Read Online Hard Landing by Lynne Heitman - Free Book Online

security code and a key to the house. Why would that be?"
    "The guy who killed her had the code-the code and the key. You heard what Pohan said. No forced entry."
    I was beginning to understand his logic. It was circular. "Dan, that's not the only thing he said. What about the anti-depressants and the alcohol? Did you know about any of that?"
    "Yeah. No. I mean, anti-depressants keep you
from
being depressed, right?
Anti-
depressants. So if she was taking them, she wasn't depressed. And she wasn't a boozer. A drink of wine every now and then, but I never saw her drunk." He knew he was stretching, and he knew I knew. But he was so certain and he was trying so hard to convince me-it didn't hurt to listen and besides, I had no place else to be but my hotel room by myself.
    "If he killed her," I said, "I wouldn't expect him to come back to the house, the proverbial scene of the crime."
    "He's looking for the package. That's why I've been trying to get in the house, to find it."
    "So your theory is that he killed her for this package, but he's still looking for it."
    "Right. She probably hid it somewhere."
    I thought about the splintered desk in my office. "Are you sure it's in the house?"
    "Without a doubt. She never left anything important at the airport."
    Thinking of the desk reminded me of Ellen's frequent flier card. "Do you know why Ellen would be flying full-fare on United?"
    He shook his head. "Ellen never traveled anywhere. And even if she did, there's no way she'd pay for a ticket. Nobody in the business does that."
    The card was stiff in the pocket of my skirt. I could feel it. And I could feel myself getting sucked right off that slick, vinyl banquette and into the Ellen Shepard affair. I knew if I showed that card to Dan, that was exactly what would happen. But I couldn't very well sit on it when he was struggling so hard to make sense of her death. Besides, I had to admit to at least a little curiosity. I dug it out and laid it on the table in front of him.
    "What is this?" He had a hard time picking the flat card off the table. Finally, he slipped it off the edge and into the palm of his hand.
    "Ellen had a frequent-flier account at United."
    "That doesn't make any sense." He looked up at me. "You know what I think this is?" He put the card back on the table and then picked it right up again. "She was probably earning miles with her credit card or phone calls or some shit like that. I even saw on TV the other day where you can earn miles for buying hair plugs."
    "I doubt she was doing
that."
    "What I'm saying is this by itself doesn't mean she was buying airline tickets."
    "If you know Ellen's home zip code, we can figure that out right now." I reached over the table and turned the card in his hand so he was looking at the back. "There's a customer service phone number."
    "I don't know what it is up here. Oh-two-something…
wait."
He dropped the card and pulled something that looked like tissue paper from his breast pocket. "Have you got a cell phone?"
    I pulled my phone from the pocket of my bacon-scented coat.
    "The cops wrote me a ticket for being at the house. It's got the address and the zip. Ready?"
    He read me the number and I dialed in again. When I got to the request for the zip code, I punched in the number he gave me, and I was in. Dan watched closely as I went through the menu. The first option gave me her total miles. Eighteen thousand. She had definitely used this account. I punched the selection for the last five segments traveled and signaled Dan for a pen, which he produced immediately. As the computer reeled off the destinations, I jotted the city codes down on my napkin. Dan's eyes grew wider with each one-DEN, SFO, ORD, IAD, and MIA. Next to each city code I wrote the date of travel.
    As I punched off and tucked the cell phone away, he grabbed the napkin. "We have service to San Francisco and Chicago and Washington Dulles. We fly nonstop to Miami and, for God's sake, the company's headquartered