Scratchgravel Road A Mystery

TWENTY-FIVE



Josie made a quick trip home to shower and change into a clean uniform, and then drove to the Arroyo County Jail. She was led down the hall by the intake officer. Maria was one of Josie’s favorite employees at the jail; she took pride in her work and was a cheerful woman who rarely let the stress of the job bring her down. That evening, however, she was clearly agitated by the arrest of Brent Thyme.

They reached the interrogation room and Maria stood in front of the door with her arms crossed over her chest, the keys firmly grasped in her hand.

“I’d like to get him in the back parking lot and beat the tar out of him myself. That precious little boy at home? A wife who depends on him?”

“Hard to figure people out,” Josie said. She’d already suffered through the thoughts now plaguing Maria and was anxious to get to the questioning.

“Sarah will lose that house. She can’t afford it on a waitress salary.”

“We’ll see what he has to say for himself.”

Maria shook her head and seemed to realize she was detaining Josie. “His attorney is with him. It’s Oliver Greene. Public defender from Presidio. Brent’s been read his rights.” She turned to unlock the door. “Have at him.”

Brent looked wired. He wore the same jeans and navy blue long-sleeved T-shirt that he was arrested in earlier that afternoon. His pupils were dilated and he appeared to have difficulty focusing and paying attention to the directions his attorney was attempting to provide. Josie wondered again if he was on something.

Oliver Greene was an expatriate in his sixties with a soft, dignified British accent and bearing. He was a private man who had never explained to anyone in the law enforcement community how he’d ended up in West Texas. Greene was not a showman; he was an excellent public defender with no patience for theatrics. Josie liked him a great deal.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way, and the tape-recording equipment set up, Greene provided an additional verbal warning to Brent.

“I expect you to consult with me about anything that could possibly be construed as incriminating. I realize that isn’t always clear. If in doubt, stop and ask me. Understood?”

The warning seemed to have no effect on Brent. He remained hunched over the table, staring at his folded hands. Greene finally sighed heavily and told Josie to proceed with questioning.

“I watched the surveillance video. Have you explained to your attorney what’s on it?” she asked.

Brent stared at his fingers as he shredded the trash from a sugar wrapper used to sweeten his coffee. He said nothing and Greene finally shook his head once. Josie could tell he was in the dark and frustrated.

“The tape clearly shows you and Juan Santiago entering the pilot unit at the Feed Plant, Saturday night, July twenty-first at 10:43 P.M. Both you and Santiago are wearing full protective hazardous materials suits, as well as company work boots. After several minutes of discussion, you open a cabinet and remove a first-aid kit. You place it on the laboratory counter. You try and convince Mr. Santiago to use some of the ointment for the sores on his arms.”

Greene cut Josie off. “Is there audio on this tape?”

“No, but it’s obvious that—”

“No, ma’am, watching a security tape with no audio does not give you the ability to determine my client’s intent. Doesn’t work that way.”

Josie nodded and rephrased. “There was a discussion between the two men after the kit was placed on the counter. Mr. Santiago finally turned from the conversation and walked toward the door, as if leaving. At that time, Brent picked up a stool and slammed it into Santiago’s head, causing him to fall unconscious to the floor.”

Brent stared at his hands as Greene took notes on his laptop. Brent’s identity on the tape had not been confirmed, but his lack of protest just sealed it for Josie. She had no doubts now.

There was a knock on the door. Josie looked up and saw Officer Marta Cruz’s face in the window, beckoning Josie outside with a crooked finger.

Josie didn’t mind the interruption. She hoped his attorney would counsel Brent to make things easier on everyone and confess.

Josie excused herself, closed the door behind her, and found Marta in the hallway, her face animated.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I think you’ll want to hear this.”

“What’s up?”

“You might want to have a word with Leo Monaco. He just admitted driving the body and dumping it in the desert late Saturday night. He claims he’ll provide details only if you can assure him leniency,” Marta said.

“Nasty little bastard. Where is he?”

“Jail’s full up,” Marta said. “We’ve got him secured in the conference room.” She pointed to the room directly across the hallway. “A jailer’s sitting with him.”

Josie looked into the small square window and saw Leo sitting at a table by himself, the jailer sitting in a chair in the corner of the room reading a magazine.

“Where’s his attorney?” she asked.

Marta stood behind her and said, “Refused one. Said he could speak for himself. I got the refusal in writing. Score one for us.”

Josie walked into the conference room fuming. She could feel the pressure in her chest. “Are you serious?” she asked, skipping introductions.

Leo looked surprised to see her.

“You admit to dumping a dead body in the desert? And you want leniency?” Josie laughed, leaned a hip against the wall, and crossed her arms. “You are a piece of scum. Your life here in Artemis just ended. You have no girlfriend. Your job with Beacon? Gone. Your dream of a university position? Gone.”

She walked toward him, leaned in within six inches of his face. “You have no bargaining chips, Leo. You got this all backwards. You tell us everything you know. Beg for mercy. Then you hope like hell the judge decides not to give you the maximum.”

The jailer smirked, and Leo turned his head away from her. He tried to lean farther back in his chair, away from Josie, who was intentionally invading his space. He raised both hands in the air in a show of innocence.

“I had nothing to do with that guy’s death. I got a call from Brent Thyme. He just asked if I’d meet him at the plant. He said I could make some quick money if I came immediately. That’s what he said. Get here now.”

“To do what?”

“He wanted to know where he could hide something in the desert. Where no one would find it. I said I knew a place on Scratchgravel Road. I didn’t know I was picking up a body until it was too late.”

“You couldn’t walk away?” she asked. “Call the police and report a crime like any other person with a conscience would do?”

He looked confused for a moment. “No! He told me he’d kill me if I didn’t follow through. He’d already killed once. I figured he’d do it again.”

Josie didn’t believe that but let it go. “Did he tell you he killed the man?”

Leo averted his eyes. “No. He didn’t say anything, other than he wanted it dumped that night. I didn’t ask questions. He paid me to do a job. That’s it.”

“How much?” she asked.

He looked confused. “How much what?”

“How much did he pay you?”

He stared at her, thinking.

“He didn’t pay you,” she said. “He gave you a key to Santiago’s apartment. Told you to go inside, collect the money box with the dead man’s cash in it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Josie smiled. “Yes, you do. So does your girlfriend. She found the house keys in your desk drawer.” His expression changed from shock to anger in a matter of seconds. Josie preferred the anger. An angry suspect mouthed off information instead of trying to hide it.

“Brent just told me the money was in this apartment, in the bottom of a closet. He gave me the keys and said I needed to dump the body and get the money the same night. That’s the honest to god’s truth. That’s all there was to it.”

“What about the dead man’s wallet in Cassidy’s car?” she asked.

Leo tipped his head back and groaned as if the questions would never end. Josie wanted to reach over the table and grab him by the throat but she remained still.

“I ran errands in town before I left for the library. I had breakfast, got gas, that kind of stuff. As I was leaving town that afternoon I saw Cassidy’s car headed out of town on Scratchgravel. She wasn’t supposed to go anywhere that day, so I followed her. She parked on the side of the road where I had parked.” He put his hands in the air. “I have no idea how she knew the body was there. She never would tell me. She played dumb.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I just wanted to scare her. Get her to keep her mouth shut. I had the guy’s wallet in my car, so I stopped, unlocked her car, threw the wallet in the backseat.”

“Where’s Santiago’s license?”

“I took the license out so she wouldn’t know who he was. I figured that would freak her out. Let her know that somebody saw her snooping around. Then she gets picked up by the police.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe her stupidity.

“So, you left Cassidy to die in the desert too? Just like the body you dumped?”

“No! I had no idea Cassidy was sick. I couldn’t see her from the road. That’s why I left the body there. It looked like a place no one would ever find.”

* * *

Josie collected the rest of the details and left Leo. His information tied up the last major hurdle in the investigation. She thanked Marta for excellent work, and asked Maria to let her back into the interrogation room.

When she entered, Greene was turned in his seat, his forearms resting on his thighs, leaning toward Brent. Greene had the frustrated look of a father trying to talk sense to an obstinate teenager and having no luck.

Josie sat down at the table and said nothing for a moment, waiting to see if Brent wanted to talk.

Greene continued staring at Brent, his lips compressed into a thin line, obviously waiting on a response from his client. The defense attorney had been through enough interviews to know that his bad day was about to get worse.

“When I left the room, I had just explained that I’ve seen the tape that shows you slamming a stool into Juan Santiago’s head when he tried to leave the laboratory.”

Greene objected but Josie waved it off. “After knocking him unconscious, Brent found chemicals in the laboratory cabinet. He poured them down Santiago’s throat.” Josie watched him closely, but he refused to make eye contact. “The chemicals that disintegrated his friend’s insides.”

“Friend? He took advantage of me for three years! I drove him to work every day. Not once did he offer to pay me gas money. I offered to help when his car died. Then he never got another car. Never even said thanks.”

“I would encourage you to—”

Brent cut Greene off. “He was so damned self-righteous. He was doing something noble for his family, so it gave him the right to treat everyone else like dirt.”

“And then he spilled the chemicals that were going to get you fired.”

Brent stared at her with a burning hatred that surprised her. “He didn’t care! It was always about him.”

Josie realized he’d said nothing to implicate himself to this point. Greene was staring at him intently.

“But you did more than poison Santiago. You had his body dumped in the desert by your friend, Leo Monaco.”

He clenched his jaws, his face turning a deep red, and Josie wondered why this news would cause such an angry reaction. Maybe he thought Leo was a faithful friend.

Josie turned to Greene. “Brent called and told Leo he had a way he could make some extra money. Leo drove to meet him at the plant and discovered a dead body in the backseat of Brent’s car.”

She turned to face Brent. “A place where Juan Santiago’s DNA will show up like neon paint.”

He looked silently back at her, seeming to evaluate her words.

Facing Greene again she said, “When Leo arrived and found the body, he tried to back out, but was afraid Brent would kill him, as he had killed Juan Santiago.”

Brent made a face as if she’d told a ridiculous story. “He didn’t care what he was dumping! He found out there was a box of money in the apartment and he couldn’t have cared less what he moved.”

Josie felt the thrill of closing in. She lowered her voice and pulled a chair directly across from him, leaning toward him across the table. “Why, Brent? Was the job really worth his life?”

He looked across the table, his face feverish. “It was his fault we got splashed. He was trying to hurry the job and he didn’t take precautions. I followed the book. I was working toward a promotion. I was next in line.”

Brent stopped talking and Josie kept quiet, waiting for the admission.

After staring at the table for some time he seemed to resolve something internally. He leaned back in his chair, his face slack, his expression resigned.

“Juan and I were working on a project in the lab for a couple of days.”

“In the pilot unit?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s company policy to wear the hazmat suits whenever we work with certain chemicals. Grounds for termination if you don’t. The day we were working it was hot. We were both sweating so we just pulled the top half down to get some air. We were the only ones scheduled in the lab so we figured a few minutes of fresh air wouldn’t hurt.” Brent finally glanced at his attorney. Greene scowled and motioned for him to continue.

“We were using sodium hydroxide. Juan wasn’t watching what he was doing. He knocked the container onto the floor. It spilled everywhere. Our legs were protected, but we got it on our arms. We had gloves on our hands, but I still got some inside my glove as we were cleaning.” His hand was lying on the table and he looked down at the bandaged sore. “I have sores on my forearms too. Juan panicked. We both pulled our suits back on to clean the floor up before a supervisor walked in and saw us cleaning a spill with no protection.”

“You didn’t wash the chemicals off your arms first?” Josie asked.

Brent propped his head on his hand. “I panicked. We probably could have talked our way out of trouble if a supervisor had seen our hoods and tops off. But with a chemical spill? We’d have been fired. Then Skip walked into the unit as we were sweeping up the cleaner. He asked some pointless question about lunch or something. But he kept talking.”

Josie remembered seeing someone in the security tape come into the lab and talk with them.

“I could feel my hand burning. I knew I had gotten it on me by that point but we had to wait for him to leave. Juan had it all over his arms. He was already on fire by the time Skip left.”

“When did the open sores show up?” Josie asked.

“His were a day later. Mine showed up after his. I didn’t get burnt as bad. He freaked out though when they kept getting worse. We have fact sheets at the plant about all the chemicals. He started reading about cancer and side effects. That’s when he went to the county health nurse.”

“Did you advise him not to visit?” she asked.

He shrugged. “He never asked. He just went. When he told me he was going back for a follow-up visit I said he was crazy. He was going to get us both fired. He kept talking about the side effects and treatment and not having insurance. Then he decided to go to Skip Bradford and tell him everything.”

“And you told him not to?”

“It would have been my job!”

“Why not kill Juan in the desert? Why go to the trouble of taking him to the plant?” she asked.

“He asked me to take him! Practically demanded it. He couldn’t go to work with the sores like they were. He wanted me to take him to the plant that night so he could find some salve or ointment. I finally agreed.” He looked at Josie, his face imploring now. “I never set out to hurt him. He just backed me into a corner!”

“And when he tried to walk out?” she asked.

“We both realized the sores had gotten too bad for anything in the first-aid kit. He wanted me to take him to Skip’s house. To tell him everything. I wouldn’t do it so he said he’d walk. I panicked.”

“And you killed him.”

He looked at her, his face a conflicted mix of anger and sadness.

Josie looked at him for some time, taking in the facts, realizing that a few bad decisions had reduced his life to nothing. “Why did you tell me about the sores on your hand?”

He shook his head, offered a regretful smile. “By the time I talked to you I’d had them for a couple of days and they weren’t healing.” He raised his shirt sleeve to reveal bandages on his forearms. “I don’t have insurance. I couldn’t afford to see a doctor. I thought if I could get help from your CDC doctor then Paiva wouldn’t have to know.”

Josie changed directions. “So why get Leo involved? Why not dump the body yourself?”

“I just freaked out. I didn’t know where to take it.” He struggled for words, obviously still confused by his own decisions. “It was all too horrible. I called Leo because I knew he was in debt. The guy has no conscience. I knew I could talk him into helping.”

Josie let his reference to a lack of conscience slide. “What happened to Santiago’s money?”

“That was the deal Leo made. I gave him Santiago’s keys. After he left the body in the desert he got the keys and whatever money was in the apartment.”

“Did you tell Leo where the money was located?” she asked.

Brent looked up from the place on the table he’d been staring at and nodded.

“How did you know where the money was?”

For the first time the anger in his expression was replaced with pain and guilt. “Juan told me the money was in his closet. He made me promise if anything ever happened to him, that I would make sure his wife got the money.”

* * *

Otto arrived at the Arroyo County Jail as Leo Monaco was being booked. Brent Thyme had already been processed and led back to his cell. Josie left Maria to attend to Leo’s fingerprints and went into the hallway to talk with Otto.

“What’s the word from the CDC?” Josie asked.

“Santiago had slightly elevated levels of radiation, but it was caused from the chemical Brent Thyme gave him. Skip Bradford found a large amount of uranyl nitrate missing from the cabinet at the pilot unit.”

“The cabinet that’s visible on the security tape? The one Brent got into?”

“Yep. It’s a crystal that had been dissolved in water. It has no odor, but it’s toxic by ingestion. It’s what ate up Santiago’s insides.”

Josie grimaced at the thought. “So, the Feed Plant is in the clear,” she said.

Otto nodded. “Marta has Cassidy Harper in the conference room Leo was in. Marta’s already entered Leo’s laptop and the keys into evidence.”

Josie patted Otto on the arm. “We’re close.”

“By the time you finish with Cassidy I’ll have paperwork finished for tonight.” He smiled and sighed. “Home is on the horizon.”

* * *

The interrogation room smelled of sweat and day-old coffee, and the air-conditioning was on the blink. Josie figured it had to have been close to eighty degrees. Cassidy’s face was bright red from the heat and her lingering sunburn, and the curls around her face had turned to frizz. She looked surprised when Josie entered the room, and Josie figured she was waiting for the hammer to drop. Josie, however, was exhausted and too tired for anything but the truth. She pulled the chair out across the table from Cassidy and sat down.

“I suppose you heard,” Josie said.

“Leo’s in jail.”

“What do you think about that?”

Cassidy lifted a shoulder. “When I went to my parents’ house, after I called you? My dad asked me why I keep hooking up with rejects.”

Josie smiled at her dad’s description, but Cassidy’s expression remained serious.

“I keep thinking about that. It wasn’t that Leo was a bad guy.”

Josie groaned and allowed her head to fall forward in frustration.

Cassidy grinned. “Okay, I didn’t mean it that way. In the beginning he wasn’t bad. He was just miserable. And I thought, I can help him feel better. If he just had someone to believe in him, maybe he could get better. Feel good again. You know?”

Josie stared at her, struggling to remain quiet.

“But it didn’t really matter what I did, he was still miserable. I could make a nice dinner, dress up, or lay on the couch and eat potato chips. It didn’t matter. He could fake it, but I could tell, on the inside he still hated himself. And he probably hated me too.”

“What now?”

“I’ll move back in with my parents. Dad said he’d help me find an apartment as soon as we know Leo’s gone for good.”

“There’s little doubt. Leo is gone. At least for now.”

Cassidy nodded. “My dad’s all worried that he’ll come back for me after he gets out of jail. Like some stalker. I tried to explain to him though, Leo doesn’t care about anyone enough to stalk them. He’d probably be happier being the one stalked.”

Josie smiled and thought it was one of the most perceptive things she’d ever heard Cassidy say. There was hope for her after all.

* * *

Josie finished with Cassidy and found Otto talking with Maria in the command center.

“You get her straightened out?” he asked.

A tolerant smile spread across Josie’s face. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

“What about her withholding information?” Otto asked.

“The prosecutor would never press charges against her. I just hope she learns something out of this mess.”

They fell into silence for a moment.

“Are we done here?” he asked.

Josie gave him a weary smile. “I sure hope so. Let’s go home.”

* * *

It was ten o’clock before Josie finally clocked off and drove toward home. The air outside was damp with the retreating rain, almost balmy. She rolled the windows down and allowed the night air to blow through the jeep. The forecast claimed the rain would subside for the next forty-eight hours, and she hoped it would be enough to allow the flood level in the Rio to drop. For now, it just felt good to be dry.

She left the radio off, preferring silence, and considered her options for the night. She’d already canceled with Dillon. She could eat popcorn and zone out in front of the TV for an hour. Or, she had a new Harlan Coben book on her bedside table she could start. She briefly considered calling her mother, whom she hadn’t talked to in months, but discounted that idea.

Josie craved time alone, but once she got it, the emptiness closed in around her, and the desire to be alone would be replaced by a deep sense of loneliness. She wondered what a shrink might make of her behavior but decided she really didn’t care to know.

She turned onto Scratchgravel, heading toward Schenck Road, and saw the dark shadow of the watchtower in the distance. As she drove closer she spotted a car parked on the side of the road, in roughly the same place she had found Cassidy Harper’s car a week before. She felt a heaviness overtake her. She was too exhausted to deal with more drama. She pulled her jeep behind the car, her headlights revealing Teresa Cruz’s little white Honda Civic. Josie sighed heavily and turned her jeep’s engine off. She grabbed her flashlight, checked her sidearm, got out of the vehicle, and locked up. She shone her flashlight in and around the car and saw no signs of disturbance, and then picked up a single set of footprints in the wet sand leading out toward the direction the body had been found. A nauseating sense of déjà vu came over her.

Josie called in her location to Brian, the night dispatcher, and took off walking toward the grove of bushes. It occurred to her that Teresa might be visiting the Hollow, the doper hangout, but the kids parked their cars in an off-road arroyo to keep from being seen. If she was partying, Josie assumed Teresa wouldn’t be naïve enough to park her car on the side of the road.

As she walked toward the bushes she was thinking through the information that had been made public. Very few people knew the location of the body. She couldn’t imagine why Marta would have told her daughter, or what connection Teresa could possibly have had with the dead man.

As Josie approached the bushes she stopped and shone her flashlight around the area, then walked back around to where the body was found.

“Teresa?” Josie called.

After several seconds she heard, “Chief Gray?”

Josie directed her light over the large boulder and saw Teresa crouching beside it.

“What’s going on?” Josie asked.

Teresa was wearing dark jeans, a T-shirt, and her hair was pulled behind her head. She squinted into the beam of the flashlight and looked younger than her sixteen years, like a kid caught misbehaving.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Josie asked.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was timid, not a typical response.

“You know it’s not safe out here by yourself,” Josie said. “What are you doing out here?”

She began to cry and slumped back onto the rock behind her. “I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Josie paused for a moment. She was mentally and physically exhausted and her patience with people was at a low. She refused to play word games with the girl.

“You know what? I always thought that was a bullshit statement. I think that’s a way for cowards to get out of moving forward in their life. I think you know exactly who you are.”

Teresa sniffed and wiped her eyes with her T-shirt.

Josie pointed to the ground where the body had lain when Cassidy found it. “As far as you know, do we have the right person in jail for killing the man we found out here?”

Teresa looked up suddenly. “I don’t know who killed him.” It was too dark for Josie to read her expression, but her words sounded sincere.

Josie nodded, relieved. “Is there anyone else we need to question? Someone who was involved in killing that man that we don’t know about?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated again, obviously still confused by the questions. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you have any additional information that would change the guilt or innocence of anyone related to this case?”

Teresa shook her head, as if finally understanding the line of questioning. “No.” Her response was resolute this time.

Josie nodded then and looked out toward the Chinati Peak, in the direction of her home. She took a long while to gather her thoughts. “I don’t know any human being who doesn’t grow up making mistakes. Sometimes big mistakes. Someday, when you’re looking back on your life, you’ll probably decide those mistakes are what changed you. Made you a better person.” She glanced at Teresa. “Now’s your chance.”

She nodded and stared at Josie as if preparing to tell her something.

“The people who fail in life are the ones who keep making the same mistakes. They never learn anything. Don’t be that person.”

The anxiety came back into Teresa’s expression and she started to speak, but Josie cut her off.

“Look. Take your confession to your priest. Beyond that, it’s time to move on. I don’t want to see you out here again. You leave Enrico and this mess behind you.” Josie pointed in the direction of the Hollow and saw the surprise in Teresa’s expression. “Is that who you are? Are those the people you want to hang out with?”

She shook her head no.

Josie pointed to the place on the ground where the body was found. “Is that who you are?”

“I know who I am. I know right from wrong,” Teresa said. Her tone was humble and sincere. “But when you start making bad decisions you start wondering when it’ll stop. Who says I won’t do it again?”

“An old friend told me that scars are nature’s way of making sure we remember all the stupid stuff we do.”

Teresa nodded and rubbed her thumb along her jawline. “When I was eleven, Mom told me I wasn’t allowed to play in the drainage ditch across the road from the house because it was dirty. It had rained though, and the ditch was full of water. Me and a bunch of kids went swimming in the ditch. I fell on a metal pipe and cut my jaw open. I ran home with blood dripping down my face. She had to drive me to the doctor. I had to get stitches.”

“Did you play in the ditch after that happened?”

“Never went back.”

Teresa turned her head to the side and Josie could see the small line of raised white flesh along her jawbone. Josie watched the girl run her finger along the hard edge and they sat quiet for a time. Josie thought about her own scars, and whether she ever learned from them. Maybe Dell was right. Maybe it was fear that kept her from moving forward in life, and fear that made her keep repeating the same mistakes. Maybe it was time to have a little faith.