“VFR?” I asked.
“Sorry. Pilots are rated as instrument flight rule or visual flight rule. IFR pilots can fly in all 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,” Gullet 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, especially if the GA airport is close to a major city.”
“Are passenger manifests required?”
“No.”
We all 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 regulations or flight 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 call in the Feebs and the DEA?” Gullet 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.
Gullet 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 Gullet 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 Gullet.
A peculiar black residue speckled the cockpit. Though I’d worked small 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 collapsible gurney. A uniformed officer helped Hawkins carry it to the MCME transport vehicle.
Before turning to the passenger, Larabee called a break to enter observations on his own Dictaphone.
Jumping to the ground, I pulled off my mask, tugged up the sleeve on my jumpsuit, and glanced at my watch. For the zillionth time.
Five past seven.
I checked my cell phone.
Still 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 call “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 skull 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 totally encrusted. I had no idea what the substance could be.
As I filled 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 filled 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 willed my body temperature down by calling up cool images in my mind.
A swimming pool. The smell 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 all 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.
“Hello?”
Not a sound.
“Bird?”
No cat.
Dumping my pack on the floor, I unlaced and pulled off my boots, then opened the door and set them outside.
“Birdie?”
Nope.
I walked to the study and flipped the wall switch.
And felt my mouth open in dismay.
I was filthy, exhausted, and light-years past niceness.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
RYAN OPENED ONE VERY BLUE EYE.
“Is that all you ever say to me?”
“I’m talking to him.”
I pointed a sooty finger at Boyd.
The dog was flopped at one en
d 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.
I moved the finger.
Boyd slunk to the floor. Ryan’s size-twelves dropped to the cushion.
“Furniture infraction?” Both blue eyes were open now.
“I take it you found the key?”
“No problemo.”
“How did chowbreath get here, and why did he permit you to just waltz in?”
Boyd and Ryan looked at each other.
“I’ve been calling him Hooch. Saw it in a movie. Thought it fit him.”
Boyd’s ears shot up.
“Who let Hooch in, and why did Hooch let you in?”
“Hooch remembers me from the TransSouth disaster up in Bryson City.”
I’d forgotten. When his partner was killed transporting a prisoner from Georgia to Montreal, Ryan had been invited to help the NTSB with the crash investigation. He and Boyd had met at that time, in the Carolina mountains.
“How did Hooch get in here?”
“Your daughter brought him.”
Boyd wedged his snout under Ryan’s hand.
“Nice kid.”
Nice ambush, I thought, fighting back a smile. Katy figured a guest couldn’t refuse the dog.
“Nice dog.”
Ryan scratched Boyd behind the ears, swiveled his feet to the floor, and gave me a once-over. The corners of his mouth twitched upward.
“Nice look.”
My clothes were filthy, my nails caked with mud and soot. My hair was sweaty-wet and matted, my cheeks fiery from a zillion insect bites. I smelled of corn, airplane fuel, and charred flesh.
How would my sister Harry describe me? Rode hard and put away wet.
But I was not in the mood for a fashion critique.
“I’ve been scraping up fried brain matter, Ryan. You wouldn’t look like a Dior ad either.”
Boyd regarded me but kept his thoughts to himself.
“Have you eaten?”
“The event wasn’t catered.”
Hearing my tone, Boyd jammed his snout back under Ryan’s hand.
“Hooch and I were thinking about pizza.”
Boyd wagged his tail at the sound of his new nickname. Or at the mention of pizza.
“His name’s Boyd.”
“Why don’t you go upstairs and clean up some. Boyd and I’ll see what we can rustle up.”
Rustle up?
Born in Nova Scotia, Ryan has lived his entire adult life in the province of Quebec. Though he’s traveled extensively, his view of American culture is typically Canadian. Rednecks. Gangsters. Cowboys. Now and then he tries to impress me with his Gunsmoke lingo. I hoped he wasn’t about to do that now.
“I’ll be a few minutes,” I said.
“Take your time.”
Good. No “podna” or “ma’am” tacked on for effect.
It came as I was trudging up the stairs.
“—Miz Kitty.”
* * *
Another sudsy, steamy bathroom session to cleanse body and soul of the smell of death. Lavender shower gel, juniper shampoo, rosemary-mint conditioner. I was going through a lot of aromatic plants of late.
Soaping up, I thought about the man downstairs.
Andrew Ryan, lieutenant-détective, Section de Crimes contre la Personne, Sûreté du Québec.
Ryan and I had worked together for nearly a decade, homicide detective and forensic anthropologist. As specialists within our respective agencies headquartered in Montreal, the Quebec coroner’s bureau and the Quebec provincial police, we’d investigated serial killers, outlaw biker gangs, doomsday cults, and common criminals. I’d do the vics. He’d do the legwork. Always strictly professional.
Over the years I’d heard stories about Ryan’s past. Bikes, booze, binges closed out on drunk-tank floors. The near-fatal attack by a biker with the shattered neck of a twelve-ounce Bud. The slow recovery. The defection to the good guys. Ryan’s rise within the provincial police.
I’d also heard tales about Ryan’s present. Station-house stud. Babe meister.
Irrelevant. I had a steadfast rule against workplace romances.
But Ryan isn’t good at following rules. He pressed, I resisted. Less than two years back, at last accepting the fact that Pete and I were better off as friends than spouses, I’d agreed to date him.
Date?
Jesus. I sounded like my mother.
I squeezed more lavender onto my scrunchy and lathered again.
What term did one use for singles over forty?
Go out? Court? Woo?
Moot point. Before anything got off the ground, Ryan disappeared undercover. Following his reemergence, we’d tried a few dinners, movies, and bowling encounters, but never got to the wooing part.
I pictured Ryan. Tall, lanky, eyes bluer than a Carolina sky.
Something flipped in my stomach.
Woo!
Maybe I wasn’t as tired as I thought.
Last spring, at the close of an emotionally difficult time in Guatemala, I’d finally decided to take the plunge. I’d agreed to vacation with Ryan.
What could go wrong at the beach?
I never found out. Ryan’s pager beeped while en route to the Guatemala City airport, and instead of Cozumel, we flew to Montreal. Ryan returned to surveillance in Drummondville. I went back to bones at the lab.
Woo-us interruptus.
I rinsed.
Now Detective Don Juan had his buns parked on the couch in my study.
Nice buns.
Flip.
Tight. With all the curves in the right places.
Major flip.
I twisted the handle, hopped out of the shower, and groped for a towel. The steam was so thick it obscured the mirror.
Good thing, I thought, picturing the handiwork of the mosquitoes and gnats.
I slipped into my ratty old terry-cloth robe, a gift from Harry upon completion of my Ph.D. at Northwestern. Torn sleeve. Coffee stains. It is the comfort food of my garment collection.
Birdie was curled on my bed.
“Hey, Bird.”
If cats could look reproachful, Birdie was doing it.
I sat next to him and ran a hand along his back.
“I didn’t invite the chow.”
Birdie said nothing.
“What do you think of the other guy?”
Birdie curled both paws under his breast and gave me his Sphinx look.
“Think I should pull out the string bikinis?”
I lay back next to the cat.
“Or hit the Victoria’s Secret stash?”
Victoria’s Secret knockoffs, actually, from Guatemala. I’d found them in a lingerie store, and bought the mother lode for the beach trip that never was. Those items were still in their Vic-like pink bag, tags in place.
I closed my eyes to think about it.
* * *
The sun was again cutting through the magnolia, throwing warm slashes across my face.
I smelled bacon and heard activity in my kitchen.
A moment of confusion, then recollection.
My eyes flew open.
I was in a fetal curl on top of the spread, Gran’s afghan over me.
I checked the clock.
Eight twenty-two.
I groaned.
Rolling from the bed, I pulled on jeans and a T and ran a brush through my hair. Sleeping on it wet had flattened the right side, pooched the left into a demi-pompadour.
I tried water. Hopeless. I looked like Little Richard with hat hair.
Terrific.
I was halfway down the stairs when I thought about breath.
Back up to brush.
Boyd greeted me at the bottom step, eyes shining like a junkie’s on crack. I scratched his ear. He shot back to the kitchen.
Ryan was at the stove. He wore jeans. Just jeans. Slung low.
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Oh, boy.
“Good morning,” I said, for lack of a more clever opener.
Ryan turned, fork in hand.
“Good morning, princess.”
“Listen, I’m sorr—”
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
He filled a mug and handed it to me. Boyd gamboled about the kitchen, high on the smell of frying fat. Birdie remained upstairs, radiating resentment.
“I must have bee—”
“Hooch and I had a hankerin’ for bacon and eggs.”
Hankerin’?
“Sit,” said Ryan, pointing his fork at the table.
I sat. Boyd sat.
Realizing his mistake, the chow stood, eyes fixed on the bacon Ryan was transferring to a paper towel.
“Did you find a pillow and blanket?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I took a sip of my coffee. It was good.
“Good coffee.”
“Thank ya, ma’am.”
No doubt about it. This was going to be a cowboy day.
“Where did you get the bacon and eggs?”
“Hooch and I went for a run. Hit the Harris-Tooter. Weird name for a grocery store.”
“It’s Harris-Teeter.”
“Right. Makes more sense for product recognition.”
I noticed an empty pizza box on the counter.
“I’m really sorry about flaking out last night.”
“You were exhausted. You crashed. No big deal.”
Ryan gave Boyd a strip of bacon, turned, and locked his baby blues onto mine. Slowly, he raised and lowered both brows.
“Not what I had in mind, of course.”
Oh, boy.
I tucked hair behind my ears with both hands. The right side stayed.
“I’m afraid I have to work today.”
“Hooch and I expected that. We’ve made plans.”
Ryan was cracking eggs into a frying pan, tossing shells into the sink with a jump-shot wrist move.
“But we could use some wheels.”
“Drop me off, you can have my car.”
I didn’t ask about the plans.
As we ate, I described the crash scene. Ryan agreed that it sounded like drug traffickers. He, too, had no idea about the odd black residue.
“NTSB investigator didn’t know?”
I shook my head.