I drove off, reliving the evening, thinking how my clever macho talk, my smooth moves in the sack were all a setup for her punch line: Beat it.
My vampire savoir faire had little to do with getting laid. Hell, if Belinda had been horny enough, I could’ve been a buck-toothed hick driving a Yugo and she would’ve jumped my bones.
I couldn’t stop the chatter in my head, the constant search for a stinging comeback I should’ve made to placate my ego. But I had to get on with my investigation. I stopped in a convenience store, bought a tall cup of coffee, and added a good amount of blood from a plastic bottle that I had brought in checked baggage. Fortunately, the blood was A-negative, which tended to have a soothing effect on me, like valerian root.
My mood tempered, I drove through the darkness and returned to the crash site. The cluster of vehicles had thinned to four state police cars.
As soon as I parked, a trooper came out from the shadows and asked if he could help; in other words, what was I doing here?
When he got close, I zapped him. I fanged the trooper only enough to keep him under-barely tasting his blood-and locked him in the backseat of his cruiser.
I scanned the area and saw the red auras of woodland critters but no humans.
Two trailer-mounted generators hummed alongside the road. I followed a line of cables from the generators toward a glow in the woods beyond. Rows of plastic bins held jagged pieces of metal, most the size of my arm or smaller. I peered into the woods with my night vision and didn’t see anything of concern to me.
A circle of construction lights on towers illuminated an oblong black area gouged into the ground. The area was a couple of hundred feet long and about a hundred feet wide. Scorched brush surrounded the perimeter. Small flags dotted the site. Wreckage, either a tail fin or a wingtip, flattened a shrub to my right.
I stood in a patch of burned weeds and studied the impact hole. There was no crater; rather it was a jagged trough scooped into the earth.
I walked around the perimeter. The plane must have hit the ground at a steep angle, ricocheted, and exploded. Good luck trying to collect the remains of these dead.
So where were the remains? And that wreckage in the bins, where was that going?
What did this have in common with the Cessna Caravan the Araneum had mentioned? Other than both planes had smacked the earth, killing all souls on board, I didn’t see a connection.
I returned to the road and found another trooper patrolling the area. I zapped her and asked where the remains were stored.
She said they were in a hangar at a small private airport nearby. I made her give me directions. Then I shoved her in the backseat of the cruiser with the other trooper I’d fanged. I unbuttoned their shirts and loosened her bra. Would they admit to finding themselves in a situation that risked the wrath of human resources? I took the male trooper’s ID badge.
The airport was seven miles away. I got there at a quarter after four in the morning and parked in a deserted lot. I clipped the trooper’s badge to my shirt and got out of my car.
The early morning hour-oh-dark-thirty, we used to call it in the army-plus the smell of prairie grass and aviation fuel reminded me of assembling for helicopter assaults in the infantry.
A corporate jet climbed noisily from the main runway. Strobe lights flashed on its belly and tail. The jet looked too fancy for a pop-stand airfield like this. Was Goodman on the jet and had I just missed him?
The operations building was locked. This was a rinky-dink enterprise: a few prefab hangars, a concrete runway, and a dozen small private airplanes and ag sprayers tethered to the parking apron.
I walked around the south side of the operations building. Construction lights illuminated an area in front of the largest hangar at the far end. I approached down the taxiway and circled around a fueling point.
A couple of big RVs, several black SUVs, and three panel trucks sat in a row beside the hangar. Traffic cones and police tape marked a perimeter around the area. Two red auras identified a couple of men, both bored, standing guard next to an unmarked Crown Victoria at the entrance into the perimeter.
I could break into the hangar from the back or the roof. But getting past these two guards shouldn’t be much trouble, so why bother?
The men gossiped and sipped coffee from paper cups.
I scoped the area. Nothing but the lights, the vehicles, and the two wide doors of the hangar shut together. Light from inside leaked through the edges of the doors. Nothing waited in the darkness beyond.
I angled my path so that I stepped into the long shadow cast by the two guards and the lights behind them.
The men noticed me and placed their cups on the roof of the Crown Vic. A sign leaning against a traffic cone said:
RESTRICTED AREA
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
U.S.D.O.T.
Badges glinted on the men’s belts. The rectangular silhouettes of pistol butts showed against their hips. The embroidery on their dark polo shirts read FEDERAL MARSHAL.
I kept my face in shadow. “Illinois State Police. I’m a liaison from the governor’s office.”
“Kinda early in the day, isn’t it?” the taller of the marshals asked.
“The governor calls and I jump. I don’t ask him the time.”
The marshal chuckled. “I hear that.” He pointed to the tape marking the boundary. “But I can’t help you, pal. This place belongs to the NTSB right now. If you need access, come back when the staff is here.”
I kept walking toward them. “What time will that be?”
The marshal shrugged. “Six maybe. Seven for sure.”
His partner beckoned me. “Let me see your ID. Nothing personal. We have to log in all visitors, whether they get in or not.”
“No problem.” I stopped four feet in front of them and let the light wash across my face.
Both marshals fixed their eyes on me. One muttered, “Sweet Jesus.” The other whispered, “Holy shit.”
Their auras flared like two hot coals in a Weber grill. Their eyes opened wide as half-dollars.
I let their auras settle before asking, “Does either of you know Dan Goodman?”
Big guy answered no. His partner couldn’t get a word out and I didn’t have time to prod his subconscious. I needed to look inside the hangar.
Fanging the marshals was the preferred technique to keep them under, but I tried something else. I banged their heads together like coconuts and let them drop.
I proceeded toward the hangar and examined the parked vehicles in case I overlooked someone. Around the corner to the south, there was a smaller door with a brightly lit window. I didn’t see any security cameras. I kept my distance from the window and looked inside. A female marshal sat at a desk ten feet from the door. She leafed through a copy of Flying magazine. A coffeemaker with a half-empty carafe rested on the desk.
I waited a couple of moments to see if someone else appeared. No one did. I stood to one side of the window and placed my hand against the door. The metal vibrated with the hum of electric motors-something like ventilation fans or compressors. Satisfied that she was alone, I opened the door and walked in.
The marshal brought her gaze from the magazine and up to me. She began to stand. “You need…”
She froze midway up. Her pupils dilated and her aura brightened into a crimson sizzle.
I shut and locked the door. I brushed my hand across the row of light switches. The hangar fell dark as a tomb. Perfect.
I stepped around the desk and cupped the marshal’s neck. She had a firm, athletic build. I brought my fangs close to her throat. Her shampoo had a tea tree scent, while her deodorant smelled of something exotic and tropical. I was sure the marshal bought these products at a health food store, so I bet she paid attention to what she ate.
My fangs broke her skin. The warm blood pumped into my mouth. I took a swallow and savored the taste. Nothing artificial in her blood. A strictly organic diet for sure.
I worked my saliva to the wound. As the enzymes seeped into her flesh, the marshal gave a low moan and relaxed. I held her arm and eased her back into the chair. My fanging should keep her under for at least an hour.
I flipped through the papers and binders on the desk. Most were procedures or lists of people. I sorted through a stack of loose faxes, invoices, and receipts. One form was a flight manifest for a Gulfstream corporate jet. Among the six passengers was a D. Goodman.
The trail was hot again.
The Gulfstream had left just as I arrived-so he was aboard.
The destination of the Gulfstream? Kansas City, the origin of the doomed airliner.
An investigation team would look into evidence at the point of departure. But why was Goodman involved in the first place?
I asked the marshal if she knew Goodman and she answered no. I closed her eyes and left her content and unconscious.
Airplane wreckage lay scattered across the hangar floor. A metal easel held a schematic of the Beech turboprop that mapped how the pieces belonged together.
The noises of a fan and compressor came from a semi-trailer parked inside the hangar against the northern wall. The back of the trailer faced the hangar doors. A ramp led to the trailer doors, which were secured with a padlock.
Boxes of latex gloves, booties, and paper masks rested on a bench beside the bottom of the ramp. Two gurneys had been pushed against the bench. A sign taped to the left trailer door said:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
CRASH INVESTIGATION EVIDENCE.
Another placard had the symbol for biological waste and was labeled BIOHAZARD.
I picked through an open toolbox and found a heavy pry bar that I used to force open the trailer door. I slipped the broken padlock into my pocket to hide the obvious evidence of my entry.
When I opened the door, a wave of refrigerated air carried the odor of decaying human flesh. On the inside of the door someone had taped color head shots labeled with names, a birth date, and some kind of reference number. There were nineteen smiling faces, which I presumed were the crash victims, now charred and torn to pieces and no longer smiling.
Body bags sat on the shelves along the inside of the trailer. Some bags held lumpy forms scarcely the size of a child. Others were almost flat. Smashing into the ground at several hundred miles an hour didn’t leave much to recover.
Humans have this perception of the inviolate forms of their physical bodies, until they encounter the laws of physics. Then their precious bags of flesh, tissue, and bone become messy, fragile projectiles that go splat.
I counted seventeen body bags. Masking tape on two empty shelves had been marked with the names Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook. Where were their remains? According to the most recent news, all the bodies were accounted for. Were these two released to their family for burial? Considering the crash happened this morning, I doubted it.
I examined the pictures of the missing women. Vanessa Tico’s portrait looked like a glamour shot. She was an African-American with a middle-dark complexion, straight hair that seemed sprayed armor-stiff, and wide, bright eyes that begged you to share a laugh. Janice Wyndersook faced the camera in a fuzzy blowup of a snapshot. Her small eyes squinted at the viewer through narrow glasses. Tufts of blond hair jutted from her scalp in the current trendy style. Her rosy complexion made each round cheek look as inviting as a freshly picked apple. Vanessa was twenty-seven, Janice twenty-eight.
They weren’t much younger than Marissa Albert, the murdered chalice in Key West. I touched the pictures on the door. A hunch-I was a private detective, what else did I have-told me that Vanessa and Janice were still alive.
Then why the charade of their deaths in this crash?
I bet Goodman would know.