Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(13)

She opened her eyes again but kept her head turned. “I told you. I just went for a walk and I found him there. It’s not like I wanted to find him.”

“Did you touch the body?”

Cassidy’s jaw dropped and she turned to Josie. “Are you kidding? He was disgusting! Why would I touch him?” She shuddered.

Josie turned to look at Otto, who jerked his thumb toward the door.

“If you remember anything, or come across any information about the man or why he might have been out there, promise me you’ll call?”

Cassidy nodded and Josie placed a business card on the hospital table.

“We had your car towed to the county garage to get it off the side of the road. We’d like to take a look inside it. Get some fingerprints around your doors. Are you okay with that?” Josie asked.

“I don’t care.”

Otto had a consent form and pen ready and approached the bed. “We just need you to sign a consent form. Make it all official.”

Cassidy pressed the remote on her bedside table to raise the bed and used the table to sign the paper. Josie noted that she didn’t give much thought to the paper or the idea of having her car searched. She seemed more concerned with the pain of bending her arms and the sunburn.

Cassidy pointed to a folded pile of clothes atop a bureau across the room. “Keys ought to be in my front shorts pocket.”

Josie felt a piece of paper in the first pocket she looked in and resisted the urge to unfold it and read it. She found the car keys in the second pocket and took them instead. She and Otto thanked Vie and left for the garage.

*

The county garage was located on the east side of town, beside the Arroyo County Jail. The dark green metal garage was eighty feet long by thirty feet wide and had a poured concrete floor. Inside were several bays where the county four-wheel-drive pickup and two ancient plow trucks were parked and maintained. The plows were used to clean the roads after the monsoon hit each summer. They had been purchased by Macon Drench at a Houston auction several years ago. Before the plows were bought, the town had to rely on locals with pickup trucks and push-blades to clean up the roads. Drench had also paid for the construction of the garage himself rather than raising taxes. Josie wondered what would happen to the town if Drench ever tired of his desert experiment and headed back to the city.

Josie and Otto rode together in Josie’s car and parked just inside the open garage door. Industrial-sized fans pulled air in one side of the garage and out the other. The air movement and shade from the brutal afternoon sun made the job they were facing still miserable, but tolerable.

Danny was in charge of the garage and maintenance on the trucks. The garage typically closed at five, but Danny had offered to keep it open as late as necessary so they could examine Cassidy’s car. When Josie shut her jeep off, Danny appeared from behind the engine of one of the plows, wiping his hands on a rag. He smiled widely and flipped his rag to hang over his shoulder like a dish towel. His coworker, Mitch Wilson, walked behind Danny and waved hello. He was a lanky, heavily tattooed Harley rider who had served several tours in the second Iraq war as an explosives expert with the army. With his laid-back disposition it was hard for Josie to imagine him using explosives in a war zone.

“How’s tricks?” Otto called.

“Trying to get these old rust buckets ready for the epic rains,” Danny said.

“We appreciate your help today,” Josie said.

“No problem.”

“Cassidy doing okay?” Mitch asked.

“She’ll be fine. She got lucky, though.” Josie looked back at Danny. “You and Cowan get the body unloaded at the morgue?”

He shook his head slowly. “That was some nasty business.”

He pointed to Cassidy Harper’s car, parked directly behind them in an open area on the concrete pad. “Mitch and I unhooked her from the tow truck. Car’s ready for you. We didn’t touch any of the door handles. Didn’t get inside the car.”

Josie thanked them and they wandered back to the plow truck and turned the music back up. Over the hum of the fans Josie heard George Jones singing to Tammy Wynette about the “Crying Time.”

“That’s some classic music,” Josie said. “Makes me want to find a lonely spot in the desert.”

Otto turned up his lip. “That stuff’ll put you in an early grave. You ever listen to a good polka?”

Josie got inside her jeep and turned it around so the back end faced Cassidy’s car. She opened the hatch and Otto spread a plastic tarp over the carpet inside. She opened up her evidence kit, then backed away to face Otto, hands on her hips.

“Did you forget something?” she asked.

“You have issues,” he said. “I borrowed your sketchpad and pencil. And I stuck them right back in there when I was done.”

“Right back in there isn’t where you found them. The pad and pencil don’t belong with the evidence collection. That should be obvious to you by now. There is a section in the back for files. There’s even a nice clip to hold the pencil.”

“You need to lighten up, Josie.”

“How many years have we been having this same conversation?”

“Learn to enjoy your life a little.” He grabbed the black powder and brushes and walked over to the car to take latent prints off the silver door handles.