Oct 20, 20177 min read

Garden Grove: 1 Vandalism & Stanley and Dave by LV Gaudet

Garden Grove Cover - McNally - front cover

On the edge of the last small untouched part of the woods a lone figure stands silently, hunched against the cold in a thin worn jacket, watching the construction.

The old man shakes his head sadly; his leathery face is scarred with the lines of spending many years in the sun working the land. He turns and slowly shambles away on arthritic knees, muttering to himself.

The hulking front-end loader chugged weakly, coughed, and let out a final death rattle before lapsing into silence.

With a tired grunt, the driver climbed down out of the machine to the man waiting below, the foreman Stanley Rutthers.

“The old bitch is dead again,” the driver grumbled.

“Vandals?” Stanley asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Damn, that’s the third time this week.”

“She’s going to be out for a while this time to get fixed.”

“Humph,” Stanley grunted. “This job is getting expensive.”

He took off his hard hat, ran a stressed hand through his hair, realized, and put the hat back on his head, giving it a meaty slap with his palm.

“I’ve got to go check out the rest of the site, see what else the vandals have been up to.”

Stanley stalked away in a foul mood.

The ongoing vandalism at the worksite was only one of his problems.

A group of men in rough dirty clothes, heavy work gloves, steel toe work boots, and hard hats stood milling around, staring at a rocky pile of mud half spilled out of a large Cat front loader.

Stanley Rutthers approached the group, stopping to stand beside one of his most seasoned workers, Dave McCormack. The weather-lined look of their faces and over-worn work clothes made the two look almost like brothers.

“You check the plans?” Dave asked without turning to look at the foreman.

“Yeah,” Stanley said. “They don’t match up. Somehow our plans are different from what’s at the office.”

Dave looked at him in surprise. He wasn’t really surprised, but you’re supposed to look like it when these things happen. This whole job has been a bigger carnival of mistakes and screw-ups than usual.

He dutifully made shocked noises.

“The one in the office was altered?” Dave asked. “No surprise they forgot to send the changes somewhere again.”

“That’s what’s strange,” Stanley said. “The planners said they haven’t made any changes. The copy filed with the municipal office doesn’t match too. All three copies are different and none of the copies look revised. It’s like the planners drew up new plans, each one a little different, instead of just making copies of the new revised plans. Except, there are no new revisions.”

“I don’t think anyone’s finding that joke funny.”

“No joke. The planners back at the office insist they only drew up one new version last month and made copies of it. They’ve had no changes to the plans since. The chief planner is right pissed about it.”

“I bet he is,” Dave said, almost amused by the thought of that gawky man trying to intimidate the other planners in the office.

“The municipal inspector is coming down on our asses too because the work doesn’t match the plans that he has. He’s threatening to shut down the whole jobsite,” Stanley said.

Dave frowned. He needed that money. Shutting down the jobsite means sending all the guys home, and sitting on your butt in front of the television with a beer doesn’t earn a pay check in this line of work.

“They’re trying to figure out how this could have happened and which set of plans are the right ones,” Stanley said. “Copeland is threatening to fire whoever’s behind the prank.”

He shook his head, at the insanity of the whole situation.

“If it was a prank, it was pretty well played out,” he said. “The engineers seemed genuinely confused how this could have happened.”

“Maybe they were forged,” Dave said jokingly.

Stanley looked at him seriously. “I hope not. Only limited people have the skills to forge the blueprints.”

“Nah, they couldn’t be forged,” Dave said. “Like you said, they would have to have the skills; but they’d also have to have access. None of our guys would dare cross Copeland on purpose, even for a joke. He does not have a sense of humour. It definitely has to be a big screw up in planning somehow.”

“So, what’s with the bucket?” Stanley asked; referring to why everyone was standing around staring at the large tractor’s bucket.

“Some old bones turned up,” Dave said.

“Damn,” Stanley swore.

If they were just cow bones the guys would not be interested in them.

Finding bones was dreaded by anyone running a jobsite and by all the workers too. They were almost always just some kind of animal, usually cow, but every once in a while they turned out to be human. When that happened they all prayed to the construction gods that they were relatively new. The remains of a murder or accident victim could shut down the jobsite for weeks, but old bones possibly from an ancient settlement could shut down the site for months, or even indefinitely. That put men out of work.

Most bones were crushed beneath the machinery without ever being seen. The ones that were found were often just covered up, crushing them beneath the huge tires of the tractor without reporting them. Usually they had no reason to believe they would be anything but some animal. But boys will be boys and they all wanted to take a look with eager morbid fascination when something interesting was found.

And every now and then, they’d get a green guy on the crew who thought they should report the find just in case. This was one of those times.

“It’s just some animal,” one of the workers argued.

“I don’t know,” the young worker who uncovered the bone hesitated, “seems kind of big for an animal.” He was new to both the crew and the construction field.

“It’s a farmer’s field; we’re going to find cow bones. This is at least the eighth cow bone I’ve seen so far. They’re scattered all over the place.”

“Hey, we could make soup!” a jester from the crowd tossed in.

The young worker looked around.

“Looks like it used to be a wheat field to me.”

“Barley actually I think,” someone said.

“Whatever.” One of the men was getting annoyed. “There used to be more dairy and beef farms around here. It’s just a cow leg bone.”

“We probably still should-,” the young worker was interrupted by the shrill whistle of a Cat operator across the field.

A large Cat some distance off lurched to a stop, the driver jumping out and running around to dig in the mud turned over by the bucket.

He whistled shrilly to get the group’s attention, proudly holding up his prize with a big grin.

“Looks like we’ve got more than cows!” he yelled to the crew.

Like a bunch of schoolboys trying to look too cool to be overly eager over someone else’s gruesome find, the men shuffled and casually ambled their way over to check out the new treasure.

Stanley didn’t have to see what it was. He had a pretty good hunch.

“Damn,” he muttered. He turned away, feigning ignorance, and started walking back to the office trailer.

The Cat operator beamed as he showed off the yellowed scarred skull, a human skull. He hadn’t decided yet if he would add it to his trophies of weird construction discoveries or crush and bury it like the usual bones.

He was genuinely dismayed and disappointed when that decision was taken out of his hands.

The new worker was determined this bone had to be reported. To him it was the right thing to do.

“We have to report this,” the young worker said, becoming more awkward with the annoyed glares he received from the other guys.

“Just crush it,” someone said. “Whoever it was died a long time ago. Won’t hurt anyone.”

“Nah, I think I’ll keep it to decorate my bar,” the finder said, proudly displaying his trophy.

The young worker looked around, distressed. He couldn’t understand the other guys’ reactions. This was a human bone! A real dead person!

“No, we have to report it,” the young worker insisted, worried they would destroy it before it could be reported.

“Toss it back, crush and bury it and let’s get back to work.” There were a lot of assents to that.

The young worker turned away from the group, pulling out his cell phone and dialling. One of the guys made a half-hearted attempt to snatch it away but he managed to dodge him and make the call, the sounds of jeering and argument drowning him out so he had to talk loudly to be heard as he walked away.

A few hours later the bulldozers and tractors slumbered in the chill sunshine, the workers stood around sipping old thermos coffee and complaining about lost wages, and the jobsite was closed.

Yellow police tape fluttered in the wind and police cars sat idly by while a few of the uniformed officers wandered around the jobsite. The rest stood around in groups talking among themselves.

When the call came in that human remains were found, the police sent every available car to secure the scene until the crime scene investigators could get there. Until they knew otherwise, they would have to treat it as a crime scene. When they saw the aged condition of the skull, it became a waiting game. There would be no evidence to protect. They were now waiting for the go ahead to clear out all but a single car to watch the scene.

The crime scene crew coming to investigate the scene and arrange for the excavation in search of more human remains should be arriving sometime in the next few hours.