Trinity by Kristin Dearborn Read Free Book Online Page B

downturned corner of his mouth. She didn’t think about gloves at all, but it made sense. The expression on his face passed, and he stretched like a cat. In the quiet morning she could hear his back crack.
    “What do you propose?” he asked. His tone, his face…both were so cold.
    “What?”
    “You called me out here to do something, presumably with this body, what do you propose?”
    “The mine.”
    His silence goaded at her. It made her angry to watch him contemplate the body. “They’ll think you did it! Where did you get the blood on you last night? Where were you?”
    “Back your car around so we don’t have to lift him so far. He wasn’t a little guy.”
    Walking to the driver’s side door she found herself mad at Val. Hadn’t she called him because she knew he would get shit done? He was getting shit done, but she also wanted kind words. A hug. Something. Poor Kate , you must be so scared . That kind of attitude wouldn’t come from Val, and she knew it.
    Val directed her back and told her when to stop.
    “Should we wrap him in the blanket?”
    “If we wrap him in the blanket I can’t get a grip on him. Line the trunk with it, I’ll get him in.”
    She did as she was told while Val got his hands under TJ’s armpits. She thought dead bodies were supposed to be stiff, but TJ’s stump waggled pathetically, and he bent obligingly at the waist.
    “Get his feet, please,” Val said.
    “Sorry,” she said, stepping in and reaching for his boots. The leather didn’t have blood on it, and she reached for it.
    “Wait,” Val said. “Don’t touch him with your bare hands. They can pull prints off anything. Do you have gloves in the car?”
    “No.”
    He threw a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves at her. “Enjoy.”
    She pulled them on, not enjoying the plastic feel up her arms, but she supposed this was smart. Too much to think about.
    At some point, poor TJ had shit himself. She hoped, as she sort of hooked his ankles over the lip of the trunk and paused to pant in the building heat of the morning, it had been a post-mortem shitting. Though she would not deeply mourn his death, she didn’t want to think of him being so afraid of something that he couldn’t control his bowels.
    She kicked dirt over the bloody spots in the gravel of the road. A look at the sky suggested it wouldn’t be raining any time soon. She kicked harder, trying to spread it as much as possible, looked at the heap that was TJ in the trunk, reached out and folded a corner of the blanket over his ruined face, then slammed the hatch shut.
    “It looks like he was riding to your place,” she said, looking at the bike.
    “Mmmhmm,” Val said. “Your knight in shining armor.”
    Or so it seemed. What did she know? “Goddamn it, TJ,” she muttered under her breath, still somewhere between crying and not.
    “I’ll follow you on the bike,” Val said.
    Swallowing tears, she asked if he needed help picking it up.
    “I think I got it.” She waited to see if he did, and he used his knees to do it, turning his back to the bike and getting it up on its wheels easily. She started the car, and Val followed her. The car bounced down the rutted road, long unused, grown over in places with scrub brush, past a large no trespassing sign as per the orders of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, wishing she had Val’s pickup instead of her own little car.
    She skidded to a stop in front of an old metal gate which reiterated this was private property, a few pieces of steel across the road on a locked hinge. Val braked hard behind her, the dirt bike wobbling. They could walk around it, of course, the bike could get around, no problem, but carrying TJ’s body? She got out and studied the lock. It was a simple padlock, looking quite rusted. She debated slamming through with the car, but the car was very yellow, and the gate was gray, and it seemed like that paint swap would make everything easier for the Otero County