Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery) (29 page)

The truck
slowed and ground to a halt beside them.

“What’s
up? We heard the 911 call on our radio,” said a man who might have been in his
seventies somewhere. In the driver’s seat sat another man about the same age.

Jake
touched his hat. “Caleb.
Zeke.
This car tried to pass
us and went off the road. We ended up on the bank on the other side trying not
to hit him. The child is moving, the driver isn’t, and I can’t get the windows
open.”

The
brothers got out and stepped over to the side of the road to assess the
accident. They wore baseball caps, as well as faded jeans and plaid shirts, sleeves
rolled up. For an interesting fashion twist, they both wore Nike running shoes.

“How
many in there?” asked
Caleb.

“Two, as far as I can see.
One appears to be a child.”

Caleb
rubbed
a stubble
of beard. “That’d be our nephew from
Portland. He has a little girl. We’re expecting them. They were on their way
here to visit. Zeke, we better hook up the winch. See you got a chain there.
Hook it under the front bumper, and we’ll pull the car up the bank.”

Jake
and the Easton brothers got to work. The two old guys stepped into the task
with a speed and economy of motion not seen in younger men. They intrigued
Fiona, and she wanted to know more about who they were and where they lived but
now wasn’t the time.

By the
time a couple from a ranch south of the hot springs arrived, Jake and the brothers
had the car hooked to the winch but were having trouble getting the winch to
engage. Dora, the woman from the ranch, checked in with Jake then started down
the bank, Jake right behind her. Fiona watched from her safe perch by the side
of the road, feeling useless. Caleb and Zeke continued to fuss over the winch
on their old rust and blue truck.

Dora
tapped on the window of the passenger door. “Can you hear me? Open the door,” she
said, her face close to the window.
 
“Unlock the door,” she said, louder. To Jake
she said, “The child inside appears to be responding.” She kept rapping. “Open
the door,” said Dora again. “The
inside lock
. Open it.
Excellent.”

Jake
had to yank the door open since at first it wouldn’t budge and was barely clear
of the water.
 
He opened it wide and
supported it as Dora leaned
in,
talking to the child
in the front in a tone Fiona couldn’t hear. She said something to Jake, and he called
up the bank to the brothers who stood watching the operation.

“Dora
says we should leave them in the car and winch them up the bank. The driver’s
eyes are half open but he isn’t talking. She doesn’t want to move them until
they are properly examined.”

“What
about the child?” asked
Fiona.

“She’s
talking, but they’re both in shock.”

Dora
shut the door. “Okay, boys, see if you can pull the car out.
Easy
now.”

 
Fred, her husband, yelled from the bank, “Dora
get away from the vehicle. You don’t want to get sucked into some place you
don’t want to be.”

Jake
helped Dora back from the car. Zeke started the winch that the two brothers finally
had gotten to operate. Slowly the car started moving out of the spring,
advanced about two feet and got stuck. Fred came down the bank with waders on
and went in the spring to see what the trouble was. The car appeared to be hung
up on rocks. Fred called for a shovel and the Easton brothers threw a couple of
shovels down the bank. Jake and Fred worked with the shovels trying to clear
the wheels of rocks only to stir up the water and make it cloudier with mud and
silt.

“Try it
again,” yelled Fred.

Zeke
started the winch which had a thick twisted cable hooked to Jake’s heavy duty
chain. The car moved again with a loud crunching sound and an accompanying
screech from the winch. The man and child were barely visible, because the
windows were darkened, and the sun against the windows made a glare. Fiona
stood beside Caleb watching the operation.

“That
boy never could drive worth a darn,” said Caleb.

“If
he’s from the city, it would be tricky to navigate a gravel road going the
speed he was doing. Where do you live?” Fiona asked.

Caleb
jerked his thumb up toward the mountains.
“Up the mountain a
piece.”

Fiona
looked up to where he pointed. She saw only canyon and rim rock.

“You
say these are your relatives?” Fiona asked.

“Yes, ma’am.
He’s one of our brother’s boys. Never had an
ounce of sense that one. His little girl got more sense than he does.”

 
The car’s nose was now even with the dusty
bank
which was strewn with rocks and pebbles and peppered
with brush. Zeke stopped the winch when Jake held up his hand.

“Give
us a minute,” he said, “to clear some of the brush in front of the fender.”

They
chopped away at grease wood that blocked the upward advance of the vehicle.
Caleb lent a hand, and when they were satisfied the car had clear passage they
gave the sign for Zeke to start the winch. The car looked like it had been in a
demolition derby.

The
focus of the operation was on the car, but Fiona’s eyes were drawn to something
that bobbed up out of the water behind the car. She looked around at the others
but they were concentrating on the car as it was hauled up the bank. Zeke got
in his truck and pulled the car the rest of the way to level ground. Dora went
immediately to the driver’s door, and Fred helped her open it.

Fiona’s
attention was drawn back to the blob that floated on the surface of the cloudy
water.
 
It looked like clothes or an old
sheet puffed up in the water.
 
Had the
car hit someone or something in careening down the highway? She watched but saw
nothing in or attached to the dirty gray thing that bobbed in the water. Fiona
joined the people on the road, wanting to tell them about the odd thing in the
water.

The
driver sat in the car, and Dora was checking him over. He held his head in his
hands like it hurt. The little girl sat on the seat at the other side of the
car, its door wide open to the sun. She clutched a small stuffed toy that looked
to Fiona like a frizzy headed rooster. Jake was kneeling, talking to her. Caleb
stood by him.

“We’re
good at fixing things,” said Caleb, “but Dora knows a lot more about doctoring
than we do.”

“I hope
they’ll be okay,” Fiona said.

“If
anyone can make it right, Dora will,” he said.

Fiona
was impressed with his faith in the small ranch woman, who went to the little
girl and asked her name.

“Molly,”
said the little girl. “My name is Molly.”

“How
old are you?” asked Dora.

She
held up seven fingers. “I go to school.”

“Good,”
said Dora. “May I check you for cuts?”

“Okay,”
said Molly.

“Does
anything hurt?” Dora asked as she checked and prodded the girl.

The
little girl touched her leg. “My leg hurts.”

Dora
continued her exam while Jake joined Fiona and Caleb. He had opened his sweat
darkened shirt to let the breeze blow through.

“You
can come up and dry off at our place. We got
a clothes
dryer,” said Caleb.

“I’ll
wind dry here any minute,” said Jake, pulling the tails out to aid the drying
process.

Caleb said,
“I’m glad those two are alive. Molly’s mama is going to be upset.”

Jake
nodded. “I hope they’ll be all right. They got knocked around pretty good.”

Caleb
nodded toward Jake’s truck. “Better check your rig over to see if it runs.”

The two
walked over, and Jake started the truck but couldn’t get it to move. It landed
straddling a rock on the front end and wouldn’t move front or back. Caleb hooked
up the winch again and pulled Jake’s big Ford 350 out with his ancient truck.
The truck bounced off the bank. The two men checked under the hood. Fiona
walked around the chassis checking for damage.

“It’s got
a few dents,” said Fiona.

“That
won’t hurt
nothing
,” said Jake. “The engine doesn’t
seem to have any leaks. I’ll go over it good when we get home. Do you know if
your nephew had insurance?” he asked Caleb.

“Don’t
rightly know. This is the first time he ever came to visit.”

The
three of them watched Dora ministering to the accident victims, and Fiona said,
“Did you notice there’s something bobbing out there in the water?”

Jake
and Caleb followed Fiona’s finger to the odd phenomenon out on the water.

“What
do you suppose that is?” asked Caleb.

Jake
shaded his eyes to see.
“Can’t say.
I’ll check.”

“Check what?”
asked Fred. He came over to see what they were looking at.

“Was
anyone else with them?” asked Jake.

“Not
that I know,” said Caleb, “but I’ll ask.”

While
he walked over to his nephew, Fred said, “I got my waders on. I’ll go in to
take a look. The waders cut down on the heat of the water a little.”

He went
down the bank and into the water shovel in hand. Carefully, he approached the
bobbing object. He tapped at it with the shovel and the bubble collapsed. He
poked around in the water, caught a hunk of fabric with the shovel, and pulled
up. A long piece of fabric came up and Fred grabbed hold of it.

“It
feels like it’s caught on something,” he said. He pulled harder but the fabric
wouldn’t budge.

Caleb
shouted from the bank. “My nephew says they were the only two in the car. He
doesn’t know what that might be.”

Fred
put his weight into the pull, leaning back. With a jerk the fabric came free. Fred’s
legs went out from under him, and he fell backward onto the bank.

“Guess
I pulled a little too hard,” he said, standing and brushing off.

More bits
and pieces of fabric floated to the surface.

“This
looks like a man’s shirt,” said Fred.
 
He
grasped and pulled. “Someone’s dumped their laundry in the spring.”

He kept
pulling and a pair of pants surfaced, too.

“Something
is in these pants.” He hefted them out of the water. “Good golly, these are
bones, and this looks like a rib cage in this old shirt.”

End Chapter 2,
High
Desert Detective,
2
^nd
book in the Fiona
Marlowe Mystery series
, now available on Amazon.com.