AllFreeNovel
Share Us
O’Day’s anger seeped away in an instant. Oh . . . shit. “What?”
“There’s a driver behind the wheel,” he said. “Probably a woman. Hard to tell. Except for what’s left of the clothes. Just . . . just a skeleton really.”
He let out a long breath, took off his hard hat, and rubbed a hand through the buzzed hair of his head. “Okay. Call the police.”
“Already did,” Ramon said. “They’re on their way.”
“The damned site’ll be closed for who knows how long.”
Ramon shrugged and shot him a what’re ya gonna do? look.
“I’d better take a look.” He did not need this. Not today. Well, not ever, really. Dreading the task, he tightened his hard hat back on his head and, girding himself, made his way down the steep grade of sand and dust to the bottom of the pit, where the car rested under a thick layer of grit. As Ramon had said, the windshield had been dusted off. As he peered through the streaked glass, he damn near jumped from his skin. His heart trip-hammered, even though he’d expected what he was seeing.
But it was different seeing a skeleton with bits of hair poking out from a toppled blond wig. Her visage was hideous. Macabre. Black eye sockets in a ghoulish skull. Straight teeth, some showing fillings and a bit of gold, were set in a gruesome, blood-chilling grin.
A clavicle and parts of her spine and ribs showed dingy white beneath some kind of black sequined dress. Gloves covered the bones of her hands, which were gripping the wide steering wheel.
His skin crawled as the wind whispered over the pit, dust flying around him.
Every ghost story he’d heard as a kid about the dead rising rushed through his brain, and for a second, he imagined one of those gloved, fleshless fingers reaching out to caress his cheek.
And then he noticed the baby carrier, strapped into the back seat.
Oh . . . no . . . The interior back there was so dark. He’d need a flashlight or more grit wiped from the windows before he could tell for certain.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered, stepping back, feeling cold from the inside out. What the hell was she doing seated at the steering wheel, as if she were out for a Sunday drive, a baby with her?
The back of his mouth turned dry, and for a second, his stomach clenched, threatening to turn inside out. He backpedaled up the hillside of the pit, sweating despite the iciness around him.
It was all he could do to maintain his composure. “Tell everyone to stand back from the pit,” he told Ramon. “And, uh, we, um, we may as well let the crew take their breaks.” He was rattled, no doubt about it, and though it was only eight in the morning, he planned to get back to the office, reach into his bottom drawer, and find his bottle of Jack. He needed a drink. But it would have to wait. He was in charge here and had to remain cool, so he hitched up his pants and said, “Until the cops get done with whatever the hell they’re gonna do here, there ain’t a lot we can do.”
“Could take a while for them to process everything,” Ramon said just as O’Day heard the sound of the first siren wailing in the distance.
“Let’s hope not.”
He waited, most of the crew standing around the pit, while the first cruiser arrived. The deputy took a look in the car and called in to the station, and within the hour, the place was crawling with cops, crime-scene tape strung across the fence, news vans parking outside the gates.
“Swell,” he said under his breath. “Just terrific.”
Two detectives showed up, the lead a tall, African American woman in a pair of sleek sunglasses, who was all business. “Show me,” she said to a deputy, who walked with her down into the pit. They examined the body behind the wheel without touching it. She and her partner discussed the situation and talked on their cell phones before climbing back out of the hole, and O’Day wondered how she could scramble up and down the sides of the pit and not break a sweat.
Cool as a cucumber came to mind as she approached again and asked him the basics: What was the job? Who discovered the car? When? Simple stuff that either he or Ramon answered. She and her partner seemed about to drive off and leave the site in the hands of a crime-scene crew, but O’Day followed her to the car.
“So how long will we be shut down?”
“As long as it takes,” she said.
“I’ve got a schedule.”
“And I’ve got a murder investigation.” She flashed him a patient smile that he suspected didn’t quite reach her eyes, but he couldn’t tell with her reflective shades. All he could see was his own distorted face in the mirrored lenses.
“We’d appreciate you speeding this through.”
“We will, but we’ll be thorough. You understand that.”
“Absolutely.” He was good with the cops. A couple of the guys on his bowling team had been with the Las Vegas P.D. Retired now. “Hey, tell me. There was only one person in that car, right? I mean I saw a baby carrier in the back seat . . . but I didn’t see any kid.” God, he prayed that an infant hadn’t died there.
“Just one body, it looks like to me. But you know I can’t discuss the case.”
