Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(35)

Teresa had no tears left. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t explain any of it to her mother. She’d called Enrico countless times but he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. She walked to the front window, pulled the curtains open to the gray night, and listened as the rain pelted the roof. She thought about the sound the dead body had made as it hit the ground. The man had rolled it out of the pickup truck like a sack of garbage. She looked down at the phone sitting on the end table and made the only decision that made any sense. She called her best friend, Angela, who had her own car, and asked her for a ride to the bus stop in Presidio. She walked into her bedroom and opened her dresser, pulled several outfits out of the drawer, and stuffed them into her school soccer bag.

When Enrico had called that morning and said he’d been arrested, framed by one of his friends for drug possession, he had been desperate. He said he loved her, that he would make it up to her, all of it. And it wasn’t that she believed him; she knew it was a story to get him out of trouble. But he was the only person who knew what she had done, who knew the kind of person she was, and yet he still loved her.





NINE


At six forty-five Wednesday morning Josie and Otto arrived at the Rio Camp and Kayak. Josie wore a pair of Adidas running shorts, an old Indiana University T-shirt, and hiking boots, with her hair in a high ponytail to keep her neck cool. Otto was dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans that stopped just above his knees, and a pair of rubber boots and white socks that reached almost up to his shorts. When Josie picked him up that morning, Delores had stood in her housecoat at the living room door waving to them both as they pulled away. Aside from Dell, they were as close to family as Josie had, and she loved them both dearly.

Rio Camp and Kayak rented boats and camping gear for river excursions. The canoes and kayaks had already been driven by truck to higher ground. The area along the river was one of the lowest spots in Artemis. A flat bank had been excavated to resemble a beach where volleyball nets, picnic tables, and horseshoes were usually erected. The family-owned business was surprisingly lucrative thanks to Marsha Smith, the market-savvy wife who drew in tourists. Josie parked her jeep beside a half-dozen other cars and walked toward the beach area, which was now mostly flooded. All traces of recreation had been removed.

The six additional inches of rain that had been forecast for the previous night had materialized and the river was flowing faster and higher than Josie had ever seen it. The brown frothing water rushed south carrying logs and debris at an alarming rate.

By seven o’clock an efficient system had been organized to fill sandbags and stack them along a fifty-foot stretch of the Rio Grande. The goal was to stack a four-foot-high wall to keep the water confined and the highly erodible banks from giving way. They all knew the sandbags would work for only a short time. If the rain kept coming, even Artemis would feel the effects of the flooding that was now hitting Presidio to the south.

*

After two hours of bagging and stacking, Josie dropped Otto off at his house so he could get ready for the shift and pick up his department car. Josie showered and changed into her uniform, then met him back at the station where he filled her in on their upcoming meeting at the Feed Plant.

“Plant supervisor’s name is—” Otto dug through the pile of papers on his desk and found a sticky note, which he read. “Diego Paiva. Talked with a lady, last name of Moore. She’s not too happy to see us, but she set up the meeting. Said she’d meet us in the parking lot at ten.”

Josie looked at her watch. “Better hit it then. I’ll drive.”

The plant was located eleven miles out of town on a gravel road that was well maintained by Beacon Pathways, the company hired to clean and dismantle the buildings and ultimately charged with taking the land back to so-called pristine conditions. Josie wondered how a former nuclear weapons plant could ever really return to pristine conditions.

The plant took up over 750 acres of desert ground and was surrounded by several thousand acres of state-owned property and a large private ranch. There was only one reason to drive down Plant Road and that was to access the Feed Plant. After the media attention died down, and Beacon moved in with their toxic waste trucks and massive equipment and men in white suits, the area acquired a taboo aura. No one talked about it anymore. The community preferred to trust that the government was quietly supervising the cleanup and looking out for their safety. Josie had her doubts.

All 750 acres of the plant were encircled by an eight-foot-high chain-link fence. It signified a border, but anyone wanting inside could scale the fence and cut through the barbed-wire top. Josie just couldn’t imagine anyone wanting in.

She stopped the jeep in front of the entrance, rolled her window down, and pressed a button on a red box mounted on a post next to the gate. As she waited for a response she scanned the area. To the north of the plant, the small Norton Mountain range extended its chocolate-colored ridges on either side of the plant, causing the grounds to feel fortified from the outside. Rocky hills stretched for miles alongside the mountains and the land was dotted with clumps of green grass, mesquite bushes, and jagged boulders, scattered as if someone tossed them from above. The ocotillo cactus grew above the rest of the vegetation, its spiky fingers reaching awkwardly toward the sky. Josie was glad to see that the plants appeared to be thriving, a hopeful sign that the groundwater wasn’t contaminated.

The speaker on the post finally crackled. “Name please.”