“Put it on. And bring what you need. It’s tight in there.”

Larabee’s tone told me it was bad.

Placing the metal suitcase on the ground, I flipped the levers, pulled out and zipped a jumpsuit over my clothes. After hanging a camera around my neck, I stuffed latex gloves, plastic specimen containers, Ziplocs, tweezers, and a Sharpie into one pocket.

Satisfied, I nodded that I was ready.

“I’ll go in on the left, you go on the right,” Larabee directed.

Tight was an understatement. The garages assigned to NASCAR drivers at tracks are microscopic. The car takes up most of the space. The crew works around and under it.

Larabee entered and sidestepped toward the garage’s far end, his back to the wall. I did the same, opposite and facing him, the Chevy between us.

I noted familiar smells blending with the stench of gasoline and oil. Urine. Feces. A sweet coppery odor.

Again, icy guilt gripped my chest.

Shake it off.

I’d gone maybe five feet when I felt slickness below the soles of my sneakers.

I looked down.

It seemed more blood than could come from one human body. The pool stretched from wall to wall and half the length of the floor.

Breathing through my mouth, I continued.

When I reached the car’s hood I understood the reason for the hideous carnage. And the reason for my presence.

Wayne Gamble’s body lay off the right front tire, supine, legs crooked to his left, arms outstretched and tossed to his right.

Wayne Gamble’s head had been detached when the Chevy fired forward with great speed and force, slamming his head and neck into the garage’s back wall, crushing them. On impact, bone and brain matter had exploded in all directions.

Feeling a tremor beneath my tongue, I swallowed and drew several deep breaths.

Emotions in check, I dropped onto my haunches for a better look. Larabee did the same on the other side of the car.

I could see stuck to the mangled metal that had been the Chevy’s hood and engine front more bloody tissue, tufts of hair, isolated teeth, and bone fragments that included segments of upper and lower jaw, with dentition in place, and several large sections of skull.

“No chance of a visual ID,” Larabee said.

“No,” I agreed.

“He got family?”

“Not that I know of. His parents are dead.”

As Larabee watched, I took photos.

“I wouldn’t let them move the car until you’d had a chance with this mess.”

“Good call,” I said, pulling on the latex gloves. “If there’s no relative who can provide DNA for comparison, the dentition might be critical for a positive ID, even though we have anecdotal evidence who this is. What happened here?”