Free Bone Valley by Claire Matturro Page A

the dam, it looks like a big pond. So some folks call them gyp ponds because it looks like a pond from the top. Other folks call them gyp stacks because the stuff is stacked behind those dirt dams.”
    Okay, so there’s a whole vocabulary to this phosphate stuff. But at the moment I was more interested in the mechanics of M. David’s death. “So somebody forced M. David to the top of the dam, and drowned him in the…gyp stuff?”
    “About that.”
    As much as I disliked M. David—and that was a lot and for good reason—I couldn’t help but shudder at the image. Bad karma is ugly.
    “Any leads?” I asked.
    “The high sheriff’s official position is that we have a number of leads, all of which we are vigorously pursuing.”
    Okay, that was the public-relations speech. What was the truth, I wondered.
    “Prints, tire tracks, motives, what do you have?” I asked.
    “It’s all in the paper. Sheriff ’s not so good with ‘no comment’ when the media sticks their collective thumb in his eyes,” Josey said. “Somebody drove a Jeep to the top of the dam and left some tracks. Looks like it might be the DEP Jeep left on-site.”
    “DEP Jeep?”
    “The Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Their engineers watch the gyp stacks regularly, so they leave a Jeep at the plant so they can drive up on the stacks and check on things. Saves wear and tear and muck on their own cars.”
    “Think somebody from the DEP did it?”
    “No.” Josey gave me a look like I’d just accused Mother Teresa of being a serial killer.
    “But if the killer drove a DEP Jeep—”
    “Anybody who could hot-wire that Jeep could drive it.”
    “But anybody with a DEP key could drive it too.”
    Josey gave me that look again. All right, all right, I thought. Nobody from the DEP is a suspect, but that left a whole lot of other people to fill out the list.
    Eager to hear more, I leaned into Josey’s personal space, but she was eyeing the crowd and ignoring me. “Hey, that’s Mrs. Moody. Wonder what the missus is doing here?” she said, and marched over to her.
    I watched them from my spot by the door. Their body language didn’t suggest dinner and drinks were in the offing. A moment later Josey sauntered back toward me.
    “So, what’d she have to say?” I asked, like Josey and I were first-class buds, or partners. I liked it that she was unusually chatty for a cop.
    “Blah, blah, blah, loosely translated, she’s with that guy with the big arms.”
    “She’s on a date? With Mr. Big? What, two days after her husband is murdered?” Plus, I thought, who goes on a date to an antiphosphate rally?
    “Yeah, well, the rich are different, you know.”
    I eyed the good widow for a long moment, assessing both her facial damage and the clinging Capri pants she was wearing very successfully. “Is Mrs. Moody a suspect? I take it she’ll inherit M. David’s vast holdings.”
    Josey ignored my question, and instead pointed toward the muscle guy. “The man with her, that’s Galleon Theibuet.”
    “He’s one of the Antheus shareholders, isn’t he?”
    “How’d you know that?”
    I patted my pocket where I’d stuffed the papers Angus had given me outside the meeting. But what I said was, “Oh, we lawyers have our tricks.”
    “Yeah, well, Theibuet’s part of the Antheus phosphate group. Reckon he’s here casing the opposition.”
    I glanced back at grandpa-on-steroids. He still had his back to me as he bent toward Mrs. Moody, apparently listening to her.
    “Yeah,” Josey said. “I’d say he spent some time lifting and punching the bag. Check those biceps.”
    Before Josey and I could complete our girl bonding by discussing Galleon’s well-maintained body further, Angus John took the podium, and we stopped talking to listen to him.
    Angus jumped over the requisite intro joke and right into denouncing the proposed Antheus Mines. Before long, Angus had the crowd stamping their feet and shouting, “No more phosphate! No more