Chapter 5

August 17th, 2015

“I’m sorry, who did you say was the prosecutor?!” I asked confused beyond comprehension.

“Like I said, it’s Mr. Banks. Does it ring any bells?” The police man answered nonchalantly.

“Yes it does, thank you…” I replied, visibly shaken. “Do you know where I could find Mr. B-… him?”

“Actually, you should be able to find him right around here. He’ll be overseeing investigation right now. In fact… look over there,” He said pointing to his right, “See the surly looking fella with the red suit and black tie?”

I looked to my left to a VERY tall, well built, good looking man with jet black hair, tanned face, large laugh lines, and eyes constantly in a squint from his constant laughing. In short, he looked much healthier and NOTHING like the Mr. Banks we knew from… well, you know.

“Wait, that’s him?” Charles asked the police-man, surprised at how this Mr. Banks looked.

“Yeah that’s him. Now if you three want to get in here, I suggest speaking with him. Bye now,” The police-man said while waving us off and walking away.

“This is weird as hell,” Charles said unsurely, “I mean, it’s not the same Mr. Banks who was at MY case, but still…”

“Then we should be fine. He looks like a nice enough guy, lets just go speak to him,” I replied with false confidence. I really didn’t want to talk to this guy at all. I mean, he looked like a pretty big dude. I’m well built and all, but he looked as if he could snap me like a twig.

Jeez, would I listen to myself? I’m thinking of the worst of every scenario again. I should really stop that. Then again, I really shouldn’t make him mad. Look at those arms!

“Then let’s go ‘n talk with’m,” Jackie said snapping me out of my stupor, “Ah haven’t talked with ‘im in a while.”

In a while? She knew him? This was all getting a bit confusing. I hope this didn’t end badly for Charles and I.

“Hey Jerry, how ya’ll doin’?” Jackie yelled over to the man.

Jerry? Really, he has a nice name too?

“Why if it isn’t Miss Jackie! How are you?” He yelled back in a boisterous voice.

“Ah’m doin’ fine, thank ya fer askin’. Can Ah speak with ya fer a minute?” Jackie asked back making her way over to the man.

“Sure thing! Bring your friends over too! I don’t think we’ve met!” he replied.

“Well here we go,” I whispered to Charles as Jackie motioned for us to follow her.

“Yes, hello there! Jackie, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, as ya’ll know, my bro was accused of a crime here n’ my two buddies here are from a lawyer firm. Ah was wonderin’ if we could investigate the scene?”

“Yes, sure! Why not? I’ll even give you a nice tip! Do any of you know who the witness was?” He asked loudly, enticing some shaking heads from us.

“Well, from what we know right now, she’s a pilot and flew over the crime scene at the moment of the crime. Now, I gave you a nice tip, so go make the best of it. And don’t you worry about your brother, Miss Jackie. My job as a prosecutor is to find the truth and that’s what I’ll do.”

I chuckled, audibly enough for Mr. Banks to hear. That was probably the boldest faced lie I have ever heard in my life. A truthful prosecutor… BAH!

“Forgive me, sir, but why did you laugh? I meant that in every meaning of what I said. You realize I can take back what I gave you just a second ago.”

“My bad, I was remembering a funny joke I heard earlier,” I lied. “It’s very kind what you did for us, and I wish you the best of luck in the coming trial.”

“Yes, and to you as well. Thank you for being so nice about it. May I ask for your names now? It’s odd not knowing a face,” He said with a smile.

“Sure thing,” I replied feeling a sense of truth in his words, “My name is Teller. Teller Coy, and this is my assistant Charles Jordan.”

His smile faltered. It looked as if something had struck his chest as he took a step back. Something was wrong. That was a pretty radical reaction compared to how he was acting earlier.

“Er… well thank you for visiting, and my look at the time! You can’t investigate now, the police is leaving, RIGHT?” He yelled over to the police officers.

“Yessir! Pack it up men, back to the precinct!” The one who looked like the chief said and in a few moments the orchard looked just as barren as it had when we drove into Equine.

“Sorry Jackie, but you can’t investigate right now. There’s no supervision.”

“Oh… Well, thanks anyways, Ah guess?” Jackie replied.

“Don’t mention it, and Teller?” He said as he turned an icy glare in my direction. “Good luck.”

“Thanks…” I replied, silently surprised at the sudden 180 in personality.

“Is it just me, or does he know us somehow?” Charles asked as Mr. Banks walked back towards the precinct. “If he does, I’ve never met him. Have you?”

“No, but what you say is right. He obviously knows us from somewhere. He wouldn’t act like that if he didn’t. But where?”

“Also, he acted sort of mean towards us. Why did he? What did we do?”

“Well, all it means is that we have another *mystery; what’s up with Mr. Banks?”

“Right, and didn’t he give us a tip before he went all cynical on us?”

“I’m surprised you even know what that word means, but yes. He said that we should go talk to a pilot, and if I remember correctly there were two planes flying around during the fire so we should find out about them. Hey Jackie,” I said turning towards her, “Do you have any type of forest fire prevention airport sort of thing around here?”

“Actually, there is. Mah best friend works there, in fact,” She replied, “Ah was glad when Ah saw her plane flyin’ above n’ puttin’ out th’ fire. Why d’ya ask?”

“Well Mr. Banks just said we should talk to a pilot. Can you take us there and fast?”

“Sure thing, it’s not that far from th’ orchard. Follow me,” she answered as she started moving away from both the hotel and the orchard and made her way towards what looked like the edge of a forest.

“So you know Mr. Banks? Was that last little reaction how he normally acts around new people?” I asked.

“Well, no. Usually, he’s pretty nice ‘round new people. Ah dunno what was goin’ on with ‘im just then.”

“When did you first meet him? Was he anything like himself then like he is now?”

“Th’ first time Ah met ‘im was th’ day after we all moved onto th’ orchard. Ah first saw him ‘nspecting th’ dirt ‘round th’ orchard ‘n Ah asked what he was doin’. He said he was makin’ sure th’ land was fertile fer us ‘n introduced himself. Said he just moved in that day ‘n was lookin’ at some land. If we didn’t take th’ orchard area already, Johnny would’a lived here,” Jackie explained. “Although, Ah always had the naggin’ feelin’ that he wasn’t here ta’ just check our land. He had all this expensive lookin’ equipment with ‘im too.”

“Maybe he was just measuring something?” Charles interrupted, but logically suggested.

“Yeah, maybe he didn’t know you were already there. You did say he moved in that day,” I answered.

“Ah did say that, but as nice as Jerry is, Ah can’t help but think that he has some kinda screw loose.”

“Really? You seemed to get along with him just fine. What would lead you to believe that?” I asked honestly surprised.

“Well, fer one, he’s always tryin’ ta’ buy th’ expansions to th’ orchard after we went n’ bought em’, two, he sometimes get’s funny like ya’ saw a few minutes ago with th’ police, n’ three, he already owns a house so Ah dunno why he keeps tryin’ to buy our land,” Jackie answered.

“Was that important Tell?” Charles asked as we made our way into the forest from the edge of the city.

“It seems important. Yeah, go ahead and write all that down,” I answered after some thinking. Better safe then sorry I reasoned. “So we’re in the forest, where’s the airport?”

“Well, wherever there isn’t a bunch’a trees. It’s not that much farther,” Jackie answered walking deeper into the forest.

“Random question, is this area considered Equine?” I asked out of pure curiosity.

“Ah dunno. You’d hafta ask th’ pilots ‘bout that sorta thing. In fact…” She started but was interrupted by a choppy whir that I could only relate to a propeller warming up for a flight.

“That sounds like a plane! It must be just ahead!” Charles shouted and almost as if on cue another propeller warmed up making it very uncomfortable to not cover your ears.

We walked into a clearing with our hands covering our ears to see a long runway stretching out in front of us, and at the end of it, a large grey plane with yellow tipped wings throwing up dust behind it from the powerful propellers spinning in place. It was quite the sight when we saw a person walk to the opposite end of the runway with two of those rods you see the people at the commercial airport use to direct the plane. When the person stopped, they faced towards the plane and gave a few signals with the rods. The plane responded with its wings and rudder moving in predetermined directions; an equipment check I guessed. When the check was over, the lone person gave a few more foreign signals with the rod and the plane replied with an even louder roar of its engines and started to inch forward. Slowly, it gained speed accelerating to a point where we actually had to move our necks just to keep our eyes on it, and just when I thought the plane was going to run over the signaler, it went airborne and into a smooth ascent towards the cloudless fall sky.

We watched in awe as the grey plane shrunk to a smaller and smaller size as it flew further and further away from us. When it was no more than a pinpoint in the sky, we took our hands off our undamaged, albeit ringing ears and acknowledged each other that the display we just saw was, in fact, pretty sick.

We didn’t even notice the person who had been signaling the plane had been casually making there way towards us after the plane had taken off. Unsurprisingly, Jackie recognized them and yelled, “HOWDY TONI! HOW’VE YA’LL BEEN?” while waving a hello towards them.

The person waved back and signaled us to meet them halfway. They probably had something to say to Jackie, no doubt. Approaching the person, I noticed they were wearing a pair of protective goggles over their eyes along with a bright yellow vest that had the letters, ‘E. F. F. P.’ over the front of it in bright red letters. They also had a yellow helmet on with the same acronym on it.

“Jeez, Toni, what’re ya doin’ here? Ya’llmost got yerself killed!” Jackie exclaimed when we finally reached him.

“Volunteering at the sweetest job ever! Did you see how close I got to that plane?” Toni answered enthusiastically in a loud, feminine sounding yet masculine patterned voice. For the second time today now, I think Charles and I misjudged a girl for a boy. That much was apparent from Charles’ look of confusion after Toni spoke.

“That was pretty cool, how’d you do all that?” I asked amazed at her bravery.

“With suave,” she giggled as she took off the goggles and hat to reveal that she was in fact a she. Her skin was a noticeably dark tan and she was very short compared to the rest of us. Her face revealed her to be about ten with her naive smile and exhilarated brown eyes, no doubt exhilarated from the job she just did. The most peculiar thing was her hair though. She looked as if she dyed it a bright purple and it was cut shorter than Charles hair, making her already apparent tomboyish attitude even more apparent.

Her youth threw me for a loop though. I couldn’t believe that she would voluntarily stand in front of an airplane driving at full speed down a runway and sound like she had a good time. That seemed to be the same thing Charles was thinking with the look of astonishment I saw plastered on his face.

Toni chortled at Charles’ ‘subtle’ look of surprise and said, “You look funny. Do you always do this when you meet a lady?”

“He doesn’t even know what a girl is,” I taunted causing a mix of embarrassment and anger for Charles. “On a more formal note, though, I have to speak with one of the pilots here. You seem to work here, do you think you could take us to some of the pilots you know?”

“Sure thing! But only if you drop the formal thing; no one who works here probably knows what the word formal means,” She answered cheerily. “By the way, I’m Toni. What’re your names?”

“I’m Teller Coy, attorney at law. This is my assistant, Charles… er…” I started but finished sheepishly when Toni gave me a disappointed look and replied, “Enough of the formalities! All due respect of course, but I don’t even know what an attorney is. And hurry up while you’re at it. Don’t have all day, y’know.”

Hurry up. I could do that!

Following close behind, I struck up a conversation with Toni, “So Toni, how’d you end up working here? Not to suggest anything, but you hardly look of age.”

“I intern! Well, I sort of volunteered.  Actually, I forced my way in and wouldn’t take no for an answer,” She at first answered strongly but got more sheepish with each explanation. “Whatever, I wanted to work here and now I do, ya got a problem?”

In all honesty, I liked her better and better with every second; an impatient little bugger who gets what she wants when she wants it. “Nope, in fact, my first job went sort of the same way. I did almost the same thing.”

“Great minds think alike!” Toni exclaimed. “So your job, what’s an att-ur-ny?”

“Well, do you know what a lawyer is?”

“Yeah, those guys in those cheesy courtroom dramas Mum watches?”

“Yes,” I answered sardonically while rolling my eyes, “Like those guys. That’s basically what an attorney is.”

“Oh! Sorry about that…”

“No, no, its fine, you honestly didn’t know.” I said calmly, trying to remember she was only, what, just ten or eleven?

“Ok good,” Toni sighed. “Where’s your assistant, Chuck?”

I had to look around, but I found both Charles and Jackie lumbering our way at a leisurely pace far behind us. I God, they were slow.

“Way back there,” I said with a point, “Taking there sweet old time trying to catch up.”

“Ugh, as much as I like Jackie and all, I hate it when she moves like a snail. She’s not the only one either! It seems like you and all the pilots I know are the only ones who like speed living,” Toni replied. Speed living… huh! Never thought of it that way.

“Speaking of pilots, which ones can you take me to?” I asked seeing a tall building near the end of the runway.

“All of ‘em. It’s Sunday; most of the pilots either weren’t here yesterday so they come in today. The rest were here yesterday too.”

“Oh! That’s perfect! Can you take me to everyone that was here yesterday?”

Toni face darkened at my question and it had seemed she put two and two together, “Wait, if you’re a lawyer, are you here about Blossom?”

I sighed in sympathy. She must be one of her friends. “Yes, I’m here about Blossom and her brother. Apparently, one of the pilots witnessed the big crime last night and I need to ask some questions. Can I do that, Ms. Worker?”

She tried to fight it, but a small grin was working its way onto her face as she answered, “As long as I get to see Blossom in the hospital sometime soon. Can I do that, Mr. Att-ur-ney?”

“Sure thing, but I can’t promise anytime soon. She wasn’t doing to well from what I saw last night…”

“Well let’s hurry up then! The pilots are just in here,” Toni replied with a new enthusiasm. We arrived at a rather tall, slender building with a watchtower at the top to conduct air-traffic… I think. Next to this building was a large cylindrical garage that probably housed the airplanes however many there were. All in all, it was quite thrilling to soon see what went on in an airfield like this.

“Welcome to the Equine Forest Fire Patrol airfield!” Toni exclaimed as she opened the door to the watchtower building. Inside was a surprising amount of people walking around busily trying to do whatever they do for work. Ironically, the inside had an almost log-cabin feel to it considering it was a fire-fighting patrol. We were in a lobby with many cushiony chairs adorning the middle of the room for visitors like me to sit in for whatever reason. I wouldn’t need to use them though; Toni had taken off her neon yellow vest to hang on a hook near the front door along with her hard hat showing her orange tank-top underneath, making her tomboyish attitude even more apparent.

“This is just the visitor’s lobby. We normally don’t get a lot of visitors, so it’s a nice hangout at lunch. But we have to go see the pilots, so follow me,” Toni quickly explained making her way to a set of stairs. I hastened my pace trying to follow her as we made our way up around the spiral staircase.

Reaching the top led to quite a surprise; a near-completely silver room filled with machinery and computers on all sides coming up through the middle of the floor. There were no walls, just large windows on all sides leading me to guess we were in the watchtower part of the building. People were talking to all sorts of anonymous pilots with their heavy looking headsets and microphones. But one person was just sitting in what looked like a lounge with a T.V. and a couch. On it, sat this woman watching the large screen with boredom in her eyes.

Not wasting any time, Toni made her way over to this lounge and told the woman, “Hey Iris, I got some boy here who wants to talk with you.”

“Tch, tell him I’m already taken,” She replied losing interest in the conversation.

“Right, just completely ignore the fact that I’m right here,” I teased trying to lighten the mood.

“Look guy, I don’t even know you, I’m tired, I’m waiting for lunch, and I’m in a bad mood. Why don’cha get out of here before you make me get up?” She retorted testily. So much for lightening the mood, I guess.

“Hey, I’m just here for an interview, but I guess you just want me to go…” I bluffed sensing her arrogant attitude. Keegan had done this once with a basketball star and it worked perfectly so I was hoping for the same results here. “Alright, I guess Plane’s and Pilot’s Magazine will have to find another ace for their “Up and Coming” segment.”

“Wait, huh?” She replied sitting up almost instantly. Toni looked just as confused as I made my way back to the stairs saying, “But don’t worry! I’ll send you a copy of the Magazine when the interview is finished!”

“Wait a minute, let’s not get off on the wrong hand! I’ll take the interview! Honest!” The woman almost yelled in shock. I bit my cheeks in a very hard attempt to repress a smile as I turned around saying, “Well, you obviously don’t want to talk to me, so now I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Mr. Tell, what are you…” Toni started to ask but I quickly stopped her knowing she was probably going to blow my cover saying, “…And Toni here was so nice to me, now I can’t even put her in the article! She was so excited too!”

Toni still looked confused, but I gave her a small wink to let her know I was only bluffing and to play along. She winked back in one of those eureka moments and played along by saying in a heart tearing sadness, “Jeez, Iris, I idolized you for the longest time and you have to act like a jerk to the media? I thought you were the coolest!” She then stormed down the spiral staircase to the lobby floor and I thought to myself, ‘Damn, that was pretty good acting! She even had tears!’

Iris, so she was named, was absolutely speechless. Her painfully palpable pride had been perilously pulled from her. Thankfully, who else should come up the spiral staircase than Charles and Toni who looked to be in (fake) hysterics.

“Jeez, Tell you only knew this girl for like, what, five minutes and she’s already crying?” Charles asked in disappointment. I quickly glared at him while pointing at Iris and ‘retorted’ back, “Well some pilot to big for her own plane doesn’t want an interview with me, so I had to turn them both down.”

Charles, instantly recognizing Keegan’s dirty trick, played along and said to Iris, “For shame! Toni was so nice to me and you had to go and act like this! I expected better from our next best pilot!”

Iris, who had slowly worked up a nervous sweat, pleaded back, “Oh please, I’m sorry! I’ll take the interview, honest! Just stop making Toni cry!”

“WEEEELLLLLLL, I dunno. I guess if you really want to…” I teased trying my best not to celebrate,  “Aw what the heck? Sure. So first things first, why don’t you tell me your name?”

Iris let out a huge sigh of relief, quickly composed herself, and answered in an arrogant tone, “I’m Iris Birr, best flying ace in the country!”

“Aw, hell, is Iris goin’ on one of them rants ‘gain?” I heard a familiar voice drawl as Jackie came up the staircase. “Ah swear, she’ll just go on ‘n on if’n ya don’t stop her now.”

“Oh thanks, J. Way to make me look bad to this guy! He’s gonna interview me for a famous airplane magazine!”

Jackie puzzlingly looked at me and I motioned for Charles to go explain what had just conspired to Jackie and I said, “That’s right! First I’ll ask about your career, then I’ll ask about your recent achievements. How does that sound?” I had to make sure I made it sounded like an interview.

“Sound’s awesome! Where should I start?”

“From the beginning I guess. Go ahead.”

Authors note: pleeeeeaaaaaasssseeee review! I can’t help but feel I’m doing something wrong so just please write some kind of critique! Anything will help!

On another note: Time to make a contest worthy story! Gotta improve though… So until then, stay Viewtiful, all!