I felt a bit relieved at seeing his trademark grin but then I noticed the blood on his arm.
“What happened to your arm?”
“I scratched it when I kicked out the window to get out. The door was pinned in from hitting the wall.”
Burris’s jaw looked even tighter than mine felt.
“I have an ice pack here, and that looks like a big bump,” Anelya knelt in front of Harris.
“I got this, guys, why don’t you go meet the police,” she motioned to where the police cruiser pulled up. An ambulance also pulled up.
“Please send them over here.”
I nodded, and squeezed her shoulder quickly.
She gave me a quick smile as she pulled out a small flashlight from her purse. It was part of her keychain.
“Harris, is it? Can you follow my finger?” She started evaluating him as we walked out to see the truck.
We used fleet services for some of our bigger orders, but employed guys like Harris for smaller deliveries that could be made within a day. It saved on shipping some of our larger, more valuable pieces, and let us employ some younger people in town.
But seeing the crumpled back of the truck from where he’d tried to back out of the port, made me wonder if we were putting employees in danger.
“No one else was around?” I asked, though it came out as a yell. I realized this when the men and women on staff who were looking at the truck straightened up.
“I was, Mr. Grockton,” Stephanie, one of our new mechanics, said. “Something sounded odd when he started up, and I realized it as I was checking one that just came back from a run. We are supposed to double check them all now.”
She looked from Burris to me, and I knew there were plenty of rumors about that new procedure. I just nodded.
“I didn’t like the way the gear shift sounded and headed over here, when I realized he couldn’t stop when he backout out of the port. As it was on a slope, he crashed into the berm.”
“He was lucky no one was back there.” Burris said.
We knew no one was supposed to be there, but on a fireworks night it was plausible that people would have been walking around or cutting through on their way home.
“I tried to crowbar his door open, but he couldn’t get out, and it smelled like gas, so I got an extinguisher, but he kicked out the window.” Stephanie explained.
“I’m sorry about that,” he called, from where Anelya was holding an ice pack against his head. Two local paramedics walked up to her to take over.
“It’s okay, Harris.” Burris called.
“Stephanie, do you know why it crashed?” I could see Rhonda approaching with two officers in uniform.
“I’d like to look underneath more, but I think there is leaking brake fluid under the truck. But the smell of gas was bothering me too, which is why I washed everything down.”
Was she destroying evidence? I hated that I now suspected all my employees, all the time.
“Did someone say brake fluid?” Rhonda stepped next to me, shaking her head. “This is really escalating. You may want to get someone you trust on staff to start looking every truck over before it leaves the garage.”
Burris and I thought we’d done that, by having our head mechanic know about what was happening. But he wasn’t there twenty-four hours a day, and clearly someone knew our routine.
“The interns could start tomorrow,” she said quietly.
I nodded. “That sounds good.”
“We should meet with our board tomorrow, too,” Burris said, joining us. “Some can call in, but we can have a quick call with them.”
“I’d like to join. Maybe someone would have ideas about who would do this.”
