Scott Free by John Gilstrap

curious face, but he didn’t pursue the point. “Well, here’s the long and the short of it. We don’t know much more now than we did twelve hours ago. The Cessna carrying your son and his friend apparently left around five o’clock last night, on their way to Salt Lake City. To our knowledge, they never arrived, and we presume that they have crashed.”
    He’d never get used to hearing the words spoken aloud. “But you know where they are, right?”
    â€œI can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you, Mr. O’Toole,” the chief said.
    â€œCall me Brandon, please. I asked you if you know where the plane went down.”
    Whitestone signaled the answer with a sigh. “Well, we’d like to think so. I mean, we know they started at SkyTop around four-thirty or five and presume they headed for the main airport in Salt Lake City, but the fact is they never filed a flight plan, so we don’t know anything for sure.”
    â€œBut, we know generally,” Brandon prompted. “Assuming that they were headed where they said. And frankly, where else would they go?”
    â€œLike I said, I hope we do. With this storm blowing, though, we haven’t had a chance till this morning to actually go out looking for them.”
    Brandon pressed harder. “But if you know point A and you know point B, and you know how long they were in the air, then you must have a decent idea where the wreckage would be. Hell, when the Kennedy kid crashed a couple of years ago, they were able to pinpoint a spot in the ocean just from radar.”
    Whitestone’s face grew even darker. “Unfortunately, that was New York and Boston. This is Utah. Because your son’s plane was flying outside the normal flight paths, no one was paying too much attention. They had no transponder, so they were difficult to track. In the middle of a storm like that, it’s my understanding that it’s easy for a small plane to get lost in the ground clutter. Mind you, this is information I’ve only learned myself in the past few hours. As for plotting them on a map, that’s what we’re hoping to do. But it was damned windy out there last night. It could be…Well, there’s certainly plenty of hope that we’ll find them right where they’re supposed to be.”
    While the chief’s words said hope, Brandon noted that everything else projected the opposite. “Isn’t there some sort of locator beacon on the plane?”
    This time, Whitestone knew that his words would hurt. “Not this aircraft, no. Frankly, to be compliant with FAA regulations, it should have. Unfortunately, it appears that Cody Jamieson wasn’t always a rule-follower.”
    â€œJesus Christ,” Brandon spat. “If that son of a bitch survived, I swear to God I’ll kill him myself. So, you’re telling me we’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”
    â€œI’m not sure I’d characterize it quite that way—”
    â€œDon’t bullshit me, goddammit!” Brandon boomed, and then he backed off right away. “I’m sorry.”
    Whitestone shook it off. “No need. You’ve got to be frazzled. How did you get here, anyway? The airports are closed, and so are the roads.”
    Brandon shrugged. “You’ll have to talk to the pilot about the airport, but those barricades don’t really close a road. They just provide an extra obstacle. Besides, nothing performs like a rental car. So, tell me about your search efforts so far. You have crews hiking up into the mountains?”
    â€œWhere would I send them to? Like I said, we don’t know—”
    â€œWhat about airplanes?”
    â€œThe Air National Guard has provided an airplane to monitor radio frequencies for distress calls, but for the time being—”
    â€œI meant search planes.”
    Whitestone set his jaw. “Please, Mr. O’Toole. Brandon. I