“Right.”
“I wonder how it got up there,” Newman mumbled as he snapped his fall-arrest mechanism to the safety cable, locked it around the cable, mounted the ladder, and started climbing.
“Give me a few minutes and some distance before you follow,” he said over his shoulder. “The ladder vibrates worse if two men are close together on it.” He called down further instructions as he rose, telling Joe how to slide the mechanism up the cable, pointing out the metal grate step-outs every fifty feet up the ladder if he needed to catch his breath. Newman’s voice receded as he climbed until Joe could barely hear him. Joe had his hand around the first rung, and he could feel Newman’s progress due to the vibration. Joe took a deep breath and clipped onto the cable and stepped up on the first rung. Then another. The fall arrest mechanism squeaked as it was pulled up the lifeline. Joe reached out and gave it a rough yank to make sure it would hold tight if he slipped. It worked. He considered keeping his eyes shut as he climbed, wondering if that would help. It didn’t.
He got warmer the higher he climbed. He wasn’t sure if the temperature inside actually increased or it was from the exertion of the climb itself. His forearms ached from pulling himself up rung by rung and he tried to control the quivering in his thighs that he attributed to a combination of fatigue and terror. There was a thin film of grease on every surface from the working machinery far above and it made the rungs slippery. The sharp odor of machine oil hung in the tower. He tried to think of other subjects to take his mind off falling and how far he had climbed from solid ground.
He was puzzled by McLanahan’s reference to the “crime scene,” as well as the sheriff’s admonishment not to investigate. Since there had been no chatter over the radio about the situation prior to him calling it in, Joe wondered if McLanahan had inside knowledge—or a tip—of what was going on. Or was what Joe had found linked to an ongoing sheriff’s department case?
Halfway up, he stole a look down between his knees and the sensation of seeing the very distant sunlight from the open portal on the tower floor—it looked like a pinprick—made him swoon. He gripped the ladder hard and hugged it. His boot soles rattled on the rungs and he breathed hard, in and out, in and out, until his fear eased. There was a step-out within sight, and he climbed the next three feet to get to it, which was the hardest thing he’d done yet. For a moment he couldn’t feel his legs, as he swung them one after the other to the grated metal plate. When he was assured the grate was solid and he could stand on it and lean against the inside tower wall for a few moments, he exhaled and tried to calm himself.
“You okay?” Newman called down. He was a long way up.
“Fine.”
“Good. I’m almost to the nacelle. Just remember, when you get up here it’s all about safety first. The winds up there could blow you right off the top. So make sure you clip your harness hook to one of the eyebolts. Don’t even take a step without making sure you’re secured, okay?”
“Okay.” Then: “Bob?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t touch anything up there. Wait until I’m with you. It’s likely going to be a crime scene.”
Newman laughed harshly. “Yeah,” he said. “I know the drill. I watch them shows.”
When Joe’s muscles stopped quivering and his breath returned to normal, he stepped back on the ladder and resumed climbing. Fifty feet higher, Joe noticed a round two-inch hole punched through the steel wall of the tower. A shaft of light lit up a larger orb on the opposite wall. When he reached it, he paused. In a strange optical trick, the hole projected a sharp view of the landscape outside on the opposite shaft wall, as if it were a movie lens. He could see the long row of turbines, the roads that connected them, a bird flying by. Joe didn’t know enough about physics to explain the phenomenon, but he found it fascinating and bizarre. He could even clearly see a small four-vehicle convoy in the distance bearing down on the wind farm. Three of the units were sheriff’s department SUVs and the fourth a white company pickup that could be a twin of Newman’s. Although he’d kept his hand-held turned off, he could imagine a red-faced McLanahan hollering into this microphone, trying to raise him. As Joe climbed through the projected scene, he could see sharp images of the convoy slide down his red and now greasy uniform shirt.
He could hear a steel plate hatch being thrown open far above him and the sound echoed down the length of the tower. He glanced up and saw a distant blue square—the sky—that was then filled by Newman as he scrambled from the ladder to the floor of nacelle itself.
Twenty seconds later, Newman called down. His voice was tight. “It’s worse than I thought,” he called down, words bouncing back and forth down the tube. “I’m not feeling so good all of a sudden. I hope it’s been a while since you ate.”
Joe was breathing hard when he reached the open hatch. The wind was ferocious. Despite it, he could hear the epic slicing of the blades turning and feel the vibration of the turbine motor through the metal of the ladder. Joe looked up as Newman’s helmeted head filled the open square.
“You are
Joe cleared the hatch and stood shakily on the corrugated metal floor of the nacelle. Newman had unbolted the cover wings and pushed them open to expose the nacelle to the sun and wind. The nacelle itself was deep and long, shaped like a coffin, and filled with the long prone steel body of the turbine. The lines on the outside were clean and purposeful, and inside it was like straddling an engine that was all business. The ledge between the turbine and the inside wall was barely enough for them both to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Newman gestured to an eyebolt mounted in the side of the nacelle, and Joe unclipped the fall-arrest mechanism and was keenly aware of the few completely untethered seconds it took him to turn and clip the harness hook to the eyebolt so he wouldn’t blow away.
When he looked up again, he followed Newman’s outstretched arm. Cold wind pummeled his bare face.
The speed of the blades was remarkable up close, almost a blur. But like frames of film being fed through a movie projector, the image appeared in an eerie stop-motion effect. It was a body, all right. One end of a chain had been looped under the arms in a double wrap and around the shaft of the blade on the other. There was about four feet of chain between the blade and the body. The victim flew through the air. It was a man. Joe could make out the face, although there was something off about it. But no doubt it was The Earl.
Earl Alden’s eyes were closed and his face looked strangely thin, gaunt, and jowly, as if he’d lost a lot of weight since Joe had seen him last. But as he spun, Joe realized why. The Earl’s legs looked huge and fat, like sausage stuffed into the casing of his jeans, which were splitting over the tall black shafts of his cowboy boots. His boots,
