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“Nothing, I told you.” Cat tried to laugh off the questions that made her uncomfortable and glanced past him at the pickup idling a few feet away. The cowboy at the wheel impatiently gunned the motor. “You’d better go. I’ll let you know about the party Saturday night.”
“Do that.” Repp was almost curt with her, irritated by her stubborn refusal to admit anything was wrong when he knew damned well there was. He walked to the truck and swung onto the passenger seat. He didn’t look at her again until the truck was driving out of the yard. She was wandering aimlessly in the direction of the airstrip. Maybe she was still depressed over her mother’s death. It might account for her moodiness.
Cat hadn’t set out with the intention of going to the private airfield, but when she saw the hangar shed, she gravitated toward it, drawn by the memory of that night when the deed was supposedly done. A midday sun was broiling the flat stretch of earth, creating wavy heat tines on the hangar’s tin roof. The wind made the only sound, running across the ground and billowing the directional windsock.
When Cat wandered into the cool shade of the hangar, the peaceful quiet was broken by the clang of something metal being dropped. She froze. “Who’s there?” she demanded.
A head popped up from behind the cowling of the twin-engine airplane parked in the shed. Dyson’s pilot appeared nearly as startled as Cat. “Hello,” he said. “I didn’t hear you come.”
She ducked under a wing to walk around to his plane. “What are you doing?” she inquired curiously. A tool kit was at his feet, and grease-stained tan coveralls protected his clothes.
“Just checking the motor.” The blue-eyed man had the slim build of a man much younger than his forty-plus years. His business was flying and he took it seriously, giving the plane his attention even as he responded to her inquiry. “Stricklin didn’t think it sounded right when we flew in yesterday. He’s gotten downright nervous about safety—wants everything checked and double-checked. I guess he forgets I’m flying in this bird, too.”
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about. Maybe you could answer it.” Cat chewed hesitantly on her inner lip, trying to word her question cautiously. “After a plane’s crashed, how can they tell what caused it?”
“Well . . . they piece together the wreckage. A good mechanic can usually tell you what was damaged on impact and what probably malfunctioned before the crash, presuming the cause was mechanical.” He paused to wipe his hands on a rag before shutting the access door to the engine’s motor. “Now, you take your father’s plane crash, oil would have spewed everywhere when that line ruptured.”
“But . . . could they determine why the line broke?”
His eyebrows lifted at her question. He considered it a minute, then shrugged diffidently. “I suppose they could. But I don’t know what they’d accomplish by doing it unless they were checking to see if it was a factory defect or something like that.”
“Are you saying that once they find a cause they don’t investigate it further . . . unless they have reason to believe something else might be wrong?” A small frown made lines in her forehead.
“They make their decision on a collection of information. The wreckage, eyewitness accounts, and, in this case, your father could verify the sudden drop in oil pressure since he was piloting the plane.” He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s pretty well cut and dried what happened. Private planes go down all the time. It isn’t like a big airliner where a lot of lives are involved and liability has to be determined.”
“I see,” Cat murmured thoughtfully, then glanced at the man, smiling vaguely. “You’re right, of course.”
“Listen, I—” He was bothered by her questions about the plane crash, concerned that he hadn’t given her satisfactory assurances that the investigation had been handled properly.
“No, it’s okay,” she interrupted him. “I understand.”
He hesitated, studying her; then his attention fell to his dirty hands. “Guess I’d better wash up. I got that grimy oil under my fingernails. It really takes some digging to get them clean.”
A mental image flashed before her mind’s eye of Stricklin sitting in the study that night cleaning his fingernails . . . with a dirty knife! She had forgotten all about that until the pilot’s comment reminded her of it. It didn’t exactly prove anything, but still. . .
“See you later,” she said to the pilot and left the hangar, walking swiftly toward The Homestead.
There was no one about the front room when she entered the house; both Tara and the new housekeeper were occupied elsewhere. Cat slipped into the study, unseen, and closed the doors. She was determined to either prove or disprove her uncle’s suspicions about the cause of the crash and end this agonizing doubt once and for all. It took her several phone calls before she finally reached the man who’d been in charge of investigating her father’s plane crash.
“Yes, I remember the case.” He assured her of his familiarity with it. “We completed the investigation and we filed our final report a couple months ago. It was a mechanical failure, as I recall, a ruptured oil line.”
“But what caused it?” Her hand tightly gripped the receiver. Cat sensed the hesitation on the other end of the line. “Could you tell if someone had tampered with it—partially cut through it or something like that?”
“Well, I hardly think—” His tone of voice was attempting to dismiss the idea.
“Please,” Cat interrupted him before he could reject the possibility. “I have to know if that happened.”
“Do you know what you’re suggesting?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “That someone deliberately caused that plane to crash.”
“I tell you, Ty, I couldn’t be more pleased that we’ve all agreed on the same site,” Dyson declared as they gathered in the dining room to take their places for the evening meal. “Out of the possible locations we could have selected on that parcel, I believe we’ve picked the best for the new coal plant. We have a dependable water source right on the doorstep and a wide underseam of high-quality bituminous not a hundred yards away. In the first years, we can mine almost in a circle around the new plant. It will make for a highly efficient and economical operation, as well as a highly profitable one.”
“How soon do you anticipate generating an income from this?” Tara asked, then motioned to the housekeeper-maid to forgo the tasting of the white wine and fill the goblets around the table. She smiled at Ty, her dark eyes gleaming with pride and excitement for the further realization of her dreams.
“That’s the beauty of it.” Dyson was in ebullient spirits. “With our existing operation at the Stockman place, we have the men and machinery on hand to begin mining the coal as soon as we have access roads graded to the site. The coal plant itself will obviously require some construction time, but we’ll use the Stockman plant during the interim. The cash turnover will begin almost immediately.”
Cat had been listening to the business discussion with only half an ear, paying little attention to what was said. Her thoughts were preoccupied with the phone conversation she had had, as well as struggling against the prickling awareness of her dining companions. She reached for the linen cloth
