CHAPTER 39

Miami was hot and humid, and Lee Williams didn't like it much. He liked it even less when he found that Bake Ramsey's alibi for the weekend was practically impenetrable. He confirmed the football player's every move during that weekend, and he couldn't prove that Ramsey was not in his hotel room between 10:00 P.M. Friday and 8:00 A.M. Saturday. Not yet, anyway. There was still the airport check to do. First, he checked with Miami Flight Service and discovered that no aircraft had filed a flight plan from the Miami area to Atlanta Dekalb-Peachtree Airport during the hours in question.

When he sounded disappointed, the man explained that airplanes aren't required to file flight plans. "Any light aircraft could just fly to Atlanta under visual flight rules, if the weather was okay, and as long as the pilot checked with air traffic control before entering a terminal control area on his route of flight," he said.

"Are you saying that such a flight would be untraceable?" The man nodded.

"It might be untraceable, even if the pilot didn't care if it was traced. If he didn't want to be traced, he could use a false tail number to identify himself, or he could just do what the drug dealers do: turn off his transponder and stay off the radio."

"I see."

"Would your man have made a round trip?"

"Yes."

"In that case, he'd probably need fuel. Miami-Atlanta-Miami has got to be farther than the range of just about any light aircraft I know about. Of course, he could buy fuel at any number of airports along his route that would be open all night."

Williams thanked the man and left. Now his only hope lay in legwork, checking all the airports. He climbed into his rented car, turned the air conditioning up full blast, and started driving. He started southwest of the city at Tamiami Airport, checking with each charter service and flight school, and he came up empty-handed. He then worked his way north to Miami International, with no better luck, then to Opa-Locka and the smaller Opa Lock West. In each place he could find no trace of an airplane flying to Atlanta and back on the Friday night. He stood next to a small Beechcraft trainer at Opa Lock West and mopped his brow. "I've checked all the Miami airports I could find," he said to the flight instructor he had been questioning, listing the fields he had visited. "Have I maybe missed one?"

"Well," the young man said, "there's Dade-Collier."

"Where the hell is that?" Williams asked, searching his road map again.

"It's this really wierd place out in the Everglades. It was built purely for airline training purposes; there's a ten-thousand-foot runway and an instrument landing system, and that's about it."

"A ten-thousand-foot runway in the Everglades?"

"Yep, you can go out there and practice instrument approaches in a 747, if you've a mind to." Williams mopped his brow again and asked directions. An hour and a half later, after getting lost twice, he drew up to a gate in the middle of nowhere. A sign said, DADE-COLLIER TRAINING AND TRANSITION AIRFIELD. He drove slowly until an enormous runway appeared, heat shimmering from its concrete surface. There was a tower, which looked deserted, a low building, and only one airplane, a small, twin-engine job, parked on the apron, some distance from the tower. No other aircraft of any kind was in sight, in the air or on the ground.

"What a fucking waste of time," he shouted, banging on the steering wheel. Then he took a deep breath and drove toward the building. As he pulled up, a man came out to meet him. "What can I do for you?" the man asked. "This field isn't open to the public."

Williams flashed his badge. "I'm trying to trace the flight of a light aircraft from the Miami area to Atlanta last Friday night, and I wonder if you could help me."

"Mister, that sort of stuff don't fly in and out of here," the man said, shaking his head. "This is purely a training field; general-aviation aircraft can't take off or land here without a permit from Dade County, and nobody's even applied for a permit in weeks."

Williams slumped. This had been his last hope. He was hot, tired, annoyed, and thoroughly defeated. "Well, thanks, anyway," he said to the man. "Don't mention it," he replied, and started back into the building.

"Excuse me," Williams said.

The man turned around. "Yeah?"

"If general-aviation aircraft have to have a permit to use this place, and nobody's applied for a permit recently, then what's that over there?" He pointed to the twin-engine airplane parked some distance away.

"Well, you got me there, mister," the man replied. "It turned up last weekend, and nobody has a clue what it's doing here."

"Why don't you and I go over there and have a look at it?" Williams proposed.

The man shrugged. "Sure." They got into the car and drove toward the airplane. "It's a Cessna 310," the man said. "A nice one, too."

Williams stopped the car and made a note of the airplane's registration number, which was painted in twelve-inch letters on the fuselage. Both men got out and approached the aircraft. "How do you get into it?" Williams asked.

"There's only one door; it's on the other side." They walked around the aircraft, and the man stepped up onto the port wing and peered inside. "Uh, oh," he said. He hopped back down to the pavement. "I'm not opening that door. You do it."

Williams stepped up onto the wing, as the man had done, and looked inside. Someone was slumped over the pilot's control yoke. Flies buzzed about him, and the odor of corruption leaked through the door seals. Williams hopped down from the wing. "I think we'll let your local sheriff's department open that door," he said.

An hour later, Williams phoned his captain from the airport office. "I think I found the guy who flew Bake Ramsey to Atlanta and back," he said.

"What did he have to say?" Haynes asked.

"He didn't say anything; he died of a broken neck a few days ago. We found him in his airplane at an almost-deserted airfield about forty miles north of Miami."

"Oops," the captain said. "Listen, one of our guys checked at Dekalb-Peachtree and found out that an airplane refueled there about three A.M. on Saturday morning. I've got the tail number." He read it out. It matched the number on the piece of paper in Williams's hand.

"Bingo," he said. "Can we tie Ramsey to the airplane?"

"The Dade County Sheriff's Office is dusting the plane right now." He paused. "But, Captain, I've got a fairly certain feeling that they won't find a trace of Ramsey on that airplane. I think the sonofabitch has snookered us again.

"Come on home, Lee," Haynes said. "You've had enough Florida sunshine."

"You're damn right, I have," Williams replied, trying hard to suppress his fury and failing.