The Swallowtail Legacy 2, page 22
I climb onto the back of the Honda before I think too much about the fact that my ten-year-old brother is driving. “You’re sure you know how to drive this thing?”
“Duh. How do you think I got here? Put your feet on those black things. And hold on!” Before I even have a chance to wrap my good arm around his waist, though, he twists the accelerator. My arm cast bangs against my forehead and I almost fall off the back as we speed off.
“Be careful!” shouts Pip.
“I’m trying!” I say.
When Nate turns around to wave goodbye, he forgets that he’s holding onto the handlebars and we swerve almost into the ditch.
“Oops!” he says. “Sorry about that.”
“Do you know how to get there, up to Les’s dock?” I ask as we approach the Lake Road intersection. “Like, the fastest way?”
“Pip’s shortcut?”
“No! Do not take the shortcut!” Jumping over fallen trees and fences on Tinker, with Pip at the reins, is one thing. Attempting it on a motor scooter with Nate, who, as far as I know, has ridden it exactly once before, is a deal breaker for me. “Go left and then I’ll tell you when to turn again. Remember that grass road that goes up to Nadine’s?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Nate says.
The speedometer says we’re going thirty-five, but after months of nothing but bikes and golf carts, it feels a lot faster.
“Pretty nice lawn mower, huh?” he says over his shoulder.
“Where did you get this thing? Does Thomas know about it?”
“He knows I have it. It was in that old barn at Nadine’s. It used to belong to her friend, Kira, when they lived in Africa. Nobody used it for a looong time. I asked her if I could try to get it running, and she said yes.”
“How did you know how to…whatever?”
Nate shrugs. “I just do, I guess. Engines are easy. Nadine said there was nothing wrong with it. I watched a couple of YouTube videos, but mostly it just needed some cleaning.”
“And a spark plug,” I add. “You must be some kind of mechanical genius. I don’t know anything about that stuff.”
“It’s not that hard, really. There’s—”
“What about, you know, the law? Like, no cars or motorcycles, or even scooters, remember? And never mind that, you’re only ten years old!”
“Nadine says it’s okay to ride it as long as you don’t go on the roads. You have to stay on your own property,” he says.
“Um…Nate? We’re on a road.”
“Yeah, I know, but I finally got it running this morning and I couldn’t wait any longer to try it out.”
“So, Thomas doesn’t know you’re—”
“Uhhh, not really.”
“That’s what I thought. Turn there,” I say. “Right after that big maple tree.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
He slows and makes the turn, and then says, “Uh-oh.”
“What? Oh.” A hundred yards ahead of us is the Swallowtail Island Police golf cart with Officer Pawlowski at the wheel.
“What should I do?”
“Go. Fast. As fast as you can. Go around him before he has a chance to—”
“To what? Shoot us?”
“Geez, you sound just like Pip! He’s not gonna shoot us. Just go!”
“Okay, here goes.”
This might be a good place to mention that a 1972 Honda Super Cub is not exactly the fastest thing you’ve ever seen. But it is pretty quiet and a lot faster than an electric golf cart, so a few seconds later, we’ve caught up and are ready to pass. As Nate makes the move to go around him, Pawlowski’s head swivels around in total surprise. His eyes meet mine as I look over Nate’s shoulder.
“Hey! You can’t…Stop! Right now!”
I let go of Nate for a second and put my hand to my ear as if I haven’t heard, and almost fall off as we swerve left and then right onto the narrow, grassy path that starts where the gravel section of the road ends.
“Keep going!” I shout in Nate’s ear.
Pawlowski rants, “That’s illegal! I mean it. Stop! Daggone it!” He pounds the dashboard of the cart, cursing us as we zoom ahead.
Meanwhile, my goldfinch charm has bounced out of my shirt. With my good arm clinging tightly to Nate, I reach up with the other and wrap my fingers around the tiny charm. I squeeze it once for luck and tuck it back in, thinking of Pip and Tinker and the last time I was being chased by that same golf cart.
“It’s all good,” I say to Nate. “Don’t worry about him. He’s always yelling at me about something.”
“He looked pretty mad.”
“He’ll get over it. I am trying to stop a murderer from getting away, after all. I can’t help it if I get there first.”
“Why doesn’t he get something faster than a golf cart?” Nate asks.
“Maybe you should suggest that when he finally shows up,” I say.
“Ha! No thanks. I’m staying away from him.”
“That line of trees is the start of Nadine’s farm,” I say. “Get back on the paved road. The trail’s too rough. It was okay for Tinker, but this thing will never make it.” A quarter mile past Nadine’s, the trail converges with the road, which heads north, more or less following the shoreline all the way up to the old breakwater and Rabbit Ear Point. We’re not going quite that far, though, and I scan the water for signs of movement as we scoot along on the little Honda. There are a couple of small boats across the channel, tucked into the cove on the south side of Cattail Island, but no sign of a seaplane. I’m about to give up, thinking that we’re too late, that we’ve missed them, when somewhere ahead of us, an engine roars to life.
“That’s it!” I cry, crushing Nate in my excitement. “It has to be.”
“I. Can’t. Breathe,” he says.
“Sorry. Keep going. I owe you one, little bro,” I add.
As we come around one last bend in the shoreline, the dock, and then the plane, come into sight. It’s still tied to the dock, across from Les Findlay’s sturdy workboat. And there’s some excellent news—Les is there on the dock with Irwin and Keyheart.
I wave my arm and shout, but he can’t hear me over the sound of the airplane’s engine.
Irwin helps Keyheart into the cockpit, and then shakes Les’s hand before climbing through the door and pulling it closed behind him. Les then gives the plane a mighty shove, spinning its nose around so that it’s pointed toward open water and Cattail Island.
Nate squeezes the brakes and I slide off the back before we come to a complete stop. We run to the end of the dock with the plane’s engine roaring even louder. As it glides away, slowly picking up speed, the propeller churns up the water and sends a wall of spray at the three of us.
Irwin turns the plane south, and when he does, I have a clear view of Keyheart. She waves and then she blows a kiss at me, which feels a bit like she’s smacked me in the face with a mackerel.
This isn’t over.
“Hey, you two,” Les says when he turns around and sees us. “Pretty sweet, isn’t it? Nineteen forty-seven Republic Seabee. My old man had one just like it. First one I’ve seen in thirty years, I’ll bet.”
“I don’t care what it is. We’ve got to stop them,” I say. “Come on. Police are on the way. And this time they’re not after me. It’s her.” I jump from the dock into his boat and wave him in.
Two things that I love about Les Findlay are that he doesn’t treat me like a kid, and he doesn’t ask too many questions. Without a word, he hops into the boat and starts the engine.
Nate, fearless as ever, jumps in next to me, still grinning like mad.
“You sure?” I ask.
“Yeah. Are you crazy? I’m not gonna miss the best part.”
“Put these on,” Les says, tossing life jackets to us.
“Hold on tight,” I say, struggling to get my cast through the arm hole of the life jacket.
“Get the bow line,” he says. I unwrap the line from the cleat and he shifts the engine into reverse and backs away from the dock. “So. You have a plan, or you wingin’ it?”
“Totally wingin’ it,” I admit. “Can’t we just…get in front of him so he can’t take off?”
“Maybe. If we get there before he starts his run. Hold on,” he says.
Nate and I almost fall backward off the center seat as the boat lurches forward. Irwin’s plane, meanwhile, approaches the bottom of Cattail Island.
“They’re turning around,” Nate says.
After completing the turn, the plane comes to a complete stop, rocking slightly in the choppy water, the engine quiet, the propeller barely turning.
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
“Being a good pilot,” Les answers. “Going through his checklist. Flying a Seabee’s a little more challenging than driving a golf cart. You screw up, you die. Right now, he’s checking his fuel, his flaps, the wind. He has to take off into the wind, that’s why he’s facing this way.”
We draw closer and closer, and I find myself gripping the railing on Les’s boat so tightly that my hand aches.
“What did she do, anyway? The one you’re all after?” Les asks.
“She killed a girl named Didi Ferrer. And stole something from her. All for money. And to be famous.”
Les shakes his head. “Fame and fortune. Get you every time.”
Suddenly the Seabee’s engine roars back to life, revving louder and louder as the propeller spins faster and faster.
“Too late to get in front of him,” Les says. He spins the wheel and heads for the plane’s tail as it picks up speed. “I have an idea, but we don’t have much time, and it’d be a heckuva a lot easier if you had two good arms. Might need both of you. Either that or one of you drives the boat.”
“I can help,” Nate says.
“That’s the Nate we all know and love,” I say. “Agreeing to something before you know what’s involved.”
“Open that forward hatch,” Les says. “There’s a long piece of line—rope—inside. Good. Need you to tie one end of it to the ring up by the bow. You know how to tie a bowline?”
“A what?” I ask. We’re twenty-five yards directly behind the Seabee, and the spray from the propeller is pelting us.
“I know how!” cries Nate, crawling forward to join me. He takes the end of the line, threads it through the bow eye, and ties a knot that I’ve never seen before.
“Good job,” says Les. “Now listen carefully, ’cause you’re only gonna have one shot at this. First thing, make a loop, about a foot around, in the other end of that line. Use a bowline again. When he starts to lift out of the water, I’m going to get us right underneath him, okay? You’ll see a little wheel on his underside, maybe eight or ten inches around. As soon as you can, you reach up and slip that loop around the wheel, and then run back here with me. And hold on, ’cause it’s gonna get a little crazy. Got it?”
I nod as Nate ties the loop and holds it up for Les to see.
“That’s good. Here we go. Remember. Stay. In. The. Boat!”
I don’t know how fast we’re going, but with the wind and spray from the propeller, it feels the way I imagine sticking my head out of a car in a rainstorm at eighty miles an hour must feel.
“When I reach up to do it, hold on to my belt,” I shout in Nate’s ear.
“No! I should be the one,” he says. “You hold on to me.”
“No way!”
“Yes! I have two hands. You only need one to hold on to me.”
I hate to admit it, but he’s right. “Okay. But don’t do anything crazy.”
He smiles. “Little late for that, doncha think?”
“He’s starting to lift!” Les shouts. “Get ready!”
“We’re ready,” I say.
As the Seabee struggles to break free from the water’s surface, the tail rises first. With less drag, the plane accelerates suddenly and for a moment, it looks like we’ve lost them. But Les pushes the throttle all the way forward and we slide under the tail, and…there it is! A small wheel, exactly as he described.
“That’s it! Tie it on!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
Nate leans forward over the bow, the line in his hands. With my left hand, I have a death grip on his life jacket, while my right arm, in the cast, swings around, helping me keep my balance in the bouncing boat.
I hold my breath as he reaches up and slips the loop around the wheel.
“Yes!” I scream, pulling him in to me. “You did it!”
At the moment he releases the rope, though, we bounce on a wave, creating just enough slack for the loop to fall off the wheel and drop into the water.
Nate reacts in an instant, pulling the line back in as fast as he can until he has the loop in his hand again. Meanwhile, the Seabee rises higher and higher in the water. For a few endless seconds it is like a water-skier, skimming across the surface, trying to build up enough speed to go completely airborne.
“One more chance!” Les shouts as we inch forward once more beneath the tail. Nate reaches up, but his hands and the loop of rope are still six inches from the wheel, and he can’t reach any higher. “Lift me up!” he cries.
In the next split second, a million things go through my mind, and most of them involve me explaining to Thomas exactly how I dropped his son over the side of a boat going fifty miles an hour.
Luckily, I don’t have enough time to really think about all the bad possibilities, and I do exactly what he says: with my one good arm, I grab him around his knees and toss him into the air at the exact moment the Seabee skips over one final wave and lurches upward.
In one quick motion, he wraps the loop around the wheel a second time and shouts, “Got it!” as I let him fall into the boat on top of me.
“Hold on!” Les screams as forty feet of line uncoils. When it reaches the end, we lurch violently, with Nate and I tumbling forward as the line becomes tight enough for a high-wire act to perform on. As we clamber toward the back of the boat, somehow the line—and Nate’s knots—hold, and we’re no longer beneath the Seabee—suddenly, we’ve become an anchor, dragging Irwin and Keyheart back to Earth. The extra drag from Les’s boat is simply too much for the Seabee. It settles back down into the water, a boat once again.
Les grins like a fisherman who has landed the catch of a lifetime and musses Nate’s hair.
“You kids are something else. Where’d you learn to tie a bowline?”
“Pip taught me. She uses it to tie up Tinker,” he says. “It’s good because no matter how hard Tinker pulls on it, she can always untie it.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” says Les. “Everybody oughta know how to tie one.”
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“Sooner or later, he’ll realize that he’s not going anywhere with us attached. Doesn’t have much choice. Might as well head for the dock.”
It’s clear that Irwin hasn’t given up, and I can’t help smiling when I picture the scene inside the Seabee’s cockpit. “I would not want to be Irwin right now. You have no idea how crazy that lady is. I’ll be she’s telling him to head for that hole in the breakwater.”
“He loves his plane too much to try that,” says Les.
Ahead of us, the Seabee slows and turns toward the dock, where a crowd is gathering. Officer Pawlowski stands at the end, arms crossed and head down. Running toward the dock is Suzy, with Blake at her heels. Two more carts are just arriving. First is a Cheever Construction cart with Owen at the wheel, and Gabby and Pip squeezed into the seat next to him. And in the other, Thomas, Nadine, and Jack.
My heart misses a couple of beats when I see Thomas, but mostly I’m relieved by the thought that he didn’t see the worst of it. “Maybe we don’t tell Thomas exactly what happened out there,” I say to Nate.
He looks up at Les, who nods and says, “I think that’s very wise.”
“You think I should lie?” Nate says.
“No, but maybe you…leave out a few details,” I say. “It’s for the best. Especially for Thomas. If he knew, he’d never sleep again. It’s bad enough he’s gonna find out about the motorcycle thing.”
“Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that,” Nate says. “It was worth it though.”
I high-five him. “Totally. I still can’t believe you kept it secret.”
Finally the Seabee reaches the dock and Irwin kills the engine as Pawlowski and Suzy fend it off and attach the dock lines.
“Guess it’s safe to untie us now,” Les says, and Nate goes forward to undo his knot.
“See?” he says, holding the line up for me to see. “Even after an airplane pulled on it.”
“You two okay?” Thomas asks.
While Les backs us into his space on the dock, I give Thomas the thumbs-up, which immediately puts him on guard. He knows that I never use that gesture when I really mean it. Other than being soaked and our hair tangled from the wind from the propeller, Nate and I actually do look just fine—especially compared to the last time I got off Les’s boat. Together, we still have four working legs and three working arms—the same number we started the day with.
Pawlowski pounds on the cockpit door. “Open up. And keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
Irwin climbs out first. Pawlowski looks him up and down and shakes his head. “Have a seat over there. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll talk to you later.”
Keyheart follows a few seconds later, muttering about being surrounded by incompetent idiots, who can’t even fly their own planes.
“Ann Keyheart, I’m arresting you for the murder of Didi Ferrer,” Pawlowski says, spinning her around and marching her down the dock. “You have the right to remain silent…”
“Oh, shut up,” she rants as he continues reading her her rights: “I haven’t done anything. I will sue you and everybody on this island. That book is mine. Mine. Come on. Who’s gonna believe that a book that good was written by a total nobody? Didi and that holier-than-thou attitude of hers. Whatever happened to her, she had it coming. Thought she was sooo smart. So smug.”
