“A deader, all right. He’s on the other side of the guard rail, just behind the county line sign.”
“So it’s a he?”
“Yep. I’d guess thirties to fifties. Kinda hard to tell with the shape he’s in.”
Greta pulled out her flashlight and moved toward the sign.
“Not really necessary for you to see him,” Boylan cautioned.
Wh
at? Not appropriate for a woman? she thought and continued to the rail. He wouldn’t say that if I were a man. Shit, Jasmine is right. I’ve got to stop reading into what people say.
Her friend in the main office was on a campaign to stop Greta from imagining slights, in addition to finding her a boyfriend.
The smell hit her before she reached the rail. When she leaned over and swept her light downward, the full stench washed over her the same moment that her beam found the body. She fought a gag reflex, moved the beam aside, and held her breath. She clicked off the light, took a step back, and pretended to look around at the trees and pavement. She took a few seconds to compose herself before facing her colleague.
Boylan was right, it wasn’t something she needed to see, and now she regretted she had seen it.
Gruesome scenes were one aspect of the job—one of the worst parts. In the past year, she had responded to two fatal traffic accidents. However, this was her first decomposing body. She steeled herself and took another quick look. Persistence was one of her positive traits and sometimes a negative one.
“Your keen powers of observation have been proven again, Alex. I support your conclusion that he’s dead.”
Boylan laughed, if a little shakily. He didn’t reveal whether he recognized her attempt at humor as an effort to cover her reaction.
“I called it back in as confirmed,” said Boylan. “The medical examiner is en route with an ambulance to take the body as soon as the scene has been processed. Sheriff Harward radioed he’s sending a detective and for us to keep the area secure. I told him you were here and assisting.”
“So, it’s your case? He’s definitely on the Lincoln side of the line?”
“Looks to me like more than half of him is on our side. Also, since it was reported first to us, it sounds like it’s ours, unless you think your boss wants it.”
“Not hardly,” Greta replied sarcastically.
Tillamook County sheriff Ralph Wallace was up for reelection in ten months, and his main interest was keeping crime statistics as low as possible so he could take credit for keeping the citizens safe. Greta already ranked high on his shit list, and arguing with Lincoln County over a possible murder case would send him ballistic. She didn’t want to care that much, but reality was reality. She had to live with him. He couldn’t fire her, given the circumstances of her being hired a year ago, but he could make her life miserable.
A car’s lights shone to the south between tree trunks, and they heard the engine in the still night air. The headlights slowed when approaching the flashing lights. By the time the SUV got to them, it was crawling at only a few miles per hour. A man and a woman craned their necks to see what was happening, then sped up again as they passed.
A truck appeared, coming from the north. It slowed and stopped. The driver yelled out the window, “Need any help?”
“No, thanks,” said Boylan and waved the driver on.
“Traffic’s going to increase in the next hour or so,” Greta said. “We should put out more flares a little farther out. I’ll keep people moving on my end and you on yours. I also need to call in.”
She climbed back in her cab, keyed the radio, and called into the Tillamook County communication center. For reporting and dispatching, the county had started using a centralized facility some years previously, the first county in the nation to do so. All calls came into one site and from there were routed to the appropriate agency or department—Tillamook City Police, Sheriff’s Department, State Police, Fire, Fish and Game, Homeland Security, ambulance, and whoever or whatever was relevant. Her call went to the sheriff’s office. The on-duty person this night was a corrections officer, the county jail being in the same building. Greta left a short message for the sheriff that she had responded to a call from Lincoln County and would make a more detailed report when more was known. She needed no further assistance.
Greta pulled out four cones from her vehicle and divided them with Boylan to supplement his. They would sort out ownership later. The sorting would be easy because his cones looked new, while she figured hers had been made about the time of the first horseless carriage. Sheriff Wallace was loath to spend money unless forced to or it benefited him. He bought a new sheriff’s sedan every two years, while Greta’s utility vehicle had over 200,000 miles. It looked like most of those miles were over rough roads, which they were, and the original color remained an open question. Yet as dingy as the car looked, the county maintained all its vehicles, and this one accomplished its job.
She walked a hundred yards north with her big-beam light and set out the last of the cones and a flashing red signal marker another fifty yards north. This was correct procedure and had the added advantage of getting her upwind enough that her nose could no longer detect whoever’s remains lay beyond the railing.
Only a dozen or so cars and trucks passed before a second Lincoln County deputy drove up from the south, did a U-turn, and parked behind Greta’s vehicle. The driver said something she couldn’t hear to Boylan, then went over to the railing and used his flashlight to take a long look at the body. In the dark she couldn’t recognize him, but whoever he was either had a stronger stomach or more morbid curiosity than she had.
Another half hour passed, and an Oregon state trooper cruised by Greta, waving as he passed. It was Gerry Zuniski, a trooper out of the Tillamook station that the two departments shared. She liked him, though they hadn’t interacted that much.
The Lincoln sheriff’s deputy detective finally arrived, followed shortly by an ambulance, yet another deputy sheriff, a Lincoln City police car, and the Lincoln medical examiner. Another state trooper car came in from the south.
Why don’t they just block the whole damn highway? she thought. Traffic had backed up from parked enforcement vehicles and flashing lights. She could see twenty cars and trucks lined up and crawling from the north, and who knew how many more were behind them around the curve? Well, there won’t be any accidents, she decided, looking for a bright side. Not much damage you can do at two miles per hour.
She figured that staying in her position to slow traffic was superfluous, so she walked back toward the knot of men at the county border sign.