Джеффри Дивер - Where the Evidence Lies [A Lincoln Rhyme Short Story]

“Mayday, mayday. This is Horizonjet Eight Five Eight Four on IFR from Miami to Rio de Janero. Do you read me, San Juan Center?”

“Go ahead, Five Eight Four. San Juan Center.”

“I’m descending through nine thousand feet. Not sure where — Hell, losing power. I’m declaring an emergency.”

“Roger, Five Eight Four. We have you. Do you want vector to Muñoz Marín airport?”

“Let me... I’ll get this under control. Yes, vectors to airport.”

“San Juan Center to Five Eight Four. We’re holding arrivals and departures. We’re vectoring now... What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“Power loss. Fire, I think. There was a bang, it sounded like. Aft. I’m — I’m, okay, descending fast through seven thousand feet. I don’t know.”

“We have your position, Five Eight Four. We’re vectoring you to—”

“Descending... I can’t slow rate of descent. Through five thousand feet. Not responsive. How far am I from the airport?”

“You’re twenty-two miles from airport, Five Eight Four. Can you make it?”

“Negative.”

“All right. We’re alerting Coast Guard air-sea rescue. They’re getting your position, Five Eight Four.”

“Jesus. Descending through one thousand. Rate’s too high. No power. I—”

“Five Eight Four? Do you copy?... Do you copy?... Any traffic in area north of Marín airport, ten miles out, do you see any sign of an aircraft down?”

Eastern Dade Airport was a small facility near the Atlantic Ocean. It featured a runway, about three thousand feet long, big enough for small jets, though the majority of the two dozen planes parked on the tarmac were one- and two-engine props. Mangroves, royal palm, cabbage palm, live oak, gumbo-limbo, and West Indian mahogany, as well as orchids, bromeliads, and ferns surrounded the area. Lincoln Rhyme, on his way to the airport, spotted an alligator.

“Look. Well,” he said to Amelia Sachs, his partner — in both the professional and personal senses. She’d leaned over his wheelchair in the accessible van and gazed at the shallow canal in which a bored-looking gator sat in the humid heat, seemingly too tired to even think about chomping down whatever bored-looking gators normally ate.

His caregiver, Thom Reston, drove the van in a slow circle around this part of the field until Rhyme told him to stop.

Sachs said, “There’s a rumor they have those in the sewers of New York, you know. Parents buy them for kids and then flush them down the toilet.”

“Really?” Rhyme said. The details of the flora and fauna of this part of the state grew less interesting, as his mind had already drifted elsewhere. His eyes took in the airfield once more.

The three of them were en route to the airport, because a detective with the local sheriff’s department had approached Rhyme after one of his lectures in the county building and asked for some help. Paul Gillette was a trim forty-five-year-old with impressive posture, a hairstyle that an army major would have sported, and a face that seemed incapable of smiling. But he had revealed a droll sense of humor when, as a thank-you for the lecture, he gave Rhyme the choice between a coupon to the local Red Lobster or an incident report on a local businessman who’d just died in what might or might not have been an accidental plane crash.

Rhyme had replied, “Hmm. Murdered crustacean or murdered human. I’ll pick the latter.” He’d turned to Amelia. “You up for that, Sachs?”

“Sure. Nothing pressing back in New York.”

So Rhyme agreed to stay for an extra day or two and help out on the Stephen Nash homicide investigation. Besides, he’d enjoyed the trip here and had for the first time tasted stone crabs. Quite the delicacy. And the rum in Florida seemed better than the rum anywhere else but the Bahamas.

At Rhyme’s direction, Thom now piloted the accessible van into the airport itself and aimed for the unmarked police car at the far end of the field.

According to Gillette, there had been a possible explosion in Nash’s plane midflight. A bomb was suspected, though a mechanical malfunction could have been the cause of the crash. As they were driving in, Rhyme noted that it was unlikely that a bomber could have breached the perimeter fence and not been spotted. Or injured — the fence was topped with razor wire. There were also cameras, facing down and out. That meant if anybody did get in to plant the bomb it was most likely — not certain, but likely — an inside job.

They drove to the one hangar at the airport, on the far eastern edge. It was a small structure, windowless and doorless at the rear — facing the water — and open at the other end. Presumably so that the relentless wind from the Atlantic, not far away, wouldn’t blast the aircraft and workers inside.

Thom parked near the squad car and he, Rhyme and Sachs exited the van and met the detective on the tarmac. A fierce storm had descended upon the area yesterday; it had passed, but the wind still buffeted those present. Rhyme brushed his dark hair from his eyes with his one working limb and fingers, his right.

“Thanks again, Mr. Rhyme. Detective Sachs.”

“‘Lincoln’ and ‘Amelia’ are fine. What was the aircraft?”

“One of those new ones, personal jets. Horizonjet, twin engine, mounted in the rear. Real small, seats four.”

“Nobody else on board?”

“No. For those planes you don’t need a copilot. The autopilot’s so good; they do most of the work.”

He added that this secure area was owned by Southern Flight Services, a fixed base operator — a company that provided ground services to upscale private pilots.

Rhyme was familiar with such operations from a prior case, and he noted that this was a shoestring FBO. There was only one jet and two twin-engine prop planes parked here now. And they were covered with leaf-strewn tarps. It seemed they’d been there for a long time.

“So, Lincoln, we’ve kept the scene secure. What equipment do you need? I’ll call forensics and get you whatever. We’ve got some pretty good stuff.”

Rhyme was looking at the dim hanger. Good. Concrete floors, which would retain footprints. And it looked like the place hadn’t been swept for a week. Any trace would still be there. “Where exactly was the plane?”

Gillette pointed to the middle of the rain-soaked tarmac.

“It wasn’t in the hangar?” Sachs asked.

“No.”

“At any time?”

“No.”

Rhyme grimaced. The storm would have destroyed any evidence of anybody planting a bomb on the airplane — tread marks would have been the best source of information. But trace evidence, too. The bomber — if there was a bomber — might have shed trace evidence.

The storm, which Rhyme remembered clearly, had not exactly been a hurricane, but the winds had been close to sixty miles an hour and the rain had fallen for hours.

He gave a sour laugh. “I’m sorry, Detective. But there’s nothing left. Weather is one of the worst contaminators of crime scenes. This storm now’d be enough to destroy all the trace. Yesterday’s downpour? Nothing’d survive.”

“Oh.”

Sachs laughed. “Thought he was a miracle worker, hmm?”

“Guess I kind of did. Your lectures were pretty damn impressive.”

Still, Rhyme reflected, this was only a secondary crime scene. The more important one was the plane itself. However powerful the improvised explosive device had been, it would have left bits of trace on the wreckage of the plane that had been recovered. There would be fingerprints, possibly, chemical residue profiling, even a bomb maker’s signature — a unique construction pattern that ties a bomb to its builder.