Deeper Than the Dead

interest. Life is short, junior. Carpe diem.”

A county cruiser pulled up at the curb and Frank Farman got out, his face a mask of steel.

“I can’t believe this,” he said half under his breath. “He had a finger?”

“He had to have taken it off Lisa Warwick,” Mendez said. “She was missing an index finger at autopsy.”

“For God’s sake,” Farman said, jamming his hands on his hips. “I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy. I try to set him straight, and he does something like this.”

“He beat up the Crane kid pretty bad,” Mendez said. “They might want to press charges.”

“Jesus Christ.” He looked one way and then the other, as if he expected Christ to appear on command.

He didn’t get Christ. He got Anne Navarre. The teacher marched out of the building with all the determination of Napoleon.

“Mr. Farman, can I have a word with you?”

“I really don’t have the time—”

“You don’t have the time to discuss the fact that your son brought a human finger to school today? What could you possibly have going on more urgent than dealing with this?”

“I have a job to do, Miss Navarre.”

“Yes. It’s called parenting. It comes with having children. Does it not mean anything to you that your son is having serious problems here?”

Vince watched Farman’s face redden. The deputy wouldn’t take being dressed down in front of his peers. Anne Navarre seemed to have no regard. She stood up to him like an angry mouse taunting a lion.

“Dennis needs help. Professional help.”

Farman leaned toward her, trying to intimidate her with his size. “I don’t need you telling me how to raise my own kid. My wife is coming to deal with Dennis.”

“I should be glad,” she said. “At least the beating will be postponed.”

“How dare you,” Farman growled, taking a menacing step toward her.

Vince stepped between them. “Let’s take a break here, folks. Cool down.”

He herded Anne Navarre a few steps away just as Sharon Farman pulled to the curb behind the cruiser. Frank Farman took a deliberate breath and let it out slowly like releasing steam from a pressure cooker.

“My wife will deal with Dennis,” he said, turning to Mendez. “We have to go.”

“Where?”

“It just came over the radio,” Farman said. “The air search located the two cars: Lisa Warwick’s and Karly Vickers’s. Dixon wants us on the scene.”

32

The cars were parked in a field with a hundred others. Hiding in plain sight. The field belonged to a scrap dealer named Gordon Sells.

Mendez got out of his car and walked into a circus. The sheriff’s office helicopter had landed, but three other helicopters adorned with logos of LA television stations hovered overhead, blades beating the air. News vans clogged the sides of the country road, and cameramen and reporters were swarming the area like mosquitoes frantic to land on something juicy.

Frank Farman shouted instructions at half a dozen deputies trying to cordon off the scene with yellow tape. Dixon stood near Karly Vickers’s gold Chevy Nova, instructing his photographer and videographer as they captured every possible angle of the car, the cars around the car, the ground around the car.

“Tony. Good,” Dixon said. “We’re going to haul the cars in and process them in our garage.”

“Right. Where’s Lisa Warwick’s car?”

“Two rows back.” He pointed in the direction of several deputies, who stood guard around that car. “The chopper pilot said this car definitely came onto the property from a back gate off a dirt road. He could still see the tracks in the grass.”

“In the last couple of days,” Mendez said.

“And now we’ve got the press all over us,” Dixon said. “Someone heard about the eyes and mouths being glued shut on Warwick and Julie Paulson.”

“Shit. We have a leak in our department?”

“I don’t know where it came from.”

“It could have come from the killer,” Mendez said. “Vince thinks the guy wants publicity.”

“Where is he?”

“At his hotel. He’s working on the profile.”

And a date with Anne Navarre, he thought, still out of sorts about it, even though it was none of his business, and it wasn’t exactly a date. Leone wanted an angle on the kids. Crane’s father was the last person to have seen Karly Vickers. Wendy Morgan’s father had a connection to Lisa Warwick. And the Farman kid was a budding serial killer who had the victim’s severed finger as a souvenir. Any insights she could give them would be welcome.

“Do you think he might have helped out with the publicity?” Dixon asked.

“Vince? Tip the press? No,” Mendez said automatically.

“Don’t be so sure, Tony. The guy has a reputation.”

“As one of the top profilers in the world.”

“And one of the most well-known. He didn’t get that way being shy and retiring. He might tell us he’s gone low profile, but that’s not his MO.”

Mendez didn’t like the assessment. “It’s moot now. The press is here. They know what they know. We’ve got a job to do. Have you talked to the owner of the property yet? What’s his story?”

“I’ve got a couple of deputies sitting on him, they’re waiting for you and Hicks. I wanted to get these cars secured first.”

“Are you going in with the cars?”

“Yeah.”

“And who else?” Mendez asked.

“Why?”

Mendez made a face as if the whole subject tasted bad. “Farman’s kid brought Lisa Warwick’s severed finger to school for show-and-tell today.”

Dixon’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Yeah. It’s in a brown bag in my trunk. He tried to feed it to a classmate.”

“Oh my God.”

“The kid probably picked it up at the scene, but how is that going to look in the press? The boy had the victim’s finger and we’re letting his father into the victim’s car? I don’t want to get into it with Frank, but that’s going to look improper. A lawyer could use that down the road.”

Dixon took a moment to let it soak in. He would look at the situation from the perspective of nearly two decades spent as a detective himself. It wouldn’t matter how well he knew Frank Farman. It wouldn’t matter that Farman had a spotless record. This was now a procedural issue.

“Point taken,” he said. “Go talk to the property owner. I’ll deal with Frank. Does he know about this incident with his son?”

“Yes.”

Mendez breathed a short sigh of relief. He walked across the field two rows to Lisa Warwick’s car, where Hicks was standing talking with a couple of deputies.

“We’re up to speak to the property owner,” he said.

“Did you tell Dixon about the finger?”

“Yeah. He said he’ll deal with Frank.”

“Better him than you.”

They took Mendez’s car out of the field and down the road to the main entrance of the junkyard, which was blocked with reporters and deputies.