As we walked, the rumble of trucks receded, and the whine of fine-tuned engines grew louder. Based on the changing acoustics, I figured the Speedway lay over a rise to our right.
After ten minutes, Molene stopped at the base of a truncated hillock. Though tentative grass greened the top, the side facing us was scarred and pitted, like a desert butte gouged by eons of wind.
Molene said something I didn’t catch. I was focused on the exposed stratigraphy.
Unlike the sandstone or shale that make up metamorphic rock, the mound’s layers were composed of flattened Pontiacs and Posturepedics, of squashed Pepsis, Pop-Tarts, Pringles, and Pampers.
Molene pointed to a crater in a brown-green layer eight feet above our heads, then to an object lying about two yards off the base of the mound. His explanation was lost to a clap of thunder.
Didn’t matter. It was obvious Jackson’s “stiff” had dropped from the mound, probably dislodged by the previous day’s storm.
I crossed to the thing and squatted. Molene, Warner, and Hawkins clustered around me but remained standing. Jackson kept his distance.
The object was a drum, approximately twenty inches in diameter and thirty inches high. Its cover lay off to one side.
“Looks like a metal container of some kind,” I said without looking up. “It’s too rusted to make out a logo or label.”
“Flip it,” Molene shouted. “Jackson and I turned the thing bottom up to protect the stuff inside.”
I tried. It weighed a ton.
Hawkins squatted, and together, we muscled the drum upright. Its interior was filled with a solid black mass.
I leaned close. Something pale was suspended in the dark fill, but the pre-storm gloom obscured all detail.
I was reaching for my Maglite when lightning sparked.
A human hand flashed white in the electric brilliance.
Dissolved to black.
IRAN MY BEAM OVER THE INKY MATRIX.
The white inclusion was unquestionably a human hand.
The fill was rock-hard but crumbling at the exposed edges. I suspected asphalt. The size of the drum suggested a thirty-five-gallon capacity.
Thirty seconds of discussion, and we had a plan.
Warner and Jackson would stand guard while the rest of us returned to the management office. Though Jackson’s look said he’d rather be elsewhere, he offered no protest.
The clouds burst as Hawkins, Molene, and I picked our way back. We arrived mud-coated and thoroughly soaked.
To my dismay, two vehicles waited a short distance down the dirt road, motors idling, wipers slapping. I recognized the driver of the Ford Focus.
“Sonofabitch,” I said.
“What?” Behind me, Molene was breathing hard.
“Reporters.” I waved a hand in the direction of the cars.
“I didn’t talk to no one. I swear.”
“Their scanners probably picked up the radio transmission from the cops to the ME.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s Race Week.” I made no attempt to hide my irritation. “A murder at the Speedway would make splashy headlines.”
Seeing us, the reporters emerged from their cars and slip-slid to the checkpoint. One was a mushroom- shaped man holding an umbrella. The other was a woman in a slicker and pink vinyl boots.
The guard looked a question in our direction. Molene gestured “no” with both hands.
Denied access, the pair shouted through the downpour.
“How long has the body been out there?”
“Is it the kid who went missing from Bar Carolina?”
“Any tie-in to the Speedway?”
“Dr. Brennan—”
“Is the ME planning to—”
Hawkins, Molene, and I hurried into the office. The door slammed, cutting off the barrage of questions.
“Any chance it
