As I sealed the specimen bag and made notes in the file, something bothered me. Was the computer in error? Could I have been right in my initial impression that the foot belonged to a woman? Very possible. It happened all the time. But what about age? I was certain these were the bones of an older person, yet no one on the plane fit that profile. Could some pathology other than gout be skewing my assessment?
And what about the advanced putrefaction?
I cut a second slice of bone from the highest intact point on the tibia, tagged and sealed it. If the foot remained unidentified, I would attempt a more precise age estimate using histological features. But microscopic analysis would have to wait. Slides were being made at the ME facility in Charlotte, and the backlog was monumental.
I rebagged the foot, returned it to the body tracker in charge of the case, and moved on, continuing with a day identical to the previous four. Hour after hour I sorted bodies and body parts, probing their most intimate details. I didn't notice when others came and went, or when daylight dimmed in the windows high above our heads.
I'd lost all track of time when I glanced up to see Ryan rounding a stack of pine caskets at the far end of the fire station. He walked to my table, his face as tense as I'd ever seen it.
“How's it going?” I asked, lowering my mask.
“It'll be a bloody decade before this is sorted out.”
His eyes were dark and shadowed, his face as pale as the flesh that lay between us. I was shocked by the change. Then, realization. While my grief was for strangers, Ryan's pain was personal. He and Bertrand had partnered for almost a decade.
I wanted to say something comforting, but all I could think of was “I'm so sorry about Jean.”
He nodded.
“Are you all right?” I asked gently.
His jaw muscles bulged, relaxed.
I reached across the table, wanting to take his hand, and we both looked at my bloody glove.
“Whoa, Quincy, no gestures of sympathy.”
The comment broke the tension.
“I was afraid you'd pocket the scalpel,” I said, snatching up the implement.
“Tyrell says you're done for the day.”
“But I—”
“It's eight o'clock. You've been here thirteen hours.”
I looked at my watch.
“Meet me back at the temple of love and I'll update you on the investigation.”
My back and neck ached, and my eyelids felt like they'd been lined with sand. I placed both hands on my hips and arched backward.
“Or I could help you”—When I returned to vertical Ryan's eyes locked onto mine and his brows flicked up and down—“relax.”
“I'll be asleep before I hit the pillow.”
“You've got to eat.”
“Jesus, Ryan, what is this concern with my nutrition? You're worse than my mother.”
At that moment I spotted Larke Tyrell waving at me. He pointed to his watch then made a slicing movement across his throat. I nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
Telling Ryan that I'd take the briefing, and only the briefing, I zipped the remains into their pouch, made notes in the disaster victim packet, and returned everything to the body tracker. Stripping down to my street clothes, I washed and headed out.
Forty minutes later Ryan and I sat with meat loaf sandwiches in the kitchen of High Ridge House. He'd just voiced his third complaint concerning the absence of beer.
“The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty,” I replied, pounding on a ketchup bottle.
“Says who?”
“According to Ruby, the Book of Proverbs.”
“I will make it a felony to drink small beer.” The weather had cooled and Ryan was wearing a ski sweater, the cornflower blue a perfect match for his eyes.
“Did Ruby say that?”
“Shakespeare. Henry VI.”
“Your point being?”
“Like the king, Ruby is being autocratic.”
“Tell me about the investigation.” I took a bite of my sandwich.
“What do you want to know?”
“Have the black boxes been recovered?”
“They're orange. You have ketchup on your chin.”
“Have the flight recorders been found?” I blotted my face, wondering how a man could be so attractive and so annoying at the same time.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They've been sent to the NTSB lab in Washington, but I've listened to a copy of the cockpit voice recording. Worst twenty-two minutes I've ever spent.”
I waited.
“The FAA has a sterile cockpit rule below ten thousand feet, so for the first eight minutes or so the pilots are all business. After that they're more relaxed, responding to air traffic controllers, chatting about their kids, their lunch, their golf games. Suddenly there's a pop, and everything changes. They're breathing hard and shouting to each other.”
He swallowed.
“In the background you hear beeps then chirps then wails. A member of the recorders group identified each sound as we listened. Autopilot disconnect. Overspeed. Altitude alert. Apparently that meant they'd managed to level off for a while. You hear all this and you picture those guys struggling to save their plane. Shit.”
He swallowed again.
“Then there's this chilling whooping noise. The ground proximity warning. Then a loud crunch. Then nothing.”
Somewhere in the house a door slammed, then water ran through pipes.
“You know how it is when you watch nature films? You've got no doubt that the lion is going to gut that gazelle, but you hang in anyway, then feel awful when it happens. It's like that. You hear these people moving from normalcy into nightmare, knowing they're going to die and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“What about the flight data recorder?”
“That'll take weeks, maybe even months. The fact that the voice recorder worked as long as it did says something about break-up sequence, since power is lost to the recorders once the engines and generator go. But all they're saying now is that input ceased abruptly during a seemingly normal flight. That could indicate a midair disaster.”
“An explosion?”
“Possibly.”
“Bomb or mechanical failure?”
“Yes.”
I gave him a withering look.
“The repair records indicate there were minor problems with the plane over the past two years. Normal parts were reworked, and some sort of switch was replaced twice. But the maintenance records group is saying it looks pretty routine.”
“Any progress on the tipster?”
“The calls were made from a pay phone in Atlanta. Both CNN and the FBI have tapes, and voice analysis is being done.”
Ryan swigged his lemonade, made a face, set it on the table.
“What's the word from the body teams?”
“This is strictly between us, Ryan. Anything official has to come from Tyrell.”
He curled his fingers in a “go on” gesture.
“We're finding penetrations and a lot of lower leg and ankle fractures. That's not typical of ground impact.”
I flashed back to the gouty foot, and again felt puzzled. Ryan must have read my face.
“What now, buttercup?”
“Can I bounce something off you?”
“Shoot.”
“This is going to sound weird.”
“As opposed to your normally conventional views.”
More withering eye action.
“Remember the foot we rescued from the coyotes?”
He nodded.
“It doesn't match any passenger.”
“What doesn't fit?”
“Mainly age, and I feel pretty confident in my estimate. There was no one that old on the plane. Could someone have boarded without being listed?”
“I can look into it. We used to hitch rides in the military, but I suspect that would be pretty tough on a commercial flight. Airl
ine employees sometimes ride free. It's called deadheading. But they'd be listed on the manifest.”
“You were in the military?”
“Crimean War.”
I ignored that.
“Could someone have given a ticket away? Or sold it?”
“You're required to show a picture ID.”
“What if the ticketed passenger checks in, shows ID, then passes the ticket to someone else?”
“I'll ask.”
I finished my pickle.
“Or could someone have been transporting a biological specimen? This foot looks muckier than the stuff I've been processing.”
He looked at me skeptically. “Muckier?”
“The tissue breakdown seems more advanced.”
“Isn't decay rate affected by the environment?”
“Of course it is.”
I dabbed up ketchup and popped the last of my sandwich into my mouth.
“I think biological specimens have to be reported,” Ryan said.
I recalled times I'd flown with bones, boarding with them as carry-ons. In at least one instance I'd transported tissue sealed in Tupperware so I could study saw marks left by a serial killer. I wasn't convinced.
“Maybe the coyotes got the foot someplace else,” I suggested.
“Such as?”
“An old cemetery.”
“Air TransSouth 228 nosed into a cemetery?”
“Not directly into one.” I remembered my encounter with Simon Midkiff and his worry about his dig, and realized how absurd I must sound. Nevertheless, Ryan's skepticism irked me. “You're the expert on canids. Surely you're aware that they drag things around.”
“Maybe the foot took a jolt in life that makes it look older than its actual age.”
I had to admit that was possible.
“And more decomposed.”
“Maybe.”
I gathered napkins and utensils and carried our plates to the sink.
“Look, how 'bout we stroll Coyote Canyon tomorrow, see if anyone's pushing up daisies?”
I turned to look at him.
“Really?”
“Anything to ease your troubled mind, cupcake.”
That's not how it went.
I SPENT THE NEXT MORNING SEPARATING FLESH INTO FOUR INDIviduals. Case number 432 came from a burned segment of fuselage that lay in a valley north of the main crash site. Inside the body bag I found one relatively intact corpse missing the top of the skull and the lower arms. The bag also contained a partial head and a complete right arm with a portion of mandible embedded in the triceps muscle. Everything was congealed into a single charred mass.
I determined that the corpse was that of a black female in her early twenties who stood five feet seven at the time of death. Her X rays showed healed fractures of the right humerus and scapula. I classified number 432 as fragmented human remains, recorded my observations, and sent the body on to odontology.
The partial head, a white male in his late teens, became number 432A, and was also forwarded for dental analysis. The jaw fragment belonged to someone older than number 432A, probably a female, and went on to the dentists as number 432C. The state of bone development suggested that the unrelated arm came from an adult over twenty. I calculated upper and lower limits for stature, but was unable to determine gender since all hand and arm bone measurements fell into the overlap range for males and females. I sent the arm to the fingerprint section as case number 432D.
It was twelve-fifteen when I looked at my watch. I had to hurry.
* * *
I spotted Ryan through a small window in the morgue's back door. He was sitting on the steps, one long leg outstretched, the other raised to support an elbow as he spoke into a cell phone. Opening the door, I could hear that his words were English, his tone agitated, and I suspected the business was other than official.
“Well, that's the way it's going to be.”
He turned a shoulder when he saw me, and his answers grew terse.
“Do what you want, Danielle.”
I waited until he had disconnected, then joined him on the porch.
“Sorry I'm late.”
“No problemo.”
He flipped the cover and slid the phone into his pocket, his movements stiff and jerky.
“Problems on the home front?”
“What's your pleasure for lunch? Fish or fowl?”
“Nice dodge,” I said, smiling. “And about as subtle as a full court press.”
“The home front is not your concern. Subtle enough?”
Though my mouth opened, no words emerged.
“It's just a personal disagreement.”
“Have a lovers' spat with the Archbishop of Canterbury for all I care, just don't treat me to the performance.” Heat flamed my cheeks.
“Since when are you curious about my love life?”
“I couldn't care less about your love life,” I snapped.
“Thus the inquisition.”
“What?”
“Let's forget it.” Ryan reached out, but I stepped back.
“You did ask me to meet you here.”
“Look, this investigation has us both on edge.”
“But I don't take cheap shots at you.”
“What I don't need is more browbeating,” he said, lowering the shades from the top of his head.
“Browbeating?” I exploded.
Ryan repeated his question. “Fish or fowl?”
“Go fowl your own fish.”
I whirled and lunged for the doorknob, my face burning with anger. Or was it humiliation? Or hurt?
Inside, I slammed then leaned against the door. From the lot I heard an engine, then the squeal of brakes as a truck arrived with twenty more cases. Rolling my head, I saw Ryan kick a heel at the ground, then cross to his rental car.
Why had he made me so furious? I'd spent a lot of time thinking of the man during his months undercover. But distancing myself from Ryan had become so routine, I'd never considered the possibility that someone else might enter his life. Was that now the case? While I wanted to know, I sure as hell wasn't going to ask.
I turned back to find Larke Tyrell regarding me intently.
“You need some R and R.”
“I'm taking two hours this afternoon.” I'd requested the break so Ryan and I could search the area where I'd found the foot. Now I'd have to do it alone.
“Sandwich?” Larke tilted his chin toward the staff lounge.
“Sure.”
Minutes later we were seated at one of the folding tables.
“Squashed subs and pulverized chips,” he said.
“My usual order.”
“How's LaManche?” Larke had selected what looked like tuna on wheat.
“Back to his usual cantankerous self.”
Being the director of the medico-legal unit, Pierre LaManche was Larke Tyrell's counterpart at the lab in Montreal. My two bosses had known each other for years through membership in the National Association of Medical Examiners and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. LaManche had suffered a heart attack the previous spring but was fully recovered and back to work.
“Mighty glad to hear that.”
As we peeled cellophane and popped sodas, I remembered the ME's first appearance at the site.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” He watched me carefully, his eyes chestnut in the sunlight angling down from an overhead window.
“Jesus, Larke, I'm fine, so quit with the stress assessment. Lieutenant-Detective Ryan just happens to be a horse's ass.”
“Noted. You sleeping O.K.?”
“Like Custer after Little Bighorn.” I avoided the impulse to roll my eyes.
“What's your question?”
“When you and the lieutenant governor arrived last week, where did the chopper land?”
I upended my chip bag and poured fragments into my hand.
“There's a house a spit west of the crash site. The pilot liked the lay
of the land so that's where he put us down.”
“There's a landing strip?”
“Hell, no, just a small clearing. I thought Davenport was gonna soil his Calvin Kleins, he was so scared.” Larke chuckled. “It was like a scene out of M*A*S*H. Triggs kept insisting we head back out, and the pilot kept saying, ‘Yes, sir, yes, sir,’ then put that bird exactly where he wanted.”
I palmed the chips into my mouth.
“Then we just worked our way toward the site. I'd say it was maybe a quarter mile.”
“It's a house?”
“An old cabin or something. I didn't pay much attention.”
“Did you see a road?”
He shook his head. “Why the questions?”
I told him about the foot.
“I didn't notice a cemetery, but there's no harm poking around out there. You sure these were coyotes?”
“No.”
“Be safe; take a radio and a can of Mace.”
“Do coyotes hunt during the day?”
“Coyotes hunt whenever they feel like it.”
Great.
North Carolina's official tree is the longleaf pine, its official flower the dogwood. The shad boat, the saltwater bass, and the Eastern box turtle have been similarly honored. The state boasts wild ponies on the Shackleford Banks and the nation's highest suspension bridge at Grandfather Mountain. The Old North State flows from the peaks of the southern Appalachians in the west, across the hills of the piedmont, to the marshlands, beaches, and barrier islands along its eastern shore. It is Mount Mitchell and the Outer Banks. Blowing Rock and Cape Fear. Linville Gorge and Bald Head Island.
North Carolina's geography splits its residents along ideological lines. The high-country crowd plays recreational roulette mountain biking, hang gliding, whitewater kayaking, rock climbing, and, in winter, downhill skiing and snowboarding. The less reckless go in for golf, antiques, bluegrass music, and the viewing of foliage.
Fans of the low country favor salt air, warm sand, ocean fishing, and Atlantic breakers. Temperatures are mild. The locals have never owned mittens or snow tires. Except for the occasional shark or renegade gator, the fauna is nonthreatening. Golf, of course, also permeates the low country.
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