by Glenn Meade
But Jack’s belt buckle was silver-toned and embellished with the shape of a hawk. He’d had the buckle specially made as a memento of his air unit.
As for Amy’s and Sean’s clothes, I could remember every single item I packed. And what they wore when I kissed them good-bye for the last time on the front porch. Sean had on beige chino cargo shorts and a pale-green T-shirt and Tikka sandals. Amy was dressed in a pink tank top and a white skirt, pink socks, and matching tennis shoes, and she carried a Barbie backpack. They both looked so cute, so clean and tidy. That was unusual for Sean, because he was going through a messy phase.
I felt confused now. “I’m sorry, but nothing looks familiar.”
Tanner consulted his notebook. “The pilot was a man named Felipe Hernandez. A former military pilot, like your husband.”
“Y-yes. They knew each other pretty well.”
“Did you know Mr. Hernandez?”
“Not really. I only met him a couple of times, socially.”
“Were he and your husband similar in height and build?”
“Hernandez wasn’t as tall, and he was stockier. Why? Do you think the remains are his?”
Dexter didn’t seem to want to commit to anything just yet. “Too early to say. The remains were out of the aircraft but near the pilot’s seat. The flight that night was from New Orleans to Savannah, and you were to meet your family at Knoxville’s Tyson Airport at eleven p.m. the following evening when they returned from their Savannah day trip. Isn’t that right, Ms. Kelly?”
I nodded. “Yes. But I don’t understand. The night Jack’s aircraft disappeared, it wasn’t supposed to be in this area, was it?”
“No, ma’am. You got the call from Jack’s company when?”
“Nine the next morning. A colleague of his phoned to say that they feared the company aircraft may have crashed or crash-landed somewhere because of storms that night, en route to Savannah. Maybe this is going to sound crazy, but are you certain this is my husband’s aircraft?”
“No question. The tail number’s correct.” Dexter consulted a notebook he picked up. “The plane was registered to Benton Enterprises and flew under the logo of Brown Bear International, your husband’s employer.” His eyes stayed on me. “What line of work was your husband in exactly, Ms. Kelly?”
I forced myself to distract my gaze from the bones on the table, the feeling of nausea never leaving my stomach. “Corporate security and military training. He was a security adviser.”
Tanner spoke up, filling in the rest. “Brown Bear provides bodyguards and protection consultants to American and foreign businesses operating in hostile overseas environments. They employ mostly U.S. former military. Right, Ms. Kelly?”
I nodded.
Dexter plucked through the objects lying on the bottom of the table using the big metal tweezers. “And you’re certain none of these items looks familiar?”
“Positive.”
“Weird. I would have thought you would recognize at least some of them. But then I guess there’s a lot about this investigation that’s strange.” Dexter tossed aside the tweezers and shot Tanner a quick glance before his gaze settled on me. “I need to show you something that deepens this mystery.”
14
* * *
Dexter moved off to whisper some words with the white-suited crew. They all stopped working and stepped aside before Dexter led us toward the wreckage.
The Beechcraft’s main cabin looked intact except for the missing tail, but the fuselage was dented and crushed in places, and one half of a wing was completely sheared off. Weathered aluminum was eroded to a dull gray-black, and the white and blue paint was flaked. Inside the fuselage, I could see nothing beyond the filthy Plexiglas windows, streaked with black and mossy green lichen.
“Please don’t tread outside the colored markers. Those areas haven’t yet been thoroughly examined.” As Dexter moved closer to the wreckage, he stayed within a path of red tape on either side.
“Your husband’s aircraft departed New Orleans at eight-twenty p.m. We estimate it would have reached this area around about eleven p.m., local time. It’s possible the pilot tried to pick out a landing spot once he hit trouble, and it looks like the plane came down at a shallow angle. All things considered, it landed pretty intact. This part of the forest is relatively flat, with some clearings.”
“Do you know what caused the crash?”
“Not yet, and it’ll likely take some time to find answers. Crashes are usually caused by a combination of events like weather, mechanical failure, or pilot error.”
“I thought the aircraft would have exploded when it hit the ground.”
“Not necessarily. The pilot could have ditched fuel before the crash, or maybe they were losing fuel, or ran out of it. And stormy, rainy weather would not have been conducive to a fire. But we’ll know better when we remove the wreckage to our facility in Knoxville for a thorough investigation.”
I dreaded setting my eyes on the place where my family had perished. But I needed to, even if it was freaking me out. I felt a shiver go through me and swept my arms around myself. Close up, I saw that some of the undergrowth around the aircraft had been excavated to a shallow depth, with a few trowels and sifters lying in the soil where the accident investigators were busy. “We’ve still got a lot of work to carry out, Ms. Kelly. But I’m hoping you may recognize some of the items we’ve already found.”
As we stepped toward the fuselage, a powerful stench of mold and decay hit my nostrils.
Dexter guided me to the open cockpit door, its aluminum crinkled from the impact. He gently gripped my arm, whether to prevent me from moving in closer or to brace me for a shock I didn’t know.
“If you could just look inside. And please be careful not to touch anything.”
The closer to the fuselage we got, the more powerful the stench got. Part of the cramped cockpit was smashed in at the front, the nose cone either missing or flattened, I couldn’t tell which. Everywhere there were torn-out panels, tangled cables, corroded wires, and smashed instruments, their shattered glass as jagged as shark’s teeth. The cockpit floor was covered in a carpet of damp mud and forest debris.
I felt overcome. This was the last place my family was alive. I figure everyone was strapped in their seat belts in the storm, but in my mind’s eye, I imagined their bodies tossed about violently as the aircraft smashed into the earth, their limbs mangled, their bones cracking, blood everywhere. I closed my eyes, whimpered, felt my body shaking. The image was too raw, too heart-wrenching.
When I opened my eyes, they were so wet I could hardly see. I wiped them with my hands. I noticed a folding table off to one side with some items on it, marked with identifier tags. Mostly aircraft parts. But one item stood out: an old aluminum briefcase. It appeared to be the same weathered color as the exposed fuselage, a dull gray-black. Dexter saw me notice the briefcase.
“We found it deep in some undergrowth about a hundred feet away, next to some metal debris from the other crash. I reckon it was thrown from the Beechcraft with the force of the crash. We’ve tried to pry it open, but it’s wedged solid. Do you recognize the briefcase?”
“No. My husband used an old tan leather case he had for years.”
Dexter pursed his lips in thought. “It’s unlikely to be part of the aircraft’s emergency equipment. It looks more like something personal. But we won’t know until we get it open.”
As I stared into the cockpit, I noticed one part of the inner wall low down had crumpled. Parts of the aluminum were crinkled like an accordion, and what looked like a cover of some kind had burst open, revealing an empty recess in the aircraft wall.
Dexter saw me notice it and said, “That’s pretty weird.”
“What is?”
“What you’re looking at is some kind of nonregulation private storage area. It wasn’t fitted by the manufactur
er. It’s after-factory and frankly kind of puzzling.”
“A storage area for what?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I studied the scene again, trying to see if I could make out anything familiar in the muddied debris on the floor. And then something snagged my gaze. The air chilled ten degrees.
The object was half encrusted with a layer of soil, and the other half looked as if it had been cleaned away. I recognized the plastic cover from an old Pokémon Gameboy. Two Pokémon figures on the front, mud masking half of the images. It was Amy’s favorite game. I’d packed it in her overnight bag myself. And then I saw it. A Barbie backpack. The color so faded and the material so stained and crumpled that it was hardly recognizable. Grief slashed like cold steel claws inside my chest, my distress so intense that I cried out with a whimper.
I went to touch the backpack. My hand seemed suspended in midair as Dexter grabbed it.
“Ms. Kelly, please remember. This area hasn’t been completely forensically examined. You can’t touch anything. I’m sorry.”
Dexter let go of my hand. I scanned the cockpit for several more minutes, seeing nothing else, until my eyes made out on a mass of rotted wool on the left, near a doorframe. I knew that gray color. I could make out a woolen fold. Sean’s beanie hat. This time I could not help myself and reached out to touch it. Dexter’s hand fastened on mine once more, grasped it hard. “Please, Ms. Kelly. We have a job to do.”
I started to cry. Dexter’s other hand gripped my shoulder. I couldn’t stop weeping. My shoulders heaved. I felt hands laid on me for support, and Dexter pulled me in close to his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Truly I am. I know this must be difficult for you.”
When I finally stopped crying, I wiped my eyes, and Dexter said gently, “The video game, the backpack . . .”
“They . . . they belonged to my daughter.”
Tanner said, “Could I ask you to look inside again, please? It’s important. Dexter, you have the light?”
Dexter took a penlight from his pocket, flicked it on. An intense, icy-blue light came on, the same color ultraviolet light pen I’d seen on TV programs like CSI. Dexter knelt so I could see over his shoulder. He shone the light on the muddied hat. The ultraviolet light circled over the hat, covering it in all the same color, except for one area where it revealed two black spots, no bigger than dimes, maybe four inches apart.
Dexter indicated the seating area behind the pilot’s seat. “The children would have sat about here. Next to your husband, perhaps. The dark stains you see are traces of old blood.”
I felt that stabbing pain again in my breastbone.
Dexter moved the blue light over the aircraft’s interior walls, panels, and roof, then the leather seats. The panels had lots of black spots on the left-hand side, where the pilot must have sat. But there were no more black spots elsewhere, just blue light. The penlight moved to Amy’s Pokémon game. A couple of very small black specks.
I felt myself gagging.
“We’ve scraped off some samples to have analyzed and will need to verify your children’s blood types. There will have to be DNA tests. We’ll need a blood sample from you to make a comparison. And from the pilot’s family, too. The tests can take several weeks to complete. Three if we’re lucky. But here’s the thing.” Dexter made a circling motion with the pen, over all the areas he’d just examined. “Apart from the pilot’s area, what’s remarkable is that there’s so little blood.”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“A violent crash like that, I would have expected more blood. We know somebody’s dead, likely killed by the blunt trauma of the crash. So I really would expect more blood and to see other remains. Some of the blood traces could have been weathered away by the elements in such an exposed environment, for sure. It’s just that I expected to see more.”
Dexter shone the beam all around the cockpit, upholstery, and seats, as if to prove something. “In fact, it makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“No other bodies on board or in the undergrowth, at least that we’ve found so far. We’ve searched for three hundred yards’ circumference. We’ve looked at the topography from the air. This area is desolate enough but not that desolate. There are maybe a dozen homes and small farms scattered within a couple of square miles.”
He paused. “Actually, there’s an abandoned wood shack maybe a hundred yards from here. Look that way, you may get a glimpse of it.”
I followed the line of Dexter’s finger. Beyond the trees I thought I saw the blackened and bleached wood of a ruined shack that looked as if it was barely standing.
“We found a little blood residue there, too.”
“What are you saying?”
I looked at Dexter, waiting for something, but I didn’t know what, except that I felt the moment was pregnant with a weird kind of expectation, like a rain cloud about to burst.
“Here’s what’s weird, Ms. Kelly. No more bodies and no excessive blood in the rear area to suggest serious injury to the passengers. Sure, your family could have wandered off into the forest and perished there, but we’ve searched and found no remains.”
Dexter paused, pursing his lips. “If need be, we can even call in experts who would use ground-penetrating radar. We may well do that. But here’s the clincher. Carole, could you fetch the evidence bag we looked at earlier?”
The forensics woman disappeared toward the canopy and returned carrying a clear plastic bag. Dexter took it and shone the blue light on the contents inside. It appeared to be a flashlight made of some kind of pale plastic material, discolored by the years, a small LED indicator on the shank.
Dexter said, “This here’s the aircraft’s emergency flashlight. All aircraft usually have them by law. We brushed off the debris and some dirt and managed to find this.” He shone the blue light through the plastic bag. Faded but visible, I saw more black spots.
“Blood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dexter gave me a look. “We found the flashlight almost two hundred yards from the aircraft. The switch was in the on position. Somebody used it, maybe until the battery power ran out. We searched thoroughly around where the flashlight was located, but nothing else has shown up so far. We even did a rough search way out to the nearest main roadway.”
“Where’s that?”
“About a half mile away. It hooks up with a main highway. But the searches produced the same results, zilch. And something else kinda odd.”
“What?”
“The aircraft’s onboard first-aid kit is not there. I had a copy of the plane’s certified inventory e-mailed to me, from the investigation back when it first went missing, and it lists that the kit was on board. But it’s definitely gone.”
He let it hang. I felt my heart pounding even faster and stared back at Dexter, waiting for the bombshell I sensed he was about to drop.
“Here’s what we’ve got in my estimation, Ms. Kelly. Somebody—maybe more than one person—survived this crash eight years ago. I’m pretty certain of that from the lack of blood and remains. They not only survived, but I figure they could have made it out of these woods alive.”
15
* * *
Key West, Florida
It was raining hard, a torrential downpour that lashed the streets, swaying the palm trees along Smathers Beach.
The tail end of the hurricane was hammering his Explorer’s roof as the man pulled up at the Bayou Tavern in the Florida Keys. He ran inside the bar, trying to beat the rain, and pushed in the door.
It was a noisy place, a TV blaring, a dozen craggy-faced drinkers and a few tourists glancing around to eye the guy who entered.
He wore an old Tommy Bahamas shirt, creased cargo shorts and Nike flip-flops. He was starting to show his age, somewhere in the forties, with a three-day beard stubb
le and deep wrinkling around his eyes. In the dim light you had to look closer, but you could see the thick pink scars on his left hand and on his throat around his Adam’s apple, where he wore a slim back bandanna. But even more noticeable was the left side of his face.
It was missing, along with his left eye and a good chunk of his jawbone. In their place was a false eye and a latex prosthesis of a color that looked like human flesh. He wore a Passy-Muir speaking valve attached to his throat with Velcro strips, most of it discreetly covered by the black bandanna. But the scars on his neck were a telltale reminder of where part of his voice box had been removed by surgeons. He was used to people trying not to notice, and he saw the bartender’s eyes flicking to his prosthesis.
“What’ll it be, buddy?”
“Miller Lite, from the tap.” The man ran a hand through his wet hair.
“Sure.”
The speaking valve helped make his voice sound normal, if a touch husky. The speaking valve didn’t seem to faze the bartender, who ran a damp cloth across the countertop. “It’s hitting pretty hard out there. They say it’ll close the airports for a few days. You like to see a menu? Cajun shrimp is good.”
“Yeah, why not?”
The bartender tossed aside the damp cloth and pulled an ice-cold Miller Lite, placed it on a mat on the counter, and slid across a menu.
The man lifted his beer to his mouth, his gaze drawn to the pretty woman on CNN. A slew of images flooded the screen—guys in jackets with NTSB lettering on the back, news-channel vehicles, cops, several small aircraft.
“. . . The site of an air accident is being combed by NTSB staff for clues to a crash that occurred last night in severe weather in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. A Kentucky couple was killed when their Cessna crashed in the area south of the national park. In a bizarre twist, it’s understood that the forest where the downed aircraft was located turned up a grim discovery: yet another airplane crash, this one a mystery that has remained unsolved for almost eight years. Jack Hayes, an employee with international security company Brown Bear, vanished on a corporate flight from New Orleans to Savannah, along with his two children, ages five and eight, who were also on board. More about this story in our main newscast . . .”