Otto dialed Josie’s number, anxious to get her out of the building before Mitch lit the explosives. She didn’t answer.
* * *
Josie felt the cell phone vibrate against her chest and ignored it, not wanting to spook Brent before she understood his motivation.
She stood and gestured with her hand for him to walk out of the small room, but he didn’t budge. The room was too confined and she felt extremely uncomfortable. His attitude had changed considerably. She realized he was holding one of his arms awkwardly behind his body, just behind the door frame.
He spoke again, his voice low, with a forced calm that made him sound even more unstable.
“I came here to tell you that you’re wanted outside. Things are going bad out there. Someone stopped me and said to get you. They want you out there now.”
His words were carefully enunciated, and his eyes had grown wide and unfocused. Josie wondered if he was on something, prescription or otherwise.
“Let them know I’m on my way. I need to lock things up.” Josie rested her hand on the butt of her gun at her waist.
His face turned red, his eyes wide now. “You do not understand. Things are completely screwed. I will take care of things here. They need you outside!”
His voice had become rigid. It was clear he had no intention of leaving the building.
Josie tried to remain calm and took a step forward to move them into the larger area outside the room where she stood a better chance of defending herself. She brought her hand down toward her gun, but he stopped her with a yell.
“Don’t do that!” He brought his hidden hand around to the front of him. He held a pint-sized glass beaker half filled with liquid.
Her skin grew cold.
“I did not want to do this,” he said.
* * *
When the rock tumbled down Norton’s Peak, the trencher operator stopped and left his machine for further direction. Mitch stopped laying the explosives and ran to catch up with him.
“The trench is about halfway done. I got several hundred pounds of explosives laid. For now, let’s keep going, digging the trench and laying the C-4. If the rest of the peak crumbles, we stop and detonate what we have. Start back up where you left off. Keep running where I have the flags laid.”
The man nodded and took off toward his machine.
“Hey!” Mitch yelled, and the man turned back. “When this blows it’s gonna rain shit on all of us for half a mile. You’ll get hit with some heavy mud. Just be prepared. I’ll call first.”
The man said nothing, just gave a thumbs-up and climbed back up in the trencher.
Mitch turned to Otto. “Get Sandy on the phone. Tell her we’re going to light the fuse soon. This is her last chance to call it off if she’s still worried about the tremors.”
Otto got Sandy on the cell phone and explained.
“It’s not good,” she said. “We’re just east of the peak. Everything is crumbling, breaking loose. Tell Mitch to blow us a hole in the ground before this mess plows through the middle of those barrels and causes a real disaster.”
Sandy hung up before Otto could respond.
* * *
While Mitch briefed his crew on safety precautions and each man’s location, Otto called Josie again and got no answer. He started to worry.
Otto interrupted Mitch’s talk. “I’m taking the four-wheeler to check on Josie. She’s not answering her phone. I want her out of there.”
Otto got on his four-wheeler. Spinning mud behind him, he quickly got it up to third gear, and made it back to the front of Unit Seven. He pulled his gun and used the key to the side door, which opened behind and to the left of Skip’s office. He hoped he was being paranoid and overly cautious, and that Josie would give him hell for playing mother hen.
He opened the door slowly, and stepped inside, then shut it behind him with a slight click of the latch. The humming of the filtration system drowned out most of the background noise, but Otto could hear voices coming from the other side of the office. He made his way down the side of Skip’s office, against the wall, his gun at the ready.
He paused and listened. An angry male voice sounded as if it was facing away from Otto. When he heard Josie respond, her tone forced, reasonable, he knew she was in trouble. He slowly looked around the corner of the office and saw Brent Thyme facing her, standing just outside the door of a small room. He could see part of Josie standing behind Brent, but he was certain she had a clear view of him.
Brent held a glass jar in one hand, his other hand pointing at her. Otto watched Josie nod her head calmly, acknowledging Brent’s words, trying to get him to continue. Otto hoped she had seen him. He walked into the open expanse in the middle of the building, his arms extended, his gun pointing directly at Brent. Otto hoped he could make it to Brent before he sensed movement and turned.
* * *
Josie saw Otto enter the room from the corner of her eye, but kept her focus on Brent.
“Destroy the tape or I throw it. Your skin will melt just like Santiago’s.” He held his hand out. “You don’t want this.”
Brent’s face was filled with a rage that Josie would not have believed he had inside of him.
“We’ll look at the tape together. You explain it to me,” she said.
“That tape means nothing,” he said. “It distorts everything. What Beacon did to us. They killed Santiago! That tape proves nothing, and they’ll make it look like I’m the guilty one!”
“I can help you work through this. You have to trust me, Brent.”
“It’s bullshit! I have a family to take care of. They don’t care about any of us! It’s smoke and mirrors.”
Josie let him rant, and kept her eyes focused on him, encouraging him as Otto made his way toward them.
Otto approached and she watched the expression on Brent’s face change from rage to shock the instant that she knew the barrel of Otto’s gun had reached the center of Brent’s back.
“If you drop that glass, or you raise your arm, you’ll get a bullet through your back,” Otto said. “You’ll die here on the floor, in a pool of your own blood.”
The hysteria from moments before hung on Brent’s face as if frozen in time. He appeared paralyzed.
“You’re going to bend slowly down, and you’re going to set that glass on the floor. Very gently,” Otto said.
His face grew slack, as if Otto’s words were sinking in, and he slowly bent forward.
About a foot from the floor, Brent rose up with all his power, knocking Otto’s gun arm out of the way. He flung the liquid at Josie. She ducked, but received a splash across the right side of her face, and down her right arm. She screamed in shock, then anger propelled her forward and she leaped onto him as he was turning to escape. Otto brought his gun arm up at the same time and hit Brent in the temple. The beaker fell, sending glass shards scattering across the floor. Blood appeared immediately and Brent fell backwards as Josie landed on his side.
She flipped him on his stomach where he lay limp. Her face began to burn.
“Jesus, Josie, get that washed off you,” Otto called. “Go!”
As Josie squatted with one knee on Brent’s back, her arms and legs felt numb, as if weighed down with lead. She couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
Otto pulled a set of handcuffs off his gun belt, and clicked them around Brent’s wrists.
“Damn it, Josie! Get up and find a bathroom. Get that washed off. Who knows what the hell that might be!” he yelled.
He grabbed Josie’s arm and pulled her up and out of her own thoughts. “Go. I’ll call Diego and get him over here.”
She walked, then ran toward the back of the building in search of a bathroom.
She heard Brent groan as if the wind had been knocked out of him. She imagined Otto beating the life out of him, but she couldn’t think straight. She just knew she needed to get water on her face. The visions of Santiago’s arms, the fresh image of Brent Thyme’s wrist, were terri
fying.
She stumbled through a door with a sign that said RESTROOM. She turned the water on full force and pressed the lever for the hand soap, rubbing the foam into her face, splashing water, then doing the same on her arm. She wondered suddenly if water would do more harm than good, but continued splashing water and washing with soap until the skin on her face turned bright red. After ten minutes of continual soap and water Josie decided to stop because she didn’t know what else to do. Her face burned, but no blisters were forming yet. After several minutes the burn worsened and she went back to the water and soap routine. She was certain Otto had called the medics. She figured the most effective treatment at that point was continued washing until she heard otherwise.
She looked in the mirror at the red patch on her face. She’d seen pictures of women in Pakistan, disfigured by acid thrown on their faces and bodies as a punishment for accused infidelity. She imagined her face scarred and withered.
The door opened and Diego entered the restroom. “Where did you get hit? Do you know what he threw on you?”
She looked up from the running water and saw his reflection in the mirror behind her. She shook her head. “It was a clear liquid. It hit the side of my face and my arm. It’s burning.”
He looked panicked. “Otto and Skip are taking Brent to the storage room where he found the chemicals.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Keep applying a cool water bath to the area until we find out what the chemical was.”
Diego stayed with her, touching wet cloths to her face, talking to calm her nerves. After what seemed an eternity, Skip entered the small bathroom carrying a glass jug half filled with a clear liquid.
“This is it, Josie. Brent led us to it. The lid was off. It’s hydrochloric acid. In its most concentrated form it would do terrible damage to your skin. The pain would be unbearable. These acids have been prepared for disposal, though. It’s been combined with a base in order to neutralize the acid.”
“So what are you saying?” she asked, wanting irrefutable proof that she would not be scarred for life.
Diego laid a hand on her back. “He’s saying you’ll be fine. You need to see a doctor, but the acid has been mixed with something to make it less harmful. I’m so sorry for this.”
Josie looked at Skip, who stood looking helpless. “Brent poured the acid from that container into another jar? And that’s what he threw on me?”
“Yes.”
She noticed he was wearing latex gloves. “Keep the gloves on so we don’t lose his fingerprints. I need you to get that container to Otto. Ask him to get it labeled for evidence. It’s crucial that doesn’t get misplaced in the middle of all the commotion here.”
Skip left the room with the acid and Diego continued to stare at her face.
“My face still burns.” She looked toward the mirror and saw a red patch the size of her palm along the side of her face.
“The skin on your face is sensitive. I would expect it to turn red. It will fade. You need to get to a hospital to have a doctor treat you, though,” Diego said. “The chemicals are neutralized to make them safe to dispose of, but it’s not an exact science.”
Josie nodded. “Where’s Otto?”
“Skip said he took Brent outside in handcuffs.”
Diego placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her slowly toward him. He touched the red area gently with the back of his fingers. “It doesn’t feel hot to the touch. You need some cream applied to it to stop the burn.”
Josie held her arm out and saw the red that stretched down her forearm and across her wrist.
He removed his hand from her shoulder and looked at her in confusion. “Why would Brent attack you?”
“I watched the security tapes from Saturday and Sunday. I’m sorry. I couldn’t afford to wait for permission.”
Anger flickered across his face, but he nodded.
“Brent killed Juan Santiago.”
“What?” Diego looked incredulous, as if he wasn’t capable of hearing one more horrendous piece of news.
“That’s why he attacked you? You saw him kill Santiago on the security tapes?”
“I was watching the tapes. Brent came into the security room carrying the beaker. When I refused to leave the room, he threatened me with the chemicals. That’s when Otto approached with his gun drawn. Brent threw the acid in an attempt to break free.”
Looking at Diego’s stunned expression she was hit by a sudden realization. This is the difference between cops and other people. He still feels shock and disbelief at the atrocities people do to one another.
“I haven’t watched the rest of the security tape,” Josie said. “But I have no doubt what we’ll find.”
* * *
They heard a boom like thunder ripping through the inside of a metal drum. The sound lasted for what seemed like an eternity. Mitch had just detonated the explosives in the trench. They left the bathroom and ran outside to find Otto with one of the DPS officers who had been helping with the mudslide, locking Brent Thyme in the backseat of his patrol car.
Otto turned to Josie. He looked bad, Josie thought.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice cracking.
She could see he was searching her face for signs of damage, and she realized how shaken he had been over her safety.
“I’m fine. Skip says it was a neutralized chemical. The burning is already easing up. I’m going to be fine.”
Otto’s shoulders slumped in relief.
She noticed Brent in the back of the police car. The anger and betrayal she felt over his attack toward her, and toward Santiago, were too much to put into words at that point. She turned away from the car to keep from looking at him. She needed time to mentally cool off before she had to confront him at the jail.
Diego and Skip left for the parking lot to meet with Sandy to check the results of the explosives. After Brent was driven away in the DPS car, Josie and Otto stood in the courtyard, surveying each other without word.
Josie finally said, “Hell of a day.”
“When I left to get you, the peak was just crumbling,” Otto said.
Josie looked toward the mountain range but one of the buildings blocked the view. “You need to get to the hospital. You need to be examined,” Otto said.
“Let’s go check the hillside. If it’s under control I’ll take off.”
Otto climbed on the four-wheeler, and Josie slid on behind him.
TWENTY-FOUR
As Otto drove around the side of the Feed Plant, the mountain range came into full view. Josie couldn’t believe the sight. Losing the peak, the highest point on the mountain range, completely changed the landscape, creating a void in the sky.
Two streams of water were flowing down the mountain: one down the original arroyo a half mile to the left of the plant, the other a newly formed stream that was flowing through the trench Mitch had blown into the earth. Mitch was on the ATV. His crew was located between the two flows, and they were beginning to drive the truck back toward the plant. Josie noticed the trench operator was to the left of the newly blown ditch.
“He needs to get that trencher out of there before he gets stuck!” she said, pointing at the machine. It appeared to be caught on the edge of the path of water and mud moving down the hill.
Otto yelled back to her. “Looks like he lost traction in the moving water.”
The trencher was pointed east, away from the runoff, but the machine wasn’t built for speed. It probably only moved about two miles per hour.
Using the four-wheeler, Otto drove to where Mitch and his crew had stopped their pickup truck to watch the trencher. The Excursion, several four-wheelers, and the pickup truck were all congregated, watching the operator try to beat the slide.
Josie was amazed at the fast-moving stream of mud and debris. She’d seen the aftermath, but she’d never seen an actual mudslide in person. It looked to be alive, engulfing everything in its way, completely unstoppable. She realized now how ineffectiv
e the concrete barriers would have been in the wake of its widening path.
Otto killed the engine and the group turned briefly to ask if everything was okay, but the focus was now on the mudslide. Massive slabs of earth were dislodging and collecting with the debris and water sliding down from the base of the mountain. The mess was fortunately following the path Mitch had predicted, headed straight for the ten-foot-wide ditch that would bypass the Feed Plant. The problem now was the mudslide was spreading wider than the ditch and was about to catch the trencher and pull it along.
“We’ve got to get him out of there!” Otto yelled. Josie could tell he was ready to start up their four-wheeler and take off toward the machine, but she was afraid it would just put another vehicle in the way of the slide.
Mitch turned. “You gonna throw him a rope? What the hell can we do?”
Josie yelled over the engine, “Let’s at least get up there closer.” She looked at Sandy and Diego, who stood together watching off to the side. “Do you have any chains?”
Mitch yelled, “It’s too late! Somebody call and tell him to leave the machine. Just get out and let it roll.”
“He can’t jump into a mudslide! He could kill himself getting out. That trencher could roll on top of him,” Josie said.
In a matter of seconds the slabs of mud had gained momentum, floating on the loose desert sand, mixing with the slew now pouring down the mountain. It had turned into a river of thick mud. The edge of the slide reached the trencher and began to turn the machine, finally taking it down the hill with it. The operator had no control. The tracks would be useless with nothing solid to grab on to. Josie prayed the massive machine wouldn’t tip.
Otto and Josie followed Mitch and Diego on the ATVs, up the hillside toward the trencher, staying on the solid ground to the right of the flow. Josie looked behind her and saw Sandy driving the Excursion back toward the plant before it got stuck in the mud.
As they came toward the machine, it tipped on its side, the cab moving in slow motion, the massive trencher slipping down into the middle of the mudslide. The windows were covered in thick sludge and the driver was no longer visible. They watched in awe as it was swept away, on its side, like a paper boat floating in a pond.
Scratchgravel Road: A Mystery Page 27