The elder EMT spoke up. “The body’s still intact with massive head trauma. Probably what killed him. I’m sure there’s internal damage too. We didn’t remove the body just like you ordered.”
“Fine. I guess we’ll wade out there and take a look.” McGill pointed Ben to the Suburban.
McGill and Ben sat with Kowalski on the tailgate of the Suburban donning their boots over their coveralls, then pulling the Velcro straps snug so the boots wouldn’t slip off in the mud. They put on their gloves and grabbed walking sticks, then made their way down the embankment and into the marsh.
The men made slow progress toward the aircraft and keeping their balance in the mire proved a challenge. Ben fell into the thick mud twice before reaching the Skyhawk, Kowalski three times. McGill was the only one who didn’t fall.
Arriving first at the aircraft, McGill noticed the propeller and half of the engine nacelle buried in the muck. The Skyhawk struck at a vertical angle, nose down. The wings bent forward from the impact. The pilot and passenger doors ripped off and lay beside the aircraft. The accident occurred just after high tide.
The tidal slough, full of brackish water, dampened the impact. Some debris could be seen farther down the slough as the falling tide washed some of the lighter debris toward the main river channel until it also became lodged in the mud.
The inside of the Skyhawk was full of fiddler crabs that went skittering as McGill approached the cabin. The body of the old man hung upside down, suspended by his seatbelt. The shattered windshield and smashed dashboard covered in blood. His face covered with the marsh creatures that will feed on anything dead. The man’s arm looked strange, somehow shredded, but not from the impact.
McGill reached in the cabin in an attempt to unbuckle the seat belt. He noticed something large moving toward him from the rear of the cabin.
“Shit!” he yelled as he jumped back out of the cabin, falling against Ben, who was leaning in to get a look. They both fell backwards, landing in the soft mud.
All three men made it back to the bank in less than half the time it took them to traverse the same distance to the aircraft. As they arrived on shore, one of the deputies asked if they had seen the alligator.
“You knew about the gator?” McGill screamed. “Why the hell didn’t you share that with us before we walked all the way out there?”
The deputy took off his hat and scratched his balding head. “Well, you were in such an all fire hurry, I didn’t want to slow you down.”
“You idiot. That’s how people get hurt. And I don’t appreciate it one damn bit.”
“Well it is kinda funny.”
“How’s this for funny?” McGill stepped close to the deputy. “You and your men go out there and retrieve the body while my men and I comb these fields for debris. Oh yeah, and be careful, there’s an alligator out there.”
“Why us? It’s not our investigation.”
“Mostly because I said so. And I’m federal and you’re county. That means you serve at my leisure.”
A crane arrived on a flatbed as McGill reached the Suburban.
The three men removed their rubber boots and mud-coated coveralls, replacing them with spare coveralls from the Suburban. They put on clean boots and gathered around the tailgate waiting for McGill to assign duties.
McGill pulled out his map and his compass. “Here we are.” He pointed to the map. “This way is opposite direction of flight so we’ll spread out.”
In the distance, McGill noticed an old man on a tractor. “And walk through this guy’s field looking for debris.”
The diesel engine on the crane roared to life just as McGill’s cell phone rang. Glancing at the crane with an annoyed expression, he answered the phone, “Pat McGill.”
“Pat, it’s Jake.”
Covering one ear to drown out the noise of the crane and turning his phone ear away from the crane, McGill yelled into the phone, “Jake, I can barely hear you.
You’ll have to speak up.”
Jake,shouted, “There’s been an accident.”
“An accident — what kind of accident?”
“At the Gulfstream hangar, it’s Dave.”
“Dave — what about him?”
“Pat, Dave’s dead. He’s dead. Did you hear me, Pat? Dave’s dead.”
CHAPTER 29
She opened her green eyes and Kaplan looked down into them. “Starting to feel better?”
“A lot better. I’ll get out in a minute.”
Kaplan sat on the edge of the tub while Annie finished soaking in the bathtub. He had noticed that whenever she felt bad, a hot bath always made her feel better.
Her fair skin had turned rosy red from the steaming water. Her eyes were closed, as though she still felt the shock of the experience at the accident scene.
On the way back to Annie’s house, Kaplan had had to stop his motorcycle twice so she could vomit. Before he could get his Harley to a full stop behind her house, she had jumped off and run inside.
”Would you like some wine to help you relax?” Kaplan asked.
“Not right now,” she said. “Maybe later.”
“Whatever you say.”
“How can people do that for a living?” Annie asked. “You know, going to all those accidents. Seeing all that carnage. The smell, the gore. Do you think they ever get used to it?”
“I imagine it’s like anything else, over time you get desensitized to it.”
“Do you think the investigators ever puke at accident scenes?”
“I’m sure there are those who do and those who don’t. But I’ll bet the ones who do outnumber the ones who don’t.”
He stood up and grabbed a towel as she pulled the plug on the tub. Handing her the towel, he said, “I think I’ll head to work and revise my statement on the accident. I didn’t make reference to the static noises I heard, so I think I’m going to correct that.” “That guy Pat, he was a real jerk, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t think I’ll put him on my Christmas card list,” he laughed.
Kaplan turned on Gulfstream Road heading back to the TRACON. As he approached the gate at Gulfstream Aircraft, he noticed an ambulance and a rescue unit at the guard shack and saw Jake standing next to the ambulance, talking to the driver and the guard.
The black Harley coasted up to the guard shack just as the emergency vehicles pulled away from the Gulfstream facility. Jake raised a hand to acknowledge him.
Kaplan pulled off his helmet and said, “What’s going on?”
“There was an accident at the recovery hangar. One of our investigators was killed.”
“My God, how did it happen?”
“A crane somehow lost hydraulic pressure and dropped the fuselage while he was underneath examining the damage, and it crushed him.”
Jake motioned for Kaplan to follow him as he walked away from the guard shack. Kaplan pushed down the kickstand with his foot, dismounted his motorcycle, hung his helmet on the left mirror and walked over to Jake.
Jake stared out at the woods across from Gulfstream without really focusing on anything. The investigation seemed to be getting out of control, but only from his perspective. He had talked to Beth. She’s always asking questions about his work but she really didn’t understand the aviation industry and the lingo. She also couldn’t identify with his situation.
He needed an insider, one who dealt with the same stuff every day. Someone he didn’t have to explain everything to in such painful detail. He usually had McGill to bounce things off of — but not now. He and McGill certainly weren’t seeing eye to eye right now. And worse still, he’d been withholding information from McGill about the investigation. He knew McGill would have no choice but to toss him from the investigation. That would damage his career, maybe irreparably. He needed a confidante. Someone he could trust. He didn’t know who, though.