Fifteen minutes later a deputy was dropping me at my car. I'd been right about a better route. A quarter mile up from where I'd parked, a dirt track cut off from the Forest Service road. Once used for hauling timber, the tiny trail meandered around the mountain, alowing access to within a hundred yards of the main crash site.

Vehicles now lined both sides of the logging trail, and we'd passed newcomers on our way downhil. By sunrise both the Forest Service and county roads would be jammed.

As soon as I was behind the wheel I grabbed my cel phone. Dead.

I did a three-point turn and headed down toward the county road. Once on Highway 74, I tried again. The signal was back, so I punched in Katy's number. A machine picked up after four rings.

Uneasy, I left a message, then set the tape in my head to play the 'don't-be-an-idiot-mother' lecture. For the next hour I tried to focus on my upcoming presentation, pushing away thoughts of the carnage I'd left behind and the horror I'd face the folowing day. It was no go. Images of floating faces and severed limbs shattered my concentration.

I tried the radio. Every station carried accounts of the crash. Broadcasters reverently talked of the death of young athletes and solemnly hypothesized as to cause. Since weather did not seem to be a factor, sabotage and mechanical failure were the favored theories.

Hiking out behind Crowe's deputy, I'd spotted a line of sheared-off trees oriented opposite my point of entrance. Though I knew the damage marked the plane's final descent path, I refused to join in the speculation.

I entered I-40, switched stations for the hundredth time, and caught a journalist reporting from overhead a warehouse fire. Chopper sounds reminded me of Larke, and I realized I hadn't asked where he and the lieutenant governor had landed. I stored the question in the back of my brain.

At nine, I redialed Katy.

Stil no answer. I rewound the mind tape.

Arriving in Knoxvile, I checked in, contacted my host, then ate the Bojangles' chicken I'd picked up on the outskirts of town. I phoned my estranged husband in Charlotte to request care for Birdie. Pete agreed, saying I'd be biled for cat transport and feeding. He hadn't talked to Katy for several days. After delivering a mini-version of my own lecture, he promised to try to reach her.

Next, I phoned Pierre LaManche, my boss at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale, to report that I would not be in Montreal the folowing week.

He'd heard reports of the crash and was expecting my cal. Last, I rang my department chair at UNC-Charlotte.

Responsibilities covered, I spent an hour selecting slides and placing them into carousel trays, then showered and tried Katy again. No go.

I glanced at the clock. Eleven-forty.