We ate in her car, watching the excavation as though we were at a drive-in movie. A tow truck appeared, the most exciting occurrence in the past three hours. Tom Padgett must have gotten bored because I saw him back away and start heading in our direction. He had his fat-stemmed glasses in hand, polishing one lens with a white handkerchief. His jeans, cowboy boots, and western-cut shirt gave him the air of a rodeo rider, complete with slightly bowed legs.
I said, “Hang on.” I opened the car door and got out. “Hi, Tom. Are you off to lunch?”
“Come again?” He put on his glasses and cupped a hand to one ear.
“I wondered if you were on your way to lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am. I thought I’d grab a bite somewhere.”
“I can save you the trip. We have an extra turkey sandwich, if you’re interested.”
“That’d be nice if you’re sure it’s okay.”
“If you don’t eat it, we’ll have to toss it out.”
He used the front fender of Daisy’s car as a makeshift picnic table. I popped open the remaining soda and passed it to him. He shook his head to the offer of potato chips but later accepted a cookie that he downed with enthusiasm.
I said, “How’s it going? You’ve managed to get a lot closer to the hole than we have.”
He cleared his mouth and ran a paper napkin across his lips, nodding as he did. “They’re making good progress. Looks like they’re about to try pulling the car out of the hole.”
“Really, that close?”
He wadded up his sandwich wrappings. “That’s why they got the tow truck. Might not work, but it’d sure be a lot easier than what they’ve done.”
“How long did you hang around last night?”
“As long as I could. I had paperwork to catch up on, so I left before they called it a wrap. I was surprised how much they’d accomplished. Lot of dirt.”
“Was it your equipment they were using when the road was built?”
“Sure was. Those days, there were only two of us. Me and a fellow named Bob Zeigler. Road construction, the county hired private companies like us, so we took advantage of the need. We were competitors, but neither of us had enough equipment to cover the whole job. Most of what I carried was tractors, and he was already spread thin because there were so many housing tracts under construction.”
“How’d you get into the business in the first place?”
“I could see the niche and decided to step in. I borrowed from the local-yokel bank and hit up family members for as much as I could. First thing I did was pick up a couple of used farm machines. I didn’t have an office or a yard. I worked out of a truck I kept parked beside a public pay phone, and did the mechanical repairs myself. Heavy equipment’s low margin, high volume, so every cent I got went right back to the John Deere factory to buy more equipment. Gradually things picked up. Around here, what with the old-boy network, you could slip a few bucks to a private contractor and you were set. At least for a while.”
“You have a guess about what the guy used to dig the hole? Calvin Wilcox says a bulldozer.”
“Had to be: 1953 the bulldozer or a track loader would’ve been the only mobile equipment available. The track loader was new technology in those days. I believe Caterpillar brought one out in 1950, but it was too expensive for me, and if Zeigler owned one, I’d have known about it. So a bulldozer for sure.”
“One of yours?”
“Had to be mine or his. We were the only game in town.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance have records going back that far?”
“Can’t help you there. You’re hoping I can tell you who rented that machine, but no dice. I keep records for as long as theIRS requires and after that, files get tossed. Seven years back is the extent of it.”
“Too bad.”
“I’m surprised Detective Nichols lets you nose around like this. He strikes me as the type to run a pretty tight ship.”
“Right now we don’t even know what we’re dealing with.”
“I guess that’s right. Far as I know, there’s no law against burying a car. Same token, sheriff’s office can get pretty testy about people messing in their business.”
“Happily, I’m not ‘messing in their business.’ Detective Nichols knows anything I learn will go straight back to him. I made a promise.”
We heard the steady peep-peep-peep of a vehicle backing up. The tow truck driver had the door open, and he was leaning out so he could see where he was going. Most of the law-enforcement personnel had assembled near the hole-detectives, deputies, and crime-scene techs. Daisy seemed rooted to the earth, but both Padgett and I crossed the road to get as close as we could. There was some dickering around while the cable was secured to the front axle of the car. I could hear the high whine of the hydraulic lift and the cable pulled taut. With a groan, the car was wrested from the earth and hauled, rattling and banging, up the long incline. When the vehicle finally rolled into view, the tow truck driver pulled on his emergency brake and got out to take a look.
The sad remains of the Bel Air hunkered in the light like some hibernating beast whose rest had been disturbed. Moisture had chewed into the rubber on all four tires, leaving them flat. The rust was so extensive that the exterior paint might have been any color. The backseat window on the passenger side was gone. On the same side of the roof, the weight of the soil had caused a portion to collapse, leaving it looking as soft as a rotting melon. Dirt must have filtered into the interior, creating the depression that I’d seen from the second floor of the house. Though we couldn’t see anything from where we stood, we were later told that condensation had caused the upholstered seats to decay down to the springs. The windshield and hood were intact, but the gas tank had rusted through and all the gas had leaked out, visible as a darkened patch at the bottom of the hole. Even from that distance, I picked up scents, as subtle but unmistakable as a whiff of skunk- rust, rotting upholstery, and decomposing flesh.
One of the techs blew on the windshield, managing to clear a small patch of glass. He directed the beam from a heavy-duty flashlight across the interior. He moved to the missing rear window so he could peer into the backseat. Daisy turned away, gnawing on her thumbnail. The tech motioned the detective over and he peered in. While the second tech took a set of photographs, Nichols approached Daisy and eased her away from the rest of us. He talked to her for some time, his manner serious. I knew the news wasn’t good. I could see her nod, but she made very few comments in response, her expression impossible to read. He waited until he’d assured himself that she was okay before he crossed back to the tow truck. At a signal the car was loaded on the deck and secured with heavy chain.
Daisy returned. Her face was drawn and her eyes held the blank look of someone who hasn’t yet made sense of the world. “What’s left of the dog is on the floor. They can see skeletal remains in the backseat. The body’s wrapped in a shroud of some kind, though most of the fabric’s rotted away. Nichols says they won’t know cause of death until the medical examiner takes a look at her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It gets worse. He says the shroud looks like badly disintegrating lace, probably a curtain, judging by the row of broken plastic rings they can see along one edge.”
26
We drove back to Daisy’s house. My impulse was to have her drop me off so I could pick up my VW and head for home, but she asked me to go with her to tell her father about the discovery of Violet’s body. I wasn’t sure she’d fully absorbed the impact of her mother’s death. Under the surface calm, she had to be in a fragile emotional state. She’d longed for closure, but surely not this kind. Though she hadn’t said as much, she’d probably had her hopes pinned on the notion that Violet was still alive, which would have afforded them the option of reconciliation. The certainty about Violet’s fate created more questions than answers, and none of the options seemed good.