Page 75 of Identity Unknown
“I wasn’t. Or a Brownie and never earned a single merit badge, I’m sorry to report.” I look out the window at Benton driving away in his black Tesla.
“Well, I was a Girl Scout while wanting to be an Eagle Scout before girls got to do fun shit like that,” Tron says to the percussion of their doors shutting. She turns up the fan.
“Speaking of fun. Where did we manage to borrow this beauty?” My knees are touching the back of her seat.
“Our Norfolk field office.” Tron shifts the car into reverse, scanning her mirrors. “I’ve been running around since oh-dark-hundred delivering evidence, including to your place.” She makes a NASCAR-worthy U-turn, and I bump my head against the window.
“I’ll make sure the labs know to get started immediately.” I rub my temple as we rumble out of the parking lot.
“And while I was making deliveries in your building, I dropped off the ashes,” Tron says to me in a gentler tone, the reminder jolting, emotions swelling in my throat. “Wyatt was starting his shift and promised to put them in your office.”
“That was thoughtful of you.”
“I took special care packing them up in a cardboard urn with lots of bubble wrap.”
“Thank you.” I look out at other hangars tucked in the woods as images flash.
… Flames licking over melting plastic… Pink skin and gray hair showing through…
CHAPTER 27
Still no sign of the pilot,” Lucy says as we drive through the back of the NASA campus. “Long before now he should have egressed the cockpit. He should be floating on the surface with his life vest inflated. Assuming he was wearing one. And he might not have been if he wasn’t planning on flying over wide stretches of water.”
As she describes the perils of extricating oneself from a submerged helicopter, I find the number for my Tidewater district deputy chief. I inform Rena Peace that I’m twenty minutes from Fort Monroe responding to a helicopter crash with what appears to be one fatality.
“We’ve gotten no notifications from the police,” she replies, surprised.
“You will soon enough unless by some miracle the pilot survives.”
“And I didn’t know you were in the area,” she says. “I would have asked you to drop by for coffee. Or drinks better yet if you’re staying over.”
“Another time. We’ve got a sensitive situation, Rena.”
I explain that we can expect sensational news coverageabout the crash since Dana Diletti could have been on board. She’ll milk that for all it’s worth, I have no doubt.
“And we’re not sure that this isn’t connected to other things going on.” I’m careful what I say.
“Are the police suspicious of foul play?” Rena asks, and it’s hard to hear inside the Secret Service muscle car.
“It’s too early to say,” I answer. “In light of other things, one has to wonder.”
“I saw the piece Dana Diletti did on Ryder Briley last night. She all but came out and said he murdered his child.”
“And he very well might have,” I reply.
“She drops that bombshell? Then this morning her helicopter crashes? Interesting timing.”
“That seems to be a pattern when Ryder Briley’s involved. Bad things happen to people who cross him. We’ll have to see what caused the crash.”
“Do you plan to handle the body recovery?” she asks.
“Fred’s at a meeting in San Diego, and I happen to be here on business unexpectedly,” I reply. “So it makes the most sense.”
Her forensic pathologist husband is one of my medical examiners, and also a master diver and a boat captain. Fred often works underwater recoveries with the police, and we’ve been diving together in the past on cases.
“He’ll be most unhappy that you’re here and he’s not,” Rena says.
“Once the body gets to your office, I’ll trust you to handle it from there,” I explain. “The biggest question is what incapacitated the pilot while he was flying, and was he dead before the crash. We’ll want a rush on toxicology.”