IT TOOK FIVE MINUTES JUST TO REMOVE THE MANY layers of wrapping from the plastic bin of remains. As I snipped and tugged, I felt almost as if I were unwinding a modern-day mummy, this one wrapped not in linen but in Saran Wrap and packing tape—our makeshift maneuver to avoid stinking up not only my carry-on bag—my “carrion bag,” I had jokingly dubbed it—but the entire plane. As I unwound the final layer of plastic, I caught a faint whiff of odor—not the familiar, overpowering smell of decomposing flesh, but the charred aroma of burned meat.
Opening a dusty supply cabinet, I found a disposable surgical sheet—made of absorbent blue paper—and unfolded it on the counter that ran the length of one wall. Then I laid out the teeth and bone fragments in anatomical order, or in as close an approximation of anatomical order as I could achieve, given the high degree of fragmentation. The teeth, being the most intact, were the easiest; they were also of greatest interest and greatest consternation to me. What was it Prescott had asked about? Tool marks or other evidence of extraction? His question had sounded angry, but not merely angry; it had sounded surprisingly specific, too, and I wondered what had prompted such specificity. As far as I knew, none of the FBI agents had reexamined the teeth after we had recovered them and sent them to the medical examiner’s office, along with the bits of burned bone. The morning of the press conference, Prescott had sent one of his subordinates to the M.E.’s office to retrieve the material, which the M.E. was glad to release, the identification having been made—positively and correctly, to the best of everyone’s knowledge at the time. So what had changed since then? What new information, or allegations, or accusations, had come to light to undermine the identification—my identification; my work; my reputation?
An old magnifying lamp, its lens gray beneath a blanket of dust, still hovered over the counter, its articulating arm creaky and arthritic with age. I flipped its switch, not expecting anything, but after a moment, the fluorescent bulb that encircled the lens flickered to life. “Hmm,” I said, then quoted a line from a Monty Python comedy, a scene in which a plague victim is being carried prematurely to a cart of corpses: “I’m not quite dead,” I cracked in my best—or my worst—Cockney accent. Then, after I’d said the words, they took on a new and unexpected meaning, and I imagined them being spoken by Richard Janus. Was Janus quite dead, or was he—like me—merely missing, AWOL, the Invisible Man?
Even after cleaning the magnifying lens and examining the teeth through it, I still couldn’t answer the question. Someone was dead, all right; that much was absolutely clear from the bones: vertebrae; shards of shattered limbs; charred chunks of pelvis; curved cranial fragments. But were those bits and pieces from Richard Janus?
The teeth were his; that, too, was beyond doubt. But other things were now entirely in doubt. Could it be true—as both Prescott and the television reporter indicated—that the teeth had been extracted, then placed in the plane with a decoy body? If so, that meant the decoy’s teeth had been pulled, too, because if they hadn’t, we’d have found two sets of teeth.
The teeth were damaged—their roots almost entirely broken and burned away. At the scene, I’d been surprised at the lack of jawbone surrounding them, but then again, the jaws themselves—both the mandible and the maxilla—had been reduced to fragments. I’d asked Maddox if such extreme fragmentation was normal; he’d shrugged and nodded. “I’m surprised there’s this much left,” he’d said. “A high-impact crash like this? Usually all we find is a smoking hole.” I must have looked surprised, because he’d added, “If it were a helo crash, or a military aircraft, I’d expect more. Those guys wear helmets, so it gives a little protection. Poor bastards don’t have a snowball’s chance of surviving, mind you. The helmets just mean we get to pick up bigger pieces.”
The day before the press conference, I’d told Prescott I wanted to take a second look at the teeth, but he’d resisted the idea. The high profile of the Janus case had put too much pressure on him—pressure from the Bureau’s uppermost level. Now—now that it was too late; now that things were a royal mess—I was finally getting that second look.
I still didn’t see “tool marks”—which I took to mean marks from dental extraction forceps, or perhaps from ordinary pliers—but I wouldn’t really know until I’d cleaned the teeth thoroughly. So what had prompted the question, or the accusation, from Prescott? I could think of only one explanation that fit the facts: Someone had told Prescott—or the Fox reporter, or both—that the teeth had been extracted, and that Janus’s death had been faked. But who? And why?
HOURS LATER—HOURS OF CLEANING AND SCRUTINIZING later—I still had no idea where the revelation had come from, or what had motivated it. But I had found signs of abrasions and fractures in the enamel of many of the teeth: abrasions and fractures that were more consistent with compressive and torsional forces—gripping and twisting—than with impact. With a heavy heart and sinking spirit, I concluded that the teeth had indeed been extracted before the crash. But I still didn’t see the big picture. In fact, if anything, I was more baffled than ever. Had Richard Janus indeed faked his death? If so, how the hell had he done it?