Chapter Four #2
“It wasn’t. Not out here anyway. The road was still damp when I got here so that masked any signs of hard braking.
It could be she skidded and hydroplaned and lost control, but I need some more information before I call it.
You wouldn’t even know a car swerved off the road until you saw the tracks through the dirt. ”
I glanced over. I couldn’t see down the slope from here and the tracks were only obvious because of the portable barriers around them.
“The bank is concealed from the road. How was she found?” I asked.
“Another driver happened to pull over to change a blown tire, saw the vehicle, and called it in. The engine was just barely warm when we got here so the timeline is narrow. Sometime between two and three hours ago.”
“Where was she going?” I glanced at the road and considered the positioning of the car. “The farm is further north so maybe she was coming from somewhere. Are there any clues in the car? A shopping bag or library books? Something like that?”
“I only took a cursory glance but I didn’t see anything like that.
Those are the kinds of things I’ll take a closer look for when the body is removed.
” Garrett glanced across the road to where the workers from the coroner’s office struggled up the slope, a covered stretcher between them.
They headed to the ME’s van, closing the doors behind them. “Let’s go see.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really what?”
“You’re going to let me poke around the scene?”
“I seem to let you do a lot of things lately. Put on gloves and boots first. I don’t want you contaminating anything.”
“Done,” I agreed, hopping off his trunk and popping open mine.
I didn’t have rubber boots in my trunk but I did have a pair of hiking boots, bought last year when I’d briefly become very interested in the outdoorsy lifestyle.
I imagined I would spend my weekends throwing on butt-sculpting leggings and a matching top, before grabbing a cute backpack full of healthy treats and heading out of town for long, leisurely hikes.
I’d done it once, got bitten by a thousand bugs, lost my sandwiches to a particularly feral squirrel, and rethought my life goals.
Perhaps I was simply a city girl after all.
“I don’t have gloves handy,” I said as I tossed the dirt-streaked cream pumps into the trunk and tugged on the hiking boots, tucking my powder blue pant legs inside the padded ankle cuff.
After slamming the trunk closed, I followed Garrett across the road and we picked our way carefully down the bank where Garrett handed me disposable gloves.
“Stand next to me,” said Garrett. “You can look but don’t touch anything.”
“Then why did you give me gloves?”
“For when you ignore me.”
“I would never!”
Garrett half turned and fixed me with a disapproving look.
“Hardly ever,” I muttered sniffily.
Garrett opened the SUV’s passenger door and craned his neck inside. “Purse on the passenger seat,” he said pulling out a large plastic bag from his vest pocket and depositing it inside.
“Where was the phone?” I asked.
“Passenger seat as well. It’s in my pocket currently.”
“Has anyone else called?”
“A few texts but I don’t have the PIN so I can’t unlock it to read them.”
“Did you try facial recognition?”
“I did but it was deactivated.”
“That’s strange.”
“I thought so too. Everyone usually goes for the easiest unlock technology.”
“Perhaps she had something she didn’t want anyone else to risk seeing,” I said.
“Seems a jump to a conclusion. She just might not have set it up. Lots of people don’t.”
“What else is in there?”
Garrett leaned into the car, emerging quickly.
“Tissues, gum, a half-drunk coffee and a packet of mints in the central console area. A few business cards. Massage services, a dress shop, a couple of gardeners, horse trainer, more horse stuff, a couple of takeout menus. Could all belong to Mrs. Casey or the vehicle’s owner.
” Garrett rifled through the cards as he read them out, then dropped them all in a small bag and passed it to me.
He pulled out another bag and added the other things, then a separate bag for the coffee cup.
“Seems like standard stuff for someone who owns a horse farm,” I said.
“Makes sense.”
“What are these?” I asked, reaching for a leathery leaf.
“What did I say about touching?” snipped Garrett.
“You said I’d ignore you,” I said, retracting my hand.
“Nothing on the back seat. A few more of those big leaves and a couple twigs in the footwell. Nothing in the door pockets. I’ll pop the trunk.
Hold these.” Garrett passed me the bags, then leaned in and pressed a button on the dashboard, and the trunk began to rise.
We walked around the car. A trunk organizer was inside with a pair of riding boots, a helmet, a cherry red padded vest, and another sturdy bag with a few daily car maintenance essentials.
A couple more leaves were wedged under the organizer.
“This is what I’d expect to see, given her job,” I said. I turned over the coffee cup, noting the logo. “This coffee shop is downtown. No one would drive all the way from the farm into the city just to get a takeout coffee. Could she have met someone there?”
“She would have drunk her coffee there if that were the case.”
“I guess so. Perhaps she was somewhere nearby and grabbed a coffee for the drive.”
“That would be my guess.” Garrett beckoned over his partner and between them, they packed the trunk’s contents into large bags. Before he added the cherry red vest, he checked the pockets and shook his head. Nothing.
“How was she dressed?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“I was just wondering if she were dressed like she’d just run out from the farm, or had been running errands.”
“Blue jeans, cream blouse, tan sandals.”
“Errands, then. No one wears sandals on a farm.”
“You know, this is looking like a really unfortunate accident to me. There’ve been a lot of deer sightings out here. Perhaps one ran across the road and she swerved to miss it. The road was wetter than we estimated and there’s no guard rail, so she went straight down.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I do know not everything is a mystery that needs solving. Some things are just sad accidents.”
I wished I could agree with him but as I recalled how upset Jessica had been when she fled the agency, I couldn’t be sure what Garrett said was the real truth.