Curving high above the gawkers, the glass-fronted luxury suites loomed dark and empty.
The deputy directed me toward the Sprint Cup garage area. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Wayne Gamble. In my office at the MCME the previous Friday. In Sandy Stupak’s trailer with Slidell just twelve hours earlier. Now the man was dead. At age twenty-seven.
Gamble had reached out to me, and I’d ignored him. Failed to return his call.
The guilt felt like a cold fist squeezing my chest.
Once past the Media Center I could see the usual grouping of cruisers, civilian cars, and vans. One of the latter was marked Crime Scene Unit. The other was our own morgue transport vehicle. Behind the wheel was a silhouette I knew to be Joe Hawkins.
I parked off to one side and got out.
The night was still and muggy. The air smelled of rain, gasoline, and concession-stand grease.
“I need to find Dr. Larabee,” I said to my escort.
“I’ll take you to him.”
Grabbing my recovery kit from the trunk, I followed the deputy.
On the edge of the hubbub, a man leaned against a Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Department cruiser, face pale in the pulsating blue and red lights. He appeared to be trying hard for composure.
I knew from the logo on his shirt that the man was a member of Stupak’s crew. I guessed from his expression that he’d been the one who found Gamble.
Larabee was outside Stupak’s garage, talking to a guy in a shirt and tie whom I didn’t recognize. Experience told me they were standing at ground zero.
Every scene shows the same people-dispersal pattern. You can read it like a map. The ME near the vic, maybe a detective or death investigator nearby. Moving outward, the uniforms, speaking to no one. Sitting in or near their trucks, the CSU and morgue techs, idle and bored until called into action.
Despite the oppressive humidity, Larabee was wearing a Tyvek jumpsuit. Behind him, in the garage, I could see the #59 Chevy, its trunk end raised at an odd angle. The painted-on taillights looked dull and flat in the garish illumination of the overheads.
“Tempe,” Larabee said upon seeing me. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.”
Larabee tipped his head toward the shirt-and-tie guy. “Mickey Reno. He’s with Speedway security.”
Reno had seen too many barbecues and too few barbells. Once muscular, his body was stalwartly moving toward fat.
I offered a hand and we shook.
“Why am I here?” I asked Larabee.
“You got a suit?”
I raised my kit in answer.
“Put it on. And bring what you need. It’s tight in there.”
Larabee’s tone told me it was bad.
Placing the metal suitcase on the ground, I flipped the levers, pulled out and zipped a jumpsuit over my clothes. After hanging a camera around my neck, I stuffed latex gloves, plastic specimen containers, Ziplocs, tweezers, and a Sharpie into one pocket.
Satisfied, I nodded that I was ready.
“I’ll go in on the left, you go on the right,” Larabee directed.
Tight was an understatement. The garages assigned to NASCAR drivers at tracks are microscopic. The car takes up most of the space. The crew works around and under it.
Larabee entered and sidestepped toward the garage’s far end, his back to the wall. I did the same, opposite and facing him, the Chevy between us.
I noted familiar smells blending with the stench of gasoline and oil. Urine. Feces. A sweet coppery odor.
Again, icy guilt gripped my chest.
I’d gone maybe five feet when I felt slickness below the soles of my sneakers.
I looked down.
It seemed more blood than could come from one human body. The pool stretched from wall to wall and half the length of the floor.
Breathing through my mouth, I continued.
When I reached the car’s hood I understood the reason for the hideous carnage. And the reason for my presence.
Wayne Gamble’s body lay off the right front tire, supine, legs crooked to his left, arms outstretched and tossed to his right.
