Ashwood County 6

Chapter Six:

The Body Drop

The tulips bled red under a sky thick with haze. Rows of them stretched across the valley like obedient soldiers, too still, too perfect. Fog clung low to the ground, thick enough to hide a scream, curling around the stalks like a secret not quite ready to be told. The only sound was the windmill creaking at the field’s edge, spinning just enough to remind you how quiet everything else was.

Detective Eva Ramirez lit her third cigarette of the morning with hands that still hadn’t thawed from the drive. She took a long drag, holding the smoke in her lungs as if it could chase off the unease crawling beneath her skin.

“I hate the goddamn country,” she muttered. “Smells like wet wood and regret. Like everything out here’s pretending to be peaceful.”

Vance leaned against the car, watching his breath fog in the cold. “Ashwood County. Where the livestock outnumber the people and the lies grow deeper than the roots.”

They started toward the taped-off area—if you could call one sagging strip of yellow plastic “taped off.” Their boots sank into soft dirt, soil loamy and wet beneath the surface. The scent of fertilizer lingered beneath the sweetness of the tulips—rot and bloom side by side.

“Two hours out of the city,” Vance said, “and we’re here because a tulip picker stumbled over something that wasn’t a bulb.”

“In Ashwood,” Ramirez said, “people dig holes for all kinds of reasons.”

He expected a deputy, maybe a coroner in a rusted-out pickup. But instead, someone cheerful emerged from behind a log near the body—like a camp counselor on the worst field trip imaginable.

She wore round glasses that fogged with every breath, a tan knit sweater, and a bucket hat tilted like it belonged to someone on a birdwatching expedition. And that smile—too wide, too bright for this place.

“Hey there!” she said, practically bouncing as she pulled on gloves. “You must be Ramirez and Vance. Dr. Nia Carter. Medical Examiner for Ashwood County. Welcome to the field of nightmares!”

Vance blinked. “You’re the M.E.?”

“Yup,” she said, already crouching beside the body. “And this isn’t where she died.”

Ramirez stayed back, arms folded, cigarette smoldering between her fingers.

“She’s early twenties,” Carter continued. “No signs of a struggle. No blood at the scene. Lividity patterns suggest she was moved—probably hours after death. The soles of her feet are clean. No scratches, no embedded debris. Clothes are too dry for the morning frost. There’s urban dust on the jacket—diesel soot, tire particulates. Definitely not local.”

Carter looked up with a grin. “She was refrigerated. Held somewhere. Then dumped. My guess? Someone thought this patch of Ashwood was quiet enough to be forgotten.”

Ramirez crushed her cigarette under her boot, suddenly alert. Her posture changed—shoulders uncoiled, head lifted like a predator picking up a scent.

“Where’s the jacket from?” she asked.

“Maddox Heights boutique. Tag still attached.”

“Fifty-two miles,” Vance muttered. “Someone made a special trip.”

Carter tapped the body’s sleeve. “This isn’t a local girl. No calluses, no rural wear-and-tear. This is someone from the city. Someone who wasn’t supposed to end up here.”

Ramirez turned, her voice low but sharp enough to cut glass.
“The game’s afoot.”

Vance raised an eyebrow. “Sherlock Holmes? Really?”

Carter giggled, crouched over a corpse. “I like her.”

Ramirez just shrugged, the smoke curling from her mouth as she stepped away. “Some asshole thought Ashwood was the kind of place you could hide a secret forever.”

She stared down the endless rows of tulips—bright, blood-colored, indifferent.

“Let’s prove ’em wrong.”

Vance fell into step beside her, hands buried in his coat pockets. He could smell the copper in the air now, faint but rising with the fog. The kind of smell that stayed with you.

“Let’s go ruin someone’s week.”

—

Ramirez stepped away from the body, boots crunching over frostbitten tulip stems. The sky was starting to warm, but the chill still clung to the air like breath on the back of your neck. She lit a cigarette with a practiced flick, watching the smoke bleed into the fog.

“Vance,” she said without looking at him. “Walk with me.”

He joined her without a word, their footsteps soft in the wet dirt. For a moment, they just walked the perimeter of the field, listening to the wind rustle the petals like whispers from something buried too long.

“This scene’s too clean,” she said finally. “Too still. No animal activity. No blood. No noise. Like she was placed here.”

“Staged,” Vance said, nodding. “Not just a dump. A message maybe.”

Ramirez glanced over at him. “I’ve seen this before.”

He raised an eyebrow. She rarely talked about cases once they were cold.

“Two years ago. Girl found in a community garden near Dorsey. Same profile—young, clean, no signs of a struggle. Same stillness. It stuck with me. She never got a name.”

“You think it’s connected?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just took a long drag and let the smoke hang between them. “I think somebody out there thinks they’ve found a place nobody looks twice at.”

Vance looked out across the field, the windmill still turning slow in the distance. “Ashwood’s full of those places.”

Ramirez nodded. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”

Vance checked his watch. “Before we go any deeper, we should touch base with Danner.”

Ramirez sighed. “Right.”

“Sheriff’s already territorial on a good day. Us stepping on his scene without a call? That’ll get us the full cold-shoulder-and-slow-records-treatment special.”

“I know.” She flicked ash off her cigarette. “But I’d rather deal with Danner now than let him stew. Last thing we need is the department shutting down just to prove a point.”

She looked back toward the field, then to Carter still kneeling over the corpse with her hands moving like she was unwrapping a birthday gift.

“I’ll scowl less aggressively,” Ramirez said. “That’s about the most cooperation I can promise.”

From behind them, Carter called out, “You’re gonna want to see this!”

Vance and Ramirez exchanged a glance and headed back into the fog.

—

Carter was still talking in the background—something about soil acidity and pollen drift—when Ramirez spotted him.

Off to the right, near the edge of the fence line, stood a man in a canvas coat. Tall, pale, thin in the way that suggested either illness or a life of stubborn neglect. He wasn’t hiding, but he wasn’t trying to be seen either. Just there, half-wrapped in fog like something the field itself had coughed up.

“Hold up,” Ramirez muttered, cutting a glance to Vance.

He followed her gaze. “Well, look who the fog dragged in.”

They approached slowly.

The man watched the body, unmoving. As they neared, he turned his head—slowly, deliberately—and looked at Ramirez. Not past her. Not around her. At her.

Then he extended a hand in her direction, stiff and awkward, as if he hadn’t done it in years and wasn’t convinced it was the right move now.

“Erza,” he said. “People ‘round here don’t usually ask my name.”

Ramirez didn’t shake it right away. She studied him. His fingers were pale and dry. Hands of a man who didn’t work the land but lived too close to it.

Finally, she took it—briefly. His grip was limp and cold.

“This is a restricted area, Erza,” she said, releasing his hand.

He didn’t offer it to Vance. Didn’t look at him, even.

Vance, for his part, didn’t react. Didn’t frown. Didn’t flinch. Just kept his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes scanning Erza’s boots.

“I didn’t find her,” Erza said. “That wasn’t me.”

“Nobody said it was,” Ramirez replied.

“You’re watching close for someone not involved.”

“I watch things,” he said. “That’s all I do now.”

Ramirez narrowed her eyes. “You out here last night?”

“I don’t sleep much,” he replied. “Not around here.”

“You see anything?”

“Lights,” Erza said. “Late. Slowed down near the field. Black car. Not local. City tires. They drove like they didn’t want dust on ’em.”

“License plate?”

“Couldn’t see it,” he said. “Wasn’t trying to. You stare too long at the wrong things, they look back.”

Ramirez tilted her head, but didn’t press.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

Erza looked at her for a long time. “Nowhere good.”

He turned his gaze back to the body.

“She didn’t come here to die,” he said softly. “But somebody decided this place was far enough away from God to try.”

Then he stepped away without waiting to be dismissed. Walked into the fog the same way he’d come—like part of it.

Vance watched the mist close behind him.

“I don’t know what that was,” he said.

“Witness,” Ramirez muttered. “Or omen.”

She pulled a fresh cigarette from her coat and struck a match. “Either way, we need to find out who drove that car. Fast.”

---

Keep Following the Trail

Ashwood County doesn’t forget. Neither should you.

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