Deputy Diaz, who looked less pale around the gills said, “I just talked to the Sheriff.”
An oily humidity rose from the liquid and they felt it on their faces and hands. That creeped Hunter out, and she stepped further back.
Buddy said, “What is that stuff?”
Carlo ran a stick through it and said, “I feel some things under the surface, they’re moving around when I push them.” He moved the thumb-sized stick some more and lifted it by the end, the way a fisherman lifts a fish out of the water. The deputy had to put some muscle in lifting the object out of the murk, bending the stick like a fisherman’s pole with a big one on the line, and they watched as a human skull rose dripping from the liquid, the stick protruding from the eye socket. The spine remained half-attached, and part of it lifted with the skull until the spine separated from the skull and fell into the soup with a soft plop and sank below the surface.
Buddy looked at Carlo and Hunter, “This is not good.”
Carlo said, “No sir, it is not.”
Hunter said, “This is your baby now, Carlo. Not in my jurisdiction.”
“Can you two hang around here for a while? I’m the only one working South county today.” Hunter nodded, and so did Buddy.
Hunter winked at Carlo and said, “So you’re the investigating homicide detective too?”
“Yeah, and the traffic control officer and the street sweeper and the animal control officer, in case some donkeys mess up in town.”
“God bless small towns.”
Carlo shook his finger at her, put his phone in his pocket and called on his vehicle’s radio to continue talking to the Sheriff while the man drove. He also handed Hunter his stick.
A minute later, Carlo said, “Yes sir,” on the radio and hung up. “Sheriff said for us to go ahead and scoop out what we can, then freeze the rest and seine it as it melts. Then we bag everything.”
Buddy said, “I’m curious. How did this guy turn into a can of Dinty Moore while in the trunk?”
Hunter said, “Like being in a slow cooker. Meat cooks off the bones, and everything in there is re-cooked every day the sun is up like this here. It won’t be much longer and the bones would also turn to mush. Isn’t it a hundred degrees already?”
Carlo said, “If it isn’t, it’s close to it, and like cooking the contents all day, every day for six months. Made it to a hundred yesterday by ten am, so the temp is right on track for today. My guess is the trunk’s interior was around a hundred thirty degrees daily for at least five, six hours.”
“Don’t feel like it’s your fault, Buddy,” Carlo said, “Whoever drove is at fault.”
They discussed things for a few minutes, and Buddy made a call, then said, “Brandi’s off work and will bring some food and drinks by for us. I had her pick up a couple of eight by ten tarps we had at the back of the firehouse. I thought they could hold whatever we scoop out of here.”
Hunter said, “If she can bring a dip net, that might be helpful, too.” She made a scooping motion to how the net would work. Buddy nodded and called Brandi back and got a thumbs-up on the net. Hunter also radioed the other Border Patrol Agent working the area, her friend Raymond Flores, and he said he couldn’t come to the location, that he was on a trail of backpackers near the Hot Springs.
Carlo got latex gloves for their hands out of the back of his sedan. He also brought out a small six-by-eight plastic tarp. all three started using sticks to fish up half-dissolved bones, rotting clothes, shoes, and a thin silver bracelet on the first effort.
They put the items on the tarp. Hunter and Carlo looked at each other, “A female?” Hunter said.
“Looks like it.”
Several other locals pulled up, curious, and Carlo asked them to leave, which they did. Brandi drove up in a reconditioned black Jeep CJ-5 with Igloo coolers in the back. She hopped out and said, “I just picked up some breakfast tacos. Some are chorizo and egg, some guisado, and four tatema. I brought some salsa, too, and some tortilla chips. I put some iced-down Dr. Peppers in the cooler along with some water.”
Buddy hefted the coolers out of the seat and put them on the trunk of Carlo’s vehicle, where they ate while standing in the shade of a small desert willow flowering with white and pink blossoms. No one talked much, but Hunter did nod her head at the Ford and say, “One is a woman because of the bracelet.”
Carlo chewed a moment before saying, “I turned over a pelvis at the last, didn’t hook it but I saw the shape and it was a male.”
Brandi said, “So there were two in the trunk?”
“At least. We aren’t through yet.”
The liquid nitrogen truck arrived and Carlo directed the driver where to park and told him what they needed. His eyes widened, but he pulled beside the green Ford and slipped on heavy, grey insulated gloves that reached to the elbows, then he uncoiled the thick hose to reach the car trunk. He checked the dials on the truck, started the pump and began spraying the cold nitrogen into the trunk. There was enough liquid in the trunk that it took thirty minutes to freeze all the contents solid.
The driver hung up the hose and removed his gloves, then said, “Anything else?”
Buddy asked, “How cold is that stuff?”