“Do you have time to drive there with me?” Robert pointed to the spot near a bridge. Brice nodded.
Brice rode with Robert and showed him the exact spot where the car left the highway and went toward the river.
They got out, and Robert followed Brice while he retold what he saw. The soft dirt and gravel had many tire prints where cars regularly pulled off the road and stopped.
“You can see that a car went off the road up here,” Brice walked along the edge of the pavement, standing to one side of the single set of tire marks going toward the river. “The car continued along here and turned in toward the river here. The wheels tore up the grass and gravel at the edge, but no tire marks are going out.” Brice and Robert stood looking at the area. “The grass is flattened, but that could be explained by many reasons,” Brice added.
Robert bobbed his head in semi-agreement. “I’ll need more than that.”
“Come this way.” Brice walked away from the road, following along the edge of the flattened grass. He showed Robert the places where the car broke off branches and hit some of the rocks as it went by. Rocks had been rolled out of the way, leaving the deep impressions of where they had been. “There was no question, a path to the river had been made, but for what purpose?” Robert added. “So, a car went by, what makes you think that it was the Stevens’ car?”
“Only that it fits in the time span that something could have happened to them.” He turned a hostile expression to Robert. “I thought every bit of information you got was investigated.”
“It is.” Robert wanted to sigh. “I just want to know if there is anything you might know personally, that could help find this family.”
“No, I didn’t know the family, never met them, or even saw their picture in the paper. I’m just telling you that I saw two cars drive down here and only one left.”
“You saw the headlights?”
“And taillights. I was too far away to see the actual car, but I could see some reflection of the lights on the shrubs. I saw the brake lights come on.”
“How long were they on?”
“Not long, about two or three seconds every so often. After about a minute or so the taillights were out of my sight.”
“What did you do then?”
“I moved on. I was too far away. I was up there.” Brice turned and faced southeast toward a bluff on the other side of the highway. Robert could see that even in the dark, Brice would have had a clear view of the area. He knew the night in question had been clear with no rain.
When they reached the edge of the cliff, Brice pointed to the spot where something had gouged the boulder. Robert and Brice looked around every crevice to see if anything might have broken off the car. Robert squatted to look closer at the damaged rock. “It sure looks like something heavy went over the cliff. It also looks like it didn’t have much resistance. The damage is to a rock that’s high enough to have scraped the bottom of the car. Yet there is no damage at the actual edge of the cliff. That tells me the car had to be going at a speed fast enough to fly out into the river rather than be tipped over the edge.” He peered over the edge at the rocks below. “There isn’t any damage there, nor is there any debris from a crash anywhere around the base of the cliff. “
He stood and shielded his eyes as he looked out over the water. The current moved fast. Ripples from the wind caused whitecaps. If a car did go down in the river, it might have been carried by momentum out into the channel and who knows where it landed. The Columbia River had a deep channel, but the silt from the upper river often narrowed the channel, and it would need dredging this spring.
“I found some more paint chips. They’re red. I hope we can match them to the kind of paint that was on the car the Stevens drove.” Brice continued to search the ground.
“I hope so too. There are some tire tracks here. The rain must have drained away leaving a good impression. I’ll go call the team to get samples.” Robert went to the car and radioed the officer at the dam site.
A team had been sent to Cascade Locks, and they could be where Robert was in less than an hour. Robert gave them the directions to his location.
A voice crackled on the radio. “Collins, what do you think you’re doing? The team is assigned to me, and I need them. You have no jurisdiction calling them off and sending them on a wild goose chase upriver. They will not go there. They will come here where they were assigned.” Stan’s voice came through the radio, loud and clear. Robert had no trouble hearing the anger in his voice.
“Sure thing, Stan, keep them.” He called off the radio. Part of him burned with a combination of anger and embarrassment at what Stan had done. He couldn’t blame the guy. Robert had ordered the team to abandon Stan’s project for his.
Robert went back to Brice to inform him of the change in plans. He heard the radio crackle and his name called. Robert ran back to the car. “Collins here.”
“Sir, we have divided the team. We’ll be there in less than an hour,” the voice announced.
“Thank you,” Robert responded.
“You must have more clout than you thought.” Brice grinned at him.
The three-man team arrived and took pictures and tire impressions. They gathered and labeled all the evidence.
“Brice, I am going to take the samples you gave me and have the lab process them separately. I want all the evidence that we can get. I really appreciate you volunteering your time. Do you want a ride anywhere?”
“No, thanks. I’ll keep in touch.” Brice waved and walked on down the bluff along the river.
Robert drove back to the station and checked his samples into the lab. “How long do you think it will take to get me a source for the tire impressions and the paint chips?” he queried the expert.
“We have a lot of samples in front of yours.” The technician didn’t look at him but waved his hand over the boxes marked “evidence” on the table.
“Yes, but this is a priority. What I have in these boxes could belong to the Stevens’ car or to their killer.”
“Sure, and this belongs to a murder that happened last month, and the pretrial is scheduled for next week. This is from a beating; this is from—”
“I get the point.” Robert ran his hand over his hair and down the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. When can I expect the samples to be compared?”
“What is it that you want? I might have to send them out. I don’t know if we are equipped for this type of work.”
“Send them out, if you need to. I need to know what make and model of car these paint chips came from and what tires made these impressions.”
“Oh, and you expect that when?” The tech looked into a box and shook his head. “I’ll need to send them out. I can do that right away. Here, log the samples into the book, and I’ll get them sent out with tomorrow’s packets.” He looked directly at Robert and gave an apologetic wave of his hand. “I have no idea how long it’s going to take for sure. I can tell you that unless they are very standard tires and the car is a recent model, it’s going to take a long time, weeks.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate you sending them out as quickly as possible.” Robert wrote in the log book the number and description of each evidence bag he’d brought in. He initialed each line, indicating he’d personally logged the samples.
Chapter 6
When he returned to his desk, a new stack of reports topped his inbox. He picked up the top folder marked “Calvin Stevens.” Inside, he found the rap sheet. He’d just finished reading it when Jake came in and set his cup of steaming coffee on the only corner of the desk not covered with papers. He fumbled around under the stack until he found the ever-present roll of butterscotch Life Savers. He peeled off one and popped it in his mouth before sitting down.