High Desert Detective, A Fiona Marlowe Mystery (Fiona Marlowe Mysteries) (5 page)

The dispatcher came back on. “We’ll dispatch first responders
from Fields. They’ll be there as fast as they can. I can’t pinpoint a time when
they’ll arrive, since the responders we have down there are ranchers, and it
might take them a while depending on where they are and what they are doing. Can
you make out a license number?”

“Jake, what’s the license number?” Fiona called from her vantage
point on the rise.

He moved to the front of the car and called out the Oregon
license number. She relayed the number to the dispatcher.

“Stay with the vehicle, please, until help arrives,” said the
dispatcher. “And stay on the line.”

“I can’t. I have to help and there’s no phone signal down there.”
Fiona closed the connection so she didn’t have to get into an argument with the
dispatcher who was only doing her job. She trotted back to the edge of the road
and gave Jake the news. She searched the horizon to the north and south for
motion of any kind.
Nothing.

 
Jake worked trying to open
the driver’s door but had a tough time since the doors appeared to be locked as
well as jammed. Fiona felt useless and racked her brain for something in Jake’s
truck that could help him out.
Bailing twine.
Jake had
regaled her with the many uses of bailing twine and said he always carried a
supply in his tool box.

“Jake, what about bailing twine?”

He looked up. “Chain,” he yelled. “The child is moving. I can’t
get the door open. See if you can get a chain from my tool box in the rig. I
need something heavy. I may have to break a window.”

She rushed back to the truck, managed to get to the tool box in
the bed and drag out a chain that weighed almost as much as she did. There was
a stash of loose blue bailing twine, and she tucked a length into her belt just
in case. She threw the chain on the ground and dragged it over. She scanned the
horizon again for a vehicle.
Any vehicle.
Nothing.
Since this was the only road on this side of the
Steens, it would be hard not to find them. At the top of the embankment, she
looked down. “Jake, I can’t throw this chain. Maybe I can slide it down to you,
if you can come over here.”

He came up the bank as she tried to push the chain down to him.

“Do you recognize them?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not them or the car. They must be from out of
town.
Must be tourists who don’t know how to drive these
roads.”

She looked around. She could have sworn she heard the hum of a
motor. Jake looked up, too.

“Do you hear that?” she asked. “It sounds like a vehicle. Where’s
it coming from?”

Jake pointed up the side of the mountain. “That’d be the Easton
brothers in their old Chevy.”

The sound of the motor got louder, and they watched the hill. Around
the bend of the last rise, a faded blue truck lumbered into sight, bouncing and
jostling over the road.

Jake struggled up the bank, slipping and sliding on loose stones.

The truck slowed and ground to a halt beside them.

“What’s up? We heard the 911 call on our radio,” said a man who
might have been in his seventies somewhere. In the driver’s seat sat another
man about the same age.

Jake touched his hat. “Caleb.
Zeke.
This
car tried to pass us and went off the road. We ended up on the bank on the
other side trying not to hit him. The child is moving, the driver isn’t, and I
can’t get the windows open.”

The brothers got out and stepped over to the side of the road to
assess the accident. They wore baseball caps, as well as faded jeans and plaid
shirts, sleeves rolled up. For an interesting fashion twist, they both wore
Nike running shoes.

“How many in there?” asked
Caleb.

“Two, as far as I can see.
One appears
to be a child.”

Caleb rubbed a stubble of beard. “That’d be our nephew from
Portland. He has a little girl. We’re expecting them. They were on their way
here to visit. Zeke, we better hook up the winch. See you got a chain there.
Hook it under the front bumper, and we’ll pull the car up the bank.”

Jake and the Easton brothers got to work. The two old guys
stepped into the task with a speed and economy of motion not seen in younger
men. They intrigued Fiona, and she wanted to know more about who they were and
where they lived but now wasn’t the time.

By the time a couple from a ranch south of the hot springs
arrived, Jake and the brothers had the car hooked to the winch but were having
trouble getting the winch to engage. Dora, the woman from the ranch, checked in
with Jake then started down the bank, Jake right behind her. Fiona watched from
her safe perch by the side of the road, feeling useless. Caleb and Zeke
continued to fuss over the winch on their old rust and blue truck.

Dora tapped on the window of the passenger door. “Can you hear
me? Open the door,” she said, her face close to the window.
 
“Unlock the door,” she said, louder. To Jake
she said, “The child inside appears to be responding.” She kept rapping. “Open
the door,” said Dora again. “The
inside lock
. Open it.
Excellent.”

Jake had to yank the door open since at first it wouldn’t budge
and was barely clear of the water.
 
He opened
it wide and supported it as Dora leaned
in,
talking to
the child in the front in a tone Fiona couldn’t hear. She said something to Jake,
and he called up the bank to the brothers who stood watching the operation.

“Dora says we should leave them in the car and winch them up the
bank. The driver’s eyes are half open but he isn’t talking. She doesn’t want to
move them until they are properly examined.”

“What about the child?” asked
Fiona.

“She’s talking, but they’re both in shock.”

Dora shut the door. “Okay, boys, see if you can pull the car out.
Easy now.”

 
Fred, her husband, yelled
from the bank, “Dora get away from the vehicle. You don’t want to get sucked
into some place you don’t want to be.”

Jake helped Dora back from the car. Zeke started the winch that
the two brothers finally had gotten to operate. Slowly the car started moving
out of the spring, advanced about two feet and got stuck. Fred came down the
bank with waders on and went in the spring to see what the trouble was. The car
appeared to be hung up on rocks. Fred called for a shovel and the Easton brothers
threw a couple of shovels down the bank. Jake and Fred worked with the shovels
trying to clear the wheels of rocks only to stir up the water and make it cloudier
with mud and silt.

“Try it again,” yelled Fred.

Zeke started the winch which had a thick twisted cable hooked to Jake’s
heavy duty chain. The car moved again with a loud crunching sound and an
accompanying screech from the winch. The man and child were barely visible,
because the windows were darkened, and the sun against the windows made a glare.
Fiona stood beside Caleb watching the operation.

“That boy never could drive worth a darn,” said Caleb.

“If he’s from the city, it would be tricky to navigate a gravel
road going the speed he was doing. Where do you live?” Fiona asked.

Caleb jerked his thumb up toward the mountains.
“Up the mountain a piece.”

Fiona looked up to where he pointed. She saw only canyon and rim
rock.

“You say these are your relatives?” Fiona asked.

“Yes, ma’am.
He’s one of our brother’s
boys. Never had an ounce of sense that one. His little girl got more sense than
he does.”

 
The car’s nose was now even
with the dusty
bank
which was strewn with rocks and pebbles
and peppered with brush. Zeke stopped the winch when Jake held up his hand.

“Give us a minute,” he said, “to clear some of the brush in front
of the fender.”

They chopped away at grease wood that blocked the upward advance
of the vehicle. Caleb lent a hand, and when they were satisfied the car had
clear passage they gave the sign for Zeke to start the winch. The car looked
like it had been in a demolition derby.

The focus of the operation was on the car, but Fiona’s eyes were drawn
to something that bobbed up out of the water behind the car. She looked around
at the others but they were concentrating on the car as it was hauled up the
bank. Zeke got in his truck and pulled the car the rest of the way to level
ground. Dora went immediately to the driver’s door, and Fred helped her open
it.

Fiona’s attention was drawn back to the blob that floated on the
surface of the cloudy water.
 
It looked
like clothes or an old sheet puffed up in the water.
 
Had the car hit someone or something in careening
down the highway? She watched but saw nothing in or attached to the dirty gray
thing that bobbed in the water. Fiona joined the people on the road, wanting to
tell them about the odd thing in the water.

The driver sat in the car, and Dora was checking him over. He
held his head in his hands like it hurt. The little girl sat on the seat at the
other side of the car, its door wide open to the sun. She clutched a small
stuffed toy that looked to Fiona like a frizzy headed rooster. Jake was
kneeling, talking to her. Caleb stood by him.

“We’re good at fixing things,” said Caleb, “but Dora knows a lot
more about doctoring than we do.”

“I hope they’ll be okay,” Fiona said.

“If anyone can make it right, Dora will,” he said.

Fiona was impressed with his faith in the small ranch woman, who
went to the little girl and asked her name.

“Molly,” said the little girl. “My name is Molly.”

“How old are you?” asked Dora.

She held up seven fingers. “I go to school.”

“Good,” said Dora. “May I check you for cuts?”

“Okay,” said Molly.

“Does anything hurt?” Dora asked as she checked and prodded the
girl.

The little girl touched her leg. “My leg hurts.”

Dora continued her exam while Jake joined Fiona and Caleb. He had
opened his sweat darkened shirt to let the breeze blow through.

“You can come up and dry off at our place. We got a clothes
dryer,” said Caleb.

“I’ll wind dry here any minute,” said Jake, pulling the tails out
to aid the drying process.

Caleb said, “I’m glad those two are alive. Molly’s mama is going
to be upset.”

Jake nodded. “I hope they’ll be all right. They got knocked
around pretty good.”

Caleb nodded toward Jake’s truck. “Better check your rig over to
see if it runs.”

The two walked over, and Jake started the truck but couldn’t get
it to move. It landed straddling a rock on the front end and wouldn’t move
front or back. Caleb hooked up the winch again and pulled Jake’s big Ford 350
out with his ancient truck. The truck bounced off the bank. The two men checked
under the hood. Fiona walked around the chassis checking for damage.

“It’s got a few dents,” said Fiona.

“That won’t hurt
nothing
,” said Jake. “The
engine doesn’t seem to have any leaks. I’ll go over it good when we get home. Do
you know if your nephew had insurance?” he asked Caleb.

“Don’t rightly know. This is the first time he ever came to visit.”

The three of them watched Dora ministering to the accident
victims, and Fiona said, “Did you notice there’s something bobbing out there in
the water?”

Jake and Caleb followed Fiona’s finger to the odd phenomenon out
on the water.

“What do you suppose that is?” asked Caleb.

Jake shaded his eyes to see.
“Can’t say.
I’ll check.”

“Check what?” asked Fred. He came over to see what they were
looking at.

“Was anyone else with them?” asked Jake.

“Not that I know,” said Caleb, “but I’ll ask.”

While he walked over to his nephew, Fred said, “I got my waders
on. I’ll go in to take a look. The waders cut down on the heat of the water a
little.”

He went down the bank and into the water shovel in hand.
Carefully, he approached the bobbing object. He tapped at it with the shovel
and the bubble collapsed. He poked around in the water, caught a hunk of fabric
with the shovel, and pulled up. A long piece of fabric came up and Fred grabbed
hold of it.

“It feels like it’s caught on something,” he said. He pulled
harder but the fabric wouldn’t budge.

Caleb shouted from the bank. “My nephew says they were the only
two in the car. He doesn’t know what that might be.”

Fred put his weight into the pull, leaning back. With a jerk the
fabric came free. Fred’s legs went out from under him, and he fell backward
onto the bank.

“Guess I pulled a little too hard,” he said, standing and brushing
off.

More bits and pieces of fabric floated to the surface.

“This looks like a man’s shirt,” said Fred.
 
He grasped and pulled. “Someone’s dumped
their laundry in the spring.”

He kept pulling and a pair of pants surfaced, too.

“Something is in these pants.” He hefted them out of the water.
“Good golly, these are bones, and this looks like a rib cage in this old shirt.”

Three

“Bring that stuff to the bank,” said Jake. “They’re caked with
mud and falling apart. They look like they’ve been buried.”

Fred dumped the load on the bank and one by one bones dropped out
of the pants.

“I wonder what happened to this guy,” Fred said, “and how long
he’s been here.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Looks like we
disturbed this guy’s final resting place.
How did he get here, do you
suppose? Do you think the guy wrapped himself in a sheet before he took the
plunge or somebody did it for him after the fact? ”