“Thank you, Jerry,” the sheriff said as he passed the truck. The driver nodded and opened the door to the cab, and began scribbling on an invoice pad.
The sheriff ran his hand along the seam of the trunk until his fingers met an outcropping. He knelt and rubbed the mud and slime from the area until he could see the letters there, upraised, offering themselves for all to see.
“Caravelle? When the fuck did they stop making those? Christ himself drove one, didn’t he?” the younger man crowed as he peered over the sheriff’s shoulder.
“Deputy?” The sheriff remained kneeling, but his voice snapped like a whip in the autumn air. “Conduct yourself as though this is a crime scene.” He heard the deputy clear his throat, but no other sounds came from behind him. He stared at the letters lined in cheap chrome for another moment, and then walked to the driver’s-side door.
The window was down and years of submersion had remade the interior into an exaggerated version of its original state. The seats had expanded to twice their normal size, and the dashboard’s features were muddled but still recognizable—a stereo knob here, a shifter there, and a rigid steering wheel that refused to relinquish its identity.
The sheriff’s eyes traveled over everything, and settled onto the occupant in the driver’s seat.
The skeleton was unmistakably female. Its delicate bones and small teeth were the first things that jumped out to him, which he catalogued and stored away in his mind. The arms and hands rested close to the corpse’s lap, and he could see something dark there—wire. The wrists were wrapped together, and only death and decay had loosened the wire’s former hold. Leaning forward into the car, he confirmed what he already had been thinking. The ankles were also bound.
The sheriff straightened and noticed his deputy sidling closer behind him to get a look.
“Fuck me. We got a murder here, Sheriff,” the younger man said.
The sheriff exhaled and focused on keeping his temper in check. The kid had only been on the job for six months. He’d straighten out. He hoped.
“Uh, Sheriff? We got company.”
The sheriff turned and looked where the disheveled deputy was pointing.
A man stood on the slight rise that marked the beginnings of nearly sixty acres of field that bordered the winding river. He was tall and had dark hair. He was dressed in loose jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Dark glasses obscured his eyes.
“Hey, crime scene! Get the fuck out of here!” the deputy yelled, and began to close the distance between himself and the lone man.
“Garrison, stop.” The deputy turned, a confused look neighboring on stupidity hung on his face. “I’ll handle it,” the sheriff said, and strode past his subordinate toward the figure that hadn’t moved.
As he approached the man, he studied him, waiting for the signs of flight that he half expected. The man didn’t even seem to be looking at him. The dark glasses were trained on the still-dripping car below them.
When he was within speaking distance, the sheriff stopped, his hand resting on the butt of his service weapon. Something familiar surrounded the man, an aura of recognition that he couldn’t place.
“Sir, this is a crime scene. You can’t be here right now.” The sheriff searched the area behind the man for a four-wheeler or vehicle that he might have driven.
The man raised his hand to his face and pulled off his glasses, and looked directly at the sheriff. “Hello, Sheriff Dodd.”
Dodd’s mouth opened and then closed. His hand reached from his weapon to his own sunglasses and pulled them from his face.
“Lance?”
The man nodded and a melancholy smile drew across his lips.
“Holy shit.” The sheriff stared for a moment longer, and then something locked into place within his mind. He glanced back over his shoulder at the tow truck and the car attached to it. His head drooped forward, and he shook it in disbelief.
Without looking at Lance, he said, “You called it in, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Dodd looked up and saw the grimace that had contorted Lance’s face.