17
Paranoia on River Road
Terry Rich Hartley
Cover Art: Designs By Rachelle
Published by Mind Wings Audio at Smashwords
This story is also available in audio CD and MP3 formats
Copyright 2009 Terry Rich Hartley
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
On June 16, Deputy Sheriff Lita Echeveria pulled the Jeep Cherokee off Highway 30 onto a freshly paved lane. The old, hand-painted sign reading “Billington's Dairy and Meat Rabbits” was gone. Its replacement, a ten-by-ten gray stone slab with the name “CANYON CREST HOME SITES by STEELE DEVELOPMENT” and a laser-engraved map of a new subdivision, greeted her. Nothing stays the same, she thought, slowly rolling by chunks of concrete that had been the foundation of a farm house. Ahead lay a grid work of roadbeds dotted with survey ribbons. She took the road that led straight east and continued on for an eighth of a mile until she saw the backhoe the dispatcher said to look for. Just beyond it, the road ended in a cul-de-sac. She pulled up by a parked white Ford F150 Supercrew. Two men were in it. The one in the driver's seat stepped out.
“Hello, I'm Tory Steele,” he said.
“Lita Echeveria,” she returned with a firm handshake.
“I called the Sheriff's office, but it was my heavy equipment man, Joe Mendenhall, who made the discovery. He's the big guy there in the cab. I'll walk you over to the excavation. Joe doesn’t want to go near it.”
Following the handsome developer, Echeveria knew from dispatch pretty much what to expect, but sometimes expectations don't live up to reality. This was one of those times. Steele stopped at the excavation where the backhoe had bitten out fresh earth and stared into the hole.
“Native Americans roamed the river plain for thousands of years, and I've had to stop construction for an antiquities inspection twice before at another site. That's why I thought Joe stopped digging and called me. But this is different. I don't quite understand what I'm looking at. Ever seen anything like this?”
“Frankly,” the deputy answered, “I thought the dispatcher was drunk as a peach orchard bull. And no, I've never seen anything like this. I doubt if anyone else has, either.”
Steele scratched at his gray-streaked temple and mused, “And to think Joe wasn’t supposed to dig here. This area is going to be a small park. Some girl talked him into it.” Seeing the deputy gaze around, he added, “She wasn’t here when I showed up. Joe told me about her.”
“I’d like to hear this,” Echeveria said, walking back to the pickup. Seeing her coming, Mendenhall uncurled a beefy arm through the passenger window frame and flipped a smoldering butt into the dirt. Mid-twenties, she guessed, cheeks ruddy from too much weather and probably alcohol. After exchanging niceties, she said, “So, tell me about it.”
“Uh, I was start’n a basement where those colored stakes are—right back there—and this girl walked in front of the backhoe and waved for me to stop. She asked if I would please dig a hole over there.”
“You know her?”
“Never seen her. Cute blonde. Real cute. And she was eighteen.”
“You know her age without knowing her?”
“It’s what this was all about. Said her dad buried a secret gift years back and told her she could dig it up when she turned eighteen. I asked ‘What is it?’” Mendenhall ran enormously thick fingers through a Viking-red beard. “Told her I needed to know so’s not to break it with the bucket. She laughed at me and said that’s what makes it a secret, not knowing what it is. So, figured the boss wouldn’t care if I took ten minutes. Besides …”
“She was cute.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled, “kinda hard to turn down.”