The Island by Davis MacDonald

Author:Davis MacDonald [MacDonald, Davis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-11T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26 Sunday, 1:00 PM

The Judge ambled back along St. Catherine’s Way, around the bluffs, past the Casino, and toward the Yacht Club. His cell phone went off, this time with a vibration and a soft siren. What the Hell was up with this phone?

It was Bailey.

“Hi Judge. The scuttlebutt around town is that the owner of the Cloud Café may have seen someone with Daisy after she stormed out of the Casino. I’m heading up to talk to the guy. Want to come?”

“Of course. Can you pick me up in front of the Yacht Club?”

“Three minutes, Judge.”

Three minutes later Bailey skidded to a stop beside him in the police golf cart, which had been located, serviced and now was back under Bailey’s hands. The Judge invariably had to hide a smile at this cart. Despite its decals and its toy-like light and siren, it was a golf cart for Christ sakes. Bailey, Sheriff, and Commander and Chief of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Substation in Avalon, looked silly folding his baton and sitting gingerly in it after shimmying in so as not to disturb his utility belt or get this holster stuck under him.

The Judge climbed in and off they roared.

The Cloud Café was on the grounds of the Airport in the Sky. Getting there was a good thirty-minute trip, but was one of the most scenic drives on the Island. They wound up switchbacks behind the town, through the gate which restricted access to the Out-Back maintained by the Land Company and then on to the only paved road which ran north atop the spine of the mountains, back-boning the Island. The views of the sea, the coves, the buffalo and other wild life were always spectacular. In some places you could see the sea on both sides of the Island at once.

The small Airport in the Sky was something of a legend. It got its name because it was near the island's highest point at an elevation of 1,602 feet. The landing pad began at the edge of a sheer cliff with crashing surf and rocks at its base Miscalculate where your wheels were going to touch on a landing, say a little too low, and you’d get very wet in a nasty crash, careening down the face of the sheer cliff to the rocks and sea below. It had happened in the past.

First-timers often focused too much on that cliff, sighing with relief as their wheels touched the tarmac. Only then did they look ahead to discover to their horror that the runway was too short for them to land. They would panic, slam the throttle in full and lift off again to execute a go-around, churning the engine full on as they plowed air and desperately pulled up for the sky.

It wasn’t really too short to land of course. It just looked that way. It was an optical illusion of sorts. The runway, built in the late ‘30s, was given a soft uphill grade in its first half, crowned by a mild hump.

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