Steven Havill: Out of Season

Jim Bergin had clicked on the autopilot and dialed in a sweeping, four-mile-diameter turn. A thousand feet above the brush, we droned our patient circles as Tom Pasquale did all the hard work. I couldn’t imagine stumbling across that arroyo-crossed, cholla cactus-studded landscape. One of the few consolations was that it was too early in the season for rattlesnakes.

At ten minutes after eight, the deputy reached the crash site. If I squinted hard enough, I could imagine that I saw the occasional flicker of his flashlight. A year before, Pasquale wouldn’t have remembered something so simple as a flashlight as he eagerly charged into action.

I keyed the mike of the handheld. “What have you got, Tom?”

A burst of static followed, and then a hard-breathing Pasquale said, “Registration is George Victor Michael, and I think it’s Alpha. Last letter, Alpha. It’s pretty badly torn.”

“Occupants?”

A pause followed, then, “I’m looking.”

“Try more to the northwest, as the hill rises. Over near a rock outcropping.” I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the terrain details, now replaced with the uniform charcoal wash of late evening.

“Ten-four.”

We completed another orbit before he came back on the air. His voice was strained. “Three-ten, I’ve found what looks like part of the cabin structure. I think it’s a section of the right side. One occupant is still belted into his seat.” The radio fell silent for a moment. “Apparently the left front seat was torn from the structure at some point. I don’t see it or any other occupants, if there were any. There’s…there’s a good-sized chunk of wing over to the left. Maybe over that way.”

“Can you identify the victim strapped to the seat?” Pasquale had no way of knowing to whom the aircraft belonged, or who had been a passenger in it. I suppose I was putting off the inevitable as long as I could.

We waited through another pause, this time longer, before Tom Pasquale said, “That’s negative, sir.” His voice was close to cracking. “There’s not enough here.”

I felt a pang of sympathy for the kid. The prairie was a lonely enough place at night under the best of circumstances.

I muttered a curse, and when Bergin leaned over to hear me, I just shook my head. “More waiting,” I shouted.

“I wish there was someplace I could touch down, but I’d sure hate to try it. There’s that cow path over by the windmill to the west, but it’s rougher’n I’d care to try, especially at night.”

“No, that’s not necessary,” I said.

“I guess he needs to stay there, don’t he?” Bergin asked. “ ’Til somebody can get out here?”

I nodded. “Let’s go back.” I keyed the handheld one more time. “Tom, we’re returning to Posadas. There’ll either be a chopper out here or a vehicle coming in from the Boyd ranch just as soon as we can manage it. Are you going to be all right until then?”

“Ten-four.”

I probably didn’t need to say it, but I didn’t want any screwups. “Don’t leave the site, and don’t touch anything,” I said. “Just wait for us. And if someone from one of the ranches shows up, don’t let them touch anything either.”

“Ten-four.”

The lights of Posadas winked into sight less than five minutes later as we cleared the mesa top. Bergin flew a conservative pattern, circling until he lined up on an eastbound final approach. I could see the lights of the terminal building, and as our tires squawked against the tarmac and we shot past the first intersection, I saw a fair collection of vehicles, including at least two from our department.

Bergin turned off the runway and gunned the engine, heading us back up the taxiway.

“I’ll be around all evening,” he said. “Just let me know what you folks need.”

“I appreciate it,” I replied. “I don’t know if they’ve been able to round up a chopper or not.” As we taxied across the broad apron, the door of the mobile home that Posadas Municipal Airport grandly called a terminal opened and Sergeant Eddie Mitchell walked quickly across to intercept us. He stopped and waited while Bergin spun the plane around against a blast of prop wash and then shut it down in front of the hangar doors.

I didn’t realize how stiff I was until I nearly fell on my face getting out. Mitchell waited by the wingtip.

“Sir, Estelle’s inside with Janice Holman and her sister-in-law, Vivian Camp.”

I kept my voice down. “Who called them? I didn’t authorize anyone to do that yet.”

“They got worried that their husbands were overdue,” Mitchell said. “They called and talked with Linda Real. She didn’t tell them anything, but Janice Holman asked to speak with Jim Bergin. Linda told her that he was flying a charter and she didn’t know when he’d be back. So the two women came on down.” He gestured off toward the parking lot. “They saw your vehicle.”

“What a goddam mess,” I muttered, and walked to the terminal.

Janice Holman was standing with Estelle in the small pilots’ lounge, looking at a wall map of New Mexico. Linda was behind the desk, radio and telephone at her elbow. The door to the rest room was closed, and I assumed that Vivian Camp was in there.

The sheriff’s wife turned as I entered, and when she saw my face, she wilted, putting out a hand against the wall for support.

“Bill…” she started to say. Estelle put an arm around her shoulders.

“It doesn’t look good, Jan,” I said, and took her left hand. “What about the chopper?” I asked Estelle. “Any word?”

“We expect a departure from Las Cruces within the hour. Apparently there was some problem finding a flight crew.”

I nodded and took a deep breath, still holding Janice Holman’s hand. “One of the deputies is at the site now,” I said. The door of the rest room opened and a dark-haired, chubby woman appeared, her face puffy, her eyes hollow and dark-rimmed. Vivian was younger than her sister, less angular, dressed in an expensive gray pantsuit.

“Was there any…any sign…” Janice Holman tried to say, and I brought up my other hand to hold hers in both of mine. Tom Pasquale had seen the remains of one body. If he hadn’t been able to identify the man for whom he’d worked for three years, then the crash impact had been devastating.

“We’re going to get out there just as soon as we can, Jan.”

“But did he see anything? Anything at all?”

“It’s going to be hard,” I said. “That’s rough country, and in the dark…” I shook my head. It wasn’t the answer Janice Holman wanted to hear.

“Maybe it wasn’t their plane,” the sister said. She had slumped in one of the overstuffed chairs beneath the wall chart.

The sheriff’s wife gripped my hands harder. “Is that a possibility, Bill?”

I looked at her for a minute and she could read the answer in my eyes before I said, “Jim Bergin recognized the registration of the aircraft, Jan.”

“But there wasn’t a fire?”

“It didn’t appear so,” I said.

“Then there’s always hope,” Janice Holman said. She drew herself up, dropped my hands and covered her eyes with both hands.

“Why don’t you sit down?” I asked gently, and Estelle ushered her to one of the other chairs.

Then Estelle stepped back and indicated the map on the wall. “Bob’s on the way up with the other Bronco. He knows the country and said he thinks he can get within a few hundred yards of the crash site by driving all the way in to the Boyds’ ranch, then cutting the fence here”-she tapped the map-“and following one of the cattle trails past the windmill, back east to the site.” She looked at me. “He was going to stop at the ranch headquarters and pick up Johnny, if he’s home. That way, the two of them can find the fastest route in.”