WHERE THERE’S A WILL
AARON ELKINS
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BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
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WHERE THERE’S A WILL
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2005 by Aaron Elkins.
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Acknowledgments
As usual, Professor Oliver needed a bit of help before he finally sorted things out. On his behalf, I would like to thank the following people:
For continuing education on planes and flying: my friends, former airline pilot Bill Benedict; Captain (ret.) Ivory Brummett, United Airlines; and Captain Norm Hapke, American West Airlines.
For freely sharing their expertise and experience in the forensic sciences: Professor Emeritus Ted Rathbun, University of South Carolina; Professor Emeritus Stan Rhine, University of New Mexico; Professor Steve Byers, University of New Mexico; Professor Alison Galloway, University of California–Santa Cruz; Paul Holes, Supervising Criminalist, Contra Costa County, California Sheriff’s Office; and pathologist Alexey Nicolaevich Zolotarev of Russia.
Acknowledgments
For an introduction to Hawaiian cattle ranching and a great day on horseback riding the Kohala range: Jeanette Rutherford, Barn Manager, Ponoholo Ranch, Hawaii.
For their guidance on the law and on law enforcement: Lieutenant (ret.) Alicia Lampert, San Diego Police Department; and Andy Slater, Assistant State Attorney, West Palm Beach, Florida.
For a hands-on education on handguns: Bob Lam-pert, former photojournalist, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
For reconnaissance on the Big Island of Hawaii: Major General (ret.) Dave de la Vergne.
ONE
SILENCE, as sudden as a stopped heart.
After the monotonous grind of the engine for the last three and a half hours, and then the brief stuttering and missing, it seemed to Claudia that the absence of sound had a physical presence, a doughy mass that filled the cockpit, pressing on her eardrums and stopping her nostrils.
“The fuel’s run out,” she told the old man.
“So that’s that, then,” he said. He’d had plenty of time to get used to the idea, and he spoke as much in resignation as in fear. In the red glow from the instrument panel, his weathered face, even the billy-goat scrap of beard, might have been a carved mask, all stark planes and angles. On his lap, his left hand gently cradled his heavily bandaged right. The bleeding had slowed down to an ooze now, or maybe it had stopped altogether. For a while it had been pumping steadily, soaking the gauze and staining his pants.
He’d fainted a couple of times, and she’d thought he might
die on her, right there in the cockpit.
As if it would have made much difference.
“Yup, that’s that,” Claudia said in the same emotionless tone. “We’re going down.”
She thought she heard him sigh, very softly.
A light plane that has run out of fuel at an altitude of 10,500 feet does not plummet to earth like a safe falling out of a window. It drifts down, slowly and silently, borne on the wind, gliding two or three miles for every thousand feet of altitude lost. To descend more than ten thousand feet takes twenty or twenty-five minutes, and once the trim is adjusted there isn’t much to do, especially when there is nothing below to look for—no beacon light to aim toward, no obstacles to avoid—nothing but the cold swath of stars above and the black, vast, empty Pacific Ocean
