Page 13 of Unnatural Death

“A possible explanation?”

“Apparently the assailant has the ability to outsmart the cameras’ sensors. But again, I don’t know what I’ll find when I run forensics with the software,” she replies, and I can tell when she’s being cagey.

My niece knows things she’s not saying, and it won’t do any good for me to ask a lot of questions. She’s not going to tell me until she’s ready, and that might be never. Pressing the mic trigger, she gets back on the air, talking to Manassas Regional Airport.

“… Helicopter Niner-Zulu is five to the northeast.”

“Niner-Zulu, state request.”

“Would like to cross midfield,” Lucy says as a gash in the countryside becomes the airfield with boxy hangars and an air traffic control tower. Planes are flying in the pattern, taking off and landing.

“Call when three out and climb to one thousand, Niner- Zulu. Traffic is an amphibious at your one o’clock.”

“Will call at three and have traffic in sight,” she answers, pointing out the seaplane to me.

Barely visible below the horizon, it disappears in the trees at intervals. I can make out the canoe-shaped floats on the wheeled landing gear, the red-striped fuselage, and something else that strikes me as unusual.

“I think I’m seeing a radome under the nose not so different from the one you’ve got on this thing,” I say to Lucy. “Maybe the plane belongs to a TV station? Or some other interested party that’s filming?”

“It’s not the media,” Lucy says, and she has information that she’s not sharing.

“The police? Maybe it’s one of your aircraft?” I probe anyway because I prefer knowing what I’m dealing with.

“It’s not ours and has been buzzing around out here since the fog burned off,” Lucy says. “As I’ve been flying back and forth dropping off investigators, I’ve been seeing it.”

“Is that significant?”

“Let’s just say it’s not unusual for the plane to be flying around here, weather permitting. It’s registered to the Mansons’ retail business,” Lucy replies to my surprise. “They bought it around the time they moved to their run-down farm out in the middle of nothing.”

“Why would it be out now flying in the very area where the owners are dead? Or at least we think it’s them. What’s the plane used for?”

“Wild World customers charter it for extreme adventures. Supposedly. The seaplane is popular with skydivers in particular, people into high-risk activities, according to the website. Also, the plane is used for commercial aerial photography. Again supposedly. The hourly rate is four thousand dollars if you want to hitch a ride. But no one does, even as the Mansons falsely claim an annual income from it to the tune of millions.”

“And you can’t tell what it’s doing or who’s in it this morning?” I look for the plane but can’t see it anymore.

“Probably it’s up to the usual, which is more than one thing.” She doesn’t answer the question. “No flight plan has been filed, and whoever’s at the controls isn’t much for making traffic announcements.”

“I find it hard to believe that you don’t know who the pilot is.” I look at her sharp profile, the lenses of her photovoltaic glasses tinted dark green.

“I don’t know who’s up right now,” she replies.

The seaplane flies by visual flight rules (VFR) in uncontrolled airspace, meaning the pilot doesn’t have to talk to anyone. The more Lucy elaborates, the less I believe her.

“Could it land on the lake in Buckingham Run?” I ask. “Because that’s the first thing to enter my mind. Maybe it’s been transporting the Mansons to their clandestine campsite. Maybe it was supposed to meet them this morning to fly them out of there.”

“It wasn’t. And no way that would happen,” Lucy says. “The lake is small and surrounded by tall trees. A fixed-wing couldn’t get in. Most helicopters can’t either, and after dark, forget it. Like I’ve said, you’d need something like this.” She means the Doomsday Bird.

“How long would it take to get to the campsite on foot, assuming one knew about the path?” I ask.

“It’s barely wide enough for one person, and dense woods are on either side,” she says. “Should you wander off the beaten track you could get lost and never be found. You could fall through an overgrown mineshaft even worse. Not to mention whatever might be living in forestland that’s been mostly undisturbed for the past two centuries.”

Trekking to and from the campsite would take the Mansons at least half an hour each way in daylight and good weather. The intruder didn’t have either advantage in the rainy predawn, and yet his stride didn’t falter. Lucy gets back on the radio again, announcing that we’re three miles from Manassas Regional Airport. Moments later, we’re flying over the runways, the Blue Ridge Mountains getting closer.

She directs my attention to colorful hardwood trees, the dark evergreens of Buckingham Run, named after the river flowing through it. When the gold rush started in this part of the world during the early eighteen hundreds, it was big business. Virginia was making more money from it than any other state in the country, Lucy informs me. Then the war broke out between the North and South, and the mines were abandoned, never to reopen.

“I have to wonder if the Mansons realized how dangerous it was to camp out there for extended periods,” I say to her.

“They knew enough.”

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