Читать книгу: «Sleep Softly»

GWEN HUNTER
sleep softly

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

FOR HELP ON MUSES:

S. Joy Robinson, who did research and brought me wonderful books on the subject.

And Misty Massey, who gave me the idea in the first place.

FOR MEDICAL HELP:

I have tried to make the medical sections of Sleep Softly as realistic as possible. Where mistakes may exist, they are mine, not the able, competent and creative medical workers in the list below.

Susan Prater, O.R., Tech and sister-in-love, in South Carolina

Earl Jenkins, Jr., M.D., in South Carolina

James Maynard, M.D., in South Carolina

Eric Lavondas, M.D., in North Carolina

Randall Pruett, R.N., in South Carolina

As always, for making this a stronger book:

Miranda Stecyk, my editor, who had a massive editing job in this one! Kisses!

Jeff Gerecke, my agent.

Lynn Prater, esthetician and owner of Serenity Spa in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who gave me all the skin info (hope I got it right) and who keeps my skin glowing.

My husband, for answers to questions that pop up, for catching so much in the rewrites and for his endless patience.

My mother, Joyce Wright, for editing as I work.

To the love of my life who

Handles all the details

Is never boring, though is often hard to keep up with Writes wonderful songs

Didn’t laugh when I wanted to learn to whitewater kayak

Fixes the trucks and the RV and anything that breaks in the house.

Painted my dining room and didn’t balk at the dark garnet color

Learned to dance just for me

Rubs my feet when they hurt

Works 16 hours a day because he loves it

And who is a man of honor. There are so few in the world today.

Prologue

He spotted his landmark, a lightning-blasted tree, its bark peeled back to expose pale, dead wood, and turned left onto a little-used tertiary road. The pavement was pitted and cracked, and the old Volvo shuddered as the right front wheel slammed into a particularly deep pothole. The girl who hadn’t been his daughter shifted on the seat beside him, her head hitting the window with a thump and whipping toward him.

He caught her one-handed and eased her back to the seat. Her earrings tinkled softly beneath the music on the CD player. Violins harmonized the heartbreaking melody of a Mozart sonata.

Slowing, he pulled the black velvet throw over her again and patted her shoulder. She didn’t respond. He didn’t expect her to. She had been dead nearly an hour.

There were no streetlights here, the road disappearing into the darkness. A doe stood on the verge of dead grass, watching the car. She was unafraid, her jaw moving as she grazed on the coarse vegetation. “Did you see that deer?” he asked the girl. “You like deer.” She said nothing. He patted her shoulder again.

The old graveyard appeared just ahead, the damaged bronze horse beneath the Confederate soldier casting a bizarre shadow. The nose of the horse had broken off when vandals had thrown the statue to the ground in 1998. The cost of repairing the monument had been more than the local historical society had been able to acquire, and so the horse, while returned to its perch and secured to its base, remained a half-faced mount. He knew all this and much more; he’d done tedious, fatiguing research into the family tree and this graveyard. “Research is paramount, right, honey?”

The girl was still silent. When he braked in the graveyard, she slid down the seat, her body curling limply on the floor. “Sorry, sweetheart. But we’re here now.”

Leaving her in the car, the motor running, he took a flashlight and walked the perimeter of the graveyard from the monument clockwise, until he reached the horse again. The New York Philharmonic continued to play the Mozart piece as he paced an approximate ten feet to the family plot. Six generations of Shirleys were buried here, several with Confederate memorials on their headstones. Others were heroes of the First and Second World Wars. A husband and wife were buried side by side, though they had died two decades apart in the late 1800s. The husband, Caesar Olympus Shirley, the wife, Susan Chadwick Shirley. Five children had died and been buried within one week. Flu? Cholera? Strep? There had been no historical documentation.

The girl would like the Shirley children. He had seen an old daguerreotype of the family. They looked like nice people.

Back at the Volvo, he changed the CD to Vivaldi, opened the trunk and removed a shovel, a second flashlight and four small statues made of polished brass. They shone like gold in the light, each of them dressed in Grecian robes with arms lifted high, fingertips touching so their arms made a circle, as if they held the world. Each had devices at her hip, delicately molded brass instruments. He tucked a Bible under one arm and carried a small pink box by its plastic handle. A child’s lunch box he’d obtained on eBay. The girl had been delighted.

To the quickening pace of Vivaldi, he chose a place at the feet of the Shirley children, set down the funeral items, and shoved the shovel, blade first, into the ground. In the headlights, a long shadow created by the shovel was thrown across the graves, undulating as if seeking a place to secrete itself among the night-dark stones. Using his body weight, bruising his foot on the shovel, he dug the grave. Long minutes passed as the strains of the music soared and fell. The shovel acquired a rhythm that matched the music. A small blister rose on one palm. He worked up the sweat of a peasant, perspiration trickling down his sides in the un-seasonable warmth. He dug deep enough to keep out scavengers. Deep enough to keep her safe. She hadn’t been his daughter, but she had tried. She deserved a decent resting place and someone to mourn her passing.

When the grave was satisfactory, he threw the shovel to the side and went back to the car. Using the damp cloth he had brought in a Ziploc bag, he pulled off his shirt and washed himself. Then he removed a clean shirt from its hanger and forced his hands through the heavily starched arms, tied his tie and put on a suit coat. Funeral-black.

Properly attired, he pulled the velvet throw over her snugly. Lifting the precious bundle from the floor of the car, the black velvet tangled around her, he carried her to the narrow pit. He laid her gently on the grass and eased her down into the raw earth, the small grave illuminated by the headlights. Vivaldi played softly now, the strains drifting through the car windows into the night. A whip-poor-will sang in the distance.

One last time, he checked her pulse, two fingers on her wrist. Just to make sure. She wasn’t supposed to still be here, but there could always be unexpected problems. Nothing. Nothing at all. Leaning into the grave, he pressed his fingers against her cool throat and studied her in the earthen cavity. She was so beautiful. He had hoped she would be the one.

Using the utmost care, he bent over the grave and eased the velvet throw smoothly away from her, over her torso, down the hollows of her arms. Dragging it from her feet.

As he rose up, his body bent at an unnatural angle, his back wrenched, an excruciating tremor. Shock rippled through him. She had done this. This little girl. How could she hurt him? Angry, he held his breath against the pain, grunting when he tried to breathe, cursing her in his mind. Little piece of trash! Long minutes later, the spasm eased. He sat up, stretching his spine. The tremor worsened for an instant, then slid away.

He tested its return, bending and tensing. Satisfied, he bowed back over the grave and felt for a pulse a final time. Two minutes passed. There was nothing. No pulse. His anger of the moment before evaporated.

She was gone. A sob tore his throat. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. She was supposed to be the one.

Folding the velvet cloth, he tossed it to the side, opened the child’s lunch box and took out a blond ballerina doll. He placed the doll in the crook of the girl’s arm, smoothed the doll’s long hair with a tender hand, then tested once again the knot that decorated the doll’s waist over its pink ballerina outfit. Beside his daughter’s hip—No, not his daughter. The girl. What was her name? It didn’t matter. She had failed. Beside her hip he set her flute. She had forgotten how to play the flute in the last months of her life. Her loss of talent had saddened them both. But she was free now. On the other side of the grave, her gift was restored. And the girl would find his daughter, tell her that he was trying, that he loved her.

Vivaldi’s sonorous melody lifted on the night air, rising like a promise. She had loved Vivaldi. Or had that been the other one? For a moment, his confusion stirred and grew, but he pushed it away. All that mattered was that she hadn’t been his daughter. He had to remember that. It was all that mattered.

In the front of her leotard, the lavender and pink bleached gray in the moonlight, over her heart, he tucked the folded piece of heavy paper, paper they had made together so long ago. The poem this one had inspired would go with her to paradise, a gift she could pass along to his daughter when they met. He checked her tights, adjusted the pink tutu and retied one pointe shoe in the knot he preferred. Grief gathered as he tied the knot. It was always so hard.

He folded her hands, the flesh cold but still limber, maintaining the appearance of life. Her bound hands had slid out of place as he’d moved her to the earth. He pulled on both ends of the fine rope, tightening the complicated knot.

The engraved silver ring had slid backward. It was a bit too large for her slender finger and he straightened it. That was odd. The ring had fit when he’d bought it. He was sure of it.

A silver bracelet gleamed in the moonlight on the same wrist. He turned it just so. In her pierced ears were silver knots that jingled when she moved her head, the earrings hanging back onto her pale neck. Each piece of jewelry contained Celtic knots, not the kind he wanted, but he hadn’t been able to find the right style of knot. He was still searching. After this last failure, it was becoming imperative that he find the right earrings. He stroked the cool flesh of her neck, the skin so soft, so young and innocent. He wiped his face, found tears on his fingers.

“Sweetheart?” She didn’t answer. A second sob tore from him. He stooped over the small grave and wept softly. Why did she fail? She could have been the one.

When his grief abated, he opened the Bible to Psalm 88. It was a wise and insightful selection, one he had researched for hours. She would have liked the poetry of Psalms. He wished he could have read it in the original Hebrew, but he didn’t know the language. It looked like painted strokes. Perhaps he’d study that tongue. He brightened a moment. When his daughter came back to him, when her soul found its way back to her body, they could study it together.

Dropping to his knees in the damp earth so that one of the flashlights illuminated the page, he placed the brass statues around the small grave, one at the head, one at the foot and one to each side. He began to read. “O Lord, the God of my Salvation, I have cried to You for help by day; at night I am in Your presence….”

Warm night breezes caressed his skin. Vivaldi and the whip-poor-will called into the darkness as he spoke the holy words. The ceremony was exquisite. Grief fluttered in his chest like a dying bird. Tears gathered and trickled down his cheeks, causing the text to waver. By the tenth verse his voice was broken, his anguish so acute he feared his heart might burst and he might die before he finished the last rite. A heart attack would put an end to his pain. Perhaps he should welcome it. But death didn’t come.

The psalm finished, “Lover and friend have You put far from me; my familiar friends are darkness and the grave.” Putting the book aside, he bent over the grave and touched her face once more. She was as flawless as he could make her. She must remain so.

Tears still falling, using his hands so that no metal would bruise her, he scooped dirt over her feet. His knees pressing deeply into the damp earth, he was careful not to move too much soil with each scoop and disarrange her clothes or position. Scattering only a thin layer, he covered her legs, her thighs, her hips. Lastly he covered her face. She was gone from sight now. Regret scoured his soul. He wiped his face again with the damp rag. It showed traces of darkness in the dim light. He’d have to shower when he got home.

He set the statues aside where they were protected and wouldn’t accidentally fall in the grave, took the shovel, and finished filling the hole. Within a minute, sweat trickled down his back in the unexpectedly temperate air. It hadn’t been this warm when she’d left him. He’d have to remember that. Another variance he would have to work through. The last of his tears dried as he plied the shovel, the act of closing the grave bringing him back into control. It was always this way.

When the grave was full, he tramped on it, walking back and forth before walking a final time on the blade of the shovel to remove any shoe prints. With gentle hands, he smoothed the top of the grave. From the lunch box, he removed a rose bud. It was wilted, a bit bruised, but she had been pleased this morning when she’d woken to find it beside her face, on her pillow. She had smiled and sniffed the bud, had seemed for a moment less melancholy. Gently, he placed it atop the soil. Good memories.

Gathering all the tools he had brought with him, he tucked the statues, which he had purchased from a Grecian antiquities dealer, beneath an arm. He walked from the ancient family plot past the statue of the Confederate soldier mounted on his maimed horse, through the graveyard to the car. He drove into the night, the symphony leaving mournful notes on the air.

Back on the highway, he removed the Vivaldi CD and inserted a Beatles album. John Lennon singing about a flawless world.

It wasn’t too soon to start looking. Before long he would have it perfected. Perhaps he had worked out all the variables this time. Next time, the method of selection, enticement, abduction might be perfect. Then again, he might have to try, try again. He smiled at the whimsy but knew it contained an ultimate truth. There was no goal in life, in art, but perfection. The Greeks had understood that concept far better than any other people.

He sang into the night about an ideal world. He was prepared to spend an eternity to get it right. Eternity to bring his daughter back to him, perfected.

On the seat beside him was a Sunday edition of The State newspaper, open to the sports section. A girl’s face smiled at the photographer. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

1

Monday Morning

Parking behind the house, I crawled out of the battered SUV, slung my canvas bag of forensic nursing supplies over a shoulder and blinked into the early morning light. Jas ran from the house and jogged over to me. Bending, she kissed me once on the forehead. “Bye, little mama. I haven’t fed the dogs.”

“You never feed the dogs anymore,” I grumbled, feeling the age difference as she loped to her truck, looking lithe and nimble. And skinny in her size-five jeans. Waggling her fingers at me through the driver window, she gunned the motor of her new little GMC truck and spun out of the drive, heading to early class at the University of South Carolina. “And good morning to you, too. How was Sunday night at the hospital, Mama? It was lovely, Jasmine. Thank you for asking,” I said to the trail of dust in her wake.

Thinking I was talking to them, Big Dog, Cheeks and Cherry yapped at my hips, thighs and knees according to their height, demanding attention, which I absently gave while I yawned, a pat here, an ear-scratch there. Abandoned dogs needing a home made the best pets, and I took in as many dogs as I could, even adopting some from the county, when K-9 dogs became too old to work. The well-behaved animals romped and writhed in delight as I trudged to the house. They reeked of something they had rolled in, probably dead rabbit or squirrel, and wanted me to play a game of fetch but the shoe they brought was stinky.

“Bring me a stick. That thing is nasty.” I nudged it away with my white nurse’s shoe.

Big Dog, my half moose, half monster protector nudged it back, his floppy ears dangling, long tail wagging. Cheeks stopped my progress, a wriggling clot of hound-dog muscle in front of me. Cherry bounced up and down on her front feet, still yapping her high-pitched bark. “Hush. Okay. One toss,” I said, “then I bury this thing.”

I bent and lifted the shoe. A smell gusted out, sickly, almost sweet. I knew that scent. The scent of old death. The world seemed to slow as I held the small red sneaker. It was no longer than my hand, filthy, laces snarled with leaves and twigs. Reeking of the grave.

A child’s shoe.

Turning it over, I looked inside. Tissue. Something soft and rotten. A sycamore leaf twisted into the laces. A deep scuff along one rubber sole, some gummy substance ground into the uneven ridges. Decayed-meat smell. The early morning air shivered along my shoulders.

I returned to the SUV and opened the hatch, placing the shoe on the floor. This was dumb. This wasn’t…It couldn’t be. I was too tired and not thinking straight. I moved the photocopies of the family genealogy charts to the side so I wouldn’t dirty them or contaminate the evidence. If there was evidence.

I dumped out everything from the canvas tote I still carried and dropped the bag beside the spare tire attached to the sidewall. From the pile, I pulled a pair of blue non-latex gloves, tweezers, evidence bags, a tape measure and a sterile plastic sheet on which I set the shoe. I added a small handheld tape recorder and my new digital camera, part of the tools of the trade for a forensic nurse. I checked the time. Then I hesitated. I felt the chill air beneath my scrub shirt as I rested my hands on the rubberized ledge of the hatch. “This can’t be what I think it is.”

Big Dog huffed at my words and finally brought me a stick, sitting politely, with one paw raised. Though I called him part moose, he was part mongrel and part Great Pyrenees, and his head was higher than my waist. I tossed the stick once and the dogs ran, baying.

Should I call the cops? Stop right here and call the sheriff’s office? If I contaminated evidence after graduating with honors from the forensic nursing course, I’d feel like a failure as well as an idiot.

I blew out a breath of air. Okay. I knew how to preserve evidence.

I was too tired to think and my feet hurt and my lower back ached. All I wanted to do was drop the shoe and go to bed. The smell from the shoe permeated the SUV as I stood there, hesitant, staring at the red sneaker.

What if I called the cops and it was just a shoe from the illegal dump near the new development at the back of the farm? And the tissue was an old half-rotten hamburger that had gotten shoved inside, or a dead mouse? I’d feel even more like an idiot. I didn’t waste much effort on pride but I’d be embarrassed if I called law enforcement all the way out here to look at trash brought up by the dogs. The guys on the call would never let me live it down. I had worked as a volunteer for the Dawkins County Rescue Squad long enough to know I’d receive a new nickname and it wouldn’t be flattering.

It was probably nothing. A mouse. The remains of someone’s lunch. My chill subsided. I pulled on the gloves and dated, timed and initialed two evidence bags. I marked one bag FOLIAGE FROM LACES. Just in case. I snapped two shots with the digital camera and checked the viewer, making sure the sneaker would be visible, acceptable in a court of law. Not that I would need it. I was absolutely…I was almost sure.

Turning on the tape recorder, volume up high, I set it to the side, gave the time, date, my name, location and a short account of how I came into possession of the shoe. Extending the tape measure, I held it against the bottom of the shoe and took a photograph of the two together so the size could never be lost.

At the same time, I said the dimensions aloud for the recording and noted that it was a left shoe. Somehow that seemed important, though I was certain that was the mother in me reacting, not the forensic nurse.

With the tweezers, I pried apart the shoelaces, putting the leaves and twigs in the first paper bag. Using my fingers, I worked the snarled knot from the laces, gathering the material that fell out and adding it to the evidence bag, even small grains of dirt and grit and what looked like pale yellow sand. When the laces were unknotted, I pushed apart the stiff sides, exposing the tongue curled deep into the toe.

I snapped another photograph and labeled the second evidence bag CONTENTS: SHOE, TONGUE. Prying with the tweezers, I pulled on the cloth tongue, easing it out, gathering the scant granules and vegetable matter that escaped and put them into the second bag. The tongue twisted out, awkward and unyielding, wrapped around something, and I stepped back, letting the early morning sun touch the thing I had exposed.

Painted a bright, iridescent blue, the nail was separated from the surrounding tissue by decomposition. A lively shade, bright as the Mediterranean Sea. Blackened tissue. It was a child’s toe.

In the distance the dogs barked, a horse neighed, a door slammed. A crow called, the sound like mocking laughter, grating.

After a long moment, I found a breath, strident, harsh. The air ripping along my throat. My vision narrowed, darkening around the edges, focusing on the bright blue toenail. I leaned forward, catching my weight on the tailgate. I wanted to throw up. I sat down on the dirt at my feet, landing hard, jarring my spine.

The cool air now felt unexpectedly warm and I broke out in a hot sweat. My breath sped up, hyper-ventilating from shock. A mockingbird song I hadn’t heard until now sounded too loud, too coarse. In the distance, a horse tossed her head and snorted. Cherry, the small terrier, nudged my leg and romped around the SUV, yapping. I hadn’t been practicing forensic nursing a month yet, and here I had a toe in a shoe. Nothing I had studied told me what to do next.

Where had the dogs found the shoe?

There was no doubt. I had something important, something horrible, in my truck. A part of a little girl…I shuddered. A part of a little girl…

And I had tampered with evidence. “Well…” I said, wanting to say something stronger. I added another, softer, “Well,” not knowing any appropriate swear words that might cover this situation. What do you say when your dogs bring you part of a little girl? I fought rising nausea, swallowing down vile-tasting saliva. A shudder gripped me. Part of a little girl… I dropped my head and tried to slow my breathing.

When my vision cleared and the faintness passed, I stood again, pulling up on the tail of the truck, my knees popping as they had started to do in the last few months. Nausea rolled through me and faded. “Okay,” I said. “Okay. I can do this.” I wasn’t convinced, but I also knew it was far too late to stop.

With surprisingly steady hands, I rewound the tape in the recorder, found the place where I’d last spoken and took up my narrative. I turned to the shoe, describing what I had discovered. Forcing myself to breathe deeply and slowly, I took digital photos and checked to see that all the shots so far were in focus. That the shoe measurements were clear, that the toe was visible in the tongue of the shoe. I added the length and depth of the toe to my recording, doing the job I had learned in the forensics and evidence-collection class. I pulled a Chain of Custody form out of the pile of my forensic supplies and filled it out, comparing the times with the time on the photos.

Carefully, still narrating, I curled the tongue back into the shoe and placed the shoe into a third evidence bag I labeled SMALL RED SHOE/TOE. I gathered up the plastic sheet and placed it into another bag. I placed all the evidence bags into a large plastic bag labeled EVIDENCE in big red letters.

I pulled my gloves off, one at a time, gripping the wristband of the left, pulling it down and inside out, over my fingers. Holding the left glove in the right fist, I pulled that one down over my fingers and over the other glove, securing it inside the right, to keep the evidence I had touched in place. The scent in place. They went into a final evidence bag with a separate Chain of Custody form. I switched off the tape recorder and repacked my forensic supplies, setting the final bag on the top of the truck.

Closing the SUV hatch with the evidence inside, I took the bagged gloves and COC with me into the house, then washed my hands thoroughly at the kitchen sink, carrying the last bit of evidence with me as I moved.

With Jas already gone for the morning, the house was empty and quiet. Her bowl, smeared with yogurt and blueberry cereal, was in the sink, filled with water, next to her glass. I wasn’t interested in eating, though my daughter had left a box of Cheerios on the table with a clean bowl and spoon. My baby taking care of me, as she had since Jack had died, reminding me to eat.

The transition from child to caretaker had come early in Jas’s life, forced on her by her daddy’s death four years ago and my withdrawal into grief. I had spent the last two years letting her know I was fine now, but the habits learned in fear in the weeks after Jack’s funeral had proved impossible to break. I touched the bowl, almost smiling, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting my fingers fall away. I breathed again. Stress management. Sure. That would work. I took a third breath and forced it out hard.

There were a lot of things I had to do. The first one was to stop and think clearly. Not an easy task after a twelve-hour shift that had included two gunshot victims from a gang-related shoot-out, a three-car pileup and a near-drowning. But there wasn’t a hurry. No one was going to die if I paused and took the time to collect myself.

So I showered, slathered on sunscreen, dressed in jeans and tank top, then pulled one of my husband’s old flannel shirts over it, letting the tail hang out. Riding clothes. Things I could wear all day, if needed. I paused once to sniff the fabric. I had washed the few things of Jack’s I wanted before packing all the others off to friends and relatives. The shirt no longer smelled of him. I slipped on heavy socks and short-heeled western riding boots, found my hat, grabbed outdoor supplies and went back into the morning, feeling better now that I had decided what to do.

In the sunlight, still carrying the gloves, I made my way to the barn and checked on Johnny Ray to make sure he had done the chores. There were days when the stable hand was so far gone in the bottle that he never woke up, which had happened in a permanent way to his twin brother not so very long ago. Today Johnny Ray was sober, which could mean DTs tomorrow, but he was capable at the moment, and that was all that mattered. I had other constantly sober help, but Johnny had no place else to go. If I fired him, it would toss him down into total ruin faster. And when he was sober, he was an excellent stable hand. “Morning, Johnny Ray,” I said. “Saddle Mabel for me, will you?” I asked, choosing an old Friesian Jack had purchased years ago.

“You’re gonna ride?” he asked, surprised. “For fun?”

I hated to ride, so the question was legitimate. “Not for fun,” I said.

Though huge enough to pull a fully loaded wagon or carry a knight wearing a suit of plate armor and weapons, Mabel was a placid mount and took easily to saddle and bit. She was too old for much work, but I needed her calm nature this morning. When he was done, I told Johnny Ray to lock the other dogs in the tack room with water and food and put a long leash on Cheeks. If he thought my orders peculiar, he didn’t say, just moved from task to task with an unrelenting, steady pace. While he worked, I made the first call to law enforcement.

“Sheriff’s Department.”

“This is Ashlee Davenport and I’d—”

“Hi, Ash. How you doing?”

“Buzzy?”

“’At’s me. Miss you at the hospital. Ain’t been the same since you left and went to the big city to work. What can we do for you?”

“Thank you, Buzzy. I’m at the farm, and the dogs brought something to me this morning. A child’s red sneaker with a part of a human foot inside.”

Buzzy went dead quiet. As his silence lengthened, I walked from the barn, cell phone held close to my ear. Buzzy was a paramedic who worked part-time for 911 and in various dispatch jobs for law enforcement. One could call dispatch any time and stand a chance of having Buzzy answer the phone. “You hear me?” I asked.

“Yeah, I hear you. You joking? Something about this new forensic course you took?”

“No joke. I wish it was. I found it at 7:52. The shoe and evidence are in the back of my old SUV in evidence bags, timed and dated, with audio description and a Chain of Custody.”