didn’t know why he went out prowling.
Stoner figured he was looking for a woman.
Karen Reilly was a body dump. A guy got a flat tire on the 126 freeway and saw his hubcap fly off into a field. He looked for it. He smelled something dead and almost tripped over Karen.
She was badly decomposed and chewed up by animals. Critters got her hyoid bone. There was no way to determine strangulation. There was no way to run serology or toxicology tests. There was no way to attribute cause of death.
Stoner and Farrington worked the crime scene. The temperature was pushing three digits. They found some jewelry on the body and tagged it.
Stoner checked missing-persons reports. He found a two-week-old LAPD case and contacted the assigned detectives. They told him his decomp sounded like their girl. They picked up the jewelry found on the body and showed it to Karen Reilly’s parents. Her parents ID’d it.
Two private detectives were working the case already. Karen’s parents hired them a few days after Karen disappeared. They met with Stoner and Farrington and gave them a progress report.
Karen Reilly was 19. She liked liquor and unsavory young dudes. She lived with her parents in upscale Porter Ranch.
She signed up at a temp agency. She met a young male Latin named John Soto. Soto worked at the agency. He lived with his common-law wife and kid and his brother Augie and Augie’s 16-year-old girlfriend. Karen was fucking John Soto. Her parents disapproved.
Karen was home right before she vanished. She was drinking jellybeans with a girlfriend. She got zorched. She ranted against John Soto and his “wife.” She said they were crummy parents. She said she wanted to rescue their kid.
Karen left the house alone. Her mom and dad never saw her again.
The Soto brothers furnished the rest of the story.
Karen walked to a main drag and started hitchhiking. Two guys picked her up. The driver asked her for her phone number. Karen gave it to him. The guys dropped her outside the Soto brothers’ building.
The Soto guys let her in. Karen verbally attacked John’s common-law wife and ran out of the apartment. The wife chased her. They traded insults on the sidewalk at 2:00 in the morning. John Soto ran down. He made his wife go upstairs. Augie Soto and his girlfriend walked outside and talked to Karen. Karen said she was going to hitchhike home or hitch to Los Banos Lake.
Augie and his girlfriend walked upstairs. John gave them the keys to his car and told them to go find Karen. It was 2:30 a.m.
Augie and his girlfriend cruised around. They didn’t spot Karen. They drove over to the local 7-Eleven. They bullshitted with a clerk there. They stayed until dawn. They never saw Karen again.
Karen’s parents called the Sotos repeatedly. John Soto told them the same story he told the detectives. Karen’s brother kicked the Sotos’ door in and slapped John and Augie around. They stuck to the story they told the detectives. The Reilly family thought the Soto brothers killed Karen. The detectives disagreed. They figured Karen went hitchhiking and met some fuckhead freak.
Stoner interviewed Karen Reilly’s parents and brother. They condemned the Soto boys. Stoner interviewed John and Augie and their women. They all stuck to their story. Stoner interviewed the 7-Eleven clerk. He disputed Augie’s account of their late-night bullshit session.
Augie said they dropped in around 3:00 a.m. The clerk said they showed up at 5:00. Stoner went back to John and Augie and asked them to take polygraph tests. The brothers agreed.
John passed his test. Augie’s test came back inconclusive. John’s wife and Augie’s girlfriend refused to be tested.
Karen Reilly’s mother called Stoner. She said Karen’s high-school boyfriend tried to kidnap her daughter a few months ago. He grabbed Karen at the house and forced her into his car. Karen’s mother interceded. The boy drove away.
Stoner interviewed the ex-boyfriend. He said he was still in love with Karen. He didn’t want her hanging out with low-rent beaners. He forced Karen into his car to talk some sense to her. The kid agreed to take a polygraph test. His mother intervened and refused to allow it.
Stoner went back to the 7-Eleven. He found out the clerk moved to Vegas and got snuffed in a drug contretemps.
Other homicides occurred. They demanded fast attention. The Karen Reilly case was rife with unindictable suspects. There was no conclusive cause of death.
Say the Soto boys beat the polygraph. Say the old boyfriend killed her. Say a man picked her up hitching. They share some bad dope and Karen ODs. The man strips the body and dumps it. A pervert picks Karen up. He rapes her in his car and offs her to cover a rape bust. A serial killer was out strangling female hitchhikers. Say he ran into Karen.
Stoner worked his fresh cases. He worked the Reilly case in his dreams.
He saw Karen alive and Karen shriveled red-black from heat and decomposition. He saw the ways she might have died. He always woke up trying to pinpoint the moment she crossed that line.
The 7-Eleven guy saw her fucking John Soto in the backseat of his car. The car was bouncing on its rocker beams right there in the parking lot. John’s wife caught the show and created a big ruckus.
Karen invited Augie Soto out to Los Banos Lake. Augie showed up with some buddies. Karen’s aunt and uncle wouldn’t let them in their cabin. Karen camped out with her Mexican friends.
Karen was drinking too much. Karen loved to shock her friends and her uptight parents. Karen was living out a predictably rebellious pattern.
She left her house drunk. She’d just announced her new career goal to a drunken girlfriend. She wanted to be a hooker. She left her house to rouse some unfit parents and rescue their neglected child.
