“That’s three dollars now, Daddy.”
He glanced at Annie and then looked back at the field behind the school. The building was untouched, but there was a deep gouge in the dirt on the soccer field behind the school, starting from one goal and reaching almost all the way to the other, where the thick beam of smoke spiraled from a bundled mess of metal. There was a crew of firefighters hosing down a small section that was still burning and seemed to be giving off the majority of the smoke flooding the sky, but two other trucks already seemed to be packing up, and the ambulance crews, as far as Mike could tell, were just standing around. If there had been children playing on the field when the plane hit, it would still have been a circus of fevered activity.
A uniformed policewoman walked past them. Mike stopped her. “No kids?” he asked.
“Nah,” the woman said. “I guess they’d just gone inside for lunch or something. According to one of the teachers, they missed being out there by about three minutes. The people on the plane weren’t so lucky. Not much to do but hose it down and clean it up.” She looked down at Annie and gave a little smile. “What’s up with the munchkin?”
“She had a fever last night, so no school for her. I was going to take the day off and make it a daddy day,” Mike said. “You know how it is, though. Sometimes you don’t have a choice about working. Tried calling the ex-wife, but . . .” He stared at the cop.
She figured it out. “Nope. Sorry, man. I’m on the clock, and I can’t play babysitter, especially for a suit.”
Mike shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Actually, it’s some kind of sexist bullshit.” She glanced at Annie again. “Sorry about that honey.”
Annie shrugged. “Daddy swears a lot.”
“Not that much, honey.”
“You said the F word three times already.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Sorry.” He looked back at the cop. “And you’re right. I probably wouldn’t have asked a man. Not cool.”
“I don’t like it, but I get it,” the cop said. “Good luck with it all. You might not want to take her too close to the scene. It’s, uh, it’s maybe not age appropriate.”
“Grisly?”
“Half the plane disintegrated, and what’s left has been worked over by the fire.” She started to walk away but then stopped and touched Mike’s arm. “Try one of the ambulance crews. Look for a short, thick blond woman. Tell her Melissa asked if she could lend you a hand. At least until your ex-wife shows up.”
Mike nodded and made a beeline to the ambulances, Annie’s hand in his. It turned out that the thick blond woman was the only female among the EMTs. Mike went through his song and dance about Annie having to stay home from school because she’d had a fever the night before and how he had to work unexpectedly, but he might as well not have bothered: at the mention of the policewoman’s name, the EMT lit up with a smile and beckoned Annie to come sit in the ambulance. “I’ve got a daughter about her age,” she said. “We’ll hang out. You cool if I give her a little bit of candy?”
Mike would have been cool with a whole bunch of candy if it meant he didn’t have to take his daughter into the wreckage. He texted Fanny to tell her that Annie was hanging with the EMTs and added the address again in case she missed it on the earlier voice mail. By the time he was ten steps away from the ambulance Annie had gum in her mouth and was playing a video game on the woman’s phone and lounging on a gurney as if it were a couch.
Near the plane, the grass was wet from the firefighters’ hoses, and he felt mud sliding under his shoes. He wished he were wearing a pair of good boots. As he stepped past a piece of metal the size of a car’s hood—part of a wing?—a tall, olive-skinned man in a suit held up his hand. “Sorry pal.”
Mike held up his badge. “Agent Rich. Just need to poke around a little.”
“Moreland,” the man said. “And sorry, but you aren’t going to be poking around at all. PD. We got the scene.”
Mike felt the phone resting in his pocket and resisted the urge to pull it out. The director had said he’d get the support he needed, but he was pretty sure it would look better if he could show some initiative. “Look, Moreland, I don’t want to come in here like a dick. I know how it is when the feds step in, and I’d like to play nice. Today was supposed to be my day off. I’ve got my daughter with me”—he pointed to where Annie was now sitting on the bumper of one of the ambulances and evidently telling some sort of story to a crowd of EMTs—“and I was just at the hospital visiting my partner, who got shot yesterday. You hear about the shooting in the northeast?”
“Yeah. That you guys?”
“Yeah, that was us, and after shooting two Aryan Nations motherfuckers, watching my partner get hauled off to the hospital with a gunshot wound and a couple of broken ribs from where his vest took a hit, and supposedly having today off to visit my daughter, the same daughter whose soccer practice I missed last night because of the aforementioned shooting, well, I’m not too thrilled to be here. But the thing is, I got a phone call ordering me to be here. A phone call from somebody so high up it scares the shit out of me. If I needed to, I could phone him back and make it rain suits from here to Sunday. I could have your asshole designated a federal case if I need to. But I don’t want to do that. And why would that be?”
Moreland couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to smile or scowl at Mike’s rant, but he played along. “Because you don’t want to come in here like a dick.”
“That’s right. I don’t want to come in here like a dick. So all I’m asking is to poke around a bit, and if I can do that and reassure the same person who called and told me I was working today, that I was working regardless of my partner getting shot, regardless of me downing two Aryan Nations chumps yesterday like a regular hero, regardless of the fact that I had to ask the fucking EMTs to babysit, if I can reassure that same person there is nothing to worry about, that would be great. I would very much like to avoid making it rain suits down like spring showers, and I am sure you would very much like to avoid having your asshole designated something that needs to be investigated by the federal government.”
Moreland didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but Mike saw the man’s eyes flicker in the direction of Annie and the ambulances. Finally, Moreland relaxed and moved to the side a little. “You been practicing that speech?”
Mike grinned. “Little bit. First time I’ve ever had to use it. Pretty good, huh?”
Moreland shrugged and then pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket and handed them to Mike. “The ‘rain suits from here to Sunday’ thing wasn’t bad, but I’m not sure about designating my asshole a federal case.”
“Improvised that one. I’ll work on it.” Mike took the gloves and worried them onto his hands. “We’ll have a full team out here in a couple of hours, but in the meantime, anything I need to know?”
“That small section over there, where they’re still hosing things down, was probably the engines. There are parts of the plane scattered all over the field. If there had been kids out here, it would have been a bloodbath. But mostly what you’ll want to look at is in here. A couple of bodies, pretty burned, but that’s about all there is to see until the techs get through with it. Haven’t heard from the tower yet, but near as I can tell the plane came down in one piece and then split apart once it hit. Nothing to make me think it was more than an accident. Doesn’t look like a bomb or anything. That’s not exactly my specialty, though. FAA guys should be here within the hour.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Moreland said. “You go in there, you’ll never want to eat barbecue again.”
Mike was careful working his way up into the body of the jet. The plane wasn’t flat, but it felt close enough. Water from where firefighters had hosed down the wreck dripped from the ceilings and pooled on the carpet. Mike’s shoe skidded on something, and when he reached out to steady himself he felt the sharp tear of metal slicing through the skin of his hand.
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“Fuck.” He balled his hand into a fist and then opened it so he could see the cut. The impact of the crash had torn open the jet as if a giant cat had worked its claws through the plane’s metal body, and the seams of metal were jagged enough that they’d opened a flap in his hand. The nitrile glove was shredded; he peeled it off and stuffed it in his pocket. He realized that, despite everything looking like an accident, he was already treating it as a crime scene. That phone call from the director had gotten into his head.
He could feel the blood leaking from his palm and running down his arm, so he worked his tie off his neck and wrapped it around his hand. He didn’t want to get blood all over the place. He pulled a mini Maglite from his pocket. There was some natural light coming in through where the metal had been peeled back, but when he came to the first body, he was glad he had the flashlight.
It was a woman. Or it had been a woman. There was still enough fabric left of her skirt for Mike to be clear about that, but the rest of her body was destroyed. Her legs were bent, one of them broken and turned at an angle that probably would have made him gag had he been a newbie, though that wasn’t as disturbing as the burns. She was charred and damaged beyond expectations. On her head there were a few tufts of hair, burned short but still showing some color, but her face and torso were shredded. Her skin was a mixture of black flakes and pink ooze, pitted in places and disturbingly raw. Clearly she’d been thrown through the cabin, and Mike figured that when the autopsy was done they’d find that chunks of metal had torn away at her body. Regardless, she wasn’t Henderson, and the skirt, with the few scraps of white fabric that had been her shirt, looked like some sort of uniform. One of the stewardesses. No, flight attendant, he thought. Flight attendant.
He shined his flashlight at what had been the front of the plane, but there wasn’t much to see other than a gaping hole. Everything forward of the galley had been torn off. What a mess. He debated just ducking out of the plane and getting himself some stitches for the cut on his hand. The director said that another agency team was coming to take over, but as much as he wanted to just wait for them to come, the director had also been clear that this was a live wire. Waiting was not an option.
Mike tried flexing his hand. Fuck. It stung like a motherfucker. He grimaced and then put the flashlight between his teeth so he could use his good hand to peel the blood-soaked tie from the cut on his other hand. As he pulled the tie away from the wound, the fabric stuck to the skin and the flap raised a little, blood pooling freely. Well, Mike thought, that was stupid, and he pulled the tie tight back against the palm of his hand. He should have just left it covered. At least it was his left hand, he thought, because once he was done here, assuming Fanny hadn’t shown up yet, he might have to head back to the hospital with Annie to get himself a few stitches. Shit. He was going to owe that kid ice cream and a trip to the toy store.
As if she knew he’d been thinking about her, Mike’s phone rang, and he pulled it out to see Fanny’s number.
“Come on, Mike,” she said. “Really? And you left her to play in an ambulance?”
“I didn’t have much choice, Fanny. She’s okay. Just do me this favor, okay, it’s important, and get here as soon as you can.”
He hung up, knowing that he’d pay for it later, but yet another uncomfortable conversation with his ex-wife seemed preferable to having the full weight of the agency come crashing down on him. Even if, as seemed clear, it was just an accident, he needed to make sure it looked like he had given the maximum effort. Maybe, if he handled it right, he’d come out ahead on this, looking good, but he knew for sure that if he fucked it up, the director would bury him. Cutting his day with Annie short wasn’t ideal, but it was the way it would have to be. Ice cream, the toy store, and the bookstore, Mike decided.
He couldn’t decide if his hand was throbbing or burning where he’d ripped it open, but it hurt. He was careful not to touch any more sharp edges as he shuffled to the opening and looked out at the circle of ambulances. Annie was still sitting on the bumper, and she happened to look up and see him. He waved at her, and she waved back. She’d be okay with it, Mike thought. She wouldn’t complain about Fanny picking her up. She was a good kid. An easy kid. She understood his job could be demanding. The divorce had been tough, but she never made him feel shitty about it. It was funny, he thought, how quickly kids adjusted to new situations, how whatever was happening in their lives was what they thought was normal. He wished he’d been able to adjust to the divorce as quickly as Annie. Or, for that matter, as quickly as his ex-wife. He’d had a couple of casual things, but hadn’t really tried dating seriously, and yet Fanny was already happily remarried. And, evidently, expecting.
The blond EMT caught his eye and called out across the grass that they were good, and Mike yelled back that Annie’s mom would be there in about ten minutes. The EMT gave him the thumbs-up—at least he hoped it was the thumbs-up and not the finger—and Mike turned back to the guts of the plane.
He stepped past what was left of the flight attendant, mindful of the debris on the cabin floor. He couldn’t stop from stepping in the ashes, however, and was unsettled by the crunching and popping sounds beneath his feet. Like walking on peanut shells. He tried to be careful in case it ended up being a crime scene after all. At least it hadn’t been a passenger jet. That was one saving grace. He’d known friends who worked disaster sites or mass graves, and they all said the sound of bones breaking underfoot was not something you got over.
The inside of the jet was hot, much hotter than it was out in the sun. Mike couldn’t help but think it was residual warmth from the fire that had burned in the cabin. He was sweating already, his shirt sticking to his back, and he wished he’d thought to take off his suit coat outside. He glanced at his watch. It was less than half an hour since the jet had crashed. As his flashlight beam came to rest on the charred body buckled into a seat in the middle of the cabin, Mike thought that for all the good it did Bill Henderson, the director was right: when a billionaire fell from the sky, it was handled a little differently.
He felt something tickle his left wrist and realized that despite the tie wrapped around his hand, the cut was bleeding through. He wiped the blood on his suit coat and then stepped closer to the body.
It was Henderson. No question.
The bottom half of his body was a mess of burns and exposed bone. The flesh and muscle and fat were completely stripped on one of his legs, and more than fifty percent gone on the other. Oddly, Mike realized he was more disturbed by Henderson’s torso: from waist to neck, other than a few flecks of ash on the long-sleeved T-shirt, Henderson looked as undisturbed as a mannequin in a department store. Thankfully, what natural light came in through the windows and the rent in the side of the plane left the man’s head hidden in the shadows. Mike played the beam of the flashlight on the wall and ceiling around Henderson. It must have been hell in here, he thought. The plastic was melted and buckled, scorched from the flames. Mike was just guessing, but he thought that probably fuel from the engines had spilled into the cabin. If they were lucky, they were dead from the crash before the flames reached them.
He stepped closer, the ashes crackling under his feet again, took a deep breath through his mouth—the smell of burnt plastic and flesh was too much for him—and fixed the flashlight on Henderson’s head. The sight made him gag.
The flesh above his right ear, stretching close to the middle of Henderson’s head, had been burned pink and deep, black ash mixing with blood and exposed fat, hair singed and curled back. That wasn’t what made Mike feel sick, however. It was Henderson’s left eye, his nose, his mouth, and his cheeks. Mike swallowed the sick down and closed his eyes for a few seconds so he could prepare himself to look again. He realized he was sweating, and he wiped at his forehead with the back of his injured hand. He opened his eyes when he felt something trickle down his wrist again: more blood soaking through the tie. He hoped to Christ it wasn’t dripping on the floor. He pulled his jacket of
f and wrapped it around his hand too. That ought to hold it for a bit.
He steeled himself and looked at Henderson’s face. The left eye was dangling from the socket, the impact of the crash popping it loose, the rest of the whole side of Henderson’s face just a dark cave, gone to the bone. Mike thought perhaps a splash of fuel had fallen on it. Worst of all was the mouth, which hung open, a dribble of blood and char at the corner, his tongue out and half-chewed. Jesus fucking Christ. Mike hoped the FAA showed up soon so they could find the black box, because if this wasn’t an accident, he didn’t want to know what had happened. It did not look like Henderson had died peacefully. This was certainly proof that even billionaires couldn’t escape death. Taxes, maybe, with the right accountants, but not death.
Weirdly, miraculously, there was an unbroken crystal glass on the floor next to Henderson’s chair. Mike picked it up, half wishing there was still booze in it. He took a sniff. Whiskey? He put the glass down on the table in front of Henderson and then looked at his face again. He almost screamed.
It looked like something was moving. No, Mike thought, something really was moving. He knew that couldn’t be right, but it looked like something was coming out of Henderson’s face.
He shined the beam directly on Henderson’s ruined head, and then he did let out a scream, because something was coming out of Henderson’s face.
Mike stepped back and stumbled, and without thinking, he reached out with his jacket-wrapped hand to steady himself against the exposed wire frame of what had been a seat. “Fuck!”
That hurt.
“Everything okay in there, Agent Rich?” It was Moreland, the cop in the suit. He shined a light in, and Mike had to squint to look back.
“Yeah, just cut my hand pretty good. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Pretty nasty in there.”
“No shit,” Mike said back, but he’d already turned to look at Henderson’s body again, hoping that whatever it was he’d seen coming out of the corpse’s face would turn out to have been a trick of the shadows.
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