‘Morning,’ she said with a smile. Her voice was a little hoarse, as if she’d been fighting off a cold. ‘You must be the detective from Los Angeles Tom mentioned.’ Her blue eyes fixed on Hunter’s face. They were as tender as her voice.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hunter said, approaching her. He produced his credentials and she scrutinized them like a seasoned pro.
‘My name is Mary,’ she offered, extending her hand. ‘Tom’s wife.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’
They shook hands and Hunter was surprised by how much strength she packed in her tiny hand.
‘Tom is down by the lake, fishing.’ She shook her head in a mock-disapproving way. ‘He’s always fishing. Well. .’ she laughed, ‘at least it gives him something to do. Or else he’d be hammering things in the house all day long.’
Hunter smiled back politely.
‘Just follow that path over there all the way down the small hill,’ she said, pointing to a narrow trail that seemed to lead deep into the woods to the right of the house. ‘You can’t miss him.’ She paused and quickly assessed the sky. ‘Do you have a raincoat in that car of yours?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
Mary gave him a sweet smile. ‘Wait just a minute, then.’ She walked back into the house. A few seconds later she reappeared carrying a police-issue raincoat. ‘Rain ain’t far away, you better take this or you might catch a cold.’ She handed him the coat. ‘Tom’s got enough coffee and cakes with him to feed the two of you for a day and a half.’
Hunter thanked her again and disappeared down the trail. It twisted left and right several times, getting steeper the deeper Hunter moved into the forest. It led down to a secluded spot by Lake Sonoma. He paused as he reached a rock and dirt landing at the bottom of the path. There was no one there. The lake was placid, still even. Hunter took a step back and listened for a moment. Something didn’t seem right.
Suddenly he swung around, drawing his gun.
‘Woah, easy.’ The man standing about five feet from him with his hands up in the air was in his late-sixties, tall and lean. He had two tiny tuffs of white hair over his ears, black rimmed glasses pushed up all the way to the bridge of his nose, and a cotton white moustache that seemed way too thick for his thin face and lips. Despite his age, he still looked like he could handle himself in any sort of fight.
‘You heard me coming up behind you?’ His voice was commanding.
‘Something like that,’ Hunter replied, his gun still targeting the old man.
‘Damn, I’m either losing my touch or you’ve got fantastic hearing. And that was a fast draw if I’ve ever seen one.’ He waited a few seconds. ‘I’m Tom Cooper. You must be Detective Robert Hunter from the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division. Do you mind if I lower my hands?’
‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ Hunter flicked the safety into place and holstered his gun.
‘You’re not very light on your feet, though. I could hear you coming from halfway down the hill.’
Hunter looked down at his now dirt-covered boots. ‘I wasn’t expecting a stealth exercise.’
Chief Cooper smiled. ‘Sorry, old habits die hard.’ He offered his hand.
Hunter shook it firmly.
‘I’m all set up over here.’ He pointed to another trail that went around some trees and to the left. Hunter followed him into a second clearance where a fisherman’s chair and a small weave basket packed with food were arranged by the water. ‘Help yourself to some coffee and cake if you like. Do you fish?’
‘I tried it once when I was a kid.’ Hunter shook his head as he poured coffee from one of the two large thermal flasks into a cup. ‘I wasn’t any good at it.’
Chief Cooper laughed. ‘No one is good at it if you only do it once. I’ve been doing it for years and I still have a lot to learn.’ He reached for a thin fishing rod, grabbed a couple of live black lugworms from a container, and pushed their slimy bodies through the hook. ‘I prefer live bait, it’s. .’
‘Nicer for the fish,’ Hunter finished. ‘And since you don’t keep them, might as well give them a nice treat in exchange for having their mouths hooked.’ He had a sip of his coffee and nodded. It was just as good as the one he had back at the police station.
The chief studied Hunter curiously before looking at his setup. ‘No fish net or containers to take my catch back up to the house.’ He nodded. ‘You’re observant, but I guess you wouldn’t be a detective if you weren’t.’ He swung his hook into the lake. ‘OK, I know you didn’t come all this way to learn about fishing or to shoot the breeze. You said on the phone that you needed to talk to me about the Harper case.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Do you remember it well?’
Chief Cooper stared back at Hunter and his playful tone had vanished. ‘You don’t forget a crime scene like that, Detective. I don’t care how experienced you are. I know you’ve been through the station first ’cause Chief Suarez just called me. You saw the pictures, right? Could anyone forget those images?’
Hunter said nothing.
‘You didn’t tell me much over the phone, but I guess you didn’t have to. The way I see it, the only reason the LAPD RHD would be interested in a 20-year-old case from a small town is because you guys must have something down there that’s pretty close to what happened here.’
Hunter stared at his reflection in the water for a moment. ‘If I’m right, Chief, it’s a lot closer than you think.’
Ninety-Two
Chief Cooper slotted his fishing rod into the appropriate hook next to his chair and turned to face Hunter.
‘When I left LA this morning, my main concern was finding the log sheet for the Harper crime scene. There are only eight names on it.’ He retrieved his notebook from his jacket pocket. ‘Yours and two of your officers, Kimble and Perez. The Sonoma County sheriff at the time, Sheriff Hudson and two of his deputies, Edmunds and Hale. The county coroner at the time, Doctor Bennett and a forensic investigator, Gustavo Ortiz. Is that right?’
Chief Cooper didn’t have to think about it. He nodded immediately.
‘Can you remember if anyone else saw that scene, anyone at all? Someone who somehow wasn’t logged onto the sheet?’
The chief shook his head firmly. ‘No one else saw the scene. Not once we got there.’ He poured himself some more coffee. ‘The Harper house was only about a block away from the old police station. Tito, their neighbor at the time, called the station saying he heard a gunshot. Tito was, and still is, a pretty accomplished hunter. So when he said he heard a shotgun being fired, I knew it couldn’t have been a mistake. I was at the station when he called. It took me less than a minute to get there. I was first at the scene.’ He paused and looked away. ‘I’d never seen anything like it. Not even in case studies. And to tell you the truth, I hope I never see anything like it again.’
The sky was getting menacingly dark and the wind had picked up a notch.
‘A minute after I got to the house, Officers Kimble and Perez arrived. I knew straight away I had to get the County Sheriff’s Office involved. Despite our restricted experience with homicides, we all knew the protocol. We immediately isolated the house. No one other than the three of us had access to the scene.’
‘Until the sheriff and the coroner arrived,’ Hunter added.
‘That’s right. As you said, Doctor Bennett, who is now retired, had an investigator with him, Gustavo Ortiz. He’s now the chief coroner investigator for Santa Clara County. Sheriff Hudson had two deputies with him, Edmunds and Hale.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Chief Suarez told me. Edmunds is a captain now and Hale is assistant sheriff. They both live in Santa Rosa.’
Chief Cooper confirmed this. ‘No one else entered the house or saw the scene. I am sure because I was there until all the photographs were taken and the bodies removed.’
Thin rain started falling, but neither man moved.
‘The Harpers had a son, right? Andrew,’ Hunter said.
