The Breaking Point (Body Farm 9)

Maddox shook my hand, nodding in the direction of the crash. “Plenty of trauma here, but probably not much human left to identify.” He furrowed his brow at me. “Remind me? How many bones in the human body?”

“Two hundred and six, in adults.”

“Uh-huh. Ever work one of those thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles?”

I shook my head. “Never had the patience.”

“Well, better start cultivating some,” he said. “Just a guess—but it’s a fairly educated guess—you’ve got one hell of a puzzle waiting down there, and the pieces are gonna be damned tiny.”

“You mean ‘we,’ don’t you? We’ve got a puzzle. You’ll be down there with us, right?”

He shook his head. “I wish. Can’t.” He hoisted up the left leg of his pants to reveal a contraption of straps, buckles, and hinges that resembled a medieval implement of torture. “Knee surgery three weeks ago. I’m not supposed to be walking on anything rougher than wall-to-wall carpet. My orthopedist went ballistic when I asked what to do if I had to climb around on a mountainside. ‘Schedule a knee replacement,’ he said.”

“Knee surgery’s tricky stuff,” I said. “Your doctor’s right to be cautious.”

Maddox sighed. “I hate being on the sidelines, though.”

“Not to worry, Pat,” said McCready, clapping me on the shoulder. “If anybody can put the pieces together, it’s this man right here. The best there is.” Then he frowned. “I have a question, though. That little kaboom a minute ago—what the hell was that? It rang our chimes pretty good.”

“I’ve seen planes brought down by less,” said Maddox. “A lot less.”

“Hovering beside a burning aircraft.” McCready looked rueful. “Kinda dumb, I guess.”

“You said it.”

“So what was it?” persisted McCready.

Maddox shrugged. “Won’t know till we start combing through the debris. Just guessing, though, I’d say an overheated oxygen cylinder.”

“That’s what the helicopter pilot said, too.” McCready looked puzzled. “But the fire’s about out. Why would it blow now, not earlier?”

“Well . . .” The crash expert glanced away, then met McCready’s gaze. “Frankly?” McCready gave a yes-please nod. “Probably the buffet from your rotor wash,” Maddox said, “stirring things around. Maybe knocked the cylinder against something sharp—a metal rod, or a shard of rock—and it popped. Like a balloon.”

McCready grimaced. “So it was my own damn fault?” I looked at him, surprised; it had been the pilot, not the FBI agent, who had dropped down beside the wreckage. McCready was choosing to let the buck stop with him, though, and I admired that. Maddox gave a half nod, half shrug, which I also admired: He was confirming what McCready said, but without rubbing his nose in it, as he could’ve. McCready shook his head. “Hate that,” he said. “I put my people at risk, and I altered the scene, too. If anybody should know better, it’s me, Mr. Save-the-Evidence. Sorry about that.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Maddox said. “If it hadn’t blown now, it might’ve blown later, with your guys right there beside it. Somebody’s boot bumps it, the thing tips over, hits a sharp edge, and kaboom. Could’ve taken off a foot, maybe blinded somebody. So you probably did us all a big favor.” He paused. “Hell, now that I think about it, maybe you oughta call that chopper back to stir things around some more; set off anything else that’s about to blow.” He smiled, making sure we knew it was a joke, not a jab. McCready smiled back. Olive branches had been accepted all around, it seemed.

McCready shifted gears and got down to business. “Seriously, how soon you think it’s safe to get down there and start working it? We got more oxygen cylinders down there? What about other hazards?”

Maddox shrugged. “Well, the fuel’s just about burned off. Hydraulic fluid—for the brake lines and the flight-control systems—that’s combustible but not explosive, and it’s probably burned off by now, too. I doubt that there’s another oxygen cylinder—one’s the standard on a Citation, but some have two. I’ve got somebody tracking down the maintenance guys, back at the hangar, so we’ll know for sure.”

“I haven’t had a chance to read up on the Citation,” McCready said—another surprise to me, since I’d noticed him unfolding a big cutaway diagram of the jet during our cross-country flight. “It’s a twin-engine bizjet? Like a Gulfstream or a Learjet?” Was he doing more fence mending—giving Maddox a chance to demonstrate his knowledge?—or was he testing to see how much the man knew?

Maddox gave a half smile. “Sort of like a Learjet. The first version of the Citation was a little sluggish; some pilots called it a ‘Nearjet.’ Newer ones are faster, though still not as fast as that Gulfstream horse you guys rode in on—that was you that circled on your way in, right?” McCready nodded, and Maddox rattled on. “But the Citation’s a good design. Solid. Simple, relatively speaking—it’s the only jet approved for single-pilot operation. Sensible, for a multimillion-dollar minivan. It—”

McCready broke in. “Excuse me? Did you just say ‘minivan’?”

Maddox nodded. “It’s the Dodge Caravan of bizjets. Not too fast, not too fancy, but functional and roomy, and plenty good enough, you know?”

“So much for the magic of flight,” said McCready.

“Hey, I’m all about the magic of flight,” Maddox answered. “It is magic. But tell me: What’s Europe’s biggest aircraft maker called? Airbus, that’s what. Air. Bus. I rest my case.”

A cell phone at McCready’s belt shrilled; he flipped it open, turning his back to Maddox and me. “McCready,” I heard him say. “Go ahead.” He listened a moment, then said, “Got it; we won’t start the party without you. Thanks.” Snapping the phone shut, he turned to us again. “That was Miles Prescott, from the San Diego field office. He’s the lead agent on this case. He’s on his way up—almost here, he says—and he’s bringing the cavalry with him.”

McCready pointed down at a jeep road, and sure enough, a quarter mile below, I saw a minicaravan snaking up the ridge. “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” muttered Maddox.

The lead vehicle, a black Chevrolet Suburban—its windows tinted nearly as dark as its paint—sped past the line of emergency vehicles and pulled onto the concrete pad. It was followed by the familiar, boxy shape of an evidence-recovery truck. Lumbering up behind them was a massive vehicle labeled MOBILE COMMAND CENTER. It looked like the offspring of a Winnebago that had somehow managed to mate with a fire truck.

The doors on all three vehicles opened simultaneously, almost as if the move were choreographed, and a dozen FBI agents emerged, one wearing a suit and spit-shined shoes, the others decked out in cargo pants, boots, and T-shirts. One of these things is not like the others, I thought. It was an absurd echo from my son’s Sesame Street days, twenty years or more ago, and yet it fit. And maybe, I realized, what was silly was not the song, but the wearing of a three-piece suit on a rocky mountaintop in the wilderness.

A round of introductions ensued—a litany of names I promptly forgot, except for that of Prescott, the Suit—and when it was done, Prescott turned to McCready. “So we good to go?”

McCready frowned and shook his head slightly. “I don’t think we can start working it quite yet,” he said.

“I agree,” said Maddox, taking the opportunity to step forward and reclaim a seat at the figurative table. “The fire’s mostly out, but that wreckage is gonna be hot as hell for a while yet. An oxygen cylinder exploded half an hour ago. Why put your men at risk?” He didn’t mention the helicopter’s role in triggering the explosion, and McCready didn’t either, so I kept quiet about it, too.

Prescott looked impatient, and at me. “Dr. Brockton? What’s your take on this, forensically speaking?”

“Forensically speaking,” I said, “this reminds me of something a Tennessee sheriff said to me at a death scene years ago, on a mountainside in the middle of the night.” The other FBI agents and the crash investigator edged closer so they co

uld hear better. “We were discussing whether to start working the scene right then, or to wait until daylight. The sheriff mulled it over and then said, ‘Well, Doc, I reckon he ain’t gonna get any deader by morning.’” Maddox grinned; Prescott gave a tight smile; McCready kept his expression as neutral as Switzerland. “I reckon Richard Janus won’t get any deader if we let things cool down for an hour or so while we figure out the best way to work this thing.”

What I didn’t say, but couldn’t help thinking, was that in an I.D. case with a celebrity victim, every minute we delayed would cost us, too. The throng of reporters—and therefore the authorities whom the reporters would be badgering for updates—would want us to hurry, to push, to make up for lost time. Looming even larger in my mind was another person who would surely be waiting impatiently, perhaps even desperately: Mrs. Richard Janus.