of the Skard boys ends up dead. What do you think, Dave?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Kline gave him an odd look. “I’m asking if you think that the diminishing number of people who could ID Flores reinforces the idea that he might be one of the Skard boys.”
“To tell you the truth, Sheridan, at this point I’m not sure what I think. I keep wondering if anything that occurs to me about this case is true. My fear is that I’m missing something big that would explain everything. I’ve worked a hell of a lot of homicide cases over the years, and I’ve never worked one that felt as wrong as this one. It’s like there’s a definite elephant in the room that none of us is seeing.”
Kline sat back thoughtfully. “This may not be the elephant in the room, but I do have a question that keeps bothering me about the missing girls. I understand the car thing, that the girls are all legally adults, that they told their parents not to try to find them, but… don’t any of you find it peculiar that not a single parent notified the police?”
“I’m afraid there’s a sad, simple answer to your question,” said Holdenfield slowly, after a long silence. The oddly softened tone of her voice drew everyone’s attention. “Given a plausible explanation for their daughters’ departures and a request for no further contact, I suspect that the parents were secretly pleased. Many parents of aggressively troublesome children have a terrible fear they’re ashamed to admit: that they’ll be saddled with their little monsters forever. When the monsters finally leave, for whatever reason, I think the parents feel
Rodriguez looked sick. He stood quietly and headed for the door, his sallow skin ashen. Gurney guessed that Holdenfield had just hit the man’s most sensitive nerve dead-on, a nerve that had been exposed, prodded, needled, and battered from the moment the case had veered from his hunt for a Mexican gardener to a probe of disordered family relationships and sick young women. That nerve had been rubbed so raw over the past week it perhaps wasn’t surprising that a man of already limited flexibility was turning into a basket case.
The door opened before Rodriguez got to it. Gerson stepped in with a tinge of alarm on her lean face, effectively blocking his way. “Excuse me, sir, an urgent call.”
“Not now,” he muttered vaguely. “Maybe Anderson… or someone…”
“Sir, it’s an emergency. Another Mapleshade-related homicide.”
Rodriguez stared at her. “What?”
“A homicide-”
“Who?”
“A girl by the name of Savannah Liston.”
It seemed to take a few seconds for the news to register-as though he were listening to a translation. “Right,” he said finally, and followed her out of the room.
When he returned five minutes later, the vague speculations that had been drifting around the table in his absence were replaced by an eager attentiveness.
“Okay. Everyone is here who needs to be here,” he announced. “I’m only going to go through this once, so I suggest you take notes.”
Anderson and Blatt pulled out small identical notebooks and pens. Wigg’s fingers were poised over her laptop keys.
“That was Tambury police chief Burt Luntz. He called from his present location, a bungalow rented by Savannah Liston, an employee of Mapleshade.” There was strength and purpose in the captain’s voice, as though the task of passing along information had put him, at least temporarily, on solid ground. “At approximately five o’clock this morning, Chief Luntz received a phone call at his home. In what sounded to Luntz like a Spanish accent, all the caller said was, ‘Seventy-eight Buena Vista, for all the reasons I have written.’ When Luntz asked the caller for his name, his response was ‘Edward Vallory calls me the Spanish Gardener.’ At that point the caller hung up.”
Anderson frowned at his watch. “This was at five A.M.-ten hours ago-and we’re just hearing about it now?”
“Unfortunately, the call didn’t set off an alarm with Luntz. He just assumed it was a wrong number or the guy was drunk or maybe both. He’s not privy to the details of our investigation, so the Edward Vallory references meant nothing to him. Then, about half an hour ago, he got a call from a Dr. Lazarus at Mapleshade saying that they had an employee, normally responsible, who didn’t show up for work today, wasn’t answering her phone, and- considering all the crazy things going on-could Luntz send one of his local patrol cars by her house to make sure everything was all right? Then he gives the address as Seventy-eight Buena Vista Trail, which rings a bell, so Luntz drives over there himself.”
Kline was leaning forward in his chair like a sprinter on his mark. “And finds Savannah Liston dead?”
“He finds the back door unlocked, with Liston at the kitchen table. Same configuration as Jillian Perry.”
“Exactly the same?” asked Gurney.
“Apparently.”
“Where is Luntz now?” asked Kline.
“In the kitchen, with some Tambury uniforms on the way to set up a perimeter and secure the scene. He’s already gone through the house-lightly, just to verify that no one else is present. Hasn’t touched anything.”
“Did he say if he noticed anything odd?” asked Gurney.
“One thing. A pair of boots by the door. The kind you slip on over your shoes. Sound familiar?”
“The boots again. Jesus. There’s something about the boots.” Gurney’s tone held Rodriguez’s attention. “Captain, I know it’s not my place to… to try to influence your allocation of resources, but… may I make a suggestion?”
“Go ahead.”
“I would recommend that you get those boots to your lab people immediately, keep them here all night if you have to, and have them run every goddamn chemical-recognition test they can.”
“Looking for what?”
“I don’t know.”
Rodriguez made a face, but not as bad a one as Gurney had feared. “Based on nothing, that’s a hell of a shot in the dark, Gurney.”
“The boots have shown up twice. Before they show up again, I’d like to know why.”
Chapter 69
Anderson, Hardwick, and Blatt were dispatched to the Buena Vista scene, along with an evidence team selected by Sergeant Wigg, and a K-9 team. The ME’s office was notified. Gurney asked if he could accompany the BCI people to the scene. Rodriguez predictably refused. But he did give Wigg the assignment of coordinating and expediting lab work on the boots. Kline said something about agreeing on a damage-control strategy for a scheduled press conference, and he and the captain went off to confer privately, leaving Gurney and Holdenfield alone in the conference room.
“So?” she said. It was half a question, half an amused observation.
“So?” he repeated.
She shrugged, glanced at her briefcase, in which she had replaced her copies of the Karnala ads.
He guessed she wanted to know more about his earlier disturbed reaction. He’d already told her it was hard to explain. And he still wasn’t ready to talk about it, still hadn’t figured out the implications of full disclosure, still hadn’t figured out the damage-control options.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“I’d love to tell you about it, but… it’s complicated.” The first part was less true than the second part. “Maybe another time.”
“Okay.” She smiled back. “Another time.”
With no chance of direct access to the lab techs and no other compelling reason to hang around the state
