The twisted metal of the rotor blades was rusted well more than half away. The upholstery for the seats was rotted to near nothingness. Clarence had demanded that the FAA officials show him photos of the pilot’s body (found buried in a shallow grave near to the wreckage site, a pile of stones used as a marker). These were Polaroids showing the open grave. There was no corpse, only bones—bones stripped clean by what could only have been decades of rot and decay. Even the dead man’s watch was covered with corrosion, Clarence was told. The pilot’s horsehide leather flight jacket, the FAA official admitted in strictest confidence, had been more rotted than unpreserved leather gear from World War I. The condition of the wreckage and the solitary body were “inexplicable.” Clarence Jones had flown to Nevada within hours of being notified by the film company that the helicopter carrying his aunt, his uncle, his niece and his nephew was missing. He’d taken the Chevy Suburban—Jack and Ellen had left him with the paperwork giving him power of attorney, and he’d always had a set of spare keys—and driven as close as he could to the approximate crash site, a one-hundred-twenty-five-square-mile area, mostly mountains and woods.
