Page 11 of The Couple's Secret
Gretchen didn’t say what they were both thinking. The odds of foul play in this situation were high. That was assuming they found the remains of Tobias Lachlan and Cora Stevens in the car and that there was enough evidence to suggest that their deaths weren’t accidental.
“We’ll need to request a copy of the case file from Brighton Springs PD,” Gretchen said.
“We are not equipped for this,” Hummel blurted as he reached them. It was odd seeing him in regular work clothes and not a white Tyvek suit.
“I figured,” said Josie. “I was hoping you’d know where to start, who we need to call.”
Hummel ran a hand through his hair and glanced out toward the water, eyes catching on the ripple. “We need divers and a heavy-duty rotator truck, neither of which we have.”
Gretchen tucked her phone into her back pocket. “What’s a rotator truck?”
Josie patted her hair, now stiffening as it dried. “It’s kind of like the mother of all tow trucks. They’ve got rotating booms—like giant cranes—that can spin 360 degrees. Outriggers to stabilize the trucks themselves so they don’t tip. Hydraulic systems. They can usually handle lifting tens of thousands of pounds.”
“You know this how?” asked Gretchen.
Josie shrugged. “Whenever there’s some big pile-up on the interstate with overturned semis or buses and cars in ditches, rotators are used to get things cleaned up.”
“The state police don’t have their own tow trucks,” said Gretchen. “They contract with outside towing companies.”
“Yeah,” said Hummel. “But a single rotator costs over a million dollars. Not something your average towing company has on hand. It might take me a while to find a company that has one and can get it here in a reasonable amount of time.”
Josie sighed. “That car’s been under there for seven years—a few more hours isn’t going to make a difference. Find one and I’ll contact the state police about getting divers out here to help, as well.”
While Denton had its own marine unit, its primary purpose was swiftwater rescues. Only one of the members had diving qualifications.
“What are we looking at in terms of processing the vehicle?” asked Gretchen.
Hummel looked out at the water again. “It’s probably pointless, but I’d set up some grids around the car where it’s currently sitting. Fifty feet in each direction. The divers can use metal detectors to see if there’s anything around it.”
“Like a gun?” Josie said.
“Yeah. Anything, really. Like I said, the odds of finding something important in the area around the car are pretty non-existent given how long it’s been and especially if the windows are closed.”
“The passenger’s side front window is cracked a few inches,” Josie said. “Not sure about the others.”
“Okay. Well, even so, seven years in a river? I doubt we’ll find anything outside of it but it’s best to search anyway. Once those grids have been searched, the marine unit can work with the towing company to get the car out of the water and onto the bank somewhere. That’s when the real hard work begins.”
“What do you mean?” Gretchen said.
Hummel tugged at the hair on the back of his head. “A car under water for that long? One window, possibly more, partially open? It’s going to be filled with crud from the floor probably up to the dash. At least to the seat cushions. Silt, debris, biofilm, algae, all kinds of delightful shit.”
“That sounds like it will be a bitch to process,” said Josie.
“I did a couple of these before I started working here,” Hummel explained. “The first issue is that in the water, all that stuff is light, almost like dust. As soon as you bring the car up onto dry land, it will start to harden. If you don’t process the car fast enough, it will turn into a block of cement and that makes preserving anything that’s still inside a hell of a lot more difficult.”
“You won’t have time to transfer the car to the impound lot,” said Gretchen. “Is that what you’re telling us?”
“It’s a risk,” Hummel replied. “It’s certainly possible to get it to the impound lot before it hardens but there’s no guarantee. The best thing to do would be to process it right here. Cover the vehicle with tents to keep it out of view of the press or any nosy civilians who might try to get a look. We get a bunch of tarps, lay them out on the ground, and then we empty the car out bucket by bucket. Filter the mud through screens so that any objects or remains are separated out.”
Josie scanned the area again. The sun was sliding lower toward the horizon. The job ahead would take hours. Into the morning and the next day. “Then we’ll do it here,” she told him. “Gather whatever we need now so it’s ready for when the vehicle comes out of the water. Better get some lights, too. It’s getting dark.”
Six
Under her thin vinyl gloves, Josie’s hands had gone numb with the cold. While the daytime temperatures were warm, hovering near eighty-five degrees, at night, they dropped significantly. Wind whistled through the valley, skating over the dark ribbon of the Susquehanna and spilling over onto its banks. The state police divers had left hours ago, after their underwater grid search turned up nothing. The sides of the tent the ERT had erected over Tobias Lachlan’s sedan flapped and fluttered loudly, the soundtrack to their gruesome task. With each gust, the sickening smell from inside the car assaulted her. It was rotten, a mixture of decay, marine life, motor oil and rust.
Josie took a tainted breath and dumped another bucket of mud into the screen she’d been using for hours. Then she picked up the fire hose next to the tarp and ran the water over both mud and screen. Denton’s fire department had provided two trucks to assist them. The hoses were set to a trickle—enough to clean the grime from any objects embedded in the mud but not so much that the force of the water would destroy fragile evidence. With five of them working, processing the inside of the car moved more quickly than expected, but it was still a tedious job. Both the front windows had been cracked a few inches. Hummel had been right. The muck had accumulated well over the seat cushions. The first twenty or so buckets they’d removed had turned up nothing.
Josie’s lower back screamed for her to take a break. At her feet, reddish-brown sludge gathered, covering the blue of the tarp almost entirely. The white Tyvek suit she’d donned early in the evening was now almost entirely dirt-colored. As the last of the mud drained away, a long, thin object emerged. It was black, just like most of the other remains they’d found so far. Given its size and shape, Josie guessed it was part of a forearm. The radius, maybe. There were a few smaller bones. Probably parts of fingers.
