“System has a directional transmitter and directional receiver built into these interlocking cases. Powered up, it emits an electromagnetic field that penetrates the soil. This is the same equipment used by public-utility employees looking for pipes underground. When the search pattern encounters metal, the signal is interrupted and that generates an audio response.”
“How far down?”
“The Fisher’s capable of revealing a target as far down as twenty feet. Depending on soil mineralization and ground conditions, it’s possible to detect an object even deeper.”
When we reached the spot, the three of us watched as Rice swept the detector across the ground. He’d put on a headset, and I gathered the device made a continuous sound that grew louder when he made a find. On his first pass, I saw the needle on the gauge leap hard to the right and stay there as though glued. He pressed a hand to his ear, frowning to himself as he continued sweeping across the area. Having finished, he said, “You’ve got something the size of a boxcar down there.”
I laughed. “We do?”
“Schaefer tells me you’re looking for a car, but this might be something else.”
“Such as what?”
“A dumpster, underground storage tank, a chunk of sheet metal roof.”
“So now what?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
He and Schaefer conferred and then Schaefer returned to his car, where he opened the trunk. He came back bearing a ball of twine and a plastic bag full of the golf tees he used in recaning chairs. While Rice made a series of passes with his box, Schaefer followed in his wake and stuck golf tees in the ground, roughly conforming to the signal Rice was picking up. Tannie and I each took a turn listening, passing the headset from one to the other. If Rice moved the device too far left or right, the tone diminished. Schaefer ran a line of twine from tee to tee. When they finished mapping, the string was laid out in a rectangle eighteen feet long by approximately eight feet wide. I could feel the skin pucker on my arms at the notion of an underground object of that size. It must be equivalent to sailing on the ocean and realizing a whale was on the verge of surfacing under your boat. The very proximity seemed ominous. Unseen and unidentified, it radiated an energy that had me edging away.
Schaefer picked up the metal bar he was using as a probe. He chose a spot and pushed down, leaning his weight into the rod. It sank eight inches, but not easily. The soil in this part of the state has a high clay content, larded with numerous rocks and sizeable sandstone boulders. This makes digging tedious under the best of circumstances. Strike a boulder with a shovel blade and the impact will reverberate all the way up your arms.
Rice added his weight to the job. The probe sank another foot and a half and stopped. He said, “What do you think?”
“Let’s see if it’s rock or we’re hitting something else.”
Schaefer took his shovel and set to work, cutting into the hard-packed topsoil. I’d thought the ground would yield, but it proved to be slow going. Twenty minutes of steady effort produced a trench eighteen inches wide and about three feet long. Frail roots were exposed and hung from the perpendicular sides of the cut like a living fringe. The dirt pile beside the hole mounted.
At a depth of twenty-six inches, he made contact with an object, or a portion of an object. The four of us paused to stare.
“I’ve got a trowel if you want to dig by hand,” Tannie said.
“Might be smart,” Rice replied.
When she returned, she said, “May I?”
Schaefer said, “Have at it. It’s your land.”
Tannie got down on her hands and knees and began to scrape away the dirt. The object might have once been chrome though it was so badly rusted it was difficult to tell. I found myself tilting my head, saying, “What is that?”
By the time she’d dug down and cut an additional five inches, she’d uncovered something with a metal lip that extended over a shallow curve of glass. She looked up. “It’s a headlight. Isn’t it?”
Schaefer rested his hands on his knees and leaned closer. “I believe you’re right.”
Tannie scraped away another narrow trough of dirt, revealing what looked to be the rusted metal curve of a front right fender.
Rice said, “One of us better call the station and get some help out here.”
By 3:00 there were eight officers at the site: an ID detective and a young deputy from the Santa Maria Sheriff’s Department; a sergeant, two homicide detectives, and two nonsworn officers from Santa Teresa. In addition, an investigator had driven up from the State Crime Lab, which is located in Colgate, near the Santa Teresa Airport. A temporary parking area had been set up for official vehicles, including the crime scene van.