Reassembly. The piecing together of the airplane as it had been before the event. Total reassembly is a tremendous drain on time, money, and manpower, of which the NTSB had precious little. They do not attempt it in every major, do so reluctantly when public clamor demands. They undertook it with TWA 800 because the Brits had done it with Pan Am 102, and they didn't want to be outperformed.
With fifty dead students, reassembly was a given.
For the past two weeks trucks had been carrying the wreckage from Air TransSouth 228 across the mountains to a rented hangar at the Asheville airport. Parts were being laid out on grids corresponding to their positions on the Fokker-100. Parts that could not be associated with specific sections of the plane were being sorted according to structure type. Unidentifiable parts were being sorted according to position of recovery at the crash site.
Eventually, every scrap would be cataloged and subjected to a range of tests, then reassembled around a wood-and-wire frame. Over time an aircraft would take shape, like a slow-motion reverse, with a million fragments drawing together to form a recognizable object.
I'd visited reassembly sites on other crashes, and could picture the tedious scene. In this case the process would move more quickly since Air TransSouth 228 had not been driven into the ground. The plane had come apart in midair and plummeted to earth in large pieces.
But I would not see it. I was exiled. My face must have registered my despondency.
“I can put off the meeting.” Ryan laid a hand on my shoulder.
“I'm O.K.”
“What are you going to do this afternon?”
“I'm going to sit here and finish my lunch with Boyd. Then I'm going to drive into town and buy dog food, razors, and shampoo.”
“Will you be all right?”
“I may have trouble finding the ones with double blades. But I'll persevere.”
“You can be a pain in the ass, Brennan.”
“See. I'm fine.”
I managed a weak smile.
“Go to your meeting.”
When he'd gone, I gave Boyd the last of the fries.
“Any preferred brands?” I asked.
He didn't answer.
I suspected Boyd would eat just about anything but boiled eggs.
I was stuffing wrappers into the carry-out bag when Ruby shot out the front door and grabbed my arm.
“Quick! Come quick!”
“What is—”
She dragged me off the swing and into the house. Boyd danced along, nipping at my jeans. I wasn't sure if it was Ruby's urgency that excited him or his entry onto forbidden turf.
Ruby pulled me straight to the kitchen, where an ironing board stood with a pair of Levi's draped across it. A wicker basket rested below, heaped to the rim with crumpled laundry. Neatly pressed garments hung from cabinet knobs around the room.
Ruby pointed to a twelve-inch black-and-white TV on a counter opposite the board. A ribbon at the bottom of the screen announced fast-breaking news. A newscaster spoke above the graphic, his face grim, his voice serene. Though reception was poor, I had no trouble identifying the figure over his left shoulder.
The room receded around me. I was aware of nothing but the voice and the snowy picture.
“. . . an inside source revealed that the anthropologist has been dismissed, and that an investigation is under way. Charges have not yet been filed, and it is unclear if the crash investigation has been compromised, or if victim identifications have been affected. When contacted, Dr. Larke Tyrell, North Carolina's chief medical examiner, had no comment. In other news . . .”
“That's you, isn't it?”
Ruby brought me back.
“Yes,” I said.
Boyd had stopped racing around the kitchen and was sniffing the floor below the sink. His head came up when I spoke.
“What's he saying?” Ruby's eyes were the size of Frisbees.
Something snapped, and I rolled over her like a tsunami.
“It's a mistake! A goddamn mistake!” It was my voice, shrill and harsh, though I hadn't consciously formed the words.
The room felt hot, the smell of steam and fabric softener cloying. I spun and rushed for the door.
Boyd flew after me, paws jumbling the carpet runner as we raced down the hall. I burst out the door and across the lawn, the bell jangling in my wake. Ruby must have thought I was possessed by the Archfiend himself.
When I opened the car Boyd bounded in and centered himself in back, his head protruding through the gap between the seats. I hadn't the will to stop him.
Sliding behind the wheel, I did some deep breathing, hoping to turn a page in my mind. My heartbeat normalized. I began to feel guilty about my outburst, but couldn't force myself to return to the kitchen to apologize.
Boyd chose that moment to lick my ear.
At least the chow doesn't question my integrity, I thought.
“Let's go.”
* * *
During the ride into Bryson City, I answered call after call on my cell phone, each a reporter. After seven “no comments,” I turned it off.
Boyd shifted between his center spot and the left rear window, reacting with the same low growl to cars, pedestrians, and other animals. After a time he ceased serving notice on everyone of just who he was, and stared placidly as the sights and sounds of the mountains flashed by.
I found everything I needed at an Ingles supermarket on the southern edge of town. Herbal Essence and Gillette Good News for me, Kibbles 'n Bits for Boyd. I even sprang for a box of Milk-Bone jumbos.
Buoyed by finding the razors, I decided on an outing.
Approximately three miles beyond the Bryson City line, Everett Street becomes a scenic roadway that snakes through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park above the north shore of Lake Fontana. Officially the highway is called Lakeview Drive. To locals it is known as the Road to Nowhere.
In the 1940s, a two-lane blacktop led from Bryson City along the Tuckasegee and Little Tennessee Rivers to Deal's Gap near the Tennessee state line. Realizing the creation of Lake Fontana would flood the highway, the TVA promised a new north-shore road. Construction began in 1943, and a 1,200-foot tunnel was eventually built. Then everything stopped, leaving Swain County with a road and tunnel to nowhere, and with wounded feelings as to its low rank in the universal order of things.
“Want to take a ride, boy?”
Boyd showed enthusiasm by placing his chin on my right shoulder and running his tongue up the side of my face. One thing I admired about him was his agreeable nature.
The drive was beautiful, the tunnel a perfect monument to federal folly. Boyd enjoyed racing from end to end while I stood in the middle and watched.
Though the outing cheered me, the improvement in my mood was short-lived. Just after leaving the park, my engine gave an odd ping. Two miles before the town line it pinged again, chunked repeatedly, then segued into a loud, ratchety, persistent noise.
Veering onto the shoulder, I cut the motor, draped my arms around the steering wheel, and rested my forehead on them, my temporary lift in spirits replaced by a sense of despondency and anxiety.
Was this ordinary car trouble, or had someone tampered with my engine?
Boyd laid his chin on my shoulder, indicating that he, too, found it a disturbing question, and not entirely paranoid.
We'd been like that a few minutes when Boyd growled without raising his head. I ignored this, assuming he'd spotted a squirrel or a Chevy. Then he shot to his feet and gave three sharp woofs, an impressive sound inside a Mazda.
I looked up to see a man approaching my car from the highway side. He was small, maybe five foot three, with dark hair combed straight back. He wore a black suit, perfectly fitted, but probably new in the early sixties.
Drawing close, the man raised knuckles to tap the glass, but pulled back as Boyd erupted again.
“Easy, boy.”
I could see an old pickup angled onto the shoulder across the road, the driver's door open. The truck looked empty.