The Death Box

After a few seconds the grin inverted, his voice a tense whisper. “A tent? A fucking tent? Bulldozers? I figured that hole would stay hidden until Christ himself showed up.”

Orzibel hung up and threw the phone to the couch. He went to his desk and retrieved a second phone, a burner, to be used and discarded. He dialed a number from memory.

“It’s Orlando, Jefé. It seems we have a problem.”

9 (#ulink_d2449f5c-32d4-5d4d-b459-d4f43e135328)

Roy had set the meeting at eight a.m. Instead of the three promised members of the investigative crew there was only Valdez. Luckily, Delmara, Morningstar and Gershwin made the table look less empty.

“Where’s Tatum and Canseco?” I asked Roy. “Degan?”

“Turns out they had other commitments.”

I gave him a look. He said, “They’re busy boys.”

“I got a crime scene needs me,” Morningstar said, long and elegant fingers ticking colorless nails on the tabletop. Gershwin yawned in his tipped-back chair. Delmara sat a pen and pad in front of him and scratched his beak.

“Dr Morningstar,” I said, laying out my case to the small audience, “would you outline the scope of the injuries you’ve been able to identify?”

“Like I’ve said, I’m seeing the kind of injuries I associate with high-impact vehicle accidents.” Her hands went to a file of photos on the table. “I have the exact details here if you—”

“Have you found any seams in the matrix, Doctor? Yesterday I theorized dry cement poured into the cistern atop added bodies. After further thought, I suspect the next layer would not perfectly adhere to the preceding concrete. It would leave discernible seams.”

She shook her head. “The concrete matrix appears to be contiguous. Where are you going with this?”

“I’m pretty sure I know how the bodies got there.”

“How?”

“In a cement-mixer truck.”

Eyes-wide stares from everyone. Roy said, “Explain that one, Carson.”

I spun my index fingers around one another. “Ever see the inside of a mixer drum? It’s an inside-out auger. The rotating vanes force concrete deeper to keep it mixed. At the jobsite the rotation is reversed and the screw action lifts the concrete up and out of the drum.”

“Jesus,” Morningstar said, reaching into her file and pulling out eight-by-ten photos of the column, staring at the jumble of arms and legs and faces and concrete. “It explains the brownish cast to the concrete,” she said quietly. “It’s blood.”

“Sure explains the damaged bodies,” Roy said.

I nodded. “It’s a blender on wheels.”

Morningstar rose, clamped shut her briefcase. “There’s a lot to do before I can verify anything like your mixer theory, but I have to say it’s decent, Ryder.”

I nodded my thanks and she was gone. Roy turned to Valdez and Delmara.

“Guys?”

“I gotta think about it,” Delmara said. He was trying to look upbeat, but I’d punctured part of his serial-killer explanation. Roy angled to Valdez.

“Ceel?” Roy said to Valdez.

“Just what is it you’re looking for, Ryder?” she said, aiming her big eyes into mine. They weren’t saying Congratulations on a spiffy idea.

“Looking for, Detective Valdez?”

“The Carson Ryder morning show here. You want something, right?”

“We have to start looking into concrete mixing companies, Detective. We need someone who can ask the right questions and tell when the answers are shaky. A pro.” I used the inclusive we, hoping to spark camaraderie. There was a coterie of FCLE investigators at Roy’s disposal – and, I supposed, mine as well – but I wanted the experience of the department’s top people, hoping a few hours of working together might diminish the wall between us.

Valdez reached to the floor for her briefcase and popped it open, coming up with a two-inch-thick folder. She dropped it on the table, whump.

“These are my current cases. Where does we fit in?”

I resisted the urge to look to Roy for assistance and didn’t hear any, the silence of the Buddha.

“Or,” I said, “I could grab some folks from the pool investigators downstairs.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Valdez said, standing.

Delmara followed suit, tucking his notepad into his suit jacket and forcing a half-smile to his face. “Nice idea on the mixer, Detective,” he said, following Valdez out the door.

Roy grabbed my shoulder. “Great theory, Carson! Morningstar was gushing over the idea.”

“Gushing?”

“If Vivian isn’t pissing on an idea, it’s gushing. You’re winning her over, bud.”

“Yeah? What about the others?”

We heard a cleared throat and turned to see Gershwin, chair tipped back, dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt advertising a surf shop. Both Roy and I had forgotten about the kid. “If y’all don’t need me for anything,” he said, “the folks in maintenance would like me to mop the bathroom with my tongue.”

Roy tucked away his notes and nodded absently. “Good for you, kid. Keep it up.”

Gershwin shook his head and was gone.

10 (#ulink_fd5145b7-cecf-52aa-862a-9ba75daa195f)

Roy and I elevatored down to the investigators’ floor, a horizontal hive of cubicles like I’d vacated in Mobile. Harry and I had our jammed-together desks closest to the elevator and my eyes turned there when the door opened, seeing not a lineman-sized black man dressed in a clashing color palette, but a white guy in his mid fifties with a wind-tunnel blowback of gray hair and Elvis Costello glasses. It wasn’t Harry but a Florida version of Martin Scorsese, and for a moment the world felt unsteady.

Where am I?

“Here you go, Carson,” Roy said, snapping me back to the present. “Grab who you need.”

I studied the cubicles, most empty. The ones holding people held busy people: some guys on phones furiously scribbling notes as they talked, two women and a man bent over a desk and arranging photos, a pair of guys arguing in another cube.

“Everyone looks busy, Roy.”

He laughed. “What … you think I keep my lovelies sitting in a corner and jiggling their nuts while they wait for an assignment? Who looks good, Carson? Pick an assistant or two. Shit … wait … let me introduce you to everyone.”