going to North Carolina, why not just take a plane directly there?
There are tons of flights to Raleigh and Charlotte out of National. Why
go through Norfolk?”
“Well, maybe you’d go through Norfolk if you weren’t going to Charlotte
or Raleigh or anyplace near them,” Connie ventured, “but still wanted
to go to someplace in North Carolina.”
“But why not still go through one of those two major airports?”
“Well, what if Norfolk is a lot closer to where they wanted to go than
Charlotte or Raleigh are?”
Reynolds thought a moment. “Raleigh’s roughly in the middle of the
state. Charlotte is west.”
Connie snapped his fingers. “East! The coast. The Outer Banks?”
Reynolds found herself nodding in agreement. “Maybe. The Outer Banks
has thousands of beach houses where one could hide.”
Connie suddenly looked less hopeful. “Thousands of beach houses,” he
muttered.
“Well, the first thing you can do is call the Bureau’s airline liaison
and find out what flights run out of Norfolk for the Outer Banks. And
we have some times to work with. Their flight was scheduled to get
into Norfolk at noon. I don’t see them cooling their heels any longer
than necessary at a public place, so the flight out had to be
relatively close to noon or so. Maybe one of the commuters has regular
service. We already checked with the major airlines. They didn’t
reserve with any of them out of Norfolk.”
Connie picked up the car phone and placed the call. It didn’t take
long before they got an answer.
Connie’s features looked hopeful again. “You’re not going to believe
this, but there’s only one commuter service to the Outer Banks from
Norfolk International.”
Reynolds smiled broadly and shook her head. “Finally, some luck in
this damn case. Talk to me.”
“Tarheel Airways. They fly out of Norfolk to five places in
Carolina:
Kill Devil Hills, Manteo, Ocracoke, Hatteras and a place called Pine
Island, near Duck. There’re no regular departures. You call ahead and
the plane is waiting for you.”
Reynolds spread open the map and scanned it. “Okay, there are Hatteras
and Ocracoke. They’re the farthest south.” She put a finger on the
map. “Kill Devil Hills is here. Manteo south of that. And Duck is
here, to the north.”
Connie looked at where she was pointing. “I’ve been down there on
vacation. You cross the bridge over the sound and head north for Duck.
South for Kill Devil. They’re fairly equidistant from each other at
that point.”
“So what do you think? North or south?”
“Well, if they were going to North Carolina, it was probably at
Lockhart’s prompting.” Reynolds looked at him curiously. “Because
Adams took the map,” Connie explained. “If he knew the area, he
wouldn’t have done that.”
“Nice, Sherlock, what else?”
“Well, Lockhart has some serious money. One look at her house in
McLean will tell you that. If I were her, I’d have a safe house under
my phony name in case the roof caved in.”
“But were still at square one: north or south?”
They sat there stewing over this until Reynolds suddenly slapped her
forehead. “God, how stupid. Connie, if you have to call Tarheel to
arrange for a flight, our answer’s right there.”
Connie’s eyes grew wide. “Damn, talk about blind.” He picked up the
phone, got the number for Tarheel and placed the call, relaying the
date and approximate time and the name Suzanne Blake.
He hung up and looked at her. “A reservation for two people with
Tarheel was made by our Ms. Blake two days ago to fly out of Norfolk
around two P.M. They were pissed because she never showed. They
normally take a credit card, but she’d flown with them before, and so
they just took her on her word.”
“And their destination?”
“Pine Island.”
Reynolds couldn’t help but smile. “God, Connie, we might actually pull
this off.”
Connie put the car in gear. “Only bad thing is, I don’t rate one of
the Bureau’s planes. We’re stuck with the old Crown Vie here. I
figure six hours or so, not counting stops.” He checked his watch.
“With stops, that’ll put us there about one in the morning.”