Chapter 5 - The Girl at the Records Window
Beth Garner agreed to meet me only after I promised not to bring Elliot.
We sat at opposite ends of a picnic table outside a grocery store where commuters couldn't help overhearing us if we raised our voices.
Beth was thirty-six, tired-looking, and wore her county identification badge turned backward.
"That jacket was in a canvas sack with old uniform donations," she said. "There were fourteen coats, six pairs of boots, and a box of gloves. I sent the lot to your shop because the auxiliary wanted everything presentable for the church drive."
"Did you see an evidence tag?"
"No. The sack was tied shut with evidence-room tape, but I thought they'd reused the bag."
"Who gave it to you?"
She pressed the edge of her thumbnail against the table.
"Deputy Voss. He said it came from surplus."
"Why did you warn me?"
"Because an hour after you called Mr. Bell, Voss ordered me to change the donation inventory. He wanted the coat entered as a generic navy jacket, no source location."
"Did you do it?"
"I changed the electronic record."
The admission hung between us.
"I printed the earlier version first," she added.
I didn't ask her to steal anything or show me confidential files. I asked if she'd speak to an investigator outside the sheriff's office.
"I have two children," she said.
"I understand."
"No. You have a business. You don't understand what happens when the only employer in town decides you're a problem."
She stood, then stopped.
"There was something else in that donation sack. A plastic sleeve with a tag for Graystone Quarry. Voss pulled it out before I could inventory it."
The words settled somewhere deep in my chest.
I spent that evening looking at publicly available county board minutes while June worked on her final project beside me. Graystone had once been an active gravel pit. Now a contractor named Alder Ridge Materials was scheduled to fill and grade it before winter.
Alder Ridge had won three county hauling contracts under Harlan's administration, though the sheriff had no vote in awarding them. That alone proved nothing.
But the night Owen disappeared, county road records showed the east quarry access gate supposedly closed at six.
Owen's last text was sent more than three hours later.
Elliot called at 10:07.
"The records department rejected my request for the original tow report," he said. "Says it doesn't exist."
I stared at the photocopy June had found in an archived newspaper.
May you like
A tow operator stood beside the bus-station truck, his face half hidden by the open driver's door.
On the front of his jacket, embroidered in yellow, were two words: FLORES TOWING.
