“Where are they going?”
“Hell if I know. We're not oversupplied with landing pads up here.” Crowe lowered her gaze and replaced her hat, tucking in frizz with a backhand gesture.
“Coffee?”
Thirty minutes later the chief medical examiner of the State of North Carolina walked into the site from the west, followed by the state's lieutenant governor. The former wore the basic deployment uniform of boots and khaki, the latter a business suit. I watched them pick their way through the debris, the pathologist looking around, assessing, the politician with head bowed, glancing neither left nor right, holding himself gathered tightly, as if contact with his surroundings might draw him in as a participant rather than an observer. At one point they stopped and the ME spoke to a deputy. The man pointed in our direction, and the pair angled toward us.
“Hot damn. A superb photo op.” Said with the same sarcasm she'd directed toward Charles Hanover, the Air TransSouth CEO.
Crowe crumpled her Styrofoam cup and jammed it into a thermos bag. I handed her mine, wondering at the vehemence of her disapproval. Did she disagree with the lieutenant governor's politics, or was there personal history between Lucy Crowe and Parker Davenport?
When the men drew close the ME showed ID. Crowe waved it aside.
“No need for that, Doc. I know who you are.”
So did I, having worked with Larke Tyrell since his appointment as North Carolina's chief medical examiner in the mid-1980s. Larke was cynical, dictatorial, and one of the best pathologist-administrators in the country. Working with an inadequate budget and a disinterested legislature, he had taken an office in chaos and turned it into one of the most efficient death investigative systems in North America.
My forensic career was in its infancy at the time of Larke's appointment, and I had just qualified for certification by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. We met through work I was doing for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, reassembling and identifying the corpses of two drug dealers murdered and dismembered by outlaw bikers. I was one of Larke's first hires as a consulting specialist, and had handled the skeletal, the decomposed, the mummified, the burned, and the mutilated dead of North Carolina ever since.
The lieutenant governor extended one hand, pressed a hankie to his mouth with the other. His face was the color of a frog's belly. He said nothing as we shook.
“Glad you're in country, Tempe,” said Larke, also crushing my fingers in his grip. I was rethinking this whole handshake business.
Larke's “in country” idiom was Vietnam-era military, his dialect pure Carolina. Born in the low country, Larke grew up in a Marine Corps family, then did two hitches of his own before heading off to medical school. He spoke and looked like a spit-and-polish version of Andy Griffith.
“When do you head north?”
“Next week is fall break,” I responded.
Larke's eyes narrowed as he did another sweep of the site.
“I'm afraid Quebec may have to do without its anthropologist this autumn.”
A decade back I'd participated in a faculty exchange with McGill University. While in Montreal I'd begun consulting to the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale, Quebec's central crime and medico-legal lab. At the end of my year, recognizing the need for a staff forensic anthropologist, the provincial government had funded a position, equipped a lab, and signed me up on a permanent consultant basis.
I'd been commuting between Quebec and North Carolina, teaching physical anthropology at UNC-Charlotte and consulting to the two jurisdictions, ever since. Because my cases usually involved the less-than-recent dead, this arrangement had worked well. But there was an understanding on both ends that I would be immediately available for court testimony and in crisis situations.
An aviation disaster definitely qualified as a crisis situation. I assured Larke that I would cancel my October trip to Montreal.
“How did you get here so quickly?”
Again I explained my trip to Knoxville and the phone conversation with the DMORT leader.
“I've already talked to Earl. He'll deploy a team up here tomorrow morning.” Larke looked at Crowe. “The NTSB boys will be rolling in tonight. Until then everything stays put.”
“I've given that order,” Crowe said. “This location is pretty inaccessible, but I'll post extra security. Animals will probably be the biggest problem. Especially when these bodies start to go.”
The lieutenant governor made an odd sound, spun, and lurched off. I watched him brace against a mountain laurel, bend, and vomit.
Larke fixed us with a sincere Sheriff of Mayberry gaze, shifting his eyes from Crowe to me.
“You ladies are making a very difficult job infinitely easier. Words can't express how much I appreciate your professionalism.”
Shift.
“Sheriff, you keep things squared away here.”
Shift.
“Tempe, you go on and give your lecture in Knoxville. Then pick up whatever supplies you'll need and report back tomorrow. You're going to be here awhile, so inform the university. We'll secure a bunk for you.”
Fifteen minutes later a deputy was dropping me at my car. I'd been right about a better route. A quarter mile up from where I'd parked, a dirt track cut off from the Forest Service road. Once used for hauling timber, the tiny trail meandered around the mountain, allowing access to within a hundred yards of the main crash site.
Vehicles now lined both sides of the logging trail, and we'd passed newcomers on our way downhill. By sunrise both the Forest Service and county roads would be jammed.
As soon as I was behind the wheel I grabbed my cell phone. Dead.
I did a three-point turn and headed down toward the county road. Once on Highway 74, I tried again. The signal was back, so I punched in Katy's number. A machine picked up after four rings.
Uneasy, I left a message, then set the tape in my head to play the “don't-be-an-idiot-mother” lecture. For the next hour I tried to focus on my upcoming presentation, pushing away thoughts of the carnage I'd left behind and the horror I'd face the following day. It was no go. Images of floating faces and severed limbs shattered my concentration.
I tried the radio. Every station carried accounts of the crash. Broadcasters reverently talked of the death of young athletes and solemnly hypothesized as to cause. Since weather did not seem to be a factor, sabotage and mechanical failure were the favored theories.
Hiking out behind Crowe's deputy, I'd spotted a line of sheared-off trees oriented opposite my point of entrance. Though I knew the damage marked the plane's final descent path, I refused to join in the speculation.
I entered I-40, switched stations for the hundredth time, and caught a journalist reporting from overhead a warehouse fire. Chopper sounds reminded me of Larke, and I realized I hadn't asked where he and the lieutenant governor had landed. I stored the question in the back of my brain.
At nine, I redialed Katy.
Still no answer. I rewound the mind tape.
Arriving in Knoxville, I checked in, contacted my host, then ate the Bojangles' chicken I'd picked up on the outskirts of town. I phoned my estranged husband in Charlotte to request care for Birdie. Pete agreed, saying I'd be billed for cat transport and feeding. He hadn't talked to Katy for several days. After delivering a mini-version of my own lecture, he promised to try to reach her.
Next, I phoned Pierre LaManche, my boss at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale, to report that I would not be in Montreal the following week. He'd heard reports of the crash and was expecting my call. Last, I rang my department chair at UNC-Charlotte.
Responsibilities covered, I spent an hour selecting slides and placing them into carousel trays, then showered and tried Katy again. No go.