Page 76 of Identity Unknown
“You always want a rush on everything,” she says with a smile in her tone.
“An extra rush on it, then.”
“Who’s in charge of the investigation? Who should I expect to hear from?”
“The Secret Service,” I reply as Tron blows through a yellow light. “I’m with them now. I need one of your vans to meet us at the Old Point Comfort Marina in Fort Monroe as soon as possible.”
“Nathan’s just getting back from a suspected overdose. He’ll leave right away.”
“Make sure he brings underwater body bags. More than one to be on the safe side,” I reply. “They have to be on the boat with me. It’s believed the pilot was the only one on board, but we can’t be sure until we reach the wreckage.”
When I’m off the phone, I ask Lucy and Tron how we’re supposed to manage. I’ve been scuba diving most of my adult life and worked numerous underwater scenes in Virginia and other places. But my dive bag is at home. I don’t have a swimsuit with me. I prefer not wearing my skivvies under a wetsuit, and no way I’m going commando.
“Not a problem. We can fix you right up.” Tron weaves in and out of traffic as if escaping a fire. “Agents from our Norfolk office will supply the dive gear. And we always have extra bike shorts with us.”
“Lucy and I don’t wear the same size shorts,” I reply. “But thanks for thinking we might.”
“Mine should fit you fine,” Tron offers.
“We can’t help you with a sports bra, though,” Lucy adds, and it’s true they can’t.
We don’t wear the same size, and fortunately, I’m wearing one under my polo shirt. After that I’ll have to figure things out as I go along.
“Hampton police divers are getting the boat ready at the marina in Fort Monroe, and a sky crane is being mobilized out of Norfolk.” Lucy gives us the latest updates as information appears in the lenses of her glasses. “Rescue boats are looking for any sign of survivors. Nothing so far, but the wreckage has been located on sonar.”
She says that witnesses claim the helicopter flew over Fort Monroe, and all seemed normal until it was beyond the beach and well offshore. Then the engine started sputtering. The helicopter began losing altitude, plunging nose-first into the bay dangerously close to several sailboats.
“The people on board reported that the pop-up floats on the skids weren’t deployed,” Lucy explains. “They said the helicopter filled with water, disappearing below the surface within minutes.”
“If people heard the engine sputtering, that doesn’t sound like an autopilot problem,” I point out. “And if Bret Jones was unconscious, how could he have disengaged it?”
“Maybe it malfunctioned?” Lucy says dubiously. “But the sputtering makes me wonder if the engine flamed out for some reason. That’s the more likely scenario, explaining why the helicopter suddenly dropped out of the sky.”
“Could he have run out of fuel?” I ask.
“Not unless he didn’t start out with a full tank, and he wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“As Doctor Peace just pointed out, Dana Diletti aired a big story about Ryder Briley last night that all but suggests he’s amurderer,” I say to them. “Now suddenly, her chopper’s down, and it’s just lucky for her that she wasn’t in it.”
“She and her crew have got to be thinking about that right about now,” Tron says, her eyes constantly scanning the mirrors. “They’ve got to be realizing they could be fish food on the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.”
“Where did the news station keep the helicopter?” I ask.
“She uses the same terminal we fly out of at Washington National, Briley Flight Services,” Lucy says as my suspicions continue to gather.
I envision the cameras in the ceiling, and the bin of candy-coated peanuts. Bret Jones and his passengers were there often when flying on assignment. Everything they did and said was recorded.
“It would be interesting to know who else might have been around while they were there this morning,” I suggest as Tron guns the muscle car along East Mercury Boulevard, crossing Mill Creek.
She has the grille lights strobing, slaloming past other cars like an Olympic skier, some of them pulling over. Beyond a golf course, she floors it through another yellow light as we near the Chesapeake Bay.
“It would be helpful to see video of the pilot while he was inside the terminal. Was he acting unusually? What can we find out about his medical history?” I’m glancing at a text from Rena Peace telling me the van from her office is fifteen minutes away.
“Was he depressed, maybe suicidal, for example?” Tron picks up the thought. “You know, he drops off everybody and then crashes into the bay on purpose.”
“It’s happened before. But I have a feeling that’s not what we’re dealing with,” Lucy says, and I sense who’s in her thoughts.
We’re conditioned to expect that Carrie Grethen is behind every horrible thing that happens. I realize it’s not rational. But we may as well talk about it.