Hell's Roundabout. Benjamin Vance
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reporting individual turned out to be a Mrs. Renata Stein. She and her husband owned a summer cabin up the canyon road and she’d been winterizing it when she drove to town for a late meal and came upon the accident site. She and her husband were from Fresno and they were easy to find via her telephone number. Army called and Mrs. Stein answered.
He found Mr. Stein was a very occupied business owner in Fresno and had not been with Mrs. Stein on the cabin winterizing trip. Army initially found that difficult to accept, especially in winter, but who was he to judge. He asked Mrs. Stein many questions, recorded their conversation and only found one tidbit of information he didn’t know before the call. Mrs. Stein told him there was still some fire on the hill west of the accident site when she arrived. He asked again to be sure and she was definite. If there was still fire somewhere and it had just rained or snowed in the canyon, then it must have just happened when she came upon it.
Army decided he and Charley and whoever else wanted to volunteer were going to comb the entire hillside looking for clues. It would have to happen on a weekend and perhaps he could combine it with a fishing outing with Charley. In any case, he would need more helpers than just Charley. He checked with the other active deputies and found no one willing to sacrifice even an hour of their precious weekend. He called all seven of the reserve deputies and found two who would help, so two would have to be enough.
When Charley learned of the trip he was ecstatic. He’d get to do his two favorite things; fish and be an investigator, and it was only one day away. He inundated his father with questions Thursday evening and Army realized after a time that he could have made a mistake inviting Charley. If they did find something grisly in the area, would he be able to foresee any damage it might do to Charley psychologically, or would it actually be good for his son to see one of the dirtier realities of life?
The next day he decided to let the Sheriff in on what he planned to do over the weekend and why he planned to do it. He found that no one had briefed Andy Shepard on the condition of the second vehicle. When he told Andy he just looked at Army a moment and told Beth that he and Army were going to the assembly yard to check out the vehicle from the canyon explosion. They arrived in the Sheriff’s car and Army smelled the sulphur before they got through the gate. Of course since it was the Sheriff, two of the yard employees came rushing out to offer their help and to say hello. When the Sheriff told them what he wanted to see they were happy to uncover the mess; previously an automobile.
When Andy saw it, and after he took it all in, he said, “Holy Mother of God, Army! What happened to this vehicle? I’ve never seen anything like this. What’s that smell and where’re the tires and rims?”
“Well boss, the smell is like sulphur, and I’d like to know where the tires are too. This thing looks like it’s been through a burning shredder, but there should be something left of the tires and at least melted aluminum if no rims are evident. Combined with what I learned in New York, this thing gives me the jitters.”
“Yeah, I got your report, haven’t read it yet though, so let’s go somewhere we won’t be disturbed and why don’t you tell me what’s in and not-in … the report, and then give me your impressions.”
They went to a local restaurant and ordered coffee and sweet-rolls from an isolated table the Sheriff liked to frequent. He told the waitress not to seat anyone within earshot and settled with coffee and a small bear claw to listen. He allowed Army to relate the entire strange story of Mrs. Peterson, her Prius and the mine, and Army did it without totally giving away his true opinion of a woman named Chiara Logan. The Sheriff seemed speechless at first, but finally said the key phrase, “If the DNA comes back positive for Mrs. Lois Peterson we’re going to be in deep shit.”
Army agreed, and thought perhaps the Sheriff would bring in some of his legal assistance for a conference after the fact. When he told the Sheriff what he intended to do on Saturday, Andy thought for a moment and decided to pay the two deputies who were going to help with the search. He seemed to know intuitively what Army was looking for and Army thought perhaps the Sheriff understood more about the situation than he allowed during their conversation. In any case, Army felt better about the Sheriff’s response; at least for the time being.
He went to pick up Charley after school and saw Lucy was standing with him. When Army pulled up, Lucy grinned and waved. Of course Army asked if he could give her a lift and she accepted. By the time he dropped Lucy off she’d wheedled an invite to help with the area search the next day. No matter how bad Army made the search effort sound, she still wanted to go if her mother would allow it. That meant she would have to ask and then Sonora would have to call and … well maybe it didn’t sound so bad after all.
A beautiful, bright, cold Saturday morning in early winter found six determined people huddled around two County cars with warning lights on and engines idling for warmth. Well, perhaps Lucy wasn’t so determined, because she was told to escort her mother on their quest, and she would rather go with any one of the males, rather than be stuck with the only other female; she was that age. Army explained only that they were looking for body parts, car parts or anything inconsistent or strange. Each person was given six bright day-glo red stick-in flags to mark anything they found, and they were given strict orders not to pick anything up, they were to mark only, notify another person they’d found something and move on.
The hill was divided into six undefined strips and each person was asked to stay abreast and not get ahead of the group. Army took the bottom of the hill, then Charley, then Lucy, then Sonora and then the other two deputies. They had about a quarter mile to cover so it would take at least an hour to cover at a slow-to-moderate pace. They started at about 8:30 a.m. with flashlights and the first item was flagged at around 8:45. The deputy at the top of the hill passed on that an artifact had been flagged, and then three more were found between 8:45 and 9:00. The second deputy radioed Army and told him to look closely at the tops of the young pines stretching from the grassy park at the top of the hill to the bottom of the grove. Several of the tallest had the tops broken off and the tops were lying on the ground as if they had been cleaved by a helicopter blade. Army found nothing special during his walk, but at almost exactly 9:05 Lucy screamed and stood looking at the ground. Obviously, the sound beckoned Army, her mother and Charley.
Charley got there first and Army heard him say, “Eeewwww” or words to that effect. When he arrived at Lucy’s location she was holding her mouth and pointing to part of a burned human left hand. Her mother got there after Army looked at the hand and she said, “Oh shit” or words to that effect. Needless to say, Sonora and Lucy went to the SUV to wait on the rest. Charley and Army moved up to take their place and the four moved on slowly after two flags were left at the hand.
It took another five minutes for Will Sparks, the deputy walking at the highest elevation, to call the other two on his radio, “Gentlemen, you need to stop what you’re doing and come up to my position at the top, ASAP. You won’t believe me so you’ve got to see it for yourselves. Army couldn’t get there fast enough, and he heard the other two talking before he arrived through the fairly thick young pines. He and Charley arrived at the same time and as soon as the deputies saw them, they both pointed up the face of the moderate cliff. There, protruding from solid rock as if they were an avant-garde sculpture were the remains of two burned tires with rims and what appeared to be a melted plastic glob. The plastic glob had run down the face of the rocks as if posing for Salvador Dali.
They all took photos at their distance and from every angle, including telephoto. After enough was done to satisfy their immediate curiosity, they started scanning the rest of the hill. They saw three other items sticking out of the rock; items which could be taken for common old climbing gear, tree limbs or mining gear, all rusted or streaked like they’d been burned. They looked ages old, but photos were taken anyway. After the men were completely through examining, Will asked them to turn around and look down the hill over the tops of the pines. They had to climb up a bit higher on the cliff rubble to see well, but it was obvious something had sheared the tree tops off surgically level; something very sharp or something moving very, very fast.
After thirty minutes or so they moved back to their original places and continued the search, finding one more piece of what appeared to be plastic from an automobile. They then returned to the locations where