I USED TO KNOW HIM

CHAPTER ELEVEN

     Detective Lieutenant Callum Brice stood in the brush near the wrecked

aircraft, watching the men move about in the light of several spotlights

that had been set up by the National Guardsmen who had roped off the

area. The thick blackness of the surrounding forest, plus a glance at

his watch told him that dawn wasn't too far away. FAA investigator

Dickson, a thin, stringy ex-pilot stepped around the scrambled bits of

wreckage and offered a light to the dead cigarette in Callum's mouth.

"Thanks," Brice said and blew the smoke to the night. "What d'you make

of it, Mister Dickson?"

     Dickson shrugged and pushed his snap-brim hat back with a blunt

forefinger. "Dunno. It's pretty dark to see much, but it's no private

plane."

"Why do you say that?"

     "No wings, no tail assembly. Of course, it's hard to tell in the dark.

When it gets light enough, we'll know the story; but I don't know of any

private plane that looks like that one. Then too, the Army is holding

the newsboys at bay. I think those two government fellows are playing

this one close to their chests."

     Brice nodded and dragged on the cigarette, but he said nothing about the

speed of the thing. "Any bodies?"

Dickson shook his head. "The thing is pretty well burned, and the

bodies, if there are any to be found, could be all over the area. We did

find a kind of flying suit, though, badly burned and torn."

"Just the suit? No one in it?"

     Dickson looked perplexed. "Bothers you huh? Me too. I can't figure out

why a pilot would carry something like that as an extra. Oh, well, it'll

all come out when we really start investigating."

"How long does a thing like that take?"

     Dickson shrugged. "A couple of days, a week. Even a few months. It's

hard to say."

     Brice nodded, took a final drag on the cigarette and tossed it toward

the wreck, watching the red ash burst near the wreck. Dickson had

wandered off to the far side of the crash-made clearing. Hell, Brice

thought, I'd better get that butt. Leaving a thing like that around here

could get me in trouble. They'd think it was part of the crash.

     When he walked over to retrieve the butt, he saw the light from the

flood glinting on a small gold object. He picked it up and found that he

had someone's watch. The crystal had been smashed, likely in the crash,

and the hands were stopped at 4:15. The expansion band watch dispelled

his hunch that the pilot of the plane had been a Russian, or something;

it was a Bulova, and he didn't think Russians had them. But what cinched

the whole thing was on the underside of the face, in the light of the

spots, he could read: "To Nick, Love, Margret."

     And suddenly, it was there! He knew the watch. He knew it as well as he

knew his own. Hell, he had picked it up at the jeweller's shop in

Everett, two years before, when Margret hadn't been able to get into town

and wanted to surprise Nick with it! Stunned and puzzled, Brice dropped

the watch into his pocket and decided not to say anything to Cartwell

and Morgan. Maybe it would cost him, later, but he couldn't tell them -

not until he had a better picture of what the hell was going on.

     He lit another cigarette and stood there thinking about the watch. How

had it gotten here? Nick didn't know how to fly a plane, and even if he

had studied the art, could he fly an aircraft that cleared a speed of

two thousand miles per hour? Hell no! Nor had the watch been there, in

the weather, all this time.

     Of course, Nick could have hocked the damned thing in some town when he

needed money, and by some quirk of fate it had been brought back to the

same area it had left over a year before. That was possible, but Brice

didn't believe it. It just didn't fit.

"Seen enough?"

     Brice turned and saw Cartwell standing behind him. How long has he been

there, he wondered, and forced a grin. The stocky built blond grinned

back at him.

"Thought you might want a cup of coffee," he said.

"Where the hell will you get coffee out here?"

     Cartwell waved an arm toward the foot of the hills. "A farm down there.

They wake up early around here. Sam conned the farmer's wife into making

coffee for the boys. Want some?"

      "Might as well. We have a few minutes - in fact, we have a lot of time,

before daylight."

"Getting tired?" Cartwell asked, as they started down the hill past the

ring of soldiers.

"A little. More like anxious to find out what the tale is on that

wreck."

"You've been talking to Dickson, I see."

     Brice nodded. "Yeah. Well, one thing we know. It's apparently some kind

of experimental aircraft ... like a rocket, or something. And, if it

isn't one of ours...?" Brice left it hang and Cartwell didn't pick it up.

     For a few minutes they walked in silence through the dew splattered

forests, homing in on the glow of yellow lights that winked at them

through the branches. Finally, they reached the rutted, dirt road that

twisted along the streambed toward the framed shape of the farmhouse.

Cartwell broke the silence as they neared the place.

     "Don't talk much about the wreck around these people, Callum. They're

nice folks, but simple natured. They plant by the phases of the moon and

the biggest event in their lives is going to the state fair. They're

Lancaster Dutch, recently imported, and they believe in the hex signs

they painted on the barn."

Brice nodded. "Okay, John."