Laughing at his own joke, he led us past the commotion and out of the building, toward the hangar. He brought us inside, letting us look in closets and behind big machines and basically anywhere a small boy could be hiding. A large set of keys jangled from Martin’s belt loop, and whenever we came to a door that needed unlocking, he would release a sort of spring catch on the keychain, slide out the key, and unlock it for us. In that manner, we searched the entire hangar and all of the airplanes parked outside.

“Where’s the plane Alan Bennet was trying to fly out on?” I asked. Martin brought us back inside the hangar and pointed toward the low-winged plane that was now parked in the service bay.

We went over to it and climbed inside, but it was very small, without a place that even a child could tuck himself into and hide.

“This here’s Roy Sullivan’s Piper Cherokee,” Martin said as we crawled around inside. “A nice little plane. Shame about the engine.”

“What happened to it?” I asked.

“It’s the darndest thing,” Martin said. “Roy pulled the plane up just fine, got ’er all loaded, and then they came inside to fill out the paperwork. When they got back out to the plane and tried to start ’er up again, it spit and sputtered and popped so bad, Roy couldn’t even get the dang thing going. He was just trying to adjust the torque on the spark plugs when the police drove up, and then, well, you know the rest. They arrested the passenger, and poor Roy was stuck with no fare and a broken-down plane.”

“So is that what it was?” I asked, climbing down out the of plane, then turning to help Angelina down. “Bad spark plugs?”

“Nah,” Martin said. “Roy thought so at first. But it turned out to be the gas tank. Darn thing was full of water.”

I froze, my heart pounding. Water in the gas tank. Where had I heard that before?

“The bus!” I said excitedly to Angelina. “Carlos’ bus, at the soccer tournament!”

“What?”

“The bus broke down because there was water in the gas tank! The kids had to spend an extra night in a motel.”

“So?”

“So,” I said, almost yelling, “if Carlos knew Alan was taking off in this plane—if he knew he needed to somehow stop him—then what would Carlos know to do? He put water in the gas tank! Carlos was here, Angelina! He sabotaged the plane!”

Martin and Angelina both stared at me in surprise.

“Where was the plane parked when Alan and the pilot went inside to do the paperwork?” I demanded. “Could Carlos have snuck over and poured some water into the tank while they were in there?”

Martin hesitated, rubbing his chin.