Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
PRESENT DAY
Monday morning Chief Hanna Keyes was in her driveway, ready to climb into her police vehicle, when she heard the faltering plane. Her gaze shot up by reflex. It was flying awfully low. The motor sputtered and didn’t sound good, but Hanna didn’t know anything about small-plane motors. It was Scott Buckley’s plane; she did know that. When the weather was nice, he flew his plane around the area at least once a week. And today was a beautiful late-spring day.
Vroom, sputter, vroom, sputter... It almost sounded like a car when you accelerated, then took your foot off the gas, then accelerated again.
That couldn’t be right. Hanna stood with her door open, her eyes tracking the plane’s trajectory. The single-engine plane made a lazy circle, seemed to drop, then stabilize. The engine sounded normal now, yet the flight path was anything but.
Scott was losing altitude.
The closest airport was Columbia, about sixteen driving miles away, and he was headed that general direction. He’s way too far from the airport to land. She began to feel anxious for Scott. He was a prominent figure in Dry Oaks, a vocal supporter of police and financial supporter of many charities in town.
She got in her SUV and started the engine. As she backed out of her driveway, she leaned forward and looked up for another glimpse of the aircraft. She watched in horror as the plane pointed almost straight down, then looped up slightly and swung back down again. Scott would not make it to the airport.
He was going down.
Hanna activated her SUV’s light bar, then picked up her radio mike to contact dispatch as she accelerated down the street. “It’s Chief Keyes. I think there’s a plane going down. It’s headed toward the field at Pine and Baseline.”
“10-4, Chief. We’re getting calls on that as well. Fire is rolling.”
Hanna replaced the mike and concentrated on her driving. The plane dropped below the tree line, and her heart sank. She rounded the corner just in time to see it pull up slightly, then list to the left and come down at an angle so the left wing hit the ground hard, causing the plane to cartwheel across the field. It broke apart as it did so, pieces flying everywhere. The fuselage skidded to a violent stop in the middle of the grassy field. Smoke and dust swirled up, but Hanna didn’t see flames yet.
She jumped the curb and angled her SUV across the field from the north as a pickup truck crossed from the south. They met at the plane. Hanna jammed the vehicle into park and leapt from the front seat as the driver of the truck got out.
Jared Hodges. He was a firefighter-EMT, but he was obviously off duty. His presence set her back a bit. Their history together reared up in her thoughts like a wild stallion.
“You have a fire extinguisher?” he called out to Hanna.
She nodded, jolted from her memories, then hurried around her vehicle to the back hatch. She opened it and jerked the extinguisher from its clips.
Jared arrived at her elbow, grabbed it from her, and jogged to the plane, where tongues of flames started to lick at the dry grass underneath.
Hanna followed, just now hearing the blare of the approaching fire truck sirens.
Jared expertly aimed the suppression liquid at the flames. A spurt here and a spurt there as he doused all the flames. The acrid odor of airplane fuel assaulted her nose, causing a grimace. Could Scott have survived such a horrendous impact? Hanna looked back to where he’d first hit the ground. The plane’s debris stretched at least a hundred yards across the field.
Jared got down on his hands and knees and peered into the wreckage. He peeled away what would have been the door, and Scott’s body was exposed. Hanna knelt next to Jared and gasped at the sight of poor Scott. He was still strapped into his seat, his body completely limp. Blood smeared the instrument panel and was dripping from his head.
“Scott, can you hear me?” Jared asked.
No response.
All she could think was How am I going to tell his father?
The arriving fire truck cut its sirens, leaving the rumble of a diesel engine and the pop of air brakes to announce its arrival. Uniformed firefighters exited the rig and set about preparing their equipment for the task at hand.
Jared pressed his fingers to Scott’s carotid artery. She doubted he would find a pulse, but the step was necessary. She pulled back, stabilizing herself on her knees.
Jared sat back as well. “I got no pulse.”
“It was quite an impact.” Hanna coughed as the smoke and fumes seared her nose.
Jared coughed as well and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Saw it on my way to work. He flew straight into the ground.”
“You checked it out, Hodges?” Paul Stokes, a senior firefighter, jogged up and asked.
Jared faced Stokes. “I couldn’t find a pulse. We need to move him. I think the fire may flare up again.”
Stokes signaled for the men manning the hose to start the water flow before returning his attention to Jared. “Okay, stand back. You’re not geared up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hanna stood and moved back with Jared to let the on-duty firefighters finish their work. Two of them brought up a hose and began to work on the fire, which as Jared had warned was already flaring back up. The ambulance had been on the heels of the pumper, and the medics climbed out, pausing only to remove their rescue equipment from the sides of the truck. Once on the ground next to Scott, they carefully cut the harness holding him in the crumpled plane and then gently removed him from the fire danger.
They did their assessment and began CPR. In a few minutes, they put him on a gurney, slid it into the rig, and drove away code 3, using lights and sirens. The closest trauma center was in Sonora.
Maybe there was hope. Scott was engaged to be married. She prayed that he’d live to see his wedding day.
A crowd started to gather along the fringes of the field. The chatter on her radio told her a patrol unit was almost on-scene. She got on the air and requested mutual aid from the sheriff’s department. Hanna’s department was competent but small. And the size of the area they needed to contain would keep all her personnel busy. They needed help.
“Half the town probably saw the plane go down,” Jared noted, following her gaze.
“I wonder how many people filmed it.”
Jared let out a rueful laugh. “That’s kind of a given nowadays, isn’t it? How are you, Hanna?”
She turned away from the wreck and the crowd to face Jared. Her feelings for him were complicated. They were close friends from seventh grade through college, then Jared left town ten years ago—breaking Hanna’s heart. He’d only recently returned, and he was immediately hired by the county fire department. The four-month-long fire academy had kept him busy.
Jared was several years older than most fire department rookies, and she’d wondered how he’d do. From everything she’d heard, he’d done well. While she’d made no effort to rekindle their friendship, when he’d been assigned to the only station in Dry Oaks, well, it was a small town. Hanna’s hearing gossip about him had been unavoidable. She still didn’t know what to make of his return.
When he’d first left, she prayed and prayed that he’d come home. With time, her hope had faded and she’d moved on. At least she thought she had.
I’m thinking about him an awful lot for someone who has moved on.
“I’m fine, Jared. How’s the job?”
“Suits me, I think.”
Stokes called out to Hanna, and she stepped toward him.
“We need to make the wreckage safe,” Stokes said. “Clean up the fuel, make sure nothing flares up.”
She knew what he was asking. Scott was seriously hurt; this crash would be investigated by the NTSB. If Scott didn’t make it, the plane and all of its parts would be considered evidence.
“If you have to move the wreckage to make it safe, move it,” she said.
Stokes nodded and instructed his men. His radio crackled, and he held it to his ear. He then walked to where Hanna stood, keeping his voice low. “Chief, Buckley didn’t make it. They tried to revive him, but he flatlined.”
“Thanks.” Hanna’s heart fell as hope was dashed.
Sergeant Asa Parker and Officer Jenna Cash, Hanna’s day-shift people, had just arrived. From the radio she knew some county deputies were also on the way. All personnel were needed. Since this was a fatal crash now, the scene needed to be kept secure until federal investigators arrived. Dry Oaks had one investigator, Terry Holmes, and he would be called out as well.
The Buckleys were a wealthy and influential family in Dry Oaks, indeed in all of Tuolumne County. If something was amiss in the crash, Hanna wanted to know.
“Secure the scene,” Hanna told her officers. “Jenna, move your patrol vehicle to the north end of the debris field, tape off the area. I can see gawkers already walking through debris.”
“On it.” Jenna turned and jogged to her car.
Hanna turned to Asa and pointed to the people approaching the main wreckage. “Tape this off now so we get as little contamination as possible.”
A county deputy joined them. Hanna acknowledged him with a nod. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take the NTSB to respond. Every bit of the wreckage is evidence. Secure it all.” She sighed. “This will be a long day.”
“You got it, Chief.”
Commotion to the left of the field caught her eye. Marcus Marshall appeared, walking up the field along the debris path. Hanna groaned inwardly. She’d known Marcus since she was in the first grade. Back then he confused her; now he simply irritated her. In the ensuing years, he’d hopped from job to job in Dry Oaks, from newspapers to radio stations to a local news feed. At one time he’d aspired to become a bestselling author. Despite three self-published books, his aspirations had never been achieved.
Currently he wrote a crime blog, assisted at the local paper, and usually drove law enforcement crazy by following the scanner and trying to get a “scoop.” A tall man, he stood out in a crowd. Over the years, he’d lost most of his hair, save for a long gray braid that went halfway down his back. He held up his phone, recording the activity, no doubt. He’d want gory pictures for sure. She was glad Scott was no longer on-scene.
“Chief, can I get a statement?” Marcus yelled.
Asa took off across the field to intercept him before he encroached any more on the scene around the main wreckage.
Hanna ignored Marcus and turned to speak to Jared, but he was gone. Sadness bit with sharp teeth, bringing on a sigh of loss. Was it for Scott or for Jared?
There was no time to ponder the question. She’d have to try and get to Everett, Scott’s father, before Marcus or any news media did, and tell him what had happened. The bright spring day had suddenly turned very dark.