Chapter 6
"Evan, that's a third-degree felony!" Hess’s voice rose into a frantic, reedy squeak. "Falsifying a coroner's preliminary report is five years in Marysville! If the senior ME asks for tissue samples—"
"The senior ME is golfing in Hilton Head until Friday," Evan said. "And if you don't bring that van down River Road in twenty minutes, Darryl, I’ll have my attorneys file a formal petition with the county prosecutor regarding the three thousand dollars in forged mileage vouchers you ran through the county auditor’s office last spring. Plus the ten thousand in cash sitting on Julian’s desk right now for your sister's legal bills. You decide whether you want a five-figure bonus or an indictment from the state ethics board."
Silence hung over the line, heavy and poisonous.
Finally, Hess let out a ragged, defeated breath. "Ten minutes. Have the front roll-up door open. If there’s blood, vomit, or signs of violence on the corpse, I'm turning around and calling the state troopers myself."
"He looks like he fell asleep," Evan said, and disconnected.
***
The county transport van slipped through the salvage yard gates at five-fifteen, its yellow municipal roof beacons killed.
Darryl Hess stepped out into the drizzle, his coroner's windbreaker damp, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his clip-board into the mud before Evan retrieved it for him. He was a small, balding man in his late thirties, his collar frayed, his face slick with nervous perspiration.
"This is madness, Evan," Hess muttered under his breath as they entered Bay 1, his eyes darting frantically toward the shadows between the stacked car chassis. "The air in here smells like a tailpipe. If a deputy drives past that gate—"
"No deputy patrols River Road on Tuesday mornings," Evan said, watching Hess with cold, unblinking intensity. "Do your job."
Hess climbed the running board of the F-250. When his flashlight beam struck Julian’s face, the deputy coroner flinched, his jaw dropping.
"Jesus Christ," Hess breathed, his fingers hovering over Julian’s bright cherry-red earlobe. "Evan, this isn't a heart attack! Look at the skin! That's carbon monoxide poisoning! It’s textbook! The state lab will flag this in three seconds if they run a single vial of cardiac blood!"
"There won't be a vial," Evan said, pulling the envelope containing ten thousand dollars in cash from his coat and pressing it hard against Hess’s chest. "You check the box for acute cardiac arrest secondary to coronary artery disease. You sign the release for direct transfer to Tuscarawas Crematory. I already called the director in Millersburg; he owes my firm two commercial development mortgages. The retort is fired. Julian goes into the furnace at eight sharp."
"And if Miller checks the morning CAD blotter?" Hess pleaded, his voice breaking as he clutched the envelope. "Ronald Miller is the senior road deputy! He reads every unattended death intake from the overnight shift! If he sees Julian's name on a transport slip with no detective assigned—"
"Miller handles traffic and school zones," Evan said coldly. "He doesn't question a signed coroner's release for a fifty-two-year-old mechanic with three stents. Move the body, Darryl. Now."
It took fifteen grueling minutes to lower Julian from the cab, seal his heavy frame into the black vinyl transport pouch, and slide him into the rear rollers of the county van. Every click of the metal gurney sounded like a hammer striking an anvil in the quiet shop.
When the van’s rear doors finally slammed shut, Hess wiped the sweat from his forehead with a trembling sleeve. "I signed the paper, Evan. But God help you if anyone asks for an exhumation. There won't be anything left to dig up."
"That's the point," Evan said.
The van rolled out through the gates, disappearing into the grey pre-dawn fog toward the county line.
***
By ten in the morning, the drizzle had stopped, replaced by a low, suffocating overcast that trapped the sulfur stench of the river basin against the valley floor.
Evan sat behind the wheel of his Mercedes, parked on the crushed limestone shoulder of the abandoned lumber spur two blocks from the salvage yard. Seth sat beside him, his massive shoulders hunched, staring through the bug-spattered glass at his own trembling hands.
"He's in the fire by now," Seth murmured, his voice dead. "Ten years of Julian fixing our brakes, cutting our scrap, keeping his mouth shut... and he’s gone in forty-eight hours. Just burned to dust."
"He died because he let his guard down," Evan said, his fingers tapping an erratic rhythm against the leather steering wheel. "Whoever got inside that shop knew Julian’s schedule, knew the layout, and knew exactly which pressure points to press. But the paper trail is closed. As far as the county is concerned, Julian died of a broken heart. No detectives. No crime scene tape. We broke their momentum."
"You really believe that?" Seth turned his head, his bloodshot eyes filled with a desperate, wild bitterness. "You think whoever left that lighter is going to pack up their bags because Darryl Hess signed a transport slip? They know what they did, Evan! They know Julian didn't die of a coronary! They’re watching us right now!"
The burner phone in Evan’s breast pocket vibrated.
A sharp, violent jolt against his ribs.
Evan pulled the device out, his jaw tightening into granite.
It was a multimedia message from an unlisted number.
He tapped the screen.
A video file began to play. The footage was grainy, shot through high-magnification night-vision optics that cast the entire frame in a sickly, phosphor-green glare.
The camera was positioned high in a leafless tree, angling down into a steep, mud-choked ravine overgrown with sumac and poison ivy.
Evan’s pulse hammered in his ears.
It was the drainage ravine behind the old Erie freight line, ninety yards from the concrete rail silos.
In the center of the frame lay the half-collapsed corrugated iron culvert pipe. Rainwater surged through the rusted opening, washing over piles of dead leaves and silt.
A figure stepped into the frame from the left.
The man wore heavy canvas field trousers and standard-issue steel-toed work boots. He carried an entrenching tool with an olive-drab folding blade. With slow, deliberate precision, the figure drove the spade into the wet clay at the lip of the culvert, turning over a thick slab of earth.
Beneath the first four inches of mud, a patch of deteriorated blue polyethylene tarp came into view.
The camera zoomed in tight, the digital sensor whining faintly as the autofocus locked.
The spade hooked the edge of the plastic, pulling it back.
Sticking out from the degraded folds of the tarp was the grey, soil-crusted curve of a human femur, tied tightly with brittle, yellow plastic baling twine. Beside the bone, half-submerged in the silt, lay the crushed heel of a worn canvas sneaker.
The video snapped to black.
Then came the accompanying text message:
*“Julian died easy because he kept his mouth shut. Councilman Kane won't be so lucky. Half a million in unmarked fifties. The abandoned rail silo behind the north trestle. Midnight tonight. If Marcus doesn't walk inside alone with the bag, this video goes straight to the District Attorney's personal email at twelve-zero-one. Do not involve Evan Vance. Evan won't save you.”*
