LAKE FRANCIS Part II

Driscoll stood up and stepped back. He picked up his cellphone just as it chirped. He listened to the caller then said: “Call the coroner, contact Hinkley and have him bring the camera.” He checked his watch. “You might as well come down here too; it looks like we’re going to be here for a while.” Driscoll killed the call then turned toward Moffit. “It’s one of ours,” he said. The two sheriffs backed away and let the deputies probe the interior. They spoke in guarded tones as the crowd gathering around to witness the spectacle was increasing. Moffit had already brought in extra personnel to control the crowd.

“There’s two more, a deputy said, “one on the front floor and another in the back seat.”

“My God,” Driscoll murmured, “what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?”

The second car was emerging from the lake and they stopped to watch as the salvage crew winched it onto the higher ground to come to rest about ten yards away from the first.

Although covered in mud and silt there were still places where they could see some green paint showing through. The car appeared to be a late sixties GM pony car. Typical style for the era: long hood, short deck—two large doors. The once shiny chrome emblems near the leading edge of the front fenders proudly proclaimed Z-28, obviously the model of the car itself. The glass was mostly intact; that was to say that it was in place; the windshield was obviously cracked, very similar in pattern to the one in the older car. It was stained completely brown and impossible to see through. The license plates were mostly intact on this car too but it would take some careful cleaning to determine where the car had last been registered.

“Car looks vaguely familiar,” Driscoll observed as he scanned the filthy exterior, “Kid, over Sunburst way, got a ’69 Z-28, dark green, like this, for a graduation present.”

“Local kid?” Moffit asked.

“His dad was a Customs officer at Sweetgrass; family moved into Sunburst about the beginning of Junior Year.” Mark paused. “They had just the boy. I’m trying to think of his name—kind of a Mennonite sounding name—Jacob Weiss? Yes, that’s what it was. Anyways, he didn’t like it around here; preferred San Diego, where they came from; always vowed to move back. People just thought he did, I guess. He was head-strong; moved out of the house during his senior year.

“I didn’t know him very well, you know, different school. I do have to say that he was considered to be somewhat of a babe magnet. Tall, athletic, southern Californian—,” Driscoll indicated the car, “—nice car; girls kind of threw themselves at him. Graduated a year after I did. Disappeared shortly afterward, while I was in Viet Nam.”

Driscoll backed away from the car. “If this is his car, it’s been in the drink for over forty years.” He crouched down behind the car and snapped a photo of the license plate with his cellphone. The metal validation tag was still in place but it was obvious that he would need the lab to positively identify the registration. He called the number in, hoping that those on the other end might at least get started.

Driscoll examined the cracks on the windshield but was eventually satisfied that the cracks were either typical wear and tear or getting the odd rock thrown from a passing truck. Like the first car, three tires were still holding air but the driver’s front was flattened. Unlike the first car it wasn’t shredded so there was a chance that this car simply drove off the road. The fine details would be the responsibility of the lab.

 Driscoll went over to his department-issued Yukon and rummaged around in the toolbox, quickly returning with a sizeable wrecking bar and a hammer. He was in the process of prying the door open when he noticed a hole running at an angle just inside the hinge area. Surely that wasn’t a bullet hole as well? He wasn’t about to take his chances so he decided to investigate from somewhere else.

No longer a good idea to force the driver’s door open, at least for the time being, Driscoll wiped the left rear window down then took a wide strip of masking tape which he placed on the glass. Taking a ball-peen hammer, he drove the ball end of the head into the center of the window. The shattered glass held mostly intact and he was able to pull it out toward him. The stench of the decomposing interior, very similar to the older car, rushed out at him. The sheriff gave himself a moment before taking out his flashlight and beaming it inside.

He could see the rear seat frame and the springs, with mere tatters of upholstery still clinging to the heavily corroded metal. The floor was covered in muck. The front seats seemed a little more intact. He went around to the passenger’s side of the car. Inserting a pry bar next to the latch, he attempted to force the door but it wouldn’t budge. He went to the trunk and had better success forcing the trunk open.

The trunk revealed little more than a rusted spare wheel, with the spare still inflated, a rusty jack and tire iron, and a dozen beer bottles with the rusted caps still on top.

The wrecker driver came over and offered a more substantial prybar for the passenger’s side door. This gave them better success. In very little time they had the door open and were able to see what was inside.

It almost looked like everything was in one filthy, mud-encrusted piece; the buckets seats and console blended together with what seemed to be a pile of old clothes. The interior of this car, too, appeared that the headliner had detached itself from the ceiling and draped itself down on the seats. Being immersed for all those years blended everything together.

But the investigation had to continue. Armed with a couple of hastily fashioned wire hooks and plastic sticks, Driscoll and Moffit carefully probed the pile of rotted headliner and upholstery and pulled some of it away. It didn’t offer much resistance and didn’t offer much more to see. Driscoll went in again. He caught onto something more solid. Seat frame, he thought and pulled some more. It gave way and a major wad slid out the opened door.

The two law officers fairly gaped at what they saw. Sprawled across both seats and the console was the skeletal remains of a man.

They stood there in shocked silence while they comprehended what they had just seen. The case had suddenly become more than just a second car at the bottom of the lake; there were now four deaths to sort out.

          Of course by the time the local coffee shop opened the following morning, the news was out. The sheriff didn’t find it at all surprising that the speculative body count was closer to eight than four. Driscoll tried to keep a lid on that from the get-go but reporters were on the scene as soon as it was revealed that a car was found on the lake bed; there were at least three reporters within earshot when they opened up the old Chevy, and there were a couple more by the time they had the Camaro drug out. Mark tried to downplay the gossip as he filled his cup then took a seat at the table.

“So the cars were all shot up?” Leonard asked from the opposite end.

Driscoll shook his head. “Just the one, there’s no evidence that it wasn’t there long before the car went into the drink.”

“Know who it is?”

“No. We got three bodies out of the older car and one from the newer one; we’ve checked the license numbers and know where they were last registered. Right now we’re trying to identify the bodies, and, just trying to piece together what happened.” Mark couldn’t really say anything more. It didn’t really matter; the whole event seemed to take on a life of its own and he was glad it went that way.

Driscoll drove out east of town then headed north toward the Sweetgrass Hills. The old Chevy was last registered to a rancher who had run an operation in the region of Pratt’s Canyon, in the vicinity of the West Butte. The Musgrove ranch was in that same region. Mark decided to stop there and have a chat with his good friend, Cole. As he drove into the yard he wished once again that Cole’s dad was still around. The late Sheriff, Andy Musgrove, was a wealth of information, and willing to help in every way he could. It was Musgrove who had not only recommended that Driscoll become the new sheriff but encouraged him as well. But Musgrove had passed on; the only thing Mark could do when he got bogged down was to ask himself how Sheriff Musgrove would’ve handled it. But Musgrove’s only son was the only source now. Cole had often donned the uniform and assisted his dad in solving numerous cases. But Cole decided that law enforcement wasn’t for him; better to let someone more skilled—and dedicated—do that.