Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(7)
He opened Josie’s metal evidence kit that lay on the passenger seat, certain she wouldn’t mind him using her equipment. They worked well together. He respected her as an officer, and liked her as a person. It was his opinion that Josie needed to spend less time worrying about her job and more time worrying about her love life. She had not had much luck in that arena, and Otto worried her current romance with the local accountant was doomed for failure if she did not move things along. He had told her this, and was told to mind his own business in return.
Otto found the plastic accident template that was used to draw accurate pictures of the scene, as well as a graphite pencil and a sketchpad in the back of the kit. He opened the notebook and used the template to draw straight lines representing Scratchgravel Road, a rectangle showing Cassidy’s car pointed south, the bodies roughly a quarter mile east of the car, and Xs to signify the larger mesquite and creosote bushes and boulders in relation to the body. Once he had a rough sketch of the area he looked at his watch and sighed. The hottest part of the day. He knew it would be instant nausea when he stepped back out into the desert furnace, but he had to take the measurements, which meant leaving the air-conditioning to walk from the road to the corpse.
Otto pulled the measuring wheel from the back of Josie’s jeep and pushed the button to reset the distance to zero. He took off walking, counting steps to ensure he was getting an accurate measure with the rolling wheel in the thick sand. He recorded 825 feet from the road to where he and Josie had stopped their vehicles in the sand, and another 47 feet to the body. It was almost a quarter of a mile from the road to the crime scene.
As Otto finished making his second sketch to scale and labeled the distances, the ambulance returned and Josie exited from the passenger-side door. Several minutes later she had driven her jeep to where Otto’s was parked. She grabbed her evidence kit and camera and walked the remaining distance to the body.
“How’s the girl?” Otto asked.
“I think she’s coming around. Vie said to call back in a couple of hours.” Josie placed her kit under a mesquite bush for a small amount of shade and pulled her camera strap around her neck. She held the 35-millimeter camera up to her eye to check the settings. “The coroner is on his way,” she said.
“Mr. Personality?”
Josie smiled. “Have you ever once heard that guy laugh?”
“I suspect he doesn’t know how.”
Josie pointed to the ground around the boulder, about ten feet from where Cassidy’s body had lain. “These are fresh prints. Make sure you get them noted on your sketch, and I’ll get pictures.” She focused her camera and snapped several pictures from different angles, trying in vain to keep her mind off the putrid smell. “I’d like to get a cast of one of the prints but that sand is just too fine.”
“There aren’t any prints around the body. It’s blown clear,” Otto said. “Makes it pretty obvious whatever happened to him took place first, then Cassidy came into the picture.”
“Or she came back into the picture.”
Otto swore and swiped at the flies swarming them.
After twenty minutes, they were satisfied they had thoroughly photographed and logged the area.
“Let’s get this over,” Josie said.
They approached the body and Josie handed Otto her camera.
“You snap pictures. I’ll record.”
“You’re a good person. I’ll be smelling that tonight in my nightmares.”
Josie shuddered. She had volunteered for the task that would require getting personal with a dead body that had been out for several days in blistering heat. The bugs and small animals had already started on the exposed flesh. She was surprised the coyotes had not finished him off.
Otto pointed toward the man’s ankle, where blackened flesh had been torn away from the bone. “Looks like the vultures have already started on him.”
Josie looked up into the sky expecting to see the circling birds, angry at the human intrusion, but there was nothing but blue. She pulled her plastic gloves from her back pocket and said, “I heard once that the reason vultures are bald is so they can stick their head into decomposing roadkill and not get their feathers all nasty. You ever heard that?”
“You have to quit hanging out with cops. You need a life.”
Josie smiled and pulled a mask out of the evidence kit lying under the bush. The kit was already so hot the metal clasp burned her fingers when she touched it. She slipped the mask over her nose and mouth, then pulled the gloves on. She turned on the handheld recorder she pulled from her shirt pocket, tested it once, then started her recording.
“Today is July twenty-third. It is 1:34 P.M. This is Chief of Police Josie Gray, in Artemis, Texas. Location is a quarter mile east of Scratchgravel Road, about a half mile from River Road. I am examining a deceased male, age undetermined due to breakdown of the body. Decomposition is visible on face, hands, neck, and on the right ankle.” Josie paused and leaned closer to the man’s face, forcing her gag reflex down at the smell. “There are larvae around the eye sockets and mouth. The neck and face area also appear to have been eaten by small animals.”
Josie paused the recorder and stood suddenly, walked several steps away, and removed her mask, taking in fresh air. Otto handed her a water bottle and after several minutes she returned.
She kneeled again in the sand, and held the recorder to her mouth. “The man is bald. Dressed in a button-down Western-style shirt with a thin black bolo tie. He is wearing blue jeans and black work boots.” She paused and lifted the man’s untucked shirt slightly above his waist. “He is wearing a black belt with an expensive silver buckle. Clothes are in good condition. No other bags or luggage in the area.”