in his Hummer. That was an hour and a quarter ago, right before I arrived. They took luggage, Loo. A lot of it.”
¦
The search warrant was extended to the Gulfstream by the time I reached Bundy Drive, takeoff to Aspen aborted by the tower at LAX as I turned onto Ocean Park. As far as the crew was aware, “unanticipated air-traffic buildup” was the reason.
I got buzzed through the gate at Diamond Aviation by mentioning Milo’s name, drove onto the landing field, followed a porter in a golf cart to the G-V.
The plane’s engines were running, as were those of two smaller jets. The noise level was at brain- puree.
When I reached the plane’s left wing and stopped, the pilot looked down from the cockpit, curious, but not alarmed. Milo’s badge-flash didn’t change that. People who loft tons of metal in the air should take a low-key approach to life.
Milo motioned him out.
The engines switched off.
When they’d quieted to merely deafening, the door opened and the pilot lowered the foldout steps, descended two rungs, turned and shut the door.
Rock-jawed, the same man who’d flown Edgar Helfgott halfway around the globe and back on high school business. Rawboned, gray-haired, built like a runner.
Milo introduced himself, shouting to be heard.
The captain pointed several yards away and the three of us walked until we could hear our own voices.
The pilot said, “Rod Brewer. What can I do for you, sir?”
“I’ve got a search warrant for your plane and arrest warrants for Tristram Wydette and Quinn Glover. They inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who else is in there?”
“Captain Susan Curtis. Is she in danger?”
“Anything in the boys’ demeanor worrying you?”
“Not really,” said Brewer. “They’re spoiled little bastards all caught up with their iPods and the shades are down. But with too much delay they might get curious. Mind if I tell Sue to lock the cockpit?”
“Good idea.”
Brewer made the call, ended by instructing the co-pilot to answer any questions from the boys with “mechanical problems.” To us: “Okay, what do I need to do?”
Milo said, “Where are they sitting?”
“First row on either side,” said Brewer. “It’s always that way. I can be flying over the Grand Canyon, they’re into their own thing.”
“The boys or the entire family?”
“Seems to be a genetic thing.”
“Did you notice anything that can be construed as a weapon?”
“We’ve got silverware.” Smiling. “Mrs. Wydette just upgraded to Christofle.”
“Nothing else?”
“Everything’s in the hold,” said Brewer. “Except their iPods,
“They get nasty when they’re drunk?”
“Not really. Mostly they sleep.”
“Parents allow them to drink?”
“When they’re with their parents they drink Red Bull.”
“How many times have they flown without their parents?”
“This is the first.”
“But Daddy authorized the trip.”
“Mommy.”
“She say why the boys were flying to Aspen by themselves?”
“No one explains anything to me,” said Brewer. “I’m furniture.”
“Furniture who holds their lives in the balance.”
“Lieutenant, people in their circumstances see the world differently. There’s them, then there’s everyone else.”
“Okay, thanks. Pop that door, please.”
“No prob,” said Brewer. “Before you go in, you might want to check the hold. This is the first time they insisted on loading their own stuff.”
The two duffels lay on the tarmac, black nylon, all-weather sturdy, stainless-steel fittings glinting in the untrammeled sun.
Milo had gloved up and unloaded them by himself, continued to sweat and pant.
Captain Rod Brewer watched him the way an anesthesiologist watches oxygen levels.
Milo touched one of the duffels. Patted it along the length, repeated the same for the other.
Arching his eyebrows, he unzipped.
Inside were layers of thick plastic sheeting, milky and opaque. Kneeling, he peered closely. Took out a pocketknife that he wiped with a sterile cloth.
Slicing carefully, he peeled back each layer.
Captain Rod Brewer said, “My God.”
A face stared up at us.
Young, male, greenish-gray, slack-jawed. Flat, clouded cellophane disks where eyes had once functioned.
What the techies call a “defect” was visible in the center of the corpse’s unlined forehead.
Entry wound, small and neat, probably a .22.
The body nested in a cloud of white pellets that began vaporizing the moment they impacted with warm air.
“What the hell is that, dry ice?” said Brewer.
“It sublimates,” said Milo, wielding his blade and lengthening the slit.
The pilot blinked, looked away. An unflappable man but something had finally perturbed him and I knew what it was.
No normal-sized human being could fit into either of the duffels.
Milo finished peeling back the plastic. Stared.
Rod Brewer crossed himself.
The body had been severed just above the hips.
Not a clean job; the edges of the separation were ragged, bone ends had shredded like used firecrackers, exposed muscle resembled marbled steak, viscera had been frozen mid-action as they tumbled out of the torso, coalescing as horrid, olive-green sausage.
Something serrated and high-powered; my guess was a chain saw.
Milo stared, marched to the second duffel.
Solved the jigsaw puzzle that had once been Trey Franck.
CHAPTER
38
The Gulfstream’s cabin smelled of fresh flowers, apples, and tequila.
Tristram Wydette’s long frame stretched the length of a brocade sofa on the plane’s port side, a copy of
