the bottle of tequila, and the plastic cups that were scattered near the body, all of it giving off the feel of a romantic liaison-all except for the man’s already decomposing body, the forehead pushed in from repeated blows with a club or rock, the front of his western shirt stiff with dried blood; all except for the other large pool of blood that had soaked into the sand several feet away from the blanket and a lone pair of women’s shoes that had been left behind.
“Looks like we found the place Darlene was killed,” Vicky said.
“That’s what hit us first off,” John Weathers replied.
“I’d bet the mortgage on it,” Nick Benevuto said. “We found the victim’s car. It’s parked out on the road near the park entrance. They close off the entrance at sunset so nobody can drive in and camp for the night. CSI has already been told to dust it.”
Harry didn’t say anything. He walked to the blanket and squatted next to the man’s body. The body had been in the sun for a day and land crabs and seagulls had already picked at the soft tissue. The eyes were gone. There was nothing to see there and the body was not pleasant to be near. Still, he needed to get a closer look at the wound.
“I’d say the blows were struck from left to right,” Harry said at length. The victim’s hands had already been bagged so he couldn’t tell if he had fought his attacker. “Did you find anything under his fingernails?”
“Nothing I could see, so I just bagged them,” Benevuto answered. “My guess is the first blow caught him by surprise and knocked him cold. The others were administered later. Probably after the other murder,” he added, catching Harry’s drift. “And I think you’re dead-on about the blows coming left to right. Any sign Darlene’s killer was left-handed?” he asked
Harry nodded as he walked to the blood pool. His movements were slow and careful, giving his eyes time to scan the ground ahead of him so he wouldn’t inadvertently disturb any evidence.
“There are no footprints leading here, or away from here,” he pointed out. “Looks like the sand could have been brushed clean.”
“That’s our guess,” Weathers said.
Harry saw a very small glint in the sand and squatted next to it. The glint was no bigger that a few grains of sand, but sand didn’t shine that way. He took a pen from his pocket and began to clear the area around it. Gradually a gold cross emerged.
“Vicky, hand me some tweezers and a plastic bag from my crime scene kit,” he said.
When he had the tweezers and the bag, he carefully lifted the cross and held it at eye level. It was thick and heavy, definitely gold. He turned it over and saw a stamped 18K on the rear. Above the mark there was a faint engraving, so badly worn it was unreadable, almost as if it had rubbed against the wearer’s body for so long it had begun to disappear. Again, he had the same feeling he had experienced at the Brooker Creek crime scene, one of the killer standing next to him.
“Can you make this out?” Harry asked, holding the cross out for Vicky to see.
“No. It’s too faint. Maybe the lab can bring something up. If not ours, we can send it to the FBI lab in Washington.”
“Would you say this belonged to a woman?” Harry asked.
Vicky gave her head a slight shake. “Eighteen karats, so it’s good stuff. The kind of gold any woman would like. But it’s too heavy for a woman. I’d say it’s a man’s. You think it was torn off when the killer cut Darlene?”
“Be a good guess,” Harry said. “But it could also have been here for months. Just something somebody lost.”
“I’m betting it’s from this murder,” Vicky said. “This place isn’t exactly a popular picnic spot. It isn’t much good for anything but what they were using it for.”
“I’m with you on that,” Benevuto chimed in. He was grinning at her.
Vicky gave him ice in return.
Benevuto let out a long breath. “Look, when you got here I was just heading out to get some coffee for me and Weathers. You guys want any?” He shrugged when Harry and Vicky declined, then turned to go. “Be back in ten minutes.”
Harry slipped the cross into the evidence bag and handed it to Weathers. “Yours for now,” he said. He raised his chin toward the blood pool and the women’s shoes. “At least until we’re sure the blood and the shoes are Darlene’s.”
He drove the car past the park, nodded to the two uniforms guarding the entrance, then turned left into a side street and headed south, blending into the background yet again. There had been four cars, two marked and two unmarked, which meant there were at least four detectives at the scene. And that could only mean they knew they had found the place where the whore had been punished. It would also mean they would soon be intensifying their investigation; adding more detectives and deputies. But that was something that would serve well. It was something that could be used if he was clever and artful. But he knew everything was not as perfect as he would have liked it to be. A hand went to the chain where the cross had once hung. Its loss had not been planned, and he had not discovered it until that morning. It was a bit of carelessness that could not be repeated. He had hoped to get to it before the body was found, but he’d been too slow. He’d hesitated about coming back to the place she had died, and that hesitation had been costly. His jaw clenched at the thought. That’s one point for you, Harry Doyle. Still, he doubted the cross could be traced back to him. It was far too old, something he had worn since childhood, given to him by that other bitch who so enjoyed harming the children in her care. But that debt had already been paid in full ten long years ago. Now Darlene Beckett could be added to that list. And as long as he kept the police bumbling along, missing the truth that stood right in front of them, he would be safe. And if he remained safe, then there would be others.
It was almost noon before CSI reported back that prints in the male victim’s car were a positive match to Darlene Beckett, and the blood in the sand matched her blood type. DNA would take longer, but there was little doubt what the results would be. The male victim had also been identified as Clint Walker, a software salesman with no known previous ties to Darlene. He had simply picked her up in a topless bar, taken her to a deserted beach, and paid for it with his life.
When Harry received word on the results, he and Vicky were back at headquarters questioning Jordon Beckett, Darlene’s estranged husband. Beckett had just identified his former wife’s body and he still seemed to be in shock. Either that or he was the best actor Harry had seen in a long time. Now, sitting in the homicide division conference room, Beckett lowered his eyes and shook his head. He was average height, with sun-bleached hair and bland features. He worked as a yacht broker and appeared to do pretty well at it.
“You know, she wasn’t a bad person,” he said, his voice barely audible. “In court she claimed she was bipolar. But I don’t buy that. She just needed to be the center of attention; always needed to know she was the woman that every man in the room wanted. I found out too late that she only knew one way to get that.”
“So what are you telling us?” Vicky asked. “She was the slut with the heart of gold?” Her voice was harsh, intentionally so.
“No. I’m not telling you anything like that.” Beckett kept his eyes down as he spoke.
“So what is it?” Harry asked, making sure his voice was slightly softer, less threatening than Vicky’s. “You telling us you’re not bitter about everything she did to you? That all the public humiliation you went through was okay? That you don’t care that she went to bed with a fourteen-year-old student, when she had you at home? The man she had just married six months earlier?”
“Even did it in your own bed,” Vicky threw in harshly.
The questions snapped out at Jordan like the strokes of a whip, and Harry watched the man’s jaw tighten with each one. When Beckett’s eyes finally rose to meet Harry’s they were not friendly.
“At the time I was too shocked to feel anything,” he said. “Later, yeah, I hated her guts. Every court appearance was like a knife in my heart. Every time she was on the front page of the newspapers, or the news on TV, I felt like puking. I filed for divorce and stayed as far away from the court and the press as I could. Then it was finally over and I met somebody else and my life started to get back to normal. All I wanted was to move on, forget all of it.” He stared hard at Harry. “Now she’s even taken that chance away. Now I’m back in the same cesspool, with the same spotlight shining on me. And, yeah, deep down it pisses me off. But I never wanted her dead, not ever, not one time.”
“You’re sure?”
Beckett stared back at Harry. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
