Page 37 of Unnatural Death

“How could this happen? What idiot would take it upon himself to untie the rotor blades?” Marino directs this at Tron. “Who was near the helicopter besides your people?” He means the two investigators with us.

“No way we did this,” one of them answers.

“We helped haul supplies when asked, and it wasn’t like this then,” the other volunteers. “The drone wasn’t here. Last we heard it was stuck in a tree.”

“None of us have been near the helicopter in the past couple of hours. After Pepper crashed, we couldn’t necessarily see what might be in the area,” Tron says. “I just know that none of us tampered with anything and I have no idea what that means.”

“It means that something else is responsible. Something with opposable thumbs,” I reply.

“Let’s load up and get the hell out of here,” Lucy decides with a resolve I recognize.

I can tell when she feels threatened. All of us are on high alert as we set down what we’re carrying. We begin securing the rescue baskets to the wide composite platform skids, attaching straps to fast-roping hardware. Slowly walking around the helicopter, Lucy makes sure nothing has been tampered with, checking the radomes and the landing gear.

Using handrails and footholds, she climbs up to open the cowling. She examines the main rotor blades, precariously holding on like Spider-Man.

“So far so good,” she says when back on the ground. “Everything looks the way it should. Nothing to make me think sabotage such as explosive devices planted or anything else that could cause a major problem.”

“I know I’m feeling better about the flight back,” Marino snarks. “Getting here was bad enough.”

Pulling on nitrile gloves, Lucy picks up Pepper the drone and begins inspecting it while Tron records everything with her phone.

“He’s powered off, has a broken prop and his parachute didn’t deploy when he started his nosedive,” Lucy lets us know.

“Almost like he was trying to commit suicide,” Tron explains. “We’ve seen the same thing with other drones that malfunctioned.”

“Like I said, I think you’re being hacked. Maybe the Russians are doing it,” Marino replies. “It can happen to the best of us,” he adds for Lucy’s benefit.

“I’m not going to do anything further now.” She unlocks the baggage compartment. “We’ll look at everything in the labs.”

“You sure Pepper couldn’t have started working again and was able to fly back here?” Marino is crouched by an open scene case, getting out several large plastic bags. “I mean, the battery’s not dead, right?”

“It’s fine, almost fully charged,” Lucy says.

“So, maybe Pepper picked up some rogue signal that powered it back on?” he proposes. “I don’t guess it could remove the tiedowns. I assume there’s no drone that could do that.”

“Not without grippers of some sort, and Pepper’s not equipped with those,” Lucy tells him. “He has aReturn To Homefeature, but that’s not what happened. The power can’t turn back on magically.”

“Maybe it could if it was hacked into?” Marino helps her package the evidence, the tiedowns in one plastic bag, the drone in the other.

“Even if that happened somehow? It wouldn’t explain how he unsnagged himself from the tree and flew back here with at least one inoperable prop. And he didn’t.” Lucy opens the app on her phone that controls Pepper the drone, showing us a red screen that readsOffline.

“I know that none of us climbed up seventy feet in a pine tree to retrieve him,” Tron replies. “I’ve got no idea how this happened.”

“There’s an answer somewhere, but for now we need to get the bodies out of here,” Lucy says as we continue looking around us uneasily.

For the next little while we lash the rescue baskets to the wide platform skids, the black body bags morbid cocoons that will be obvious to anyone looking. Then Lucy is opening a cabin door. She shows Marino where to sit, and the helicopter shifts under his weigh as he climbs in. I return to the copilot’s seat as Tron and the other investigators dissolve into the woods, keeping their distance while we get ready to take off.

“Like the doc said, you’d need humanlike hands or some type of robotic gripper to unclip the tiedowns,” Marino says as we put on our harnesses. “A bear or coyote couldn’t do something like that. And we don’t have gorillas or orangutans in this country. Not even chimps or monkeys except in zoos. I don’t guess this fancy helicopter automatically films everything around it when turned off and just sitting?”

“You’d have to try to break in to trigger the cameras,” Lucy answers as we shut our doors. “Or mess with the cowling, the radomes, the fuel cap, that sort of thing. Pepper was supposed to be our watchdog, and unfortunately that’s not worked out very well.”

* * *

Warning horns blare as Lucy turns the battery on, rolling the throttles, starting the engines. Moments later, we’re lifting off in a blizzard of autumn leaves swirling crazily. Trees are frenzied, the engines roaring like a tornado as we rise straight up into a bright sky streaked with clouds that portend a change in weather.

“Yikes, that’s too close for comfort,” Lucy says for the effect. “Gotta remember to update my will.”

Marino doesn’t answer and probably has his headset off for the time being. He’s out of sight behind the partition separating us from the back cabin. No doubt he’s closed his eyes, clutching an airsick bag while Lucy makes a tight turn, leveling out of the steep ascent.

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