Now his home seemed dim and bare, with its shag-carpeted living room centered by his favorite reclining chair. It was true the mantle over his fireplace was lined with various bowling trophies he had won over the years, and yes, the big-screen television was his nicest piece of furniture. I accompanied him to the kitchen and scanned the greasy stovetop and overflowing garbage can and sink. I turned on hot water and ran it through a sponge, then I began wiping up what I could while he dialed the phone.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ he whispered to me.
‘Someone has to.’
‘Yo,’ he said into the receiver. ‘Marino here. What’s up?’
He listened for a long, tense time, his brow furrowed and his face turning a deeper red. I started on the dishes, and there were plenty of them.
‘So how closely do they check?’ Marino asked. ‘No, I mean, do they make sure someone’s in their seat? Oh, they do? And we know they did it this time? Yeah, right. No one remembers. The whole friggin’ world’s full of people who don’t remember shit. That and they didn’t see a thing, right?’
I rinsed glasses carefully and set them on a towel to drain.
‘I agree the luggage thing raises a question,’ he went on.
I used the last of Marino’s dishwashing liquid and had to resort to a dried-out bar of soap I found under the sink.
‘While you’re at it,’ he was saying, ‘how ’bout seeing what you can find out about a white helicopter that was flying around Sparkes’s farm.’ He paused, then said, ‘Maybe before, and definitely after because I saw it with my own two eyes when we were at the scene.’
Marino listened some more as I started on the silverware, and to my amazement he said, ‘Before I hang up, you want to say hi to your aunt?’
My hands went still as I stared at him.
‘Here.’
He handed me the phone.
‘Aunt Kay?’
Lucy sounded as surprised as I was.
‘What are you doing in Marino’s house?’ she asked.
‘Cleaning.’
‘What?’
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked her.
‘Marino will fill you in. I’ll check out the white bird. It had to get fuel from somewhere. Maybe filed a flight plan with FSS in Leesburg, but somehow I doubt it. Gotta go.’
I hung up and suddenly felt preempted and angry, and I wasn’t completely sure why.
‘I think Sparkes is in a lot of trouble, Doc,’ Marino said.
‘What’s happened?’ I wanted to know.
‘Turns out that the day before the fire, Friday, he showed up at Dulles for a nine-thirty P.M. flight. He checked baggage but never picked it up at the other end, in London. Meaning it’s possible he could have checked his bags and given the flight attendant the ticket at the gate, then turned right around and left the airport.’
‘They do head counts on international flights,’ I argued. ‘His absence on the plane would have been noticed.’
‘Maybe. But he didn’t get where he is without being clever.’
‘Marino . . .’
‘Hold on. Let me finish giving you the rundown. What Sparkes is saying is that security was waiting for him the minute his plane landed at Heathrow at nine-forty-five the next morning — on Saturday. And we’re talking England time, making it four-forty-five A.M. back here. He was told about the fire and turned right around and caught a United flight back to Washington without bothering with his bags.’
‘I guess if you were upset enough, you might do that,’ I said.
Marino paused, looking hard at me as I set the soap on top of the sink and dried my hands.
‘Doc, you got to quit sticking up for him,’ he said.
‘I’m not. I’m just trying to be more objective than I think some people are being. And certainly security at Heathrow should remember notifying him when he got off that plane?’
‘Not so far. And we can’t quite figure out how security knew about the fire anyway. Course Sparkes has got an explanation for everything. Says security always makes special provisions when he travels and meets him at the gate. Apparently the fire had already hit the early-morning news in London, and the businessman that Sparkes was supposed to meet with called British Air to alert them to give Sparkes the news the second he was on the ground.’