Breaking Point

by Dana Haynes

  “You and Andrew were close. I should have called.”

  Amy broke the bear hug and used Kleenex to wipe her eyes, then blew her nose. “God, no. No. You had … Fuck, don’t worry about it. Did you…” She gestured toward the meat shop.

  Renee nodded. Amy’s eyes brimmed. She stood with her weight on one leg. She reminded Renee of some kind of small, light shorebird, especially with that curly mop of cherry-red hair. “Okay. Okay. Wow. This wasn’t … Hey, are you, y’know…”

  Renee actually belted out a raggedy little giggle. “No. No. I’m not. No.”

  Amy hugged her again. “This fucking sucks.”

  HELENA

  Kiki Duvall was checking into the airport hotel as Hector Villareal stepped out of the elevator.

  “Hi. Kiki, is it?”

  She turned. “You’re … I’m sorry, Hector…?”

  “Hector Villareal. Hi. We met at that conference in Miami.”

  They shook hands. He said, “Are you all right?”

  “Pretty much. They released me.”

  They shook hands. “Dr. Tomzak?”

  “He’s okay. Concussed.”

  “Listen, about Isaiah … I’m just … We’re all of us so sorry.”

  “Thank you. That’s so sweet.”

  “You need help carrying your luggage?” Then he rolled his eyes. “Of course. Your luggage is in the Claremont.”

  “Beth Mancini told me she left me an NTSB credit card at the desk. I’ll go find some clothes tonight.” She lived in Levi’s and sweatshirts; the task wasn’t daunting.

  Hector’s eyes traveled around the lobby as if looking for surveillance, and Kiki wondered why he looked guilty. Maybe talking to tall redheads in hotel lobbies did that, she thought, and almost smiled at the vaguely naughty thought.

  Hector reached into his windbreaker pocket and withdrew an iPod Nano. “Do me a favor? Don’t tell Peter Kim about this.”

  He placed the device in her palm.

  “Oh my god! Is this…?”

  “You’re the Sonar Witch,” Hector said. “I know how good you are. Give it a listen. Tell me what I missed.”

  She hugged him. “Thank you. I need to help. I need to be useful.”

  “I know. But that being said: don’t tell Peter.”

  * * *

  Lakshmi Jain called a meeting of the medical examiner and his staff, plus volunteers who had come from three adjacent counties to help, giving up their Saturdays. But so far there had been no bodies upon which to conduct postmortem examinations.

  “We appreciate everyone volunteering,” she said, addressing the twelve staff and volunteers in the sterile, white examination room with its three metal tables. Lakshmi disliked public speaking. She held herself stiffly, wearing the eyeglasses she really needed only for reading fine print. She wore them without consciously realizing she used them as a shield.

  “Our host,” she nodded to the medical examiner, “and I performed autopsies on the pilots immediately because we wanted to rush the lab results. That’s standard operating procedure for such events. However, the airline has flown in the families of the dead, and are letting them attain … closure, I suppose is the word, before we begin conducting posts.”

  She checked her cell phone for the time. “That should be happening now. The process won’t make any of the families happy, but research shows that it will reduce post-traumatic stress in the months to come. That’s why we wait. If there had been overwhelming evidence that a passenger played a pivotal role in the crash—as, say, one might have in a hijacking—then that would necessitate an immediate postmortem.

  “I intend to go to…” she checked a notepad, “Twin Pines momentarily. My goals are threefold: to make sure the bodies are being properly and humanely stored; to make sure all of the evidence is protected; and to confirm that the families have had the chance to say their goodbyes.

  “Once I am satisfied, I shall begin the transfer of bodies here. Doctor?” She turned to the medical examiner. “I will leave you in charge of conducting the postmortems. However, before we begin post, every victim will be scanned, twice, with X-rays. We also will run metal detectors over them.”

  “Twice?” a volunteer asked, raising one hand.

  “Some of the shrapnel from an airliner can be as thin as a sheet of paper. X-rays are conducted from two acute angles to make sure we miss nothing. As we proceed with the autopsies, all foreign items found in the bodies will be photographed, bagged, and tagged. The victims’ clothing will be searched as well. I, myself, would hardly recognize any of the shrapnel we find, but my counterparts in other NTSB teams likely would. It is important that we catalog all of the shrapnel. Questions?”

  There were none. She thanked the medical personnel again and gathered her things.

  In the corridor outside the medical examiner’s suite, Lakshmi applied her earpiece and punched the number 2 on her belt communication rig.

  “Hi, this is Beth.”

  “Hallo. This is Dr. Jain.” Lakshmi winced, realizing she needn’t be so formal. “I am heading out to Twin Pines to check on the bodies.”

  “Okay.” The intergovernmental liaison seemed not to be her usual chipper self.

  After a beat, Lakshmi added, “I need a driver.”

  “A driver?”

  “Forgive me, Beth. Since moving to America, I have lived in New York City. I have no need of a car, nor a driver’s license.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, I’m … working on a report regarding the All-Thing. Plus, we’re still trying to find out why there were so few passengers on board.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to drive me. Are other team leaders heading toward the crash site this afternoon?”

  Beth said, “Jack and Reuben are there now. I don’t think Gene’s back yet. Hang on.”

  Lakshmi heard a hiss, indicating that she was on hold. Beth came back on the line within seconds.

  “Teresa is heading that way. Tell me where the medical examiner’s office is, and she’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  * * *

  Amy Dreyfus drove Renee from Twin Pines back to Helena. They agreed to have dinner together. It was almost 8:00 P.M. They found a bar near the hotel with black-and-white photos of San Francisco on the walls and Sinatra on the sound system. They took a booth and Amy ordered a vodka gimlet. Renee asked for Haitian Barbancourt rum and the waitress looked at her as if she’d ordered Sheetrock. “Any rum will do.”

  When they had their drinks and some privacy, Amy said, “Listen, what was it Andrew needed my help with?”

  Renee sipped the dreadfully mediocre rum. It tasted like cough syrup. “What do you mean?”

  Renee stuffed her hand into her suede jacket and gently gripped the reassuring, hammerless Colt .25. Her hand felt better wrapped around the cold metal. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought it but its presence was comforting.

  “He called the Post. I don’t know, Wednesday, I guess. He called and said he needed some help leaking a story and wanted my media expertise.”

  Renee’s mind raced. “Really?”

  “Yes. What’s going on?”

  Renee hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Why would he call you about the media?”

  Amy studied Renee.

  “I asked him if it was serious and he said, ‘life-and-death serious.’ What do you think he meant?”

  Renee drained the rum. She caught the waitress’s attention, pointed to the empty glass. “I don’t know.”

  Amy leaned forward. “Renee! You’re his wife. What was he working on that he needed to out someone or, whatever, something to the media?”

  The waitress brought another rum and Renee drained it in one long pull.

  Amy observed this and, click, realized how insensitive she was being. Her eyes glittered with tears. “Oh shit. Oh shit I am so sorry. You’re in noooooo condition to put up with my journalism crap. Oh, forgive me, I am so sorry.”

  Renee Malatesta’s eyes remained as
dry as sandpaper. She gripped the glass in one hand, her other hand on the .25 semiauto in her suede pocket. “No. It’s okay. I can’t help you. I don’t know why he called. I’m just…” She reached across the table and touched the reporter’s forearm. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

  When their food came, Renee stared at it for a moment, then stood and walked out of the bar without touching it. Amy Dreyfus cried, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

  The waitress sat beside her, one-arm hugged her, and said, “She dump you, honey?”

  To her utmost surprise, Amy actually belted a laugh. “Wow, did you guess that one wrong!”

  But she hugged the waitress right back. That anyone could bring her a few seconds of laughter was a blessing right now.

  HALFWAY TO TWIN PINES

  The ride to Twin Pines had been a Bad Idea.

  Once in the car, Teresa Santiago never stopped talking. Not even to inhale. Lakshmi Jain was, if possible, chillier. No subject was taboo for Teresa: her energetic love life, her parents’ divorce when she was twelve, the lumpectomy her sister had just undergone, the brattiness of said sister’s twerpy kids, her dogs. The drive took twenty-five minutes; it just seemed like days.

  It was about 8:30 P.M. by the time the crashers arrived in the sleepy little timber town.

  TWIN PINES

  Calendar walked half the length of the alley and saw no one. He bounded up the two cement steps to the back door of the meat market and picked the lock in seconds.

  There was no alarm system to bypass.

  He stood in the dark, listening for human sounds and hearing none. He stood in a storage room with a rolling bay door next to the door he’d lock-picked.

  He padded through the largely empty room on his rubber-soled boots, checked the corridor. He turned on his Maglite. Empty. He trotted to the end of the hall, checking every unlocked door. He had the place to himself.

  The corridor ended at a door that led to a much larger storage room, and this one he did not have to himself.

  It was full of corpses.

  A dozen bodies, more or less, were on the cement floor with their feet toward the door that led to the street. They were lined up evenly, but some were cocked at five degrees to the left or the right.

  Calendar’s breath misted as he exhaled. It was about forty degrees in this room.

  The bodies lay on their backs. White bedsheets had been spread out, covering them. That had been a kindness, Calendar thought. He was glad someone had done that. A pile of extra sheets was lumped together in the middle of the room.

  Beyond the dozen bodies were another dozen rubber body bags with zippers. They were lumpy and misshapen. Partials, Calendar guessed.

  Andrew Malatesta’s speech, announcing that he would not be working for the Pentagon after all and that a rogue element in Halcyon/Detweiler was experimenting with banned weapons, was either in this room or in the fuselage of Flight 78. Calendar’s instructions were clear. Job one: find and destroy the speech. Job two: find Malatesta’s sketch pad, with its vast array of innovative weaponry ideas. Halcyon’s R&D boys would gorge on that for years. If the sketch pad had been destroyed in the airliner, well, that would be a shame, but Halcyon/Detweiler could survive without it. The speech, on the other hand, had to be destroyed.

  Calendar forced his strong hands into tight latex gloves, letting them snap against his forearms. It was difficult getting the glove over the bandage on his right hand.

  He picked the body closest to him, knelt, threw off the sheet. It was a woman, midtwenties and pretty, her right arm missing at the shoulder and a massive, tacky contusion at the very top of her skull. Her eyes were open. She was pale—livor mortis had let her blood pool near the floor. She wore capri pants and one Adidas sneaker, the toenails of the other foot painted fuchsia. She wore a Hello Kitty sweatshirt. Calendar felt her pockets, turned them inside out. He lifted her sweatshirt, checked to make sure no documents had been tucked up into her bra—he’d found Malatesta alive; there had been time. He pulled her belt and pants away from her belly and peered down at her legs. Nothing. He turned her partially over; the backs of her arms were livid with pooled blood.

  Nothing.

  He covered her again, shuffled on his knees to his left, to the next cadaver, threw off the sheet.

  A key rattled in the street door. Instinctively, Calendar drew his six-inch MAC-SOG combat knife from its nylon Cordura sheath clipped to his belt.

  HELENA

  Kiki urgently wanted to listen to the cockpit voice recording but, when she’d switched from hospital togs to her own clothes, the first thing she’d noticed was blood on her left sleeve, near her elbow. She didn’t know if it was hers or someone else’s, but it was weirding her out. She tossed the iPod Nano onto the hotel room’s bed, picked up the NTSB credit card Beth Mancini had left her.

  Beth also had left her a little bouquet of flowers, a subtle explosion of pinks and purples. Her gesture was so simple but singularly heartfelt that Kiki teared up a little.

  * * *

  “Tommy … I tried to save her. Jesus, man…”

  “I know. Let’s get you outta there.…”

  Tommy woke up, his head pounding. He sat up in bed, knees up, arms folded over his knees. He wished his head would stop hurting. At least the vertigo was all but gone now.

  There was no earthly way that Isaiah Grey could have talked to Tommy with a crushed larynx. Couldn’t be done. Which meant it had been a figment of his concussion.

  So why did he remember with such vivid detail the girl with the brachial bleeder, the guy with the open gut wound, the woman with the broken bone showing near her bloody sock? He remembered persuading Kiki to help evacuate survivors.

  He climbed out of bed. The vertigo ramped up, but just a little. He threw on a robe and left the room, found the nurses’ station. A nurse directed him to room 104.

  He knocked, peeked in. The fifteen-year-old girl was watching TV. Her right arm was in a full cast. She turned down the sound. “Oh. Hi.”

  “I’m Tommy. Do you remember me?”

  She smiled. “You saved my life. I’m Ann.”

  Dr. Leitner had called her Annie and Tommy noted the difference. “Hey, Ann. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  He entered all the way into her room. “That night, after I left you the second time, I went over to these airplane seats to help a guy. Did you see him?”

  Ann shook her head. “I couldn’t stop looking at the airplane. It was just so … weird.”

  “Yeah. Sure as shit was.” He paused. “Sorry.”

  Ann smiled. “It’s okay. How’s your head?”

  “I got my chimes rung, big time. Still hurts.”

  “Did they have to shave your hair?”

  Tommy’s fingers went to the bandage. “You know, I didn’t ask. Crap. I bet they did. So where are your folks?”

  “They were here but visiting hours are over. Mom’s, like, freaking me out worse than the crash did.”

  Tommy winked at her. “That’s understandable. Cut her some slack, she’s a mom. Hey, do you remember another survivor? Tall guy, short, silver hair, wore—”

  She nodded. “Blue jeans, a sweater, boots?”

  Tommy smiled. “Okay, thanks. Last question. And you don’t gotta answer it if you don’t want to.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “What are you, fifteen? Why’s your doc got you on Prozac?”

  “He says it’s to even out my disposition.”

  “How long’ve you been on it?”

  “Since I was eleven.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  She said, “He also told me it would help my mental image of myself if I lost ten pounds.” She blushed.

  If anything, Ann looked undernourished to Tommy. He glanced around the room, found a pen, and ripped off a strip from the back cover of a People magazine. “Where do you live?”

  “Seattle.”

  “What’s the asshole’s
name? I’m gonna make ’em yank his license.”

  After a longish beat, a healthy smile blossomed on Ann’s face. “You can do that?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  The smile spread. “Cool!”

  TWIN PINES

  The chatterbox in Teresa Santiago clicked off as they stepped into the frigid storage facility. She gasped. The bodies lay on the floor under white bedsheets. Several smaller, rubber body bags were strewn about, too. She covered her mouth with both hands.

  It took Lakshmi Jain a second to realize what Teresa was responding to. “Your first time?”

  Teresa, wide-eyed, nodded.

  “You can wait outside, if you’d like.”

  Teresa said, “Split up? You’ve obviously never seen a slasher movie.”

  Lakshmi had not, in fact, seen a slasher movie and didn’t get the reference. She was just pleased to have some silence.

  She went down on her haunches and pulled back the nearest sheet. Teresa averted her eyes.

  Teresa jumped. One of the bodies under another sheet seemed to move, just a little. Estupidez fresa! she cursed herself. Get a grip!

  * * *

  Calendar lay under the sheet and cursed himself. He was sure his foot had moved, just a little. Had these two stupid bitches noticed? If they had, his options were limited. Gut them both, leave them here with the corpses, under two sheets. That would buy him a little time.

  The other option, he realized, meant more knife work and the use of the shorter, rubber body bags.

  HELENA

  The idea of stiff new jeans rubbing against her bandages seemed dumb, so Kiki bought two pairs of identical, cuffed khaki shorts, two pastel T-shirts, a denim shirt, panties and a bra, cotton socks, and lace-up Wolverine boots with rubber soles. It took her twenty minutes. She’d worn the same sizes since high school. She didn’t care that the outfit would reveal her leg wound. It was hardly her first.