Out of Season Read Online Free Page B

welter of torn metal. It was white with a blue stripe running under what was left of the registration markings.
    “One more,” Bergin said and turned to cross the site from north to south. “Let me see if I can make out the markings.” From a hundred feet away, it wasn’t difficult, even passing by at ninety miles an hour or more. “I can see the GVM,” Bergin shouted, and leveled out. “And that’s a Bonanza. Philip Camp was registered out of Calgary, Canada. A lot of times they don’t use numbers up there. Just letters. If my memory’s right, his registration was George Victor Michael Alpha.”
    I slumped back against the seat. “Make another pass, just to be sure,” I said, making a circular path with my index finger.
    He did, and this time I saw the scarring of the earth and, many yards from the initial impact, a blocky, solid piece of wreckage that could have been an engine. West of the tail section, there was a dense collection of junk that was probably whatever was left of the main cabin.
    I keyed the radio. “Tom, do you see where we’ve been circling?”
    “Affirmative. You’re about a mile or so northwest of me.”
    “Closer to two or three,” I replied. “The wreckage is strewn across the northeast side of the rise. If you get here before dark, I don’t think you can miss it. We’ll orbit overhead until you’ve got things secured.”
    “Ten-four,” Pasquale said. Bergin poured the coals to the Cessna and we spiraled upward, keeping the wreckage in the center of my field of view, off to the right.
    I pulled the plane’s mike off the dash. “Posadas Unicom, four-niner Baker November Mike. Linda, pick it up.”
    “Posadas, go ahead.”
    “Linda, give Gayle a call and have her contact the FAA in Albuquerque and advise them that we have an aircraft confirmed down. Make sure Estelle is at the office. She needs to put together a team to reach the site. The easiest way will be from the Boyd ranch and then on some of the cattle trails into the northeast. If she can come up with a helicopter from the state police, that’s even better.”
    “Ten-four, sir.”
    “We intend to orbit the area until Officer Pasquale arrives and secures the site. Then we’ll be returning.”
    “Ten-four, sir. Are there any other contacts I need to make?”
    “Negative. We won’t have any casualty confirmation until Pasquale reaches the scene. But tell Estelle that we don’t see any sign of life down there. She’ll know what to do.”
    “Ten-four, sir.”
    I hung the mike up and sighed.
    “Hell of a thing,” Bergin said. We hit a nasty stretch of choppy air and we remained silent until it settled down. “Sun sets, it might calm down some. Another thirty minutes or so.” He looked over at me. “I guess there isn’t much doubt about whose plane that is.”
    “No,” I replied, and that’s all I could think of to say.

C HAPTER F OUR
    The sun set behind the San Cristobál mountains, the wind died, and the Cessna settled down to its job of boring a smooth hole through the air. The sky mixed with the western horizon to a dark, rich purple. The terrain lost its definition, with the hilltops blending into the sky. I sat glumly and watched the transformation.
    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