somehow. Using a gun, or a drug to make him drowsy, you can do pretty much what you want. Control is the key.”
Friedberg looked up at the column where the body had been fastened. “Soon as the ME gets us a time and a definite cause of death, we’ll be able to piece this all together. For now, we should look into the vics’ backgrounds.”
Vail lifted Anderson’s right hand and examined the fingers. “No defensive wounds.” She reached across the body and checked out the left. “Hmm.” She stood up and looked out, through the columns ahead of her. “What’s around here, in this area?” Vail asked.
Friedberg pointed. “Out ahead of us is a man-made lagoon. They do lots of weddings there. Navigating the seagulls can be a challenge.”
As if on cue, a cacophony of birdsong built to a crescendo. Vail ducked as several gulls sped past her head and swept through the rotunda. “What the hell’s that?”
“Every once in a while they go nuts. Hundreds of them.” He gestured out over the expansive, irregularly shaped pond, where the large gray birds were diving and climbing, darting and swooping. “Lasts a minute or two, then they quiet down.”
Over the water, the cloud of gulls eventually calmed, as Friedberg predicted.
“As I was saying,” Friedberg continued. “There are homes along the perimeter. Expensive ones, well maintained. That building you saw when we parked, directly adjacent to the property, is the Exploratorium. Kind of a hands-on science museum.”
“Hang on a minute,” Jackson said. “You may want to see this.”
They gathered around the criminalist. His gloved fingers spread the hair on the back of Anderson’s head, toward the base of his skull.
“Blood?” Burden asked.
“Looks like it. Bruising of the cranium. And over here,” he said, gesturing at the throat. “Those marks you were talking about, anterior C-spine. I don’t think they’re finger impressions, but we’ll know more once the ME examines him.”
Friedberg said, “Just like the wife. Assuming it’s the same UNSUB.”
“Or,” Vail said, “he could’ve struck his head on the cement while he was being pulled up on the rope. Or he could’ve fallen when he was killed. We don’t know at this point.”
Leaving Rex Jackson to finish his work, they headed back toward their cars.
As they entered the small parking lot, Vail stopped. “There.” She nodded at a panoramic lens mounted atop the tall adobe-tinted Exploratorium building, near an inside corner overlooking the arched glass doors of the museum. She traced the line of sight to where she was standing, at the mouth of the Fine Arts entrance. “But that might be a problem.” Below and in front of the building was a grouping of three gnarled and heavily leaved trees, partially blocking the view.
“We’ll take what we can get,” Friedberg said. He headed toward the entrance. “I’ll get started on securing the tapes.”
As Friedberg walked off, a bushy-haired man with iPod earbuds plugging his ears strolled in front of them. His hands were curled around a long bar that protruded from a rectangular shaped, three-wheeled cart, colorful stickers dotting its surface: Good Humor chocolate chip, Big Dipper, Popsicle Shots, Pink Panther, Scribblers, Snow Cone.
“Hey, Robert! This the guy?” Vail asked, tipping her head in the direction of the vendor.
Friedberg cricked his neck, snatched a look at the man, and nodded.
Burden stepped in front of the man and held up his shield.
The vendor, who looked no more than twenty-two, pulled his right earbud free and, as he turned his head to reach for the left ear, his gaze found Vail. His eyes slid down her body. And his demeanor transformed. He straightened up. “Can I-do you need help with something?”
“Yeah. You are-?”
He narrowed his eyes and held out his hands palms up, indicating his cart. “An ice cream vendor.”
“No,” Vail said. “I got that. I meant, what’s your name?”
“Oh. Oh. Alex Montague.”
“Mr. Montague,” Burden said, taking back control of the interview. “We understand you found the body in there.”
Montague reluctantly pulled his eyes from Vail. “Yeah, dude was just hangin’ out there. Looked kinda weird. As I got closer, I was, like, what the fuck. He ain’t movin’. So I wheeled up far as I could, and well, it looked to me like the dude was dead. I mean, I’m no expert or nothin’.”
“That’s right,” Vail said. “The dude was dead. You’re a sharp guy. Expert or not.”
He didn’t like that retort, because he stopped looking at her with lust. He was actually frowning.
“So,” Vail said. “We’d really like to know if you saw anyone in the area the past few days who didn’t look right.”
“Didn’t look right?”
Burden shoved his credentials case into his jacket pocket. “Yeah. Like he didn’t belong. Or he was doing stuff that a typical tourist doesn’t do. Not just a tourist. Anyone, really, who might come around here.”
Montague shrugged.
“You been doing this a while?” Vail asked. “Selling ice cream here?”
“’Bout a year.”
“Good. Then you’ve seen thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, visit this place. Based on what those people look like, have you seen anyone lately who looked out of place?”
“Out of place, how?”
As she was pondering how to get some meaningful answers from Alex Montague, a woman nudged up to the cart, brushing Vail aside.
“Excuse me,” Vail said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. She tilted her head. “Can I help you?”
The woman lifted her eyebrows. “Oh. Yes. I’d like two snow cones and a chocolate sandwich. But if you’ve got lemon popsicles, I’ll take that instead of one of the snow cones.”
Montague opened his mouth to speak but Vail beat him to it. “Yeah, thing is, we’re all out.”
“Out? Of which?”
“Everything. Go find another ice cream cart.”
The woman eyed Vail warily, then turned and walked off.
“What the fuck?” Montague said.
Vail stepped forward. “We’re in the middle of an important conversation, Mr. Montague. We can have it here, and be done in a couple of minutes, or we can do it downtown.”
“Downtown?” Montague said. “But we are downtown.”
Vail clenched her jaw. “Just answer the question.”
“Which question?”
Burden must have sensed Vail’s building consternation, because he held up a hand. “Mr. Montague. Focus for a second and we’ll be out of your hair. Did you see anyone suspicious the past few days? Maybe he was looking at the area around the rotunda, scoping things out, like maybe he was looking for a
