5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 Read Online Free Page B

flying lessons. The latter transactions produced a certain level of anxiety for them. The planes represented an important asset, and even though they viewed renting one to a stranger as a business transaction, they fretted over them, like parents who worry about the family sedan when the resident teenager takes it out for the first time.
    They’d taken Ike’s credit card, and a few eyebrows shot up when he’d slid it across the counter. They hadn’t dealt with that many government credit cards in the first place and certainly none like the one Charlie had supplied. He’d wondered if Charlie would catch any Agency flak for using government assets in his, so far, personal investigation, and then decided he wouldn’t make it his problem. He’d waited patiently while a few long-distance phone calls were placed and a smiling acceptance granted. He’d signed an open-ended contract. He didn’t know how long he’d need the aircraft; no more than three weeks, though.
    Satisfied, he gave the agent a thumbs-up and climbed into the cockpit to continue his pre-flight . The plane had been fueled . He snapped on the radio, adjusted the squelch, and signaled to the ramp attendant to pull the chocks. The big engine turned over easily, and he taxied to the end of the runway.
    Cleared for take-off, he turned onto the runway and sent the Cessna rolling down its length. The plane lifted gracefully from the ground and Ike was airborne. Up in the air, junior bird men. Up in the air…upside down. Upside down—not good.
    Ike made three wide turns over the airport with a touch and go on each loop. His hours in the air had been scant, but he still had the skills. Like riding a bike. He needed practice, and that was his excuse to fly to Martin State and take some instruction. Nick Reynolds had received his at Brett Aviation. That would be where Ike would register for lessons. He set a course to Martin State and settled back in the left seat. BWI traffic control called him twice to request he change altitude. The corridor over the bay carried a lot of commercial traffic, it seemed.
    ***
    There wasn’t much to see out by the streambed. The bones were gathered in a tight grouping. He studied a skull in the center of the pile. Barney’s description of an “arrangement” eluded him. It was just a pile of bones. A goat, he decided. He stepped back to take in the area and noticed the stones in the stream bed. They had been placed there, of that he was certain. He looked at the bones and then at the stones again. Barney’s “arrangement” popped out at him. He couldn’t be sure, but he sensed the bones, or at least the skull, had been placed to point toward the stones and by implication the field beyond. He crossed the stream, careful to keep his balance as he stepped gingerly on the stones in the stream. They were neither set firmly nor designed to bear his bulk. A path led away from the stream uphill and at an angle toward a wood farther away. He followed it, his eyes scanning the ground as he moved toward the trees. The grass had been trampled. He could not tell how recently or how often.
    The area’s karst topography had created a sinkhole many years ago. Frank recognized it as a gathering place for teenagers in his past. The Passion Pit, they’d called it. He supposed it must still serve that purpose. He worked his way down into its depth. At the bottom he realized he would be invisible to anyone walking in the fields above. The sinkhole had to be twenty feet deep, at least, and sixty across at the top.
    In its center, someone had erected a low table or perhaps a high bench from three rock slabs. Two unmatched shorter blocks formed the base or legs, and a larger flagstone its top. Because the two upright stones were uneven in length, the table-bench sloped left to right as he faced it. He glanced down at a trampled fire pit at his feet. To his right and left he could make out two more. He circled the area and discovered another two.