Car Wrecks is a two-mile stretch of county highway runnin’ along our local river, which is a tad wild at that point with zigzags an’ ten or fifteen streams feedin’ it by way of ravines an’ steep-sided gullies. The half of ’em that the road crosses have bridges of one sort an’ another. Between the zigzags an’ the bridges, there’s plenty chance for careless or suicidal drivers to kill theirselves; plenty of ’em take it. An’ with all of it, there’s plenty places a car can go off the road an’ never be found. Over the years, killers an’ car thieves’ve learned to take advantage of this handy feature. I guessed that if Roger Devon’d disappeared by accident, suicide, or murder, there was a good chance it was into Car Wrecks. So after talkin’ to Rye an’ Grandpa, I had lunch, then got a rope an’ my binoculars an’ headed out there. I decided to be systematic; I started at the end closest to Ash’s place.
After a month, most of the clear signs of a car goin’ off the road’d be gone. The trees had leafed out; grass had growed taller; the couple good storms we’d had had washed any tracks away. Huntin’ for a wreck consisted of parkin’ my squad where it’d be least likely to get hit, an’ walkin’ along the shoulder with my field glasses lookin’ for man-made stuff down in the gullies. Every time I spotted somethin’ I couldn’t identify, I’d climb down for a look-see. To make things easier next time I hadda do a search, I hauled a lot of stuff up to the road. It was hot an’ dusty work. My knees an’ knuckles got skinned, an’ my uniform was trashed. It took me two hours to go just half a mile, coverin’ only the north side of the road. I’d just crossed to the south side an’ started back toward my car when I spotted somethin’ large an’ gray, an’ mostly hid by brush down below.
It was a old gray Escort. I spotted the Ford logo ’fore I was halfway down the slope. The car was in pretty good shape considerin’ how fast it must’ve been goin’ to end up so far from the road, an’ that it’d fell eighteen feet. It obviously hadn’t caught fire, an’ the side windows—I could see ’em as I slid down—were unbroke. I was happy to find there was nobody inside. No body. But the windshield had blowed out all over the crumpled hood, so there could be some remains around somewhere. I looked, though I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. If there had been a body a month ago, it could still be around somewhere, some of it. Or it could’a been et by critters—bears, or coyotes, coons, or local dogs. If there weren’t no body, it could be ’cause Roger Devon—at this point I had no doubt it was his car—had totaled it, by accident or on purpose, or ’cause someone else’d dumped it to hide RD’s disappearance. There was too many possibilities. An’ ’fore any of ’em could be checked out, the car’d have to be processed an’ the area searched for remains.
I decided to call for reinforcements.
Lotta times, when a vehicle ends up in Car Wrecks, we don’t bother to haul it out. Draggin’ a couple tons of crushed metal straight up the twenty-foot side of a ravine just ain’t worth it for salvage. Mostly we diagram the location, take lots of pi’tures, an’ notify the insurance company involved where they can go see what’s left. Then we forgit it. Either the vehicle rusts in peace an’ into pieces, or local entrepreneurs take what they can pry loose for parts an’ scrap. Either way, it ain’t much of a problem for me.
That weren’t the case with Devon’s Escort. I started by callin’ Martha Rooney on the radio an’ axin’ her to run the car plates. When she come back that it was Devon’s car, I axed her to send out Nina with my camera, an’ have the State Police send a evidence man, an’ Truck Towing send their biggest rig. Martha wanted all the details, but I tole her I’d let her know later—too many locals amuse theirselves by listenin’ to scanners. While I waited for Nina, I went back an’ got my car. I left it up above the wreck with the motor runnin’ an’ the lights on. Then I got out the crime-scene tape an’ stretched it along the road to mark off-limits for the rubberneckers I knew’d be showin’ up soon.
I was right about that. A good two dozen cars was on the scene ’fore the first state car. Then three of ’em showed—it was a slow day for crime on the interstate. I had the troopers run the gawkers off, while I went back down an’ took pi’tures of the wreck. When the crime scene guy showed up, I had ’im go over the outside of the Escort for fingerprints, blood, or anythin’ else of interest. By the time he was done, Dwayne Truck arrived with the rig he uses for disabled semis. He didn’t have enough cable to run all the way down the ravine, so we had to wait while he sent for more. Meanwhile, three of the troopers an’ Nina an’ me fanned out from the wreck lookin’ for a body. All we got for our trouble was scratches an’ exposure to poison oak.
“You could hide a dozen bodies in this mess,” Nina said, finally. “Why don’t you get Martha to call for a trackin’ dog?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said, an’ did.
Patrick Truck showed up shortly thereafter with a hundred-foot cable an’ another truck. It was good he did. It was a good thing, too, that I’d taken lots of pi’tures, ’cause by the time they’d dragged that poor Escort back up on the road, its undercarriage was damn near battered off, an’ the side of the ravine had relocated south.
’Bout the time I sent one of the troopers off with the Escort to guard it at Truck’s Garage, the dog showed up, a prize-winnin’ bloodhound named Holmes. We hoisted him an’ his handler down the ravine. Holmes took off, bayin’, an’ we all followed—over to the river an’ back. He treed a coon, dug a rattler out from under a log, an’ led Nina an’ me an’ the two remainin’ troopers on a merry chase. Kept us all goin’ ’til sundown.
We never found a hair of Roger Devon.