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“Pickup thought it could fly.”
Monck did not look amused.
“Toyota Tacoma, maybe a 2011 model.” Lightbourne was all business now. “Solo driver, no passenger. Looks like the truck left the pavement at high speed.”
I felt a fast pulse in my temples, my palms, my throat.
“Black?” I asked, thinking of the truck I’d seen parked at Benjamin’s place.
“Maybe.”
“The driver?” Monck asked.
Lightbourne wagged his head slowly.
“When?”
“Two kids called it in.” Lightbourne gestured toward the teens. “Their story is that everything was hunky-dory when they went by at two. The truck was ass-up when they returned around four.”
“Why were they poking around the hole?”
“They saw vultures, looked down hoping to see a dead critter.”
By reflex, Monck and I checked our watches. The accident had happened just hours earlier.
Someone had died while I was hosting a pity party over having to write reports.
In my heart I knew who that someone was.
“Are your witnesses reliable?” Monck asked.
“Neither of these boneheads will be winning a free ride to Oxford.”
“The truck got a tag?”
“Yeah. Talk to Gardiner. She ran it.”
“Roger that.”
“Feel free to have a gander.”
As Monck and I stepped forward, I realized I was about to stare at death yet again on this beautiful island. The steady procession of corpses requiring my attention wasn’t what I’d signed up for, but I couldn’t back out now.
I kept on Monck’s heels as we headed for the pit.
32
There are countless sinkholes, blue holes, and caves throughout the Turks and Caicos archipelago, almost all created by the karst process. That is, by the slow action of acidic rainwater dissolving soft limestone, which in turn produces carbonic acid, which further feeds the erosion.
TCI’s most famous gaper, The Hole, is in the Long Bay Hills area of Provo. The cavernous pit is roughly fifty feet across and plunges approximately sixty feet to a brackish pond below. Water depth is estimated at an additional twenty-five feet.
Geologists believe The Hole was initially an enclosed cave system whose ceiling collapsed one thunderous day far in the past. They also think the water’s semi-tidal nature suggests a partial connection to the ocean or to the marine ponds of Juba Sound.
I learned all this later through a website geared toward TCI tourism, another operated by the National Park Service. That late July afternoon, I had no jargon for, nor explanation of, the bizarre feature I was about to observe.
Immediately after speaking with Lightbourne, Monck and I beelined toward the action. Closing in, I noted that my guess about those present had been spot-on.
I recognized the pear-shaped form of Constable Gardiner and the bulk and blond bun of Constable Rigby. Both were inside the cordon, about five yards off the road, the former slightly uphill from the latter.
