JOUNCING DOWN FROM THE CRASH SITE, BACK toward town, I was so grateful to be riding shotgun that I mostly forgave Prescott for criticizing our work pace. He was at the wheel of the vehicle, with McCready, Kimball, and Boatman in the back—a place where I’d have gotten carsick within minutes. Our Suburban, followed closely by the other one, was bucking and lurching down Otay Mountain Truck Trail—a rough-hewn route whose chief virtue, as best I could tell, was the honesty of the label TRUCK TRAIL. Between bumps, I marveled anew at the fleet of assorted vehicles that had managed to make the climb—especially the crane and the mobile command center—and I made a mental note to express my admiration to their drivers. As if to make sure I didn’t forget, the Suburban tilted suddenly to the right, then abruptly to the left, whapping my head against the window. I thought longingly of the swift, smooth hop the helicopter had made from the airfield to the summit: two minutes; three, tops. Yesterday’s travel was a lot cushier than today’s, I thought. Suddenly, astonished, I realized: No—that was today, too. I was eating breakfast in my kitchen in Knoxville this morning.
As we descended, the kinked switchbacks relaxed, opening up into looser, looping curves, and the primitive truck trail evolved into an actual gravel road. By the time we came off the mountain’s flank and into the valley floor, we had picked up enough speed to churn up a dense, dun-colored plume, and I was glad to be in the lead vehicle rather than any of the trailing ones, which had vanished inside the dust storm we were creating.
Shortly after turning onto a wide paved road, we passed a side road marked by a large sign. The sign, made of wooden boards framed by rough-hewn rock, read DONOVAN STATE PRISON. I was just about to ask Prescott about it when his cell phone rang. He frowned at the display but took the call. “No,” he said tersely, “not right now.” Then: “All right. . . . I said all right. . . . Fine. See you then.” He closed the phone with an angry snap.
“Trouble?”
He made a face of minor distaste, or perhaps disdain. “Just a friendly little jurisdictional discussion. Otherwise known as a pissing contest.”
“With the sheriff’s office?”
He shook his head. “I wish. It’s easy to outpiss the locals. Nah, this is with some of our federal brethren.” He glanced at me, saw the question on my face. “Nothing serious,” he said. “Case like this gets lots of media attention, so everybody wants to share the glory. ’Course, if things go south—if something goes wrong—those same glory hounds’ll run for cover. Pausing only long enough to throw us under the bus.” He looked into the rearview mirror and gave his backseat colleagues a slight, ironic smile. “Not that we would ever do that, if the tables got turned. Right, fellas?” Kimball and Boatman and McCready, jammed in the backseat, swiftly agreed that no, they would never run for cover or throw anyone under the bus.
“Bus? What bus? I see no bus,” said Kimball, his tone all mock innocence. “Pay no attention to that large, fast-moving vehicle!” The agents laughed the laugh of the righteous and confident, and I assured myself that I didn’t need to worry, as long as I looked both ways before crossing streets.
“HOME SWEET HOME,” PRESCOTT ANNOUNCED, pointing through the windshield. Looking down in the direction of his point—we were on an overpass, crossing a six-lane freeway—I spotted a Quality Inn. Drab, aging, and ironically named, it huddled in the corner formed by the freeway and the overpass. Only the four out-of-towners were staying here; Prescott and the local evidence techs had the luxury of sleeping in their own beds, and Maddox, the NTSB investigator, was staying somewhere downtown. He’d made it sound like he was disappointed not to be staying with us, but now that I saw our lodgings, I suspected he wasn’t all that torn up about it. Too bad, I thought again, wishing I’d had the chance to swap stories with him. I’d always been fascinated by planes, and flight; I’d even taken a few flying lessons years before, but I’d failed the medical exam because of my Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder that occasionally laid me low, sometimes for days on end, with bed-spinning vertigo and racking nausea.
“Doc?” Prescott had stopped the Suburban at the motel’s entrance. He was looking at me, waiting.
“Sorry; what’d you say?”
“You ready to eat? These guys are starving. There’s a Carl’s Jr. on the other side of the expressway, and we’re jonesing for burgers.”