Rinker was still talking as I typed an instant message to Richie. FAYE FARMER FOUND. I sent it to his computer. He typed back !!!!!?????
I said, “Sergeant Rinker, where are the two bodies now?”
“They’re at the ME’s office in Las Vegas. But I think you should come see us here in Ely pretty soon. I think maybe we’ve got a lead on the doer.”
“Put the coffee on, Sergeant. We’ll be right there,” I said.
Chapter 112
IT TOOK FOUR hours for Conklin, Claire, and me to get to McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. Then it was a four-hour drive in a rental car to a speck of a place fifty miles north of nowhere on a small track of road leading out into the desert.
The White Pine County sheriff ‘s barracks were sided in white aluminum, with a line of small windows facing the road and a sign on the front reading PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING.
We parked, stepped out into the blazing sun, and shielded our eyes with our hands so that we could view the distant blue hills at the farthest edge of the scrub and the endless open sky above us.
Moments later we went through the glass doors, identified ourselves to the desk officer, then waited in the dark reception room until a lanky man in a tan uniform opened an interior door.
“Good to see you all,” he said. “Come on back.”
Rinker’s office was lit with an overhead fluorescent fixture. File cabinets flanked his door, and his hat hung from a rack of antlers directly behind his chair. There was a framed picture of the Three Stooges in police uniforms and a dozen plaques on the walls.
We took seats around Rinker’s desk, and after introductions were made, the sergeant opened a file on his computer and turned the monitor around.
“Can everyone see?”
We looked at photos of the torched Escalade from all sides, including a close-up of what looked like a red Frisbee in the backseat. That red disk had once been a plastic five-gallon gas container, and was likely the fire’s point of origin.
Next Rinker showed us images of the interior of the cargo section at the back of the burned car. Along with the jack and the remains of the spare tire were two corpses, charred to the point of being what firefighters call crispy critters.
Rinker said, “Our ME removed the bodies. Usually, when you take the bodies out, there will be carpet or something under them—clothes, maybe—that didn’t burn. But this fire burned long and hot. All we got was ash and a few pieces of metal you can see in this picture here.
“Now, these are the reports from the ME.”
He handed the records to Claire, who skimmed the forms, knowing just what she was looking for.
“‘Jane Doe 91, cause of death, bullet to the head,’” she said. “‘Manner of death, homicide.’ May I see that photo of the artifacts again?”
Rinker pulled it up and Claire scrutinized the scorched litter until she saw what she was looking for.
“That buckle looks like it came from a gun belt. I’m just speculating, but until proven otherwise, I’m thinking this Jane Doe is Tracey Pendleton, still missing, still unaccounted for.”
Claire put down the ME’s autopsy report on Jane Doe 91 and picked up the second report.
She read, “‘Faye Farmer, cause of death, gunshot to the head.’ Uh-oh. Here’s something interesting.”
Claire looked over at me. “Faye Farmer was pregnant.”
Chapter 113
I WAS VERY damned pleased that we would have the victims’ bodies returned to San Francisco. That took away some of the stink from the abduction of Faye Farmer’s corpse and the mysterious disappearance of the ME’s nighttime security guard.
But it wasn’t enough.
All of us, Claire included, were responsible for getting justice for Faye Farmer and Tracey Pendleton, and that meant finding their killer and gathering enough evidence to charge him with homicide.
Clearly, we were severely handicapped.
Whatever forensic evidence had once been on the bodies of Pendleton and Farmer had since gone up in a thousand degrees of gasoline-fueled flames. Faye Farmer’s unborn child might lead to a motive—but it would be weeks before we’d know if there was viable DNA from the fetus’s remains.
Conklin said, “Sergeant Rinker, what’s this about a lead to the shooter?”
“I’ve got some crap-quality videotape. What other kind is there, right?”
As the sergeant punched keys on his computer, he told us that Ely was a small town, not much in it but a cafe, a few Western-style brick storefronts, something called the Frosty Stand, and a gas station called the Stagecoach that held down the intersection of the highway and the strip mall.
“The Stagecoach Gaseteria is your typical gas and food mart—three pumps and sandwiches to go. But here’s the thing,” Rinker said. “It’s one of only a few gas stations around here for about a hundred miles.
“Here we are.”
Rinker clicked his mouse to play the footage.
The so-called crap-quality video was grainy. Still, there was no mistaking the black Escalade when it pulled off the highway and parked at the pump.
Rinker said, “See, I can just make out two numbers on the plate, but they’re Ohio plates. Stolen off a car about three months ago.”
We watched the driver get out of the Escalade, take his wallet out of his back pocket, and go into the gas station, presumably to pay. The angle of the camera showed us the back of his head.
I was pretty sure I knew who he was from that partial view, but it wasn’t what you’d call a positive ID.
Conklin asked, “Is there footage from inside the store?”
Rinker said, “Would have been, but the camera was broke. So this is it. Now look, here he comes out of the store. And now he lifts his hand, waves to this guy parked out on the street.”
There was a hulking guy standing next to a silver Audi that had pulled up on the roadside, just barely within the camera’s range.
“That’s Cal Sandler,” I said. “Plays for the Niners with this man right here.”
I stuck out my finger and stabbed the ghostly image of Jeff Kennedy, who was now filling up a red five-gallon gas container. I could make out Kennedy’s face this time.
I thought anyone could.
Kennedy put the gas container in the backseat of the Escalade, got behind the wheel, and pulled out. His friend driving the Audi moved out right behind him.
Claire said, “Sons of bitches killing those women. A murder of an innocent person done to cover up the murder of an innocent person. Makes me sick.”
“Three homicides,” I said. “Baby makes three.”
Chapter 114
IT WAS SUNDAY evening and I was alone in the bathtub with my thoughts.
I had just come back from a meeting with attorney George Fenn and his superstar client, the former football hero Jeff Kennedy.
Neither of them looked as self-assured in our little interview room as they had at Fenn & Tarbox’s extraordinary conference room only a few weeks ago.
Today, Fenn blustered.
