your face I’d guess it was something more exciting than a rabid bobcat.”
“Found a vehicle upside down in the wash.”
I let my eyes flare briefly, held his glance one count, two count, what an honest person would do, before looking away with feigned lack of interest. Pulse racing, take a deep breath through my nose to calm it, so my heart doesn’t show up in my voice. Oh my God, this is what a murderer feels like. “That’s not something you see every day. Who found it?”
“Clifton Davies. You know him, don’t you?”
“Nice kid. Met him at your party, saw him at that place the other day, Emery’s Cantina. You know the place?”
“Sure, been there a few times.” But he shook his head with annoyance that I wasn’t staying on topic. “Clifton was coming back from his night shift and saw some buzzards circling over the area, just was curious.”
“Could the accident have happened after I left?”
Max shrugged in a tough-guy manner rather than admit to anything. This was a big event for him and he was choosing to keep me in suspense. “Where were you collecting rocks again?”
“Usual place, around the bridge where they wash up, and it’s shady there, too.”
“That explains it. Clifton found it around the bend in the wash north of the bridge.”
“Ah, you’re right, that explains it. If it was far enough around the bend from the bridge area I wouldn’t have been able to see it.” Too many words, stop spilling, turn the focus. “So why do you want to know?”
“You’re the only person we know who goes there regularly, so it kind of makes you a potential witness. But knowing you, you would have noticed something and called.”
“Of course. What about the van, just abandoned after an accident?”
Focused on what he had seen, Max’s eyes lit with the finding of death that we all feel despite the inappropriateness of the thrill. “Hell, no. It was disgusting inside. Stunk to heaven, guy dead for maybe what the ME thinks is a few days but maybe he’ll be able to tell more after the autopsy.”
“Oh my God.” I turned in the direction of Carlo’s voice, so concentrated on what I was saying to Max that I’d forgotten the Perfesser was standing there listening. He spoke in the hushed voice you save for church and funeral homes. “Less than a mile away from our house. And Brigid goes into that wash every day.”
“Not every day,” I said quickly.
Carlo’s face went gaunt and pale. This was upon simply hearing of a body. I looked at that face and imagined his reaction upon hearing I was the one who made the body dead. Not to mention how. For the first time I felt maybe I’d done the right thing after all. But there was still Max, and he was just getting warmed up.
“The body was thrown into the back. Maggots were there and gone like even they couldn’t take the heat. ME said probably a hundred and eighty degrees and with the wash running the other day decomp was accelerated; it was like a Crock-Pot in there. The bastard’s stewed. Big fissures in his flesh where the gases broke through.”
Cops love to talk about this shit the way little boys like frogs; it’s a guy thing. But Carlo shivered and excused himself. Max was polite enough to wait until he was out of the room. “Made me gag,” he confessed. “I’ve never seen anything like it except in pictures.”
“So who is it?” I asked. “Anybody reported missing?”
“No clue right now. Even if he wasn’t in such decrepit shape he would of looked like a bum, long hair, ragged Wildcats T-shirt, nylon shorts, no shoes. There was no wallet on the guy, no insurance card or vehicle registration. Ran a check on the license plate, though.”
Come on, Max, don’t stop now. Give me a name, give me a name. I tried to sound casual. “So was it stolen?”
Max shrugged. “Who knows? Registered in the name of Gerald Peasil but no guarantee that’s who died.”
“Unfortunate name,” I said, trying to look semibored with the whole thing. “Did Gerald Peasil have a sheet?”
“Arrested for assaulting a hooker outside the Desert Diamond Casino about six months ago. And once for groping an elderly lady on the bus in Phoenix. That’s it. I still keep thinking drugs, though.”
“I don’t know, two sexual assaults might not be coincidence … what do you think the ME will call it?”
“Right now, accidental. Could have died in