“You think somebody threw the tire over the fence?”
“Likely so.”
After some shuffling of vehicles, Tyler had the machine parked where Estelle wanted it, outriggers extended and digging into the macadam, rather than marking up the narrow shoulder. Tyler fussed with Estelle’s safety harness until it was fitted to his satisfaction, with the tether hooked through the D-ring on the bucket.
“That way, if you fall, you’ll just kinda dangle instead of goin’ headfirst to the ground,” he told her. In a moment they were airborne, being hoisted high over the fence. As the bucket oscillated gently to a halt, Tyler said, “What are you actually looking for?”
“It’s just a good place for an unobstructed view of the pile,” Estelle said.
“It’s just a goddamn tire,” Tyler mused.
“Yes, it is. And once we get in there and move it, the scene will never be the same,” she said. The bucket was a tight fit for two people, and she could smell the diesel and grease on Tyler’s clothes. “Can you swing us a little more that way?” she asked, and the arm extended into the yard as Tyler jockeyed the hydraulic controls.
Like huge insects hovering over a pile of refuse, they surveyed the pile, the boom reaching out over the barbed wire. With the bucket suspended within a foot or two of the pile, Estelle took portraits of the wheel and tire, trying not to leap ahead with conclusions for which there was no evidence. Tyler stood behind her silently, moving the bucket obediently whenever she asked.
When she was satisfied that there was no direction she had missed from which to view the tire and wheel in place, both from a distance and nearly on top of the pile, so close that she could smell the fragrance of the sun-baked rubber, she nodded that she was finished.
“You sure?” Tyler asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, then. Down we go.” He swung them back over the fence to the truck. As she was climbing out of the awkward bucket, Linda Real arrived and watched critically as Estelle found her way down to the roadway one handhold at a time.
“Bobby sends me to the ends of the earth, and look what happens,” she said. “You get all the fun carnival rides.”
Estelle grinned. “We’re just getting started, Linda,” she said. “We needed some close-ups of that wheel and tire.” She drew Linda close to the fence. “Look at the top of the tire. See how it’s lying? It’s the one that’s caught in the middle of that big tractor tire.”
Linda cocked her head first this way and that, pacing along the roadway for a better view. At one point, she stood on her tiptoes, stretching herself upward for another couple inches of height. She pointed. “There’s a portion of its tread that’s underneath that other tire…the one on the very top of the pile.”
“Exactly,” Estelle said with approval. “And how could it end up like that if it were thrown from the yard side of the pile?”
“I don’t think it could,” Linda said. “It had to come from out here. Is that what you’re thinking?”
Estelle nodded. She turned as Robert Torrez approached, this time with Eddie Mitchell.
“No tracks along the road,” Mitchell said, glancing over his shoulder at the distant figure of Deputy Collins. “I thought we might get lucky.”
“Well, this is a big step,” Estelle said. “I asked Collins to do another survey, all the way along this whole strip, right to the intersection up there.”
“And perhaps just keep on going,” Mitchell said dryly.
“He’s young and eager, Eddie.”
“Yeah, like an eight-year-old. He looked like a damn monkey on this fence when I drove up.” Mitchell regarded the pile for a moment, hands on his hips. “That’s a hell of a toss,” he said. “What’s that fence, eight feet?”
“Not counting the three strands of barbed wire on top,” Torrez said. “Unless you were the Incredible Hulk, the only way you’d toss a wheel and tire that far is by standin’ in the back of a pickup truck. And even then you’d have to give it a real good fling. It ain’t light.”
Another vehicle turned onto Third Street from the north. “Here’s the man,” Torrez said. They waited until Sgt. Tom Mears parked and joined them.
“I’ll be damned,” Mears said matter-of-factly when Torrez pointed at the wheel and tire.
“We got pictures from every which way,” Torrez said. “How do you want to do this?”
“Any prints are going to be on the wheel,” Mears said. “And that’s unlikely, since nobody messes with the wheel when they take off a flat tire. You wouldn’t even have to touch it. You grab it by the tire to shuck it off the brake drum. But”-and he shook his head slowly-“you’re not going to get diddly off the tread.”
“Unless there’s blood or something like that,” Estelle said. “We’re curious about grease, too.”
“You got quite a collection of that, standing right over there,” Mitchell said, jerking his head toward the four county employees.
“That thought crossed my mind,” Estelle said.
Mears took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks. “The first thing to do is disturb things as little as possible.” He turned and nodded at the county cherry picker, idling across the street. “You want to use that. That, and a gaff. They must have some kind of hook like they use for working electric lines or something like that. That’ll be a whole lot easier than trying to climb up that mountain of tires.”
“Nah,” Torrez said. “Let’s not make a production out of this.” He turned away. “Let me get my gloves.” In a moment he returned, pulling on a stout pair of rawhide work gloves. “Let’s use your unit, Tom. There’s no point in having a traffic jam inside there.”
Linda Real traded her still cameras for video, and walked with Estelle into the yard. Mears parked his Expedition a good distance from the tires, and he, Torrez, and Mitchell surveyed the gravel in front of the pile. “Nothing,” Torrez announced. “Too damn bad it never rains around this place.” He glanced at Eddie. “Nobody saw a thing, I suppose.”
“Not a thing,” Mitchell said. “I had a good long talk with all four of ’em. They said the last person to drive in the yard who wasn’t working there was the undersheriff, earlier this morning.”
“And I parked over in front of the garage,” Estelle said. “I talked with James Volpato right over there by the dump truck, and then I walked across to talk with Hobie. He and one of the others were loading that culvert.”
“You can’t see the back of the pile from anywhere in the yard,” Torrez said. “That’s pretty slick.” He pointed at the large metal shop building that included the maintenance bays and offices. “That fronts the fence on Third, so it blocks the view. Whoever it was just drove up and pitched. He’d be parked behind the tire pile, and the fuel tanks there, and nobody would see a thing.”
He turned to Estelle. “You got all the pictures you need of it in place?”
“And then some,” she said.
“You don’t need to film this part.” Torrez glowered at Linda, but that just earned him a sunny, lopsided smile.
“Oh, this is the good part,” she said. “I have miles of tape.”
Torrez picked his way around the base of the rubber mountain, and climbed the pile gingerly. He twisted one boot for purchase, and knelt against the huge tire near the top. “Did you happen to notice how this is sittin’?” he said.
“Do you mean about how it’s caught under the one above it?”
“Yup.”
“Yes. We have photos of that.”
“Kinda interesting.” He bent down, put one hand on each side of the tire, and grunted back, lifting it up and out of its nest. Resting it on the pile periodically for balance, he backed down, never changing his grip. Reaching the bottom and firm footing, he flashed an insincere smile in the direction of Linda’s video camera.
Mears opened the tailgate of his unit, and Torrez stood the tire gingerly on the plastic mat. “That’s a little tire,” he said, “but it would be a hell of a toss.” He beckoned toward Dennis Collins, who was still outside the fence. “Have Hobie come in here,” he called, and Collins jogged off toward the small group of men.