The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel (8 page)

I stared at him. “So you think maybe we’ve all been stumbling over a body down there, but nobody’s noticed it, because we’re too close to see the shape of the arms and legs and head?”

“No, I don’t mean
that,
” he hedged. “I’m just wondering if you might get a better feel for the bigger picture—for how things are . . .
arranged
—if you take a step back, get into a groove, and get some momentum going.”

“Three years ago—after 9/11—I spent ten days sifting through rubble from the World Trade Center,” I told him. “In those ten days, I saw four intact long bones.
Four
.” I held up my right hand, fingers splayed, for digital emphasis. “I didn’t see a single complete skull. Mostly what I saw were shreds and splinters. Even the teeth were in bits and pieces. I could be wrong—Pat, please correct me if I am—but I’m guessing this crash is like a scaled-down version of that rubble. Yes? No?”

Maddox hesitated, looking reluctant to choose sides. “Well, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. But a straight-on impact at that velocity?” He considered it only for a moment. “The pilot probably fragments from the initial impact. Then the rest of the plane slams into him like a pile driver. Then comes the fire.” He shrugged at Prescott in what seemed a sort of apology. “This reminds me of some military crashes I’ve seen. Fighter jets. Sometimes all they leave is a smokin’ hole.” He gave us all a conciliatory smile. “But hey, tomorrow’s another day, right? A juicy steak and a good night’s sleep, and we’ll be raring to go again.”

I couldn’t help wondering:
Which “we”? The “we” in the air-conditioned command center, or the “we” doubled over
like field hands?
Still, I appreciated his sticking up for me, and I suspected I’d enjoy trading stories with him over dinner. “You eating with us, Pat?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I hear you guys are staying in Otay Mesa. Close to Brown Field. I’m booked somewhere in San Diego. Pain in the ass to get there, but hey, a good soldier goes where he’s sent.” He flashed us a peace sign and turned to go, leaving me with the FBI agents.

JOUNCING DOWN FROM THE CRASH SITE, BACK
toward town, I was so grateful to be riding shotgun that I mostly forgave Prescott for criticizing our work pace. He was at the wheel of the vehicle, with McCready, Kimball, and Boatman in the back—a place where I’d have gotten carsick within minutes. Our Suburban, followed closely by the other one, was bucking and lurching down Otay Mountain Truck Trail—a rough-hewn route whose chief virtue, as best I could tell, was the honesty of the label
TRUCK TRAIL
. Between bumps, I marveled anew at the fleet of assorted vehicles that had managed to make the climb—especially the crane and the mobile command center—and I made a mental note to express my admiration to their drivers. As if to make sure I didn’t forget, the Suburban tilted suddenly to the right, then abruptly to the left, whapping my head against the window. I thought longingly of the swift, smooth hop the helicopter had made from the airfield to the summit: two minutes; three, tops.
Yesterday’s travel was a lot cushier than today’s,
I thought. Suddenly, astonished, I realized:
No—that was
today, too. I was eating breakfast in my kitchen in Knoxville this morning.

As we descended, the kinked switchbacks relaxed, opening up into looser, looping curves, and the primitive truck trail evolved into an actual gravel road. By the time we came off the mountain’s flank and into the valley floor, we had picked up enough speed to churn up a dense, dun-colored plume, and I was glad to be in the lead vehicle rather than any of the trailing ones, which had vanished inside the dust storm we were creating.

Shortly after turning onto a wide paved road, we passed a side road marked by a large sign. The sign, made of wooden boards framed by rough-hewn rock, read
DONOVAN STATE PRISON
. I was just about to ask Prescott about it when his cell phone rang. He frowned at the display but took the call. “No,” he said tersely, “not right now.” Then: “All right. . . . I
said
all
right
. . . .
Fine
. See you then.” He closed the phone with an angry snap.

“Trouble?”

He made a face of minor distaste, or perhaps disdain. “Just a friendly little jurisdictional discussion. Otherwise known as a pissing contest.”

“With the sheriff’s office?”

He shook his head. “I wish. It’s easy to outpiss the locals. Nah, this is with some of our federal brethren.” He glanced at me, saw the question on my face. “Nothing serious,” he said. “Case like this gets lots of media attention, so everybody wants to share the glory. ’Course, if things go south—if something goes wrong—those same glory hounds’ll run for cover. Pausing only long enough to throw us under the bus.” He looked into the rearview mirror and gave his backseat colleagues a slight, ironic smile. “Not that
we
would ever do that, if the tables got turned. Right, fellas?” Kimball and
Boatman and McCready, jammed in the backseat, swiftly agreed that no, they would never run for cover or throw anyone under the bus.

“Bus? What bus? I see no bus,” said Kimball, his tone all mock innocence. “Pay no attention to that large, fast-moving vehicle!” The agents laughed the laugh of the righteous and confident, and I assured myself that I didn’t need to worry, as long as I looked both ways before crossing streets.

“HOME SWEET HOME,” PRESCOTT ANNOUNCED,
pointing through the windshield. Looking down in the direction of his point—we were on an overpass, crossing a six-lane freeway—I spotted a Quality Inn. Drab, aging, and ironically named, it huddled in the corner formed by the freeway and the overpass. Only the four out-of-towners were staying here; Prescott and the local evidence techs had the luxury of sleeping in their own beds, and Maddox, the NTSB investigator, was staying somewhere downtown. He’d made it sound like he was disappointed not to be staying with us, but now that I saw our lodgings, I suspected he wasn’t all that torn up about it.
Too bad,
I thought again, wishing I’d had the chance to swap stories with him. I’d always been fascinated by planes, and flight; I’d even taken a few flying lessons years before, but I’d failed the medical exam because of my Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder that occasionally laid me low, sometimes for days on end, with bed-spinning vertigo and racking nausea.

“Doc?” Prescott had stopped the Suburban at the motel’s entrance. He was looking at me, waiting.

“Sorry; what’d you say?”

“You ready to eat? These guys are starving. There’s a
Carl’s Jr. on the other side of the expressway, and we’re jonesing for burgers.”

I was hungry, too, I realized. “Sure.” Then, as an afterthought, I checked my watch. It was nearly seven, though the sun was still well above the horizon, thanks to the combined wonders of daylight saving time and the approach of the summer solstice. “On second thought, you guys go ahead. It’s close to bedtime in Knoxville, and I’d like to talk to my wife before she goes to sleep.”

“We can wait, if you’re just touching base.”

“She’s pretty chatty,” I said, though the truth was, I tended to be the long-winded one.

He nodded. “You want us to bring you something on the way back? Burger? Chicken sandwich? They make a mighty mean onion ring.”

“A good chocolate shake, too,” added Boatman.

“Sounds good,” I said, “but none of that stuff travels well. Thanks anyhow.” I waved a hand in cheery dismissal. “Y’all don’t worry about me. I’ll get checked in, call Kathleen, and scrub off some of this grime. Plenty of time to grab a bite after that.”

Prescott inclined his head toward one side of the building. “There’s a pool, if you want to take a dip.”

“Didn’t bring a suit,” I said. “Didn’t realize we’d be staying at a luxury resort.”

He laughed. “Yeah. First class all the way.” The freeway’s exit ramp bordered one side of the pool, and the overpass loomed above the far end. I imagined a steady rain of dust, exhaust particulates, and rusted car parts raining down onto the pool court like volcanic ash onto Pompeii.

Opening the door, I stepped onto the parking lot’s blasted asphalt. “Pop the back? So I can grab my bag?” He did, and
I extricated my yellow L.L. Bean duffel and closed the hatch. McCready took my place riding shotgun. As I passed Prescott’s window, it slid down a few inches. “See you in the morning. Wheels up at seven? Or is that too early for an ivory-tower guy like you?” It could have been a dig, but it didn’t sound like it.

“Seven?
Early?
That’s ten, Knoxville time. That’s sleeping in, man.”

“Hey, feel free to head on up at four. I’ve got a flashlight and a map I can loan you.”

“Nah,” I said. “You guys would be sad if you showed up and I’d already finished working the scene without you.”

“Sad,” he agreed. “Heartbroken, even.” The tinted window slid up, hiding him from view. The black Suburban did a U-turn, and the four invisible FBI agents glided away.

RECOUNTING MY DAY TO KATHLEEN HELPED ME PROCESS
it; it also helped me feel grounded, connected with her—we’d been together so long, I tended to feel unsettled and unmoored when I was away. If not for the three-hour time difference, I’d have talked her to sleep as I settled into bed myself. Instead, I’d roamed the neighborhood around the motel as we talked.

Neighborhood
wasn’t actually the right term for it;
industrial park
was more like it. Otay Mesa, or at least this part of it, consisted of grim blocks of warehouses, alternating with unpaved parking lots—some of them empty, others filled with semitrailers, and virtually all of them surrounded by chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Otay Mesa was a stone’s throw from a border crossing, and the town appeared to revolve around it the way water revolves around the drain in a toilet bowl. Years before, attending a conference in San Diego,
I’d taken a brief side trip to Tijuana; the border crossing there, a few miles to the west, had reminded me of a drive-through version of an airport terminal: a bustling crossroads traversed by throngs of tourists and business travelers. The crossing here at Otay Mesa, on the other hand, put me in mind of a freight depot or railroad switchyard: a gritty frontier outpost where produce and car parts and probably contraband came pouring in, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The nearness of Mexico was underscored everywhere I looked: Brown faces, which outnumbered white faces by two or three to one. Beer trucks hauling Tecate and Negro Modelo, rather than Budweiser and Coors. Import-export brokers and warehouses with names like
COMERCIALIZADORA IMPORTADORA
and
MARQUEZ VEJAR
and
INTEGRACION ADUANAL
. Dual-language placards on signposts and walls and fences:
STOP
and also
PARE
;
DANGER
as well as
PELIGRO
;
BEWARE OF DOG
plus ¡
CUIDADO CON EL PERRO
!, a warning illustrated by a snarling German shepherd—a visual that made the sign trilingual, in a hieroglyphic sort of way.

From the top of the overpass that spanned the Otay Mesa Freeway, I spied the sign for the burger joint the four FBI agents had gone to—the oddly punctuated Carl’s Jr.—as well as a closer, higher sign for McDonald’s. To my left, the freeway’s six lanes curved northwest toward San Diego; to my right, they ran due south for a quarter mile to the border checkpoint. As the trucks rumbled beneath me, I noticed that the southbound trucks—heading for the border—rattled and clattered, their cargo trailers empty. The northbound trucks—fresh from Mexico—thudded and groaned beneath heavy loads.

I turned down the street toward the burger joint. I glanced inside, looking for the FBI agents, but I saw no sign of them—not surprising, given that they could have ordered and eaten
and driven away a half hour or an hour before. I was reaching for the door, my stomach rumbling in earnest now, when something caught my eye and I spun in my tracks. Directly across the street was an IHOP—International House of Pancakes—and IHOP was hardwired to some of my fondest memories: Throughout my son’s childhood and adolescence, he and I hit the IHOP almost every Saturday morning. Happily I headed across the deserted street and into the IHOP. By now it was nearly nine, the posted closing time, and the hostess station was vacant. Wandering into the dining room, I found a server, a sturdy young Latina. “Am I too late to eat?”

“You made it just in time,” she said. “Have a seat”—she motioned me toward a high-backed booth along one wall, beside a hallway that led to the restrooms—“and I’ll bring you a menu.”

“Don’t need one,” I told her. “I know what I want.” She nodded, pulling an order pad and a pen from her back pocket. “Waffle combo,” I said. “The waffles with fruit and whipped cream—extra fruit and extra cream, please. Two eggs over medium. Bacon. Orange juice.” I thought for a moment. “And an extra side of bacon, please.” Kathleen wouldn’t approve—in fact, Kathleen would be appalled—but Kathleen was fifteen hundred miles away. I knew some people who indulged in alcohol or even adultery while on road trips. Me, I indulged in bacon.

I slumped down in the booth, suddenly dog-tired; I must have nodded off, because in what seemed mere moments, I heard a thunk and opened my eyes to behold a huge helping of food. “Looks great,” I said. “Smells great, too.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.” If we’d been in Tennessee, she’d have punctuated the sentence with a
darlin’
or a
hon,
but we weren’t, so she didn’t. She simply smiled and walked away.

The first bite of food—if the word “bite” can be applied to the microcosmic feast I hoisted mouthward, the fork flexing from its load—filled my mouth with layer upon layer of flavor and texture: the warm, still-crisp waffle; the sweet, juicy berries; the smooth, rich cream; the satisfying substance of the egg. My mouth was practically overflowing, but I couldn’t resist cramming in half a piece of bacon for the sake of the smoky, salty crunch.

I was only beginning to comprehend the gap between how much I had bitten off and how little I could chew when I heard a familiar voice behind me: Special Agent Miles Prescott’s voice. My inclination was to stand up and say hello, but my mouth was far too full to speak, so I sat, slumped and unseen in the high-backed booth.

Prescott’s voice was low, but I quickly realized it had a steely edge to it; in fact, as I chewed and listened, I realized that he sounded furious, and I wondered if he was chewing out one of the other agents. Surely not Kimball or Boatman—they were too lowly to inspire such ire—but McCready might have angered him by allowing us to work too slowly. “You know the goddamn rules,” he practically spat. “We had the intel first, so it was our operation.”

“It was a penny-ante, pissant little operation,” said another, unfamiliar voice—a voice so raspy and wheezy that the speaker was close to coughing out the words. “If you had let this thing play out just a little longer, we’d have taken it a lot higher up the food chain. Maybe—
maybe
—even gotten Goose Man. We were
this close
.”

“In your dreams.”

“
This close,
” the second man wheezed again. “But no, the Bureau had to come charging in like the Seventh Fucking Cavalry—flags waving, bugles blowing—and scare everybody
back into their hidey-holes. Do you realize you sabotaged a three-year investigation?”