“Improvised that one. I’ll work on it.” Mike took the gloves and worried them onto his hands. “We’ll have a full team out here in a couple of hours, but in the meantime, anything I need to know?”
“That small section over there, where they’re still hosing things down, was probably the engines. There are parts of the plane scattered all over the field. If there had been kids out here, it would have been a bloodbath. But mostly what you’ll want to look at is in here. A couple of bodies, pretty burned, but that’s about all there is to see until the techs get through with it. Haven’t heard from the tower yet, but near as I can tell the plane came down in one piece and then split apart once it hit. Nothing to make me think it was more than an accident. Doesn’t look like a bomb or anything. That’s not exactly my specialty, though. FAA guys should be here within the hour.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Moreland said. “You go in there, you’ll never want to eat barbecue again.”
Mike was careful working his way up into the body of the jet. The plane wasn’t flat, but it felt close enough. Water from where firefighters had hosed down the wreck dripped from the ceilings and pooled on the carpet. Mike’s shoe skidded on something, and when he reached out to steady himself he felt the sharp tear of metal slicing through the skin of his hand.
“Fuck.” He balled his hand into a fist and then opened it so he could see the cut. The impact of the crash had torn open the jet as if a giant cat had worked its claws through the plane’s metal body, and the seams of metal were jagged enough that they’d opened a flap in his hand. The nitrile glove was shredded; he peeled it off and stuffed it in his pocket. He realized that, despite everything looking like an accident, he was already treating it as a crime scene. That phone call from the director had gotten into his head.
He could feel the blood leaking from his palm and running down his arm, so he worked his tie off his neck and wrapped it around his hand. He didn’t want to get blood all over the place. He pulled a mini Maglite from his pocket. There was some natural light coming in through where the metal had been peeled back, but when he came to the first body, he was glad he had the flashlight.
It was a woman. Or it had been a woman. There was still enough fabric left of her skirt for Mike to be clear about that, but the rest of her body was destroyed. Her legs were bent, one of them broken and turned at an angle that probably would have made him gag had he been a newbie, though that wasn’t as disturbing as the burns. She was charred and damaged beyond expectations. On her head there were a few tufts of hair, burned short but still showing some color, but her face and torso were shredded. Her skin was a mixture of black flakes and pink ooze, pitted in places and disturbingly raw. Clearly she’d been thrown through the cabin, and Mike figured that when the autopsy was done they’d find that chunks of metal had torn away at her body. Regardless, she wasn’t Henderson, and the skirt, with the few scraps of white fabric that had been her shirt, looked like some sort of uniform. One of the stewardesses. No, flight attendant, he thought. Flight attendant.
He shined his flashlight at what had been the front of the plane, but there wasn’t much to see other than a gaping hole. Everything forward of the galley had been torn off. What a mess. He debated just ducking out of the plane and getting himself some stitches for the cut on his hand. The director said that another agency team was coming to take over, but as much as he wanted to just wait for them to come, the director had also been clear that this was a live wire. Waiting was not an option.
Mike tried flexing his hand. Fuck. It stung like a motherfucker. He grimaced and then put the flashlight between his teeth so he could use his good hand to peel the blood-soaked tie from the cut on his other hand. As he pulled the tie away from the wound, the fabric stuck to the skin and the flap raised a little, blood pooling freely. Well, Mike thought, that was stupid, and he pulled the tie tight back against the palm of his hand. He should have just left it covered. At least it was his left hand, he thought, because once he was done here, assuming Fanny hadn’t shown up yet, he might have to head back to the hospital with Annie to get himself a few stitches. Shit. He was going to owe that kid ice cream and a trip to the toy store.
As if she knew he’d been thinking about her, Mike’s phone rang, and he pulled it out to see Fanny’s number.
“Come on, Mike,” she said. “Really? And you left her to play in an ambulance?”