Her Last Flight Read online

  I reach the end of the beach without encountering anybody, but according to McNally there’s another beach to the left, on the other side of Makahoa Point. Lumahai Beach, it’s called, which is a rather lovely name, I think, and somewhere I’d like to surf for that reason alone, if I liked to surf at all. It hints of the moon, of the mysterious.

  I replace my shoes on my feet and begin the climb up the rocks, across the neck of the point, thick with trees, palms and that kind of thing. I don’t know much about flora, to be perfectly honest; you won’t find a single artful landscape among my published photographs. Just people and buildings and machines and the odd animal, when the subject is willing and the occasion requires it. So don’t ask me what species of tree I’m passing, what kind of branch I’m pushing aside as I step into a patch of cleared earth off the coastal highway. A dilapidated yellow Ford sits to one side. The tire prints appear fresh. A footpath leads westish, behind a piece of wood shaped like an arrow that says beach.

  I follow this track downward through the trees until it opens up to a pristine ocean beach, deserted except for a pile of clothes near the edge of the sand, and a person in a long, dark bathing suit hurtling down the barrel of a perfect bow wave.

  As I expected, this person is a woman, and when she trudges to shore she doesn’t look all that surprised to see me there. Her hair is short and prematurely silver above a tanned, lined, scarred, firm, freckled face that might be any age from thirty-five to sixty. I think it’s strange that she doesn’t take any trouble to disguise herself. Why hasn’t she been discovered here before? Is it the gray hair, or the scars, or the fact that you don’t expect her? You never do find what you’re not looking for, even the woman at the center of one of the world’s great mysteries, who was once the most fascinating, the most photographed female on earth.

  She’s tall, maybe five foot eleven, topping me by two or three inches. She carries the surfboard under her arm like it’s made of balsa wood. She plants it in the sand and slicks back her wet hair and waits for me to introduce myself. I find I’m not nearly as nervous as I expected. Nothing more than a flutter of excitement, even though I can plainly see it’s her, it is the mysterious She, that I’ve found her at last. There’s no mistaking that height, those cheekbones, those sharp, hooded eyes that have regarded me from a thousand photographs, although I never realized they were quite so blue.

  “Mrs. Lindquist?” I ask.

  “How can I help you?” she replies patiently.

  “My name is Janey Everett. I’m a photojournalist. I was wondering if I might have a word with you?”

  She stares at the top of my head for several seconds. I don’t think I need to tell you how disconcerting that is. She brushes a little sand from her board and says, “A photographer, is it? I can’t imagine why. I never give permission for photographs. You’ll find a dozen surfers more willing. And more attractive.”

  “Oh, I’m not at all interested in photographing you. I don’t wish to disturb your privacy. If you want to go on hiding from the world, that’s fine by me.”

  Lindquist lifts both eyebrows in a way that might slay some ordinary person. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you? I’m amazed. You can’t tell me that nobody’s ever remarked on your astonishing resemblance to the famed aviatrix Irene Foster.”

  At the words Irene Foster, Lindquist flinches. It’s a tiny gesture, but my eyes are trained to notice these things, the tinier the better. Poker players call them tells, I believe. I hoard them like treasure, because they represent the truth, they represent a subject’s instant, unguarded opinion of things. And this flinch of Lindquist’s tells me everything I need to know.

  She is no more a Lindquist than I am.

  Now, listen up. There was a time, which many of you may recall, when you couldn’t walk into a drugstore or listen to the radio or pick up a newspaper without encountering the name Irene Foster. I myself grew from girl to woman in that particular decade, when Foster was held up as a shining example of American womanhood and what she was capable of in this brave new age of ours, the age of flappers and aviation.

  In those days, we had no idea what fate awaited her. Foster was invincible. Pilots around her might crash, might fall short of their destinations, might die of terrible injuries or disappear into the ocean, but you could believe in Irene Foster. Her keen, smiling face adorned books and periodicals, museum exhibits and newsreels, advertisements for everything from toothpaste to cigarettes. It got so that you almost felt sick of her, from time to time, and just when she started to fade from view, just when the public began to tire, ever so slightly, she would accomplish some astonishing new feat, break some impossible record, and you fell in love with her all over again.

  Which, naturally, made her disappearance all the more shocking. There she flew, me hearties, poised for victory in the first-ever Round the World Air Derby, one final leg to go, one last hop from Egypt to Morocco, a journey of two thousand miles that was surely child’s play to Irene Foster, who crossed the Atlantic for breakfast, almost. She was two days ahead of her nearest competitor—a man, of course, whose name nobody remembers—and the whole world gathered its breath to cheer her landing in Casablanca. Maybe you were one of them, standing by your radio to hear the news, to settle some bet with your pal about her final time. Whether she would break the current circumnavigation record by hours or minutes. Maybe you waited and waited as those minutes came and went, as the bulletin never arrived, as one by one the reports trickled through that Foster had not arrived in Casablanca at all.

  She hadn’t landed anywhere.

  Maybe you were one of those who then trawled the airwaves with your amateur radio, searching for some faint signal that might be Irene Foster’s distress call. Maybe you pored over maps of the northern Sahara, of the southern Mediterranean, for some likely site for an emergency landing by a pilot known for her resourcefulness in crisis. Maybe you bought the early edition every morning for weeks and read all the updates, all the editorials, all the messages of hope and determination from those pilots tasked with searching for her across the endless dunes of sand.

  Maybe you finally gave up hope and turned to some new sensation for your daily dram of fevered excitement. Maybe you forgot all about Irene Foster and her doomed flight, except when some newspaper printed a wistful memorial on the anniversary of her disappearance, or when some new theory emerged to explain her fate, each one more crackpot than the last.

  Maybe you figured she was gone forever, and you’d never know what became of her.

  Well, I didn’t.

  And now I’ve found her for you. All along, she was living in obscurity on some beach on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, surfing in the morning and flying unsuspecting passengers from island to island during the day.

  Still, she’s not going to admit all that to some stranger, by God!

  She lifts her board from the sand. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Everett. You’re wasting my time and your own.”

  I wait until she’s stalked past me before I reply. I do have some regard for stagecraft; you might say it’s my stock in trade. I can do with pictures what most can only dream of doing with words, and it all comes down to how you place your subject, and where, and exactly when you click your shutter.

  “Am I?” I call after her. “What if I told you I’ve just come from Spain, and the wreckage of Sam Mallory’s airplane?”

  She stops, but she doesn’t turn.

  “Poor Sam.” I shake my head. “He never did get his due. Overshadowed by his own pupil. But if there hadn’t been a Mallory, there wouldn’t have been a Foster. Isn’t that right?”

  Over her shoulder, she says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You keep saying that. You don’t know nothing, do you? Well, that’s fine. Then you won’t care about the diary we found among his remains. You wouldn’t know anything about that, either, I guess?”

  Now she turns. Her face
is like stone. “His remains?”

  “I admit, there’s not much left to a fellow’s body after ten years exposed to the Spanish desert. But his poor skeleton still wore its clothes, and underneath it all I found this.”

  I remove the small leather volume from my pocketbook and hold it up against the sky.

  The funny thing is, she doesn’t stare at the diary, the object you’d imagine she cares about. Instead she stares at me, no expression at all. Her brow might be furrowed, or those might be the lines etched there by time and sun and worry. She’s taking my measure, that’s all. She’s working out what to say to me, and how much, and whether I’m telling the truth. She is calculating the risk, and isn’t that what Irene Foster has always done best?

  Behind me, a wave crashes noisily into the surf. Lindquist turns her face to the east, squints at the risen sun, and says, “Come with me.”

  In the cafeteria of the Hanalei airfield, an ancient calico cat lies in a square of sunshine from the window, all but dead. Lindquist stops to stroke its side, and it twitches an ear in thanks.

  “Nice puss,” I say. “What’s its name?”

  “Her name is Sandy.” Lindquist straightens and makes for the kitchen, which is open to the seating area, this being a shabby, two-bit cafeteria, you understand, in keeping with the general tone of the town. She flips on the lights and proceeds to a large electric coffee percolator, made of chrome and remarkably modern for a dump like this.

  “Coffee?” she says.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  I follow her to the lunch counter, which runs along the width of the kitchen space, six or seven stools lined up, all covered in worn leather. Along the way, I pause at the cat, who has the air of a local landmark, and reach down to pat her head. She swats at me with a set of razor claws that draw blood from the back of my hand.

  Lindquist smiles a little. “Careful. She sometimes decides she doesn’t like a person.”

  I suck away the blood on my hand and settle on one of the stools. “Evidently.”

  “I find she’s an excellent judge of character,” Lindquist tells me, as she measures the coffee grains.

  “Aren’t you clever.”

  “You know, I’d have thought you might trouble yourself to be a little more charming, under the circumstances. I’m not likely to open myself up to some chronic bitch.”

  “You’re not likely to open yourself up to anybody, I expect. I’m here on a bribe, that’s all, and I perfectly understand the nature of our arrangement. I’d be wasting my time trying to charm you.”

  She raises her eyebrows and fills the percolator with water from the tap.

  “Although I suppose you could just bludgeon me,” I continue. “A simple, elegant solution, and there’s no lack of convenient places to dispose of an unwanted body around here.”

  “Oh, I could kill you, I guess. But then I wouldn’t learn much, would I? How you found Sam, how you found me. Not that I’m admitting to anything. There we are.” She plugs in the percolator and wipes her hands on a dishtowel. She’s changed out of her bathing costume to a white shirt and a pair of tan slacks, which suit her tall, angular body perfectly. Under the kitchen light, you can better see the scar that bubbles up from her neck to cover her jaw and ear.

  “That looks like it hurt,” I say. “Burn?”

  “Yes. Anything else? Eggs? Toast? I always make myself a nice breakfast when I’ve been out on the water. And I imagine you must be hungry.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “No reason.” She bustles to the icebox. “Except I might have heard you left the bar of the Hanalei Tavern at eleven o’clock last night, in the company of the owner.”

  “He was walking me back to the inn, like a gentleman.”

  “The inn says you never slept in your bed.”

  “I made it up before I left.”

  She cracks open an egg and laughs. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Leo’s the catch of the town, and very particular. I’ll bet you had a lovely time.”

  I snap my fingers. “Leo! Of course. Now I remember.”

  “He’ll be heartbroken. I suppose he told you where to find me?”

  “Not quite. He said you liked to surf early in the morning, that’s all. I figured out which beach on my own.” I tap my temple. “No flies on me.”

  “Maybe not, but the town’s buzzing, all the same.”

  “A town, is it? I’ve seen duck crossings with more metropolitan flavor.”

  “And just look what it’s done for you. Buttered or dry?”

  “What do you think?”

  She takes the butter from the icebox.

  When we’re settled in with coffee and eggs, side by side on the leather stools before the lunch counter, Lindquist loses the banter and falls silent. The cat comes wandering up and rubs its cheek against her ankle. She reaches down and lifts it into her lap, where it curls into a snug, neat ball and closes its eyes. Lindquist closes her eyes too. Thinking or remembering, who knows. Trying to decide what to make of me.

  I lean one elbow on the counter, next to my plate. “I’ll bet you’re wondering how I got here.”

  “Oh, I know how you got here, all right. You came in on Leo’s afternoon boat from Waialua, causing quite a stir.” She opens her eyes. “I just don’t understand why anybody cares about so much ancient history.”

  “It’s not so ancient. It just seems that way, because of the war. It’s hard to believe anyone ever cared about daring pilots and their daring flights to nowhere.”

  “Well, why do you care? You’re a photographer. There’s no photograph here. God knows I’m no picture portrait.”

  “I’m not here for photographs. As a matter of fact, I’m writing a book. A biography of Samuel Mallory.”

  “Of Sam?”

  “You thought I wanted to write about you, did you?” I wag a finger. “Everybody knows your story, Foster, right up until the moment you disappeared. But Mallory’s been forgotten.”

  “That’s not true,” she says swiftly. Then she catches herself and drinks the coffee. “Anyway, you forget I haven’t said I’m this Foster woman at all.”

  I wipe my mouth. “Look. If you’re afraid I’m going to expose you, don’t trouble yourself. If I wanted the scoop of the century, I’d have wired New York already, and every reporter and photographer in the Western Hemisphere would be bearing down on this airfield of yours like a locust army. You can keep your privacy, since you want it so badly. I won’t quote you. All I want is the inside story on Mallory. I think it’s time history resurrected him, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think Sam would have cared, one way or the other. He didn’t give a damn about fame or history.”

  “Oh? Then what did he give a damn about?”

  Again, she bites back some piece of candor. She’s on to me and my tricks, and still she nearly slips. She wants to unburden herself, I can see that. Most people do. We all carry some burden or another, pressing into that tender spot between neck and shoulder, invisible to others, which we wouldn’t mind shucking off for a blessed moment. But we rarely do. To shuck off our burden is to show it to the world, and then what would the world say? The world would judge your burden, that’s what. The world would judge it, and how you’ve carried it all these years, and whether your burden is more or less than any other person’s, and what all this says about you. Sometimes you’re just better off carrying the damn thing into eternity.

  Evidently Lindquist feels the same way. She shrugs and digs back into her omelet. “Don’t you know the answer to that already? You’re the one writing the biography.”

  “But that’s why I’m here, Mrs. Lindquist. To hear the truth from the person who knew him best.”

  “Me? What makes you say that?”

  I reach for my pocketbook. “Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Lindquist?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, call me Irene.”

  I light up a cigarette, even though she hasn’t actually given permission. Gives me a moment to
gather my thoughts. I toss the lighter back in my pocketbook and say, “You know something? I think I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself. What I should have done, right from the beginning, is given you some background. That’s a nice word we have in the newspaper world, background. Means everything you really want to know about a person.”

  “I thought you were a photographer, not a journalist.”

  “I’m a photojournalist, Mrs. Lindquist. I take pictures for newspapers. You know, a picture tells a thousand words? That’s what I do.”

  “But you want to write a biography, you said. Not a picture book.”

  I blow out a little smoke. “Not just any biography. I want to write a whole new kind of biography. I mean, have you ever read one? Start to finish? My God, they’re all so dull! Just facts and figures and dry little clips from letters, that kind of thing. I think it’s because the men write them. The little dears think life can be boiled down to facts, that the facts are what’s important, that facts are somehow akin to truth. I’ll tell you something, the facts are the least important thing about a person.”

  “Oh? So what’s important?”