Fatal Voyage tb-4 Page 2

  “Lucy Crowe.”

  “Please call me Tempe.”

  She spread her feet, crossed her arms, and regarded me with the Coke-bottle eyes.

  “I don't believe any of these poor souls will be needing medical attention.”

  “I'm a forensic anthropologist, not a medical doctor. You've searched for survivors?”

  She nodded with a single upward jerk of her head, the type of gesture I'd seen in India. “I thought something like this would be the ME's baby.”

  “It's everybody's baby. Is the NTSB here yet?” I knew the National Transportation Safety Board never took long to arrive.

  “They're coming. I've heard from every agency on the planet. NTSB, FBI, ATF, Red Cross, FAA, Forest Service, TVA, Department of the Interior. I wouldn't be surprised if the pope himself came riding over Wolf Knob there.”

  “Interior and TVA?”

  “The feds own most of this county; about eighty-five percent as national forest, five percent as reservation.” She extended a hand at shoulder level, moved it in a clockwise circle. “We're on what's called Big Laurel. Bryson City's off to the northwest, Great Smoky Mountains National Park's beyond that. The Cherokee Indian Reservation lies to the north, the Nantahala Game Land and National Forest to the south.”

  I swallowed to relieve the pressure inside my ears.

  “What's the elevation here?”

  “We're at forty-two hundred feet.”

  “I don't want to tell you how to do your job, Sheriff, but there are a few folks you might want to keep ou—”

  “The insurance man and the snake-bellied lawyer. Lucy Crowe may live on a mountain, but she's been off it once or twice.”

  I didn't doubt that. I was also certain that no one gave lip to Lucy Crowe.

  “Probably good to keep the press out, too.”

  “Probably.”

  “You're right about the ME, Sheriff. He'll be here. But the North Carolina emergency plan calls for DMORT involvement for a major.”

  I heard a muffled boom, followed by shouted orders. Crowe removed her hat and ran the back of her sleeve across her forehead.

  “How many fires are still burning?”

  “Four. We're getting them out, but it's dicey. The mountain's mighty dry this time of year.” She tapped the hat against a thigh as muscular as her shoulders.

  “I'm sure your crews are doing their best. They've secured the area and they're dealing with the fires. If there are no survivors, there's nothing else to be done.”

  “They're not really trained for this kind of thing.”

  Over Crowe's shoulder an old man in a Cherokee Volunteer PD jacket poked through a pile of debris. I decided on tact.

  “I'm sure you've told your people that crash scenes must be treated like crime scenes. Nothing should be disturbed.”

  She gave her peculiar down-up nod.

  “They're probably feeling frustrated, wanting to be useful but unsure what to do. A reminder never hurts.”

  I indicated the poker.

  Crowe swore softly, then crossed to the volunteer, her strides powerful as an Olympic runner's. The man moved off, and in a moment the sheriff was back.

  “This is never easy,” I said. “When the NTSB arrives they'll assume responsibility for the whole operation.”

  “Yeah.”

  At that moment Crowe's cell phone rang. I waited as she spoke.

  “Another precinct heard from,” she said, hooking the handset to her belt. “Charles Hanover, CEO of Air TransSouth.”

  Though I'd never flown it, I'd heard of the airline, a small, regional carrier connecting about a dozen cities in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee with Washington, D.C.

  “This is one of theirs?”

  “Flight 228 was late leaving Atlanta for Washington, D.C. Sat on the runway forty minutes, took off at twelve forty-five P.M. The plane was at about twenty-five thousand feet when it disappeared from radar at one oh seven. My office got the 911 call around two.”

  “How many on board?”

  “The plane was a Fokker-100 carrying eighty-two passengers and six crew. But that's not the worst of it.”

  Her next words foretold the horror of the coming days.

  “THE UGA SOCCER TEAMS?”

  Crowe nodded. “Hanover said both the men and women were traveling to matches somewhere near Washington.”

  “Jesus.” Images popped like flashbulbs. A severed leg. Teeth with braces. A young woman caught in a tree.

  A sudden stab of fear.

  My daughter, Katy, was a student in Virginia, but often visited her best friend in Athens, home of the University of Georgia. Lija was on athletic scholarship. Was it soccer?

  Oh, God. My mind raced. Had Katy mentioned a trip? When was her semester break? I resisted the impulse to grab my cell phone.

  “How many students?”

  “Forty-two passengers booked through the university. Hanover thought most of those were students. Besides the athletes there would be coaches, trainers, girlfriends, boyfriends. Some fans.” She ran a hand across her mouth. “The usual.”

  The usual. My heart ached at the loss of so many young lives. Then another thought.

  “This will be a media nightmare.”

  “Hanover opened with that concern.” Crowe's voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “When the NTSB takes over they'll deal with the press.”

  And with the families, I didn't add. They, too, would be here, moaning and huddling for comfort, some watching with frightened eyes, some demanding immediate answers, belligerence masking their unbearable grief.

  At that moment blades whumped, and we saw a helicopter come in low over the trees. I spotted a familiar figure beside the pilot, another silhouette in the rear. The chopper circled twice, then headed in the opposite direction from where I assumed the road to be.

  “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 decompose
d, 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.

  I glanced at the clock. Eleven-forty.

  She's fine. She's gone out for pizza. Or she's at the library. Yes. The library. I'd used that one many times when I was in school.

  It took a very long time to fall asleep.

  By morning, Katy hadn't called and was still not picking up. I tried Lija's number in Athens. Another robotic voice requested a message.

  I drove to the only anthropology department in America located in a football stadium, and gave one of the more disjointed talks of my career. The host of the guest lecture series listed my DMORT affiliation in his introduction and mentioned that I would be working the Air TransSouth recovery. Though I could supply little information, follow-up queries largely ignored my presentation and focused on the crash. The question-and-answer period lasted forever.

  As the crowd finally milled toward the exits, a scarecrow man in a bow tie and cardigan made straight for the podium, half-moon glasses swinging across his chest. Being in a profession with relatively few members, most anthropologists know one another, and our paths cross and recross at meetings, seminars, and conferences. I'd met Simon Midkiff on several occasions, and knew it would be a long session if I wasn't firm. Looking pointedly at my watch, I gathered my notes, stuffed my briefcase, and descended from the platform.

  “How are you, Simon?”

  “Excellent.” His lips were cracked, his skin dry and flaky, like that of a dead fish lying in the sun. Tiny veins laced the whites of eyes overshadowed by bushy brows.

  “How is the archaeology business?”

  “Excellent, as well. Since one must eat, I am engaged in several projects for the cultural resources department in Raleigh. But mainly I spend my days organizing data.” He gave a high-pitched laugh and tapped a hand to one cheek. “It seems I've collected an extraordinary amount of data throughout my career.”

  Simon Midkiff earned a doctorate at Oxford in 1955, then came to the United States to accept a position at Duke. But the archaeology superstar published nothing and was denied tenure six years later. Midkiff was given a second chance by the University of Tennessee, again failed to produce publications, and again was let go.

  Unable to obtain a permanent faculty position, for thirty years Midkiff had hung around the periphery of academia, doing contract archaeology and teaching courses as replacement instructors were
needed at colleges and universities in the Carolinas and Tennessee. He was notorious for excavating sites, filing the requisite reports, then failing to publish his findings.

  “I'd love to hear about it, Simon, but I'm afraid I have to run.”

  “Yes, indeed. Such a terrible tragedy. So many young lives.” His head moved sadly from side to side. “Where exactly is the crash?”

  “Swain County. And I really must get back.” I started to move on, but Midkiff made a subtle shift, blocking my path with a size-thirteen Hush Puppy.

  “Where in Swain County?”

  “South of Bryson City.”

  “Perhaps you could be a bit more specific?”

  “I can't give you coordinates.” I did not mask my irritation.

  “Please forgive my beastly rudeness. I've been excavating in Swain County, and I was worried about damage to the site. How selfish of me.” Again the giggle. “I apologize.”

  At that moment my host joined us.

  “May I?” He waggled a small Nikon.

  “Sure.”

  I assumed the Kodak smile.

  “It's for the departmental newsletter. Our students seem to enjoy it.”

  He thanked me for the lecture and wished me well with the recovery. I thanked him for the accommodations, excused myself to both men, collected my slide carousels, and hurried from the auditorium.

  Before leaving Knoxville I located a sporting goods store and purchased boots, socks, and three pairs of khakis, one of which I put on. At an adjoining pharmacy I grabbed two packages of Hanes Her Way cotton bikinis. Not my brand, but they would do. Shoving the panties and extra khakis into my overnighter, I pointed myself east.

  Born in the hills of Newfoundland, the Appalachians parallel the East Coast on their plunge from north to south, splitting near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to form the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge chains. One of the world's oldest upland regions, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to over 6,600 feet at Clingmans Dome on the North Carolina–Tennessee border.