Scratchgravel Road Read Online Free PDF Page A

eye sockets and mouth. The neck and face area also appear to have been eaten by small animals.”
    Josie paused the recorder and stood suddenly, walked several steps away, and removed her mask, taking in fresh air. Otto handed her a water bottle and after several minutes she returned.
    She kneeled again in the sand, and held the recorder to her mouth. “The man is bald. Dressed in a button-down Western-style shirt with a thin black bolo tie. He is wearing blue jeans and black work boots.” She paused and lifted the man’s untucked shirt slightly above his waist. “He is wearing a black belt with an expensive silver buckle. Clothes are in good condition. No other bags or luggage in the area.”
    Josie grimaced and pushed two fingers gently into the front pocket of the man’s jeans. She fished out a wood-grained Case pocketknife and several coins.
    Otto opened a plastic bag and she dropped the items inside. He held it closer for inspection. “That’s a fifty-dollar pocketknife. This guy’s not some down-on-his-luck Mexican trying to cross the border.”
    She checked the other pocket while Otto labeled the bag with an evidence marker. “Want to roll him over?” Otto asked.
    Josie was kneeling beside the corpse in the shade provided by Otto’s shadow. She turned back and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m afraid the body will fall apart. I’ll let Cowan deal with that one.”
    She turned back to the man, and noticed a black-and-purple-colored lesion stretching from under the dead man’s shirt sleeve onto the back of his hand.
    Josie said, “Hand me another set of gloves, will you?”
    Otto pulled another pair of plastic gloves from the evidence kit and handed them to Josie. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes on her shirt sleeve and strained to get the gloves over her first pair in order to double up. She knew it was paranoia, but she was more afraid of unseen parasites than a gun or a knife. At least she stood a chance if she could see what she was fighting.
    She struggled to unbutton the cuff on the man’s sleeve and then slowly slid it above his elbow, grimacing at what she saw. Large black and red sores, some open wounds, covered his arm. “Think this came before or after his death?” she asked.
    Otto leaned over her back and snapped several pictures. “Nothing I’ve ever seen.”
    Josie leaned across the man’s torso, unbuttoned the other sleeve, and pulled it slowly up. A half-dozen lesions were revealed on the top of his forearm. Josie used the fabric on his cuff to lift his arm and look at the underside. One sore, with pus oozing from the center, stretched several inches from his wrist up his arm. She unbuttoned his shirt and found no wounds on his chest or abdomen.
    Josie pulled his shirt closed and stood. “I don’t like this.” She walked to his feet and pulled up the bottom of his jeans, struggling to raise the jeans a few inches above his black work boots. She stood and shook her head. “Nothing. Only appears to be on his arms.”
    Otto took a step backwards. “I think we’d better leave this for Cowan. We don’t know what this might be, or how contagious it could be.”
    They both turned toward the sound of a car in the distance.
    “Speak of the devil,” Josie said.
    They watched the 1978 Dodge station wagon that had been painted white and converted into the county hearse approach Cassidy Harper’s little blue car.
    “That has to be the ugliest car in all of Texas,” Josie said.
    “You don’t think he’ll try and drive that thing back here, do you?” Otto asked. County Coroner Mitchell Cowan was known for a supreme intelligence that translated into negligible common sense.
    “Better get him on your cell phone before he tries it,” she said. “I would trust that man with my dead body in a heartbeat. I sure wouldn’t want to rely on him with my life though.”
    Otto dialed his cell phone. Josie turned back to the body and listened to him tell Cowan to wait by the road to be