An Excerpt from Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines:
Murder at Cherry Point
A new thriller by Deborah Wallis
Copyright © 2010 Deborah Wallis and reprinted here with her permission
“Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.”
From Fire and Rain by James Taylor
Prologue
April
Six-year old Chris Weaver dragged his mother, Abby, through the crowd, frantic to find the perfect spot to set up their chairs and watch his father die on the runway in front of them.
The little boy had no way of knowing that’s what he would do this morning and while a crash was always a faint possibility in the mind of every wife of every pilot since the inception of aviation, Abby was joyfully oblivious to the looming disaster as well. Both of them laughed as they darted between people, completely unaware that today would scar their lives forever, charring the future like Napalm blazing through the jungle.
Abby wore a small backpack and had a lawn chair draped over one arm. The other was fully outstretched, gripping Chris’s T-shirt in her fist as she struggled to keep up with him. He plunged ahead of her, both his hands gripping the Blue Raspberry Iceehe’d had to have as soon as he’d spotted the huge display over the crowded booth.
The Air Show was the largest annual event hosted by Cherry Point and from the endless sea of people Abby waded through on the tarmac she thought it looked like they’d break a record this year.
There were parents and children as far as she could see, many carrying flags and airplanes on a stick. Others munched on hamburgers or hot pretzels as they walked. She grinned every time she caught a glimpse of the fine white funnel cake sugar clinging to lips and clothing. Funnel cakes were her weakness but it felt like that was the only booth they hadn’t stopped at yet. After standing in line at the inflatable Moonwalk and again at the Icee booth, Abby had almost said no to another fifteen minute wait at the Balloon Typhoon but the wide-eyed anticipation on Chris’s face froze the word in her mouth. She’d watched him stretching and jumping with dozens of other children to grasp the balloons that were just out of reach. When he’d proudly emerged with three floating above his head, Abby knew it had been worth it, but she’d had no patience left to stand in the long line for her funnel cake.
“This looks like a good place to watch Daddy,” Abby said as she set up her chair and dropped into it.
“I can’t wait! Is it almost time?” Chris asked. He set his drink on the ground next to his mom’s chair before jumping into her lap, settling in comfortably and tilting his head as far back as he could to stare at the sky, hoping to be first to catch a glimpse of his dad’s plane.
Major Danny Weaver, Abby’s husband, was the pilot flying the Harrier demonstration. The Harrier is a jet but it also functions in many ways similar to a helicopter. The versatility of vertical landings and extreme speed is what makes it such a captivating sight when the aircraft stops overhead, hovers and descends straight to the ground. It looks almost futuristic when from a mid-air dead stop, it catapults forward, speeding away with ear shattering force.
Chris had seen his father’s flight demonstration before but was too young to have had much appreciation for it. Now, he was enthralled with all things related to flight and couldn’t wait to see his dad and tell his entire class about it on Monday.
“Hey, Abby! I can’t believe we found you guys in this crowd.” Fran McAllister trailed behind her seven year old son, Justin, and looked as frazzled as Abby felt. “I feel like a pack mule for His Highness here,” she said, setting up her folding chair next to Abby’s and sinking into it, still balancing a large paper plate on one hand.
Chris jumped off Abby’s lap and he and Justin dropped, cross-legged to the ground in front of their mother’s chairs. Both boys’ mouths hung wide open as they watched The Golden Knights, the Army parachute team, plummet through the air, popping their parachutes only at the last possible moment.
Chris punched Justin’s arm and yelled, “Did you see that?”
“That was the coolest,” Justin agreed before taking a giant bite of the hot dog clutched in his hand.
Abby looked longingly at Fran’s plate. “Please tell me you’re willing to share just a bite of your funnel cake.”
Fran plucked a large piece off and passed the plate to Abby. “Help yourself.”
“You’re a true friend,” Abby said, snagging a big hunk before Fran could change her mind. She’d barely started to chew when the Harrier appeared near the horizon. “I think that’s Daddy!”
Chris squinted until his eyes were tight lines but could barely see the spot his mom pointed out to him. It got larger as he watched and he proudly told everyone in earshot, “That’s my Dad! That’s my Dad!”
The crowd gasped as Danny flew loops and rolls before decelerating into a hover and coming to a stop seventy or eighty feet above the runway.
Abby had seen the show so many times she knew exactly what he would do and when he would do it. She even had his timing down almost perfectly. She knew he’d bring the plane all the way to the runway and remain there for several seconds before doing a vertical take-off and speeding away from his astonished audience.
This hover was longer than usual, long enough, in fact, that she began to count the seconds in her head. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, she ticked off, all the while mentally instructing Danny to bring the plane down. It’s past time, wheels to the pavement, lower it, lower it.
She pushed out of her chair, her eyes riveted on the plane, shielded from the sun’s glare with the palm of her hand. Her stomach twisted like a tightly wrung dishrag. Every nerve howled that Danny was in trouble and even as her heart prayed she was wrong, a wave of overwhelming fear threatened to drop her to her knees.
When the plane pitched further than she had ever seen it, her denial melted. The crowd, too, sensed a problem, their awed silence replaced with questioning murmurs. People withdrew from the flight line, backing away, unconsciously knowing they needed to put distance between themselves and the plane. Even as their movement gained momentum, every eye remained glued to the disaster unfolding in front of them.
Chris and Justin felt the fear and looked up at their mothers.
Fran grabbed Justin’s hand. “Abby, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said, unable to look away for even a moment.
The aircraft dipped and lurched and dipped again and still Abby stood, paralyzed, willing it to land safely. Her heart pounded so hard she felt the blood pulse in her ears. Her throat closed, choking her as she watched the plane plunge nose first straight toward the ground. She heard the screams around her, felt the panic of the crowd and knew she should move but couldn’t. Fran pushed her and yelled at her to run even as she snatched up Justin and backed away. Abby’s mind registered every detail but her body didn’t respond. No, no, no repeated in her brain and it wasn’t until she heard Chris ask what was happening that she realized she was actually screaming.
Her son’s voice jarred her into motion. As she reached to pick him up, she saw Nick Corbett grab him yelling, “I’ve got Chris, Abby! Run!” He turned the boys face into his chest and grabbed Abby’s hand, hauling her behind him as he ran.
People fled in every direction, stumbling and falling in an effort to escape. Children, separated from their parents in the crush of people, wailed. Panicked cries for mom and dad echoed all over the fight line. The explosion at impact shook the pavement beneath them and the heat from the mushrooming fireball enveloped the crowd, scattering debris and burning jet fuel as it grew. Abby saw fear and panic in the cut and bloodied faces running past her. Smoke filled her nostrils and seared her eyes.
She tried to focus on Chris in Nick’s arms, knowing she had to keep up, had to stay with them. But Chris should be in Danny’s arms, not Nick’s. It should be Danny pulling her along. Praying for a miracle, telling herself he ejected in time and was safe, she turned back longing to see Danny in his chute drifting safely away from the crash. The devastation behind her shattered any hope she had left. No one could have survived that inferno. She saw the flaming metal coming straight at them too late.
Nick must have spotted it seconds before she did because the last thing she remembered was him throwing her to the ground and covering her body and Chris’s with his own.
Two Months Earlier
February
Chapter 1
When Danny and Abby Weaver drove away four years ago Abby watched, with mixed emotions, as the town of Havelock receded in the rearview mirror. Now they were back and she sat in the driveway of their new home in Stonebridge Landing. This time there was nothing mixed about it. She and Danny beamed with enthusiasm about the house and the transfer. While this tiny eastern North Carolina town was home to Cherry Point and the Marines who worked there, if you blinked through its few intersections, you just might miss it. It offered very little in terms of shopping or restaurants, but it was a tight knit community that took care of their own and the Marines were their own.
The two story red brick colonial surrounded by red tips and hydrangeas rested on the largest lot on the cul-de-sac and the back yard was already enclosed with a wooden privacy fence. Children playing soccer in the street pointed and waved at Chris as he jumped from the car. During her house hunting trip Abby was immediately drawn to this house and each time she returned to it she heard their laughter and chatter even when she stood inside. On the final visit, Chris’s voice had joined the rest. It was home.
“Can I go pick my room?” he asked, hurrying past Abby and Danny, his arms wrapped tightly around his Spiderman sleeping bag.
“At least let me get the door open,” Danny answered.
Chris’s first opportunity to choose his own room was almost more than he could bear. He tripped over himself getting into the house. The room he wanted wasn’t the largest, but the one that looked out on Jimmy’s backyard next door.
The front door was barely cracked open when he barreled through it.
“Slow down,” his mother said.
“Okay,” he yelled back, showing no sign of putting on the brakes.
“Let him work off some of that energy,” Danny said. “Maybe he’ll sleep tonight if he runs up and down the stairs a few times.” He turned away and mumbled, “Or, maybe, he’ll at least stop talking for a little while.”
Abby laughed. “It’s not easy being cooped up with him for hours, is it?”
They’d driven both vehicles, loaded to overflowing, all the way from Texas and the trip had taken almost three days. Even rotating Chris between them hadn’t helped. When he couldn’t be physically active all that pent up energy came out of his mouth in an endless flood of thoughts and stories. It reminded Danny of a cassette tape that looped over and over, endlessly playing the same songs.
Danny shook his finger at Abby and threatened, “If I hear one more Guess what, Daddy, I’m gonna…”
“You’re gonna what?” She grinned, stepping closer to his still extended finger. “You think I don’t know how tough it is to listen to him all day, every day? Who do you think did it while you were in Iraq?” She stepped even closer, stopping only inches from his face. “The way I figure it, you owe me about six months of Guess what, Daddy’s before we’re even.”
While they stood on the front porch of their new home, Danny pulled her into him. He stood at least two inches over six feet and had to lean down to nuzzle her neck. Two days of beard growth tickled until she tried to push him away. His large hands held Abby close before he kissed her and whispered, “I love you.”
Danny had only been home from combat for three weeks and the honeymoon wasn’t over. “I love you right back,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and wrapping her legs at his waist completely disregarding the possibility of nosy neighbors.
He’d been a flight instructor in the Training Command in Kingsville, Texas when he got orders to Iraq. They’d debated Abby and Chris living with her parents in Georgia while he was gone, but, ultimately, decided against it. Chris was happy in his school and Abby had a part time job with the local newspaper and a solid support group of friends. She’d made it through the lonely, sleepless nights, but even worse were the monotonous days of worry, work, worry, Chris’s activities, worry, yard work, and always, more worry. It was finally over and, as it turned out, she was glad she hadn’t put her mother and father through it with her.
As they walked back to the cars to carry in the first load Danny asked, “Did I tell you the Skipper invited us to a cocktail party at his place Friday night?”
“This Friday night? Less than a week from now Friday night?” Abby stopped and planted one hand her hip. “No, you didn’t.”
Danny’s cheeks flushed as he offered her a half-hearted shrug. “Sorry about that. I thought I told you. It’s not a big squadron thing, just a few couples. But I think some of them are Air Station bigwigs and the sooner I meet all the players on the base, the smoother my transition will be.”
His new assignment was to the Harrier Squadron, VMA-525 as its Executive Officer (XO), second in command of that squadron and Abby knew he was right about the importance of the party. She was only annoyed because he hadn’t told her about it sooner. “I take it you’ve known about this since before we left Texas,” she accused.
“Sorry,” he repeated as his eyebrows curled up in a silent plea for forgiveness.
“This new position comes with a lot of politics, doesn’t it? Are we going to be doing this more often? Will we become serious brown-nosers?” she asked, tilting her head and wrinkling her nose like a hyperactive bunny.
His blue eyes lit up with amusement as his laughter boomed across the yard. “Yes, there’s more politics, and yes, we’ll be doing this more often, but your adorable little nose should retain its color just fine since brown-nosing has never been your thing.” He leaned down and gave the tip of her nose a quick peck.
In response she smacked his arm with a fist and said, “I’ve got so much to do the next few days, I don’t know if I can even find our clothes by then, much less a babysitter.”
“I’ll help,” he offered. “How about I find the wardrobe boxes and I’ll check with the neighbors about a sitter?”
She shook her head as she jerked a suitcase out of the trunk. There was no point arguing with him even if she was positive his helpful offers were empty promises. She knew he meant it when he said it, but Danny would hear the call of the jet engines and disappear even before the moving van pulled out of the driveway. It was a good thing Abby loved this part of a move because the task of setting up their home always fell to her. They’d been married for eight years and she knew the drill.
Their furniture was scheduled to be delivered the next day so they unloaded the cars and opened the sleeping bags in their bedroom, collapsing into them after setting the alarm for far too early.
Danny rolled onto his side, facing her, one arm bent beneath his head. “Abs, have I told you lately that I love you?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“I thought I might go into the squadron first thing in the morning, not to check in or anything, just say hello, let the Skipper know I’m here.”
She didn’t even try to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “You know it’ll be crazy here and I’m counting on your help. Could you at least wait until everything is off the truck before you desert me on this sinking ship?”
He rolled onto his back, both hands under his head. “I guess I can do the squadron thing day after tomorrow instead,” he relented.
He won’t make it till noon before he finds an excuse to go to the base, she thought.
Chapter 2
Every inch of Gunnery Sergeant Walter Eisner’s five-ten firmly muscled body felt crammed in the Honda Civic parked outside a small hotel in Pine Knoll Shores, a beach community about twenty-five miles east of Havelock.
Home from Iraq for only a few weeks, this was the last thing he thought he’d be doing. The combat tour had been bearable only because he’d known he’d eventually come back to his wife, his home, his life. Daily emails and occasional phone calls had been his lifeline. His pictures of Samantha were frayed around the edges from being pulled in and out of his wallet. She was the first thought of his day and his last prayer at night. &
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