’m guessing by the grille it’s a ’68?”
“Sure is,” said the young man proudly as he approached them. “First year of production for that body type.”
“Looks like a 426 Hemi,” said Verraday.
The man seemed surprised but pleased that a stranger recognized it. “That’s exactly what it is. Four hundred and twenty-five horsepower, straight out of the factory. Zero to sixty in four-point-seven seconds. Fifty years old, and it’ll still blow the doors off a Ferrari.”
“That’s true,” agreed Verraday. “A Charger with a 426 Hemi can take just about anything, even off the showroom floor.”
“You seem to know your Mopars,” said the man.
“My dad had a 1967 Belvedere. Same platform. Except his had a 318. He couldn’t afford the Hemi.”
“There aren’t many of them around, that’s for sure. So what can I do for you folks?”
“I’m looking for Jason Griffin,” said Maclean.
“Well, you’re looking at him,” replied the young man confidently.
A loud servo whine now joined the clatter of the impact wrench, drowning out every other sound in the hangar.
Jason grimaced in mock agony. “Why don’t you come into my office so we don’t have to shout,” he shouted, gesturing toward the open door.
Maclean and Verraday followed him toward the office at the back of the hangar.
“Watch your step, folks. I’ve got the lights off because we’re only doing inside work on that one plane right now. This place sucks up electricity like Las Vegas when the overheads are on.”
Verraday and Maclean traded a look as they passed a machine shop area where a six-by-eight-foot industrial bath stood. He noticed them looking.
“That’s where we repair and manufacture replacement parts. We’ve got lathes and drill presses to make any mechanical part we could need.”
It was evidently a well-practiced sales pitch, and despite having to almost bellow over the racket coming from the commuter plane, the young man was clearly proud of his operation.
“That tank you see is for flushing out and testing radiators. Most of the smaller cargo and commuter operations still run prop planes. Overheating is the number one cause of engine failure. And without an engine, you’re not going to stay up there for very long,” he said, jerking his thumb skyward. “So you’ve got to take good care of the cooling systems.”
When they reached the office, he stood aside and with a courtly gesture, motioned for them to enter. He followed them in and closed the heavy door behind them. Instantly, the machinery noise became virtually inaudible. He saw the look of surprise on their faces.
“That’s better, eh?” he said, smiling. “I spend sixty or seventy hours a week running this place, and believe me, it gets tiring listening to all that racket. That’s why the office is professionally soundproofed, so I don’t lose my hearing and my marbles by the end of the week.”
In contrast to the cavernous maintenance area, the office was well-lit, stylish, and comfortable. Several expensively framed aviation photos hung on the walls. Verraday noticed that in two of them, which were black and white and seemed to date from the 1940s, the same man was looking out the cockpit window of two different airplanes.
“Great pictures,” said Verraday. “World War II?”
“Yes,” replied Jason. “That’s my grandfather, Dick Griffin. He founded this company. He flew a B-17 Flying Fortress with the Eighth Air Force, based in England. That’s it in the picture on the left. He did his tour of duty—twenty-five bombing missions over Germany—flying through flak and fighters and anything else the Nazis could throw at him. Then instead of going home, he transferred to Air Transport Command and flew the plane in that other picture.”
“Looks like a C-47,” said Verraday.
“That’s exactly what it is,” said Jason. “So you know about planes as well as cars.”
“Just a little bit,” said Verraday. “My dad was a machinist at Boeing up until he retired.”
Verraday noticed another framed image, this one of Jason Griffin, fairly recently, standing on the pontoon of a small floatplane with a Griffinair logo on it. In another frame was a section front from the Seattle Times, showing a chubby adolescent boy behind the controls of a plane and a woman in her thirties sitting in the seat beside him.
“Who’s that?” asked Verraday.
“That’s me when I was twelve,” replied Jason. “And my mom.”
Verraday leaned in to read the text under the photo. “You set the world’s record for youngest solo flight in a twin-engine plane?”
“That’s correct,” said Jason, smiling. “It was a Beechcraft Super 18.”
He motioned them toward a couple of leather and stainless steel Wassily chairs. “Please, have a seat.” He took his own place in a black leather captain’s chair behind a large desk made from a single slab of mahogany. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Detective Constance Maclean from the Seattle Police Department. This is James Verraday. He’s a forensic psychologist working with me on a case.”
“Cool. If I can make a shameless plug for myself, my grandfather taught me some of his combat flying techniques for evading Zeros and Messerschmitts. I know how to stay out of sight, so moving ground targets like speeders or drug boats wouldn’t even know I was there. Then when you’re ready to pounce, boom! I’d be right on ’em. So if it’s aerial surveillance you need, I’m your man, okay? I’ll beat anybody else’s price, and I’ll outfly ’em too. Guaranteed.”
“Thank you,” said Maclean, fighting to suppress a laugh and hide her befuddlement over this man-child, who obviously had a lot of technical skill but seemed arrested in early adolescence. “I’ll keep it in mind, but today we’re actually here to discuss something else.”
“Not sure how I can help, but I’ll try,” said Jason affably.
“We can start here,” said Maclean.
She pulled out a photo of Helen Dale that had been cropped to omit the reflection of the man in the window as well as the details of the cockpit controls.
“This young woman is wearing what I understand is a Griffinair flight attendant’s uniform. Can you tell us who she is?”
“Sorry, no idea.”
“She’s not a flight attendant here?”
“No,” said Jason, “it’s been ages since we’ve had flight attendants. Like literally not since I was a kid. I was only about twelve when the last flight attendants worked here, so I wouldn’t remember any of them. That’s got to be a really old photo.”
“Actually, it was taken two days ago. The woman’s name is Helen Dale. Any idea why she’s wearing one of your airline’s uniforms?”
“I can’t speak for her, but it’s common knowledge in the aviation industry that flight attendant uniforms are a hot item in the vintage clothing business and the black market. Not to be crude about it, but there are entire Japanese porn sites devoted to stewardess erotica. Japan Airlines actually had to put serial numbers and tracking chips in their stewardess uniforms because so many of them were getting ‘lost’ and turning up in hard-core movies and upscale brothels. A lot of girls get really turned on by wearing them, and a lot of guys get turned on by seeing girls in them.”
“I guess so,” said Maclean, “because this guy looks pretty turned on. Any idea who he is?”
Maclean held out the uncropped version of the photograph, showing not only the aircraft cockpit but also the reflection of the man’s face in the window.
“Wow, that’s pretty hard to make out. I’m not sure.”
Verraday watched Jason closely. Maclean glanced at Verraday, caught an almost imperceptible flicker of something on his face, then leaned forward toward Jason.
“Mr. Griffin, that’s the cockpit of a Cessna Citation executive jet in this photo. I’m no aviation expert, but I see that you’ve got an executive jet parked out there too. If I go out there into your hangar and climb aboard that plane and see that the cockpit is the same, that will put me in a very suspicious frame of mind. And if I take this out to your shop and the rest of the airport and start asking people if they recognize this man, and he’s in any way connected with you, I will be very unhappy. Unless you tell me who he is right now.”
“Okay. I hear you. It’s hard to tell because of the lighting. But it could be Cody North. He’s an employee of mine.”
“Any idea why he’s with that girl in that plane?”
“Well, it looks to me like they were partying. I mean, if there’s one thing that turns people on more than flight attendant uniforms, it’s getting it on in airplanes. Otherwise there wouldn’t be such a thing as a Mile High Club, right?” Jason laughed easily. “If they were at twenty-thousand feet going four-hundred miles an hour, it would be an issue. But there’s no rule against partying in the cockpit when the plane’s parked in a hangar, so there’s no law being broken in this photo.”
“That’s true,” said Maclean. “There was no law being broken in this photo. But there was a law broken not long after it was taken.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“This young woman’s name was Helen Dale. She worked as a call girl under the alias of Destiny. And she was murdered just a few hours after she took this selfie.”
Jason leaned forward to take a closer look. “That’s terrible. She’s a nice-looking girl.”
“Was,” emphasized Maclean. “Was. She doesn’t look like this anymore. Her killer did a real number on her. Now, Helen was a close friend of this girl.”
She held out a photo of Rachel Friesen from the Assassin Girls website.
Jason examined the photo then shrugged blankly. “Never seen her before.”
“Her name is Rachel Friesen, and besides being a close associate of Helen Dale, she was also recently murdered,” said Maclean. “Now, since your employee was one of the last people to see Helen alive, we’d like to talk to him. And I’d also like to know why you lied to us about the woman in the photo.”
Jason dropped his facade. “I’m sorry. I lied because I hired her to work a party that I threw here for potential clients. I’m shifting the focus of the company toward executive jet charters. There are a lot of manufacturers here considering moving their operations to the Maquiladora region.”
“The Maquiladora?” asked Maclean.
“The Mexican free-trade zone, along the border. You wouldn’t believe how many companies are moving their manufacturing operations to Mexico. Hell, they’re even making all the Oreo cookies there now. The labor cost south of the border is ten cents on the dollar compared to here. My plan is to fly the CEOs down to Mexico, show them around, give them the magic carpet treatment. I do all the exploratory flights, and once they set up their businesses, I’ll provide an on-call shuttle service. I’ll be working all the time.”
“Good idea for a business,” said Verraday. “Too bad a lot of Americans will lose their jobs in the process.”
“Possibly, but it’ll save jobs right here. The jobs you’re talking about are gone whether I fly CEOs down to Mexico or somebody else does. Those people will have to learn to adapt, just like I’m adapting. That’s life. This company’s been on the ropes a few times. I’m the one pulling it out of the fire. But those senior executives won’t be too happy with me if they come to my party and the next thing you know, there are homicide detectives wanting to interview them about a prostitute being murdered.”
“Well, Mr. Griffin,” said Maclean. “Perhaps you could enlighten me as to why you hired a prostitute to work at your promotional party in the first place.”
“Like I said, a lot of these guys get super turned on by seeing a woman in a stewardess outfit. It’s a huge fantasy. I didn’t specifically hire her to sleep with anyone, but I wanted someone who would be cool wearing the uniform and wasn’t going to freak out if somebody got a little fresh with her. In fact, I paid her to flirt with them.”
“Just flirt?”
“I didn’t get into any details. I assumed that she knew her business.”
“When did she leave?”
“Around midnight.”
“Can you verify that?”
“Yes. I arranged a car to take her home afterwards.”
“Do you have a record of that?”
“Yes. It’s right here in the recent calls list of my phone.” Jason held out the phone, showing the number display. “See? Emerald City Limousines. I paid with Visa on the company card. I always keep the receipts. It’s in the filing cabinet right here, see?”
He slid the drawer open and, within a moment, produced the record. Maclean examined it. It appeared to be legitimate.
“Thank you, Mr. Griffin, I’ll check this later. Now walk me through what happened next.”
“The guests left shortly after that, then it was just Cody and me. I was pretty drunk by then, and so was Cody. So we left my car and the van here and I called a taxi. I dropped Cody off at his place on the way.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes, got the receipt for that too.”
Jason reached into the filing cabinet and showed the taxi receipt to Maclean.
“All right. Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Now I’d like to speak to Cody North.”
“Sure. I’ll go get him. That’s him working on the Dash 8 out there.”
“Do you have a PA system?” asked Maclean.
“Yes.”
“Then page him, please. I’d prefer if you don’t speak with him alone until after I’ve finished talking to him. And I’d like a list of all the guests who were here the night that Helen Dale was murdered.”
“There were a lot of people here,” said Jason. “And I think a lot of them will be upset if a detective shows up at their office, know what I mean?”
“You’ve got ’til nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” said Maclean. “Or you’ll be dealing with the vice squad as well as homicide. Now call Cody and then wait outside.”
* * *
Cody North sauntered into the office, looking pleased with himself as he wiped his sweaty brow with a rag before stuffing it into the hip pocket of his coveralls. He was short. About five foot eight, thought Verraday. But he had tried to compensate for it. He had bones tattooed onto the back of his hands, as well as the words “shock” and “awe” on the right and left palms respectively. Even in his mechanic’s uniform, it was apparent that he had a disproportionately well-developed upper body. His shoulders were bulked up, and his biceps pressed against his sleeves. Steroid user, thought Verraday.
Cody North paused when he saw Maclean and cocked his head slightly, appraising her. His leering gaze alighted momentarily on her eyes, then trolled down to her feet before scanning back up to her shoulders, assessing the loose strand of hair that Verraday had noticed by the fountain. Cody North took one last glance at Maclean’s breasts before meeting her eyes again.
“Cody North?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She pointed to a chair in the middle of the room. “Have a seat.”
North hesitated just long enough to show that he didn’t take her seriously, then complied.
“I’m Detective Maclean. Seattle PD. This is Dr. James Verraday. He’s a forensic psychologist working with me on this case.”
Cody looked at Verraday just long enough to give him a derisive smirk. “Headshrinker, huh? I don’t believe in any of that stuff. It’s all bull if you ask me.” Cody then returned his gaze to Maclean as if Verraday had ceased to exist.
“Well, I didn’t ask you,” said Maclean.
Cody North just shrugged. Verraday didn’t find the mechanic’s dismissive attitude toward him annoying. The fact that he treated Verraday like he was invisible was helpful, gave him a chance to study his subject more closely. North’s stray glances at Maclean’s anatomy were almost involuntary, some form of compulsion, thought Verraday. But they also seemed to be a kind of dominance display. Behind the greasy coveralls was an even greasier personality, someone who couldn’t help gawking and didn’t seem to care.
Maclean leaned down toward her briefcase to retrieve the photo of Helen Dale. She glanced up and saw Cody stealing a peek down her blouse. Verraday, whose karate technique was rusty but still effective, had a sudden impulse to backhand the mechanic and rattle his eyeballs into a more respectful line of sight.
Maclean adjusted her blouse in a covering gesture. Verraday wondered if it was a reflexive or conscious move. Verraday noticed that it had provoked another tiny smirk from Cody North. He seemed like the type who enjoyed intimidating and dominating women. But Maclean was unfazed.
She held up the uncropped version of Helen Dale’s cockpit selfie. “Is that your reflection in the window?”
“Yeah, that’s me. So what?”
“So what can you tell me about the deceased?”
“What do you mean, ‘the deceased’?”
“The young woman. Do you know what her name was?”
“Yeah. She said her name was Destiny.”
“Well, Mr. North, we have a big problem. Because you’re in this picture with her. And a few hours after it was taken, this young lady was murdered.”
“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?” asked Cody.
“You’re not under arrest,” said Maclean. “At this point, we’re interviewing you as a witness. That means you’re not entitled to a lawyer. Unless you’d prefer that I take you into custody, which is what I’ll do in about ten seconds if you don’t stop gawking and start talking. Got it, shitbird?”
Verraday saw a flash of fury in Cody North’s eyes. Steroid rage for sure, he thought. Cody’s jaw muscles tensed and his hands curled into fists. He looked like he might leap straight at Maclean. Verraday shifted forward, calculating the mechanic’s likely trajectory and deciding that if North raised his ass out of the chair so much as an inch in Maclean’s direction, he’d take him down with a roundhouse. Then North seemed to regain his composure. Either that or the fight had gone out of him. Cody North stared at his knees for a long moment, and when he finally looked back up, he didn’t undress Maclean with his eyes. He just frowned sourly.
“So what do you want?”
“Tell me what you know about the murder victim.”
“Not a lot. She was hired to entertain guests at a bash that Jason threw to butter up potential clients for his executive jet service.”
“And what exactly did this ‘buttering up’ entail?”
“Well, she mostly just moved through the crowd, greasing the wheels, you know? It was all men. Big-deal senior executive types. She chatted them up, flirted. Touched them a lot. Danced for them.”
“What kind of dancing?”
“Well, sort of burlesque, I guess you’d call it. Jason invited the guests into that executive jet out there, pumped music through the sound system. She came through the plane dressed in that stewardess outfit and did lap dances on the guys who wanted it. There was no shortage of takers.”
“Did you have a lap dance with her?”
“Yes.”
“Any other kind of relations?”
“Why?”
“I’m asking the questions here, Mr. North, not you.”
“Okay, yeah.”
“What?”
“Right after she took that picture, she closed the cockpit door and started grinding away on my lap. Then she undid my fly, reached in, and, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” said Maclean. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“Sure, she jerked me off. Said it was orders from the flight deck. I didn’t hear any complaints from her, that’s for sure. That broad liked the attention. Just ate it up.”
“And when did she leave?”
“The party ended pretty early—for a party, that is—because we had a plane to service first thing in the morning. She left around midnight, just before the guests started to go home.”
“And what mode of transportation did she use?”
“Jason got her a car. It came right up to the hangar door.”
“Did you see her get in?”
“Yeah. Everybody saw her get in and leave. Her exit would have been pretty hard to miss. She flashed her tits out the window just as the car was pulling away.”
“Was there anybody else in the car with her?”
“Other than the driver, no. Didn’t look like it.”
“What kind of a car was it?”
“A Lincoln Town Car. White.”
“When did you leave?”
“Not long after that.”
“No. Jason and I were both pretty wasted, so he called a cab. We left together, and he dropped me off at my place on the way back to his condo.”
“Mr. North, have you ever been convicted of sexual assault?”
“No.”
“Charged?”
“No.”
“Any other criminal convictions?”
“No.”
Cody was now shifting uneasily in his seat. He was beginning to perspire and Verraday could see that his breathing was shallow. Maclean was getting to him.
“All right. That’s it for now. But don’t go anywhere. I’m going to check your story out. I mean go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Depending on what I find out, I may want to bring you down to the station tomorrow morning for a longer interview.”
Cody North nodded. His eyes no longer wandered up Maclean’s calves and thighs, or probed the gaps in her blouse. They had nowhere to look but down.
* * *
“He’s hiding something. I’m sure of it,” said Verraday as they drove north on the I-5 back toward the campus.
“I think so too,” said Maclean. “I just don’t know what yet.”
“I also think he’s on steroids. Plus he’s got a lot of the classic behaviors of a sex offender. He couldn’t stop eyeing you up. It was almost involuntary. Partly sexual, partly dominance. He only stopped after you put him in his place. And if he acts like that with an authority figure who’s looking for a murder suspect, imagine what he’s like with a woman who’s in a vulnerable position.”
Maclean nodded. “First thing I’ll do after I drop you back at the university is to take a visit to that limo company, see if Jason and Cody’s story checks out and whether Helen Dale actually made it home. Then I’m going to run both their names. Find out whether they’re hiding anything.”
Verraday checked his watch and saw that it was getting perilously close to two PM. Maclean noticed him checking the time. She stepped on the accelerator and pulled into the fast lane, suddenly going fifteen miles an hour over the posted limit. Verraday gave her a sidelong glance.
“What? I promised I’d get you to your class on time, didn’t I?”
A few minutes later, she pulled the Interceptor up in front of Guthrie Hall. Verraday checked his watch again and saw that it was not quite two o’clock. She had managed to do it. He saw some of his students heading for the doorway. There was Koller, who would no doubt have something inane and annoying to say during class. Behind Koller was Jensen, wearing her usual frumpy sweater and baggy jeans. She spotted Verraday, smiled shyly at him then entered the building.
“Those are my students,” said Verraday. “I’d better roll.”
“I won’t keep you then. Okay if I call you at home later on with some updates?”
“Please do,” he said. “I’m going to the gym after class, but I should be finished with my workout and back home by six thirty.”