Since this morning, she had walked the crime scene twice. She had marked and collected evidence, measured and drawn the crime scene to scale, and shot seventeen rolls of film from the ground and an additional two from the DPS helicopter. Laura hated flying in general, and flying in helicopters—where the world tilted crazily—in particular. But it was part of her job and she white-knuckled it.
Laura dropped the lip balm into her slacks pocket and went up to supervise the removal of the body.
A tech from the medical examiner’s office was in the process of gently moving the girl away from the wall. Laura photographed the part of her that had been concealed until now, from head to heels. Other than residue from the dirty wall, there was nothing new. The one thing the killer had missed—a mesquite leaf Laura had found on the girl’s neck—had already been photographed, bagged, and removed.
By this time, they had made a positive identification: The girl was indeed Jessica Parris. Victor Celaya had made the notification earlier in the afternoon.
A familiar twinge started in the small of her back. At five feet nine, she was on the tall side and had a long waist. A car accident during her time at the Highway Patrol had weakened her back despite the doctors’ assurances to the contrary, and she felt it every time the job required long hours and standing around. She couldn’t even lean against a wall until they were done with the crime scene.
It had rained scantily off and on for about an hour—not much of a storm. The air smelled of wet earth and wet cement, nothing like the seductive perfume of the creosote desert where she lived. But it had cooled her down, blown some fresh air into her.
As they lifted the girl, Laura looked at her face. Despite the deterioration already beginning to erode the hopeful image of youth, the face that once belonged to Jessica Parris seemed unconcerned with the indignities of death—as if she were already an angel.
Laura thought of the parents, glad they could not see her now. How did you deal with the death of your own child?
Anguish stormed up into her chest, the wanton destruction getting to her. Why? Why take this girl’s life? She knew the conventional wisdom, the explanations given by psychologists and FBI profilers, the charts and statistics and probabilities, but at this moment they rang hollow.
The firestorm of emotion took her unawares, blowing up through her soul like a crown fire. Just as quickly, it burned out, leaving only cold, bitter anger.
You think you can get away with it, she said to him. But you won’t.
I will find you. I swear to God I will.
I will make you pay.
Going back down Brewery Gulch, she passed the bar she’d gone by this morning, what seemed like a hundred years ago. Heavy metal music spilled out along with the beer smell. Several Harleys were parked out in front of the bar. Bikers, tourists, and stray dogs populated the shadowy street, flickering in and out of lights from open doorways. They were joined by hippie types who seemed at the same time flamboyant and insubstantial, slipping through the night like ghosts of a long-gone era.
Laura was tired, dirty, drained, and hungry. Earlier today she’d seen the sign in the Copper Queen Hotel lobby for prime rib. She hoped the restaurant would still be open after the briefing at the Bisbee Police Department. Maybe grab a bite with Victor. She hadn’t seen him since this morning. He’d spent most of his time canvassing the streets around the park or up at the Copper Queen Hotel conference room, doing what he did best: talk. Interviewing witnesses, being interviewed himself by the news crews from the Tucson and Phoenix network affiliates. He could have them.
Laura was almost past a red brick building when she saw something in the store window, partly shielded by an old-fashioned canvas awning, its candy-stripes faded to pink. A doll, propped up against a metal trunk, legs splayed, hands together on her lap. She wore a Victorian-style little girl’s dress. The dress looked like it had once been white, but had been faded by the sun.
The sign above the door said: COOGER & DARK’S PANDEMONIUM SHADOW SHOW AND EMPORIUM. The antique shop sold twentieth-century kitsch. Melmac, Buck Rogers space ships. A dim light came from the back of the store.
Taped to the door’s window was a faded poster depicting whirling leaves on a dark sidewalk. Laura remembered it from her childhood, the cover of Ray Bradbury’s book,
Evil had visited Bisbee in the middle of the night, like the locomotive in Bradbury’s book, bringing the dark carnival to the edge of town.
She knocked on the door and it rattled in the frame. No one answered.
The shop next door was open, though—a tattoo parlor. Laura asked the proprietor about Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show and Emporium.
The heavyset woman looked up from tattooing the Virgin of Guadalupe on her customer’s forearm. “Oh, that place. Guy doesn’t show up much, kind of like a lot of shop owners around here. No set hours, just every once in a while the door’s open. Name’s Ted.” She shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
Laura could find out who owned the shop tomorrow. All it would take was a look at the city records. She was about to walk out when another thought occurred to her. “Did you do the tattoo for Jessica Parris?”
“Hold her steady, Ramon.” The woman put down a tool that looked like a dentist’s drill and bustled over to a filing cabinet behind the counter, handed Laura the file. “She wanted the butterfly—very popular with young girls. Turned out real nice.”
“Don’t you have to get parental permission to tattoo a minor?”
She gave Laura a look. “In this case, her mama brought her in. Her mama and her boyfriend.”
Jessica had a boyfriend? “You know his name?”
“Cary Statler. He lives with them. They took him in when his own mom left town.”
“So what do we know about this guy?” Chief Ducotte said.
Laura, Victor Celaya, and the eight members of the Bisbee PD were crammed around a table in the Bisbee Police Department conference room, an airless cubicle smelling of microwaved pizza.
