Scratchgravel Road: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  * * *

  After a tearful reunion and apologies and promises from Teresa, Josie pulled back out of the driveway. She drove the ten minutes to her home, glad to let her thoughts wander over not much of anything. She planned to collect Chester from Dell’s house, go home and eat a fried egg, take a shower, and sleep until eleven when she would get up for second shift. It would be good to put the past twenty-four hours behind her.

  Josie pulled down her lane, drove past her own home, and down the long drive to Dell’s place. She found him inside the horse barn, with the sliding doors pulled all the way back, standing over a raised fire pit. Dell had mounted a tire rim from an old semi horizontally onto a metal tripod. He’d welded a grate in the bottom of the tire rim to hold the fire and coals. The tripod lifted the rim off the ground, and with a metal bottom inside the rim, it made a sturdy fire pit. Dell was sliding a swinging grate over the red coals when she ran inside the barn and out of the rain.

  “How do?” he called, and set a metal coffeepot on the grate.

  “You having smoke withdrawal?”

  “I need some blue sky. Can’t stand all this rain. We’ll have us some cowboy coffee and that’ll cheer us up.”

  Chester came loping around from the back of Dell’s house. He knew the sound of Josie’s car engine and made a beeline to greet her. He came into the barn and shook water all over both of them. Dell threw Josie an old towel and she dried the dog off and scratched his chest and ears until he wandered away to check one of the horses making a racket in the back of the barn.

  Dell dragged two bales of straw over to the fire and they both sat watching the smoke drift out of the barn into the rain.

  “Dig into that cooler, there against the stable. I kept Chester some scraps from breakfast.”

  Josie smiled when she found a half pound of fried bacon wrapped in tinfoil. “You have better dog scraps than what I keep in my refrigerator for people.”

  Chester smelled the bacon and came back to sit patiently in front of her, accepting each piece as if it were a delicate morsel, chewing carefully before swallowing. He always appeared to sincerely enjoy the taste of a good snack, and Dell couldn’t resist spoiling him.

  Dell stood, arms crossed over his chest, and watched the interaction. “That dog’s got better manners than most kids.”

  Josie and Dell watched the coffee percolate as she caught him up on the dead body and the connection to the old Feed Plant.

  “What do you know about that place?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Don’t want to either. Go talk to Sauly. He worked there for years before they fired him. Sons a bitches.”

  She grinned.

  “Why on God’s green earth would a man make something that can’t be touched for ten thousand years just so he can heat his house? They call that clean energy?” Dell stood and jammed his poker stick into the coals and then placed a small chunk of wood into the fire. “We’re so smart we’re stupid. I can’t even talk about it. Pisses me off too much.”

  Dell walked to a storage room in the back of the barn to retrieve two coffee cups. By the time he came back to the fire and poured the coffee he’d calmed down and moved on to a topic that didn’t raise his ire.

  “How about the pencil pusher?” Dell asked.

  She sipped her coffee and took her time answering. “His name is Dillon.”

  “I know his name. Where’s he been? Haven’t seen his car much.”

  She shrugged and tried to figure Dell’s angle. “He’s been at a conference. I just saw him a couple days ago.”

  “Seems like I haven’t seen him all that much,” Dell said.

  “What is this?”

  “Conversation. I thought that’s what you females liked.”

  “Well, I’m not your typical female.” She fell quiet, assuming the conversation would turn.

  “So, how is he?”

  Josie sighed. “He’s okay. He’s good. Why do you care how he is?”

  Dell held a hand up. “I’ll restate the question. How are you and Dillon together? As a pair?”

  “Dell! Why are you asking me this? It’s too early in the morning.” She blew air out in frustration. “I don’t know. What does that mean, how are we as a pair? Am I one way on my own, and another with him?”

  “Sure. Lots of people like that.”

  “We’re fine.” She patted her leg to get Chester to wander over and lie down at her feet. She stroked his head and hoped Dell would let it go.

  He was quiet a minute as he stared at the fire. “Here’s why I ask. You went through hell and back a few months ago. Had gunmen shoot up your bedroom with you laying there. That’s enough to fry anybody’s brain. But, it should also make you think. You’re not getting any younger. If you like this fella then maybe it’s time to do something about it. If you don’t, or if you’re happy the way you are, then leave it be. Nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let fear hold you back.”

  “Who says I’m afraid?”

  “You’re a cop. What happens if you let fear influence your decisions as a cop? You get your ass blown to kingdom come. Same thing happens in your relationships. You let fear influence your relationships and you end up living alone on a beach.”

  “That what happened to you?” she asked.

  “I don’t have fear. I just don’t want what other people seem to want. But I think you do.”

  * * *

  After four hours of sleep that left her body feeling heavy and her mind sluggish, Josie dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. She drove to work on autopilot and walked into the Artemis Police Department at noon, ready for a second shift. She had a quick conversation with Lou and then found Otto upstairs glaring at his computer, and Marta brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

  Otto heard Josie enter the office and turned toward her, his lips pursed in anger. “This blasted thing won’t let me in. Something’s timed out.”

  She approached his desk and leaned over him to examine his screen. “You need to learn a little patience.”

  “Weren’t these things supposed to save us time? We were supposed to get rid of all our paperwork. We were sold a big fat lie.” He picked up his mouse and pitched it across his desk. “How many heart attacks you think are caused each year because of these damned things?”

  “Otto. Calm down. And don’t throw your mouse.” Josie sat down and discovered he was entering the wrong username and password for the new department e-mail system. While she logged him in he poured her a fresh cup of coffee.

  Marta sat down at the conference table, her eyes bleary, looking slightly better than the day before.

  “How’s Teresa?” Otto asked, sitting down beside her with a handful of paperwork, notes, and his steno pad.

  Marta wore a silver cross necklace that she pulled from underneath her uniform shirt. She rubbed absently at the back of the cross with her thumb. “‘Repentant’ is I think a good description. She’s not one to apologize, but she is truly sorry this time. As she should be. She knows that she risked not only her life, but Josie’s too. And she realizes the pain and anguish she caused me.” Marta turned and watched Josie approach the table with her coffee and notes. “You must have said something that clicked with her. She’s awful impressed with you.”

  “I think it was the midnight car ride that did it,” Josie said. She turned to Otto. “So, fill us in on the Santiago investigation.”

  “I called Cowan yesterday to let him know we think we have the victim’s ID. I told him Santiago’s work records indicate he was forty-four years old. Remember, Cowan first estimated he was closer to sixty. He reexamined everything, including internal organs, and discovered some were decomposing at a faster rate than others.”

  Marta frowned. “How does that happen?”

  “Cowan thinks he ingested something that ate up his insides,” he said.

  “How does that connect with the open sores on his arms?” Josie asked.

  “That’s what I wanted to know. Sounds like he got nuke
d,” he said.

  “Like he was over-radiated?” Josie said.

  Otto shrugged, his expression skeptical. “Cowan says medical records need to be subpoenaed, but we don’t even know where to start. Our best bet is tracking down his family to see if he was getting chemo or radiation. He claims cancer patients can get sores that won’t heal sometimes.”

  Marta winced and shuddered.

  “He’s got a call in to Centers for Disease Control this morning,” Otto said. “I have to give him credit. Cowan’s working overtime on this one.”

  “Is Lou running down family?” Josie asked.

  “Yep. The Feed Plant didn’t have any records outside of his address here in Artemis. Lou’s tracked back a Juan Santiago to four cities in northern Mexico. She’s starting with those families first. See if she can get a match and notify the family. Then she’ll go for medical records.” Otto opened the shoebox in front of him. “I found these at Santiago’s place. His wife’s name is Abella. That’ll help Lou make the connection.”

  “That’s great,” Josie said.

  “He hasn’t been at his apartment for days. No surprise there. The only thing I found of interest was this box full of letters.” He looked at Marta. “They’re all in Spanish. I can get the gist of the letters, but I’ll need your help.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll get them in order for you first.”

  Josie took notes as she talked. “You didn’t find any money? No stash he was hiding to send home?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Might give us a motive,” Marta said.

  Otto shook his head. “That doesn’t work with the body in the desert and the wallet with twenty-four dollars left in Cassidy Harper’s car,” he said.

  Josie switched tracks. “I also want to get Dillon to dig up what he can on Diego Paiva. See what kind of records he can find on Beacon.”

  “That Paiva seems like a shady character,” Otto said.

  “Why? Because he’s smooth and polished?” Josie said.

  He considered Josie for a moment, obviously annoyed by her question. “Disingenuous was more what I was thinking. I’m just not sure we can trust him as a reliable source at this point.”

  Josie stopped herself from commenting further. Otto was typically a good judge of character, but sometimes he jumped to conclusions about people, and Josie thought he was sometimes led astray by his initial judgment.

  SIXTEEN

  Otto picked up the shoebox full of letters he had obtained from Santiago’s apartment and sat down at the conference table with a pencil and tablet of paper to take notes. The envelopes were not present, so he was hoping to find mention of cities that would help them find Santiago’s home and family. Otto opened each letter and stacked them on top of each other in the same order they had been inside the box. About half the letters had dates noted in the upper right-hand corner of the paper. The sequence of dates made it obvious that Santiago kept the letters organized, the most recent on top. With Otto’s rudimentary ability to read Spanish he was able to discern that the majority of the letters appeared to have been written by the man’s wife, Abella. Otto pulled the photographs from the bottom of the box and found the black-and-white picture of Santiago and his wife, the sides of their heads touching, squinting and smiling toward the camera. The edges of the photograph were worn from being handled so often. Otto imagined Santiago lying on his back in bed, staring at those pretty smiling eyes, wishing for the day he could return home.

  Otto understood the pain of leaving one’s family. When he and Delores left Poland as young newlyweds, he’d been assigned a simple task: attend school in America, become a doctor, and return to the family village a trained physician. At nineteen years of age, with no preparation, no training, no travel experience outside of Poland, and no understanding of the process for acceptance into even the most mediocre of medical schools in America, Otto learned within six months the task his parents had given him was unachievable. He and Delores discovered their limitations together, learned of the betrayal their families felt at their failure, felt the same intense guilt at the shameful waste of their parents’ hard-earned savings, and realized that they had little more in life than their love for each other. They fast learned the lessons of poverty: that life isn’t a journey with options, but rather a ladder to climb day after day, methodically taking one rung at a time.

  Otto stared at the photo in his hands and pictured the couch in his comfortable living room, neat and tidy with Delores’s personality touching each pillow and needlepoint and rug, creating a cocoon of warmth he never took for granted. He realized that he’d climbed off the ladder, the one he’d visualized for so many of his younger years, and he’d found his place to rest. And it saddened him that this family would never find that same peace.

  Once Otto had reviewed the letters, he asked Marta to read them for specific details that might help them narrow down where the family lived, or for information about Santiago’s health. Marta sat beside Otto at the conference table and read through each of the letters, jotting down very few notes. She handed them back to Otto when she finished.

  “Mostly, they’re filled with family milestones. It’s the stuff that means nothing to you and I, but breaks the heart of the one missing it.”

  “No mention of towns or cities?”

  “No. There were several letters from Santiago’s daughters and one from his son, written just before the boy entered the Ejército Mexicano, or the Mexican Army, last year. But they didn’t mention where he’d be stationed.”

  “Anything about Santiago’s job?” Otto asked.

  “It’s obvious that his wife understood very little about his work at the Feed Plant. The job provided a paycheck and little else.”

  * * *

  Josie left Marta and Otto at the police department and drove out to talk with Sauly Magson. His house was located just south of the mudflats on the Rio, surrounded by thick swaths of three-foot-high prairie grasses that rippled in the breeze like ocean waves. Mountain runoff and natural springs kept the area green year-round, and with the recent rains it looked almost tropical. Sauly’s house was a three-story grain elevator he had painted purple and converted into an artsy space. He had become something of a local celebrity the past year after he was photographed by a writer from Western Art and Architecture, writing a story on free expression. Josie doubted he had even seen the article.

  She heard a boom, like that of a cannon, explode behind his house. Anyone else and she would have been concerned—with Sauly it was the norm. Josie walked around the back of the grain elevator toward the sandy slope that led down to the river. She found him, bald-headed and bare-chested, with a blue bandana tied around his neck. He was wearing a pair of jean shorts with no shoes, holding an aerosol can and lighter. He turned and Josie saw he was shaking the can and laughing aloud.

  “Did you hear that? Glory!” he yelled. Raindrops from the drizzle slipped down his chest, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Sauly stood by a seven-foot-long plastic pipe that looked like a giant bazooka gun. Beside the pipe lay a bag of potatoes and several small cans of propane and aerosol propellant.

  He seemed to realize he was talking to a police officer, and his smile faded.

  “You here to ruin my day?” he asked. “It’s just a potato gun.”

  She smiled. “Nope. What’s with the pipe?”

  He picked up a potato and rammed it down into the pipe. “The potato seals the end. Then I hook up the propane at the other end of the pipe. It mixes with air in the chamber, then I light it. Want to watch one? The sound shakes things up on your insides.”

  “I was actually hoping to get some information from you. Do you have a minute?”

  He smiled a wide, toothless grin. “For you? Anything. Let’s go inside and have a sip of cold tea.”

  Sauly asked her to carry the potato bag and he picked up the propellant along with the pipe. They walked through the wet grass to the back of his house and placed
his toys underneath the green-and-white-striped awning that covered a deep back porch.

  Josie followed him inside, through a small mudroom and into the kitchen. Sauly had picked a series of fifteen differently sized square windows and built them into the elevator’s sides at differing angles. The effect was somewhere between sophisticated architecture and fun-house carnival, and Josie loved it. His kitchen was outfitted with two such windows. Josie sat at the kitchen table, in front of a four-foot-square window turned sideways to make a diamond shape. From the table, the Rio appeared to flow directly from one corner of the window to the other, splitting the outdoor scenery in half. Josie was certain the placement of the window was no accident and she was amazed at the precision.

  As Sauly poured their tea and chatted about building his potato gun, Josie looked around the room. It was painted a deep maroon with buttery yellow cabinets and sage green trim. On the table was a collection of cactus plants arranged around the inside of a twelve-inch snapping turtle shell. Black-and-white photographs of the Rio were framed in old barn wood and hung around the dining room.

  He placed two glasses of tea and a small glass dish with sugar cubes and spoons on the table.

  “So, here’s the deal,” Josie said. She dropped several sugar cubes in her tea as Sauly sat down beside her. “We found a body out in the desert. It looks like murder. No identification on the body. We tracked him down through his work boots to the nuclear plant. We think his name is Juan Santiago. He worked on the cleanup crew.”

  Sauly leaned back in his chair, startled, and rubbed his bald head. “Yes, ma’am. I know who you mean. I worked with him about a year before I left.”

  “I need to know anything you can tell me about him.”

  Sauly made a low hum. “Can’t give you much. It’s been two years since I worked with him. And he never said nothing to anybody. Earned his dollar and left.”

  “That’s what everybody said. Surely he connected with someone. You don’t remember him hanging around anyone? Maybe sitting by someone at lunch?”