muttered, “what the hell would someone be doing way the hell out here?”
“Hell, we’re probably driving up on a dead coyote.” Paul reached forward and took hold of the dash as the front end collapsed over a short embankment. As the only physician in Nickelback, Paul Kramer doubled as the medical examiner, a title that yielded almost no work, but that occasionally got him roped into assignments like this one. When he’d graduated from medical school he decided to do a residency focusing on rural medicine and take advantage of a generous student loan subsidy. At the time, he never imagined he’d end up driving around in the Mojave Desert looking for corpses. But what the hell? It broke up the monotony of doling out antibiotics to sick school kids or certifying worker’s comp claims for the small group of malingerers who managed to hurt themselves out at Monarch. Besides, he liked Mickey.
“How many bodies have you actually ever found out in the desert?”
Mickey squinted at the sky and thought it over. “None, I guess.” Then he added, “Usually you don’t have to go looking for them, dead bodies have a way of calling attention to themselves. There was an abandoned car on the south road once, years ago, sat there for a few days. One of the deputies finally had it towed into town and old Beasly noticed a funky smell coming from the trunk when he was hooking it up to the tow. We found a woman in a gunny sack in there. It was a stolen car, Ohio plates, never even figured out who the woman was. But like I said, bodies have a way of getting found.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Ah, hell, Beasly still had all his teeth then,” Mickey laughed and glanced over at Paul. “So it’s been a while.”
For five long minutes of bouncing, they watched the birds grow larger, slowly taking shape, until they were directly overhead. The engine noise and clanging gear had no effect on them as the Suburban approached. The scavengers would hang around, regardless, hoping Mickey or Paul might die as well and add to the feast.
Mickey slowed down, paying close attention to the surroundings. The maelstrom of circling buzzards overhead meant this was the spot. But whether it was the spot they were actually looking for was anyone’s guess. Mickey saw nothing other than wild desert. But when one of the birds swooped down from above and took to the ground behind a clump of sage and Joshua trees, sixty feet back from the road, he knew that what he was looking for was hidden from view. Mickey drove around a bend in the road to get a view of the brush from the other side, but the road began curving in the opposite direction before he could see anything.
But when he stopped the vehicle and began studying the area in front of the brush, what Mickey did see stopped him cold. He felt a tingling at the back of his arms and up his neck and he shut off the engine. The air conditioner died. A brief silence was quickly filled with the squawk and clamor of birds. Mickey could tell that Paul hadn’t noticed it yet, and he let the moment stretch itself out.
Finally, sensing that something was wrong, Paul asked what it was. Mickey turned to look at him for a moment, and then turned back toward the side of the dirt road closest to the brush. “Look there.” He motioned with his chin. “See that? Tire tracks.”
Paul felt a dread come over him. Once Mickey said it, the churned ruts of sand were as plain as day. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed them right when they pulled up. Someone had parked on the road and then turned around in a single, wide circle that looped back onto the road and headed out the way they’d come. “Do you think someone else has already found whatever’s here?”
Mickey didn’t even look at Paul and barely heard him. The question was ridiculous in any event and didn’t warrant a response. Paul’s voice resonated with doubt even as he said the words. Mickey scanned the roadside, trying to ensure that no evidence would be destroyed merely by getting out and walking around. Finally, as the heat became intolerable, Mickey opened the door.
They could smell the body immediately. In the extreme heat, the flesh rotted fast, and the air was thick with it. Several of the black birds