There were many trees down by the water, but most of the leaves had come off because summer was gone. And it was almost dark because Tash-the sun-had already set.
The woman was still holding the brown cradle blanket close against her breast when she seemed to hear a baby’s weak voice. She looked and just beyond the water she saw a tiny brown cradle swinging from the low branches of a tree.
Brian Fellows arrived at the ME’s office still smarting from his encounter with Sheriff Forsythe. By the time he got there, the victim’s fingerprints had already been taken and forwarded to the lab, but even with that out of the way, the rest of the autopsy seemed to take forever. Dr. Daly’s work was thorough and unhurried. One by one she noted the numerous individual wounds-evidence of long-term physical and sexual abuse that had resulted in visible damage as well as internal bleeding and scarring.
“This isn’t something that went on for a day or two and then stopped,” the ME said. “The extent of the scabbing and scarring would be consistent with weeks or maybe even months of torture. You’re dealing with a monster here, Mr. Fellows, a real sicko. If I were you, I’d get him off the streets pronto.”
To Brian’s way of thinking, “sicko” hardly covered it, especially if any of those other cases turned out to be related. “I already figured that out,” he said. “What about defensive wounds?”
“Didn’t find any,” Dr. Daly returned. “See that?” She pointed to a still-visible indentation on what remained of one pathetically thin wrist.
Brian nodded.
“Chafing like that would be consistent with her being bound or chained for long periods of time,” Dr. Daly explained. “I’d say we’re finding no defensive wounds because she wasn’t able to defend herself.”
“Are you saying she was alive when the final assault began?”
Fran Daly nodded grimly. “Hopefully not for long,” she said.
Two hours later, Brian left and went straight back to his office, where he discovered PeeWee was among the missing. Tackling the pile of sorted files, Brian hit the phone and began contacting the various agencies involved, requesting complete autopsy reports on each of the victims. Brian wasn’t at all surprised to find nothing in his in- box from Jimmy Detloff. Before he could make an end-run call to Deborah Howard, however, PeeWee burst into their shared cubicle. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“Mixed bag,” Brian answered. “Forsythe bitched me out personally and told me we should lay off the Strykers. His contention is that the time of death makes Gayle Stryker’s involvement with LaGrange beside the point. Plus, they’re pillars of the community.”
“And the autopsy?” PeeWee asked.
Brian sighed. “You lucked out big-time. Dodging it was the right thing to do. That poor kid went through hell before she died, and hell lasted for a very long time. The more I think about LaGrange, the less I think he’s capable of doing what was done to her. He strikes me as too much of a wimp.”
“Maybe you’re right, but what about that matching fingerprint?” PeeWee returned. “The one from his house that AFIS connected to the Yuma County case?”
“What if LaGrange didn’t do it, but knows about it and knows who did?” Brian asked.
PeeWee thought about that. “If it was me and knowing the kind of nutcase the killer is, I’d be scared to death-afraid the killer would turn on me next.”
“Bingo,” Brian returned.
“Want to go talk to him again?”
“Not right this minute,” Brian said. “We’ll let him stew in his own juices awhile longer. When we do get around to him, he’ll be even more up for talking than he was yesterday.”
Donna, the Homicide Unit’s head clerk, tapped on their cubicle wall. “Mail call,” she announced, handing over a large interoffice envelope. “Faxes, actually. They came in a few minutes ago, all of them labeled ‘urgent.’ ”
“From Jimmy Detloff?” Brian asked.
“No,” Donna said. “They’re from someone named Deborah Howard. Is she a detective over there in Yuma County?”
“Deborah Howard isn’t a detective,” Brian replied, “but she probably ought to be.”
Erik LaGrange lay on his cot and breathed the fetid air while time slowed to a standstill. After two nights of virtually no sleep, he had finally dropped off on Sunday night despite the steady din from the other cells and the disturbing presence of lights that dimmed but never went out completely.
Sometime toward morning, though, he had been awakened by a terrible groaning coming at him from somewhere down the barred corridor. The moaning rose and fell, with no particular message of either pain or sorrow-a steady keening wail of hopelessness. Whatever was wrong with that person-mental or physical-there was no fixing it, just as there was no fixing what was happening to Erik.
He understood now that he was lost. Despite his earnest prayers, no one-not Gayle and certainly not God- would come to his rescue. Erik had done nothing wrong, but whoever was after him had convinced the cops he was guilty of murder, and those two hotshot detectives wouldn’t rest until they’d nailed him for it.
Saturday morning he’d been worried about losing his job. On Monday he kept trying to get his mind around the fact that he would probably lose his freedom-maybe even his life.
When a guard showed up and unlocked Erik’s cell in the early afternoon, his spirits soared. “Are they letting me out?” he asked.
The guard’s hatchet-nosed face broke into a smile that revealed more than one missing tooth. “Sure, buddy,” he said, applying a pair of handcuffs. “You’ll be out in no time.”
“Really. Will they give me back my clothes?”
The guard’s jack-o’-lantern grin cracked into a hoot of laughter. “That’s a good one.”
He led Erik as far as the barred entrance at the far end of the cell-lined corridor. After he pushed a keypad, the door was unlocked by an invisible hand. As they walked to the far end of an empty corridor, the guard spoke into his radio. “Hey, Conrad. Get this. Our guy thinks he’s got one of those Get-out-of-jail-free cards. Wants to know if we’re going to give him back his clothes.”
The unseen recipient of this information laughed, too. Meanwhile, the guard turned serious. “It’s a bail hearing,” he explained. “Those are pretty much come-as-you-are.”
When Erik was led into the courtroom, Earl Coulter, wearing the same awful tie, appeared at his side. The proceedings were so amazingly short that Earl didn’t have time to fall asleep. In a matter of minutes a judge had agreed with the prosecutor’s claim that there was ample evidence that Erik LaGrange should be bound over for trial. When asked how he pleaded, Erik had to be nudged in the ribs before he choked out, “Not guilty.” There was never a question of bail.
As Erik waited with the other prisoners to be returned to his cell block, he looked at them. Studying their faces, tattoos, and surly expressions, he tried to understand how it was that he was now one of them. Whoever they were, whatever they had done, these men, and others just like them or worse, were likely to be Erik’s companions for the rest of his life.
With that realization, a black pall of despair engulfed him. He saw no way out.
Delia Ortiz had barely slept all night. She’d been on her feet so much the previous day that her back was killing her. When she finally did sleep, she dreamed about the baby. It was always the same. The baby was born. She knew he was alive because she’d heard him cry, but when she asked the nurse to show him to her and let her hold him, the woman shook her head. “No,” she said, speaking in the style of the Tohono O’odham, “not right now. After.”
Every time Delia dozed off, the dream reappeared. Each version was slightly different. Sometimes Fat Crack and Wanda were in the room. Sometimes Aunt Julia was there, although Aunt Julia had been dead now for two years. Sometimes only she and Leo were there with the doctors and nurses, but the basic part of the story was always the same. Delia would ask for the baby, only to be told no, she couldn’t have him. Each time the dream reached that point, she would awaken, panting for breath and with her heart pounding in her throat.
It was almost sunrise when Delia finally drifted into a deep, dreamless slumber. She was so sound asleep, she didn’t notice when Leo crept out of bed. Planning to stop by the office on her way to Wanda’s house, she had set the alarm for seven, but when she finally awakened, it was nearly eleven. Leo had turned off her alarm. At first
