Bare Bones (7 page)

Joe Hawkins was already there when Larabee and I pul ed up in his Land Rover. The DI was smoking a cigaril o, leaning against a quarter panel of the transport van.

“Where’d she go down?” I asked, slinging my backpack over a shoulder.

Hawkins pointed with a sideways gesture of his cigaril o.

“How far?” I was already perspiring.

“’Bout two hundred yards.”

By the time our little trio traversed three cornfields, Larabee and Hawkins with the equipment locker, I with my pack, we were wheezy, itchy, and thoroughly soaked.

Though smal er than usual, the normal cast of players was present. Cops. Firemen. A journalist. Locals, viewing the proceedings like tourists on a double-decker.

Someone had run crime scene tape around the perimeter of the wreckage. Looking at it across the field, I was struck by how little there seemed to be.

Two fire trucks sat outside the yel ow tape, scars of flattened cornstalks running up to their tires. They were at ease now, but I could see that a lot of water had been pumped onto the wreckage.

Not good news for locating and recovering charred bone.

A man in a Davidson PD uniform appeared to be in charge. A brass tag on his shirt saidWade Gul et.

Larabee and I introduced ourselves.

Officer Gul et was square-jawed, with black eyes, a sculpted nose, and salt-and-pepper hair. The leading-man type. Except that he stood about five-foot-two.

We took turns shaking.

“Glad you’re here, Doc.” Gul et nodded at me. “Docs.”

The ME and I listened as Gul et summarized the known facts. His information went little beyond that which Larabee had provided outside the autopsy room.

“Landowner cal ed in a report at one-nineteen. Said he looked out his living room window, saw a plane acting funny.”

“Acting funny?” I asked.

“Flying low, dipping from side to side.”

Looking over Gul et’s head, I estimated the height of the rock outcrop at the far end of the field. It couldn’t have exceeded two hundred feet. I could see red and blue smears maybe five yards below the peak. A trail of scorched and burned vegetation led from the impact point to the wreckage below.

“Guy heard an explosion, ran outside, saw smoke rising from his north forty. When he got here the plane was down and burning. Farmer—” Gul et consulted a smal spiral notepad.

“—Michalowski saw no signs of life, so he hotfooted it home to cal 911.”

“Any idea how many were on board?” Larabee asked.

“Looks like a four-seater, so I’m thinking less than a six-pack.”

Gul et apparently wanted to compete withSlidel for movie cop work.

Flipping the cover with a one-handed motion, Gul et slid the spiral into his breast pocket.

“The dispatcher has notified the FAA or the NTSB, or whatever feds need contacting. Between my crew and the fire boys, I think we can handle the scene here. Just tel me what you need on your end, Doc.”

I’d noticed a pair of ambulances parked on the shoulder where we’d pul ed up.

“You’ve notified a trauma center?”

“Alerted CMC down inCharlotte . Paramedics and I took a peek once the fire was under control.” Gul et gave a half shake of the head. “There’s no one sucking air in that mess.”

As Larabee started explaining how we’d proceed, I snuck a look at my watch. Four-twenty. Visitor ETA at my condo.

I hoped he’d gotten my message saying I’d be late. I hoped he’d found a taxi. I hoped he’d spotted the key I’d asked Katy to tape to the kitchen door.

I hoped Katy had taped the key to the kitchen door.

Relax, Brennan. If there’s a problem he’l phone.

I unhooked and checked my cel phone. No signal.

Damn.

“Ready for a look-see?” Gul et was saying to Larabee.

“No hot spots?”

“Fire’s out.”

“Lead on.”

Hating my job at that moment, I fol owed Gul et and Larabee through the cornrows and under the police tape to the edge of the wreckage.

Up close, the plane looked better than it had from a distance. Though accordioned and burned, the fuselage was largely intact. Around it lay scorched and twisted pieces of wing, melted plastic, and a constel ation of unrecognizable rubble. Tiny cubes of glass sparkled like phosphorous in the afternoon sun.

“Ahoy!”

At the sound of the voice, we al turned.

A woman in khakis, boots, and dark blue shirt and cap was striding toward us. Big yel ow letters above her brim announced the arrival of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Sorry it’s so late. I got the first available flight.”

Draping a camcorder strap around her neck, the woman offered a hand.

“Sheila Jansen, air safety investigator.”

We took turns shaking. Jansen’s grip was anaconda strong.

Jansen removed her cap and ran a forearm across her face. Without the hat she looked like a milk commercial, al blonde and healthy and lousy with vitality.

“It’s hotter here than inMiami .”

We al agreed it was hot.

“Everything as it was, Officer?” Jansen asked, squinting through the viewfinder of a smal digital camera.

“Except for dousing the flames.” Gul et.

“Survivors?”

“No one’s reported in to us.”

“How many inside?” Jansen kept clicking away, moving a few feet left and a few feet right to capture the scene from different angles.

“At least one.”

“Your officers walked the area?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a minute?” Jansen raised the camcorder.

Larabee gave a go-ahead gesture with one hand.

We watched her circle the wreckage, shooting stil s and video. Then she photographed the rock face and the surrounding fields. Fifteen minutes later Jansen rejoined us.

“The plane’s a Cessna-210. The pilot’s in place, there’s a passenger in back.”

“Why in back?” I asked.

“The right front seat’s not there.”

“Why?”

“Good question.”

“Any idea who owns the plane?” Larabee asked.

“Now that I have the tail registration number I can run a trace.”

“Where’d it take off?”

“That could be a tough one. Once you come up with the pilot’s name I can interview family and friends. In the meantime, I’l check whether radar had tracking on the flight. Of course, if it was only a VFR flight, radar won’t have an identifier and it’l be harder than crap to trace the plane’s course.”

“VFR?” I asked.

“Sorry. Pilots are rated as instrument flight rule or visual flight rule. IFR pilots can fly in al kinds of weather and use instruments to navigate.

“VFR pilots don’t use instruments. They can’t fly above the cloud line or within five hundred feet of the ceiling on overcast or cloudy days. VFR pilots navigate using landmarks on the ground.”

“Good job, Sky King,” Gul et snorted.

I ignored him.

“Don’t pilots have to file flight plans?”

“Yes, if an aircraft takes off from a GA airport under ATC. That’s new since nine-eleven.” Investigator Jansen had more acronyms than alphabet soup.

“GA airport?” I asked. I knew ATC was air traffic control.

“Category-A general aviation airport. And the plane must fly within specific restrictions, especial y if the GA airport is close to a major city.”

“Are passenger manifests required?”

“No.”

We al stared at the wreckage. Larabee spoke first.

“So this baby may have been out on its own?”

“The coke and ganja boys aren’t big on regulationsorflight plans, GA airport or not. They tend to take off from remote locations and fly below radar control.

My guess is we’re looking at a drug run gone bad, and there won’t be any flight plan.”

“Gonna cal in the Feebs and the DEA?” Gul et asked.

“Depends on what I discover out there.” Jansen waggled the digital. “Let me get a few close-ups. Then you can start bringing out the dead.” For the next three hours that’s just what we did.

While Larabee and I struggled with the victims, Jansen scrambled around shooting digital images, running her camcorder, sketching diagrams, and recording her thoughts on a pocket Dictaphone.

Hawkins stood by the cockpit, handing up equipment and taking pictures.

Gul et drifted in and out, offering bottled water and asking questions.

Others came and went throughout the rest of that sweaty, buggy afternoon and evening. I hardly noticed, so absorbed was I with the task at hand.

The pilot was burned beyond recognition, skin blackened, hair gone, eyelids shriveled into half-moons. An amorphous glob joined his abdomen to the yoke, effectively soldering the body in place.

“What is that?” asked Gul et on one of his periodic visits.

“Probably the guy’s liver,” Larabee replied, working to free the charred tissue.

It was the last question from Officer Gul et.

A peculiar black residue speckled the cockpit. Though I’d worked smal plane crashes, I’d never seen anything like it.

“Any idea what this flaky stuff is?” I asked Larabee.

“Nope,” he said, attention focused on extricating the pilot.

Once disengaged, the corpse was zipped into a body bag and placed on a col apsible gurney. A uniformed officer helped Hawkins carry it to the MCME

transport vehicle.

Before turning to the passenger, Larabee cal ed a break to enter observations on his own Dictaphone.

Jumping to the ground, I pul ed off my mask, tugged up the sleeve on my jumpsuit, and glanced at my watch. For the zil ionth time.

Five past seven.

I checked my cel phone.

Stil no service. God bless the country.

“One down,” said Larabee, slipping the recorder into a pocket inside his jumpsuit.

“You won’t need my help with the pilot.”

“Nope,” Larabee agreed.

Not so for the pax.

When a rapidly moving object, like a car or plane, stops suddenly, those inside who are not securely fastened become what biomechanics cal “near-flung objects.” Each object within the larger object continues at the same speed at which it was traveling until coming to its own sudden stop.

In a Cessna, that ain’t good.

Unlike the pilot, the passenger hadn’t been belted. I could see hair and bone shards on the windshield frame where his head had come to its sudden stop.

The skul had suffered massive comminutive fracturing on impact. The fire had done the rest.

I felt plate tectonics in my stomach as I looked from the charred and headless torso to the grisly mess lying around it.

Cicadas droned in the distance, their mechanical whining like an anguished wail on the breathless air.

After a moment of serious self-pity, I replaced my mask, eased into the cockpit, climbed to the back, and began sifting bone fragments from their matrix of debris and brain matter, most of which had ricocheted backward after hitting the windshield frame.

The cornfield and its occupants receded. The cicadas faded. Now and then I heard voices, a radio, a distant siren.

As Larabee worked on the passenger’s body, I rummaged for the remnants of his shattered head.

Teeth. Orbital rim. A chunk of jaw. Every fragment coated with flaky black gunk.

While the pilot had been speckled, the passenger was total y encrusted. I had no idea what the substance could be.

As I fil ed a container, Hawkins replaced it with an empty one.

At one point I heard workers setting up a portable generator and lights.

The plane reeked of charred flesh and airplane fuel. Soot fil ed the air, turning the cramped space into a miniature Dust Bowl. My back and knees ached.

Again and again I shifted, fruitlessly searching for more comfortable positions.

I wil ed my body temperature down by cal ing up cool images in my mind.

A swimming pool. The smel of chlorine. The roughness of the boardwalk on the soles of my feet. The shock of cold on that first plunge.

The beach. Waves on my ankles. Wind on my face. Cool, salty sand against my cheek. A blast of AC on Coppertone skin.

Popsicles.

Ice cubes popping in lemonade.

We finished as the last pink tendrils of day slipped below the horizon.

Hawkins made a final trip to the van. Larabee and I stripped off our jumpsuits and packed the equipment locker. At the blacktop I turned for a closing look.

Dusk had drained al color from the landscape. Summer night was taking over, painting cornstalks, cliff, and trees in shades of gray and black.

At center stage, the doomed plane and its responders, glowing under the portable lights like some macabre performance of Shakespeare in a cornfield.

A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare.

I was so exhausted I slept most of the way home.

“Do you want to swing by the office to pick up your car?” Larabee asked.

“Take me home.”

That was the extent of the conversation.

An hour later Larabee deposited me beside my patio.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Of course. I have no life.

I got out and slammed the door.

The kitchen was dark.

Lights in the study?

I tiptoed to the side of the annex and peeked around the corner.

Dark.

Upstairs?

Ditto.

“Good,” I mumbled, feeling stupid. “I hope he’s not here.”

I let myself into the kitchen.

“Hel o?”

Not a sound.

“Bird?”

No cat.

Dumping my pack on the floor, I unlaced and pul ed off my boots, then opened the door and set them outside.

“Birdie?”

Nope.

I walked to the study and flipped the wal switch.

And felt my mouth open in dismay.

I was filthy, exhausted, and light-years past niceness.

“What the hel areyoudoing here?”

RYAN OPENED ONE VERY BLUE EYE.

“Is that al you ever say to me?”

“I’m talking to him.”

I pointed a sooty finger at Boyd.

The dog was flopped at one end of the couch, paws dangling over the edge. Ryan lay propped at the other end, legs extended, ankles crossed on top of the chow.

Neither wore shoes.

On hearing my voice Boyd sat bolt upright.