“No,” Ben said. With Carly, James was like a dog guarding a bone. “I’m worried about other stuff.”
James didn’t need to hear more. “We’re not having sex,” he said.
Ben couldn’t help but feel relieved. But how long would that last? “She’s only sixteen,” he lamented, for even the most heartfelt intentions of a teenaged boy were tenuous, at best.
“I know,” James said, frowning. “I’m not even interested in that.”
“You’re not?”
“Okay, I am,” James clarified, “but I’m not going to do anything about it. I know she’s too good for me.” His blue eyes darkened with anger. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me? That I’m just some dirty wharf rat with a drunk asshole for a dad and a mom who didn’t care enough to stick around?” He glanced down at his hands. They were riddled with scars and calluses, much more like a man’s than a boy’s. “I know I’m not fit to touch her. These hands are only good for pulling in nets.” He clenched them into fists. “And fending off blows.”
Ben wasn’t about to disagree with James’ estimation of himself, even though his conscience told him he should. “Where’s your mom?”
To his amazement, tears filled James’ eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “She left a long time ago. I haven’t heard from her.”
“Okay,” Ben said, totally uncomfortable handling a boy’s emotions. Carly was often tearful, and never ashamed to use it to her advantage. This was uncharted territory.
He searched for common ground. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” James admitted.
Ben smiled. “Want a sandwich?”
Staff Sergeant Paula DeGrassi was at the crime scene well before Sonny arrived. She stood on a concrete walkway near the base of a man-made jetty that skirted Coronado Bay, the security lighting raining down on her silvery blond hair and gunmetal gray suit.
DeGrassi didn’t look happy to see her.
According to Grant, she was a territorial ball-buster who ate FBI agents for breakfast. Although Sonny was here to supervise the retrieval, not make friends, she smoothed one hand down the front of her jacket and pasted a cool smile on her face as she approached.
“Staff Sergeant DeGrassi? I’m Special Agent Vasquez. We spoke on the phone.”
DeGrassi accepted her handshake with a grunt of acknowledgment and got down to business. “We have a young, dark-haired female who appears to have been in the water for several days,” she said, turning toward a small man in a yellow jacket that said COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER. “I think we all know she wasn’t dumped here, so let’s not waste any more time trying to preserve the integrity of the scene.”
The ME nodded his agreement.
“Dr. Ramashad,” he said, sticking out his hand to greet Sonny. “If we wait much longer, the tide will take her back out.”
While Sonny and DeGrassi watched from a distance, the ME and two CSIs performed the unwieldy task of removing the body from the jagged rocks lining the side of the jetty. The tide was coming in, making their job more difficult, sloshing against the rocks and sending up spouts of seawater with each approaching wave.
At 2:00 A.M., the air was still and damp, a moderate 60 degrees. Sonny wasn’t cold in her jeans and jacket, and even with the lack of wind and excess moisture, her eyes were bone-dry, unblinking despite her fatigue.
The night had been the most surreal of her life. She’d met her miserable excuse for a father and knocked him unconscious. Found out she had two half-brothers she’d never known about. And almost slept with Ben.
Did oral sex count? Sonny pictured herself in front of the board at Internal Affairs, taking the Bill Clinton defense.
Pushing that thought aside, she tried to focus on the details of the case, considering the ways this crime scene differed from the others. First and foremost, none of the previous victims had been submerged. Except Olivia Fortune.
Sonny had read the police reports and seen the photos. Emergency personnel had found an unintelligible Ben with his wife’s dead body. Both were soaked to the skin. He later admitted to removing her from the tub in an attempt to revive her.
Staring at the jumble of rocks pointing out into the midnight blue Pacific, Sonny wondered if tossing Lisette’s body in the ocean, or dropping Olivia’s into a tub of bathwater, were attempts at washing away evidence.
It was also inconceivable that Lisette had swept into Arlen Matthews’ gill net by circumstance. Either Arlen had killed Lisette and done a poor job of getting rid of her body, or someone wanted to make it appear that way. Sonny hated to cut the disgusting piece of slime a break, but she had to admit a well-known abuser of prostitutes made a convenient fall guy.
Of course, dismissing Arlen as the culprit hardly exonerated Ben.
After the body on the rocks had been loaded into the back of the crime lab van, Sonny asked for a closer look.
The space was tight in the van but the lighting was better. Dr. Ramashad unzipped the cadaver bag, exposing what once had been a face.
It hardly resembled the pictures Sonny had seen of Lisette Bruebaker. She’d been a very pretty girl with overstyled hair, too much eye makeup, and a full-lipped pout. In summer a body that had spent almost a week in the water wouldn’t have much skin, but at this time of year, the effects of decomposition were less pronounced.
The cold water hadn’t saved her from scavengers, however, and they always started with the soft tissues of the face.
“Let me see her neck,” she requested, her voice grim.
The girl’s long hair was tangled over her throat, strangling her for eternity. Dr. Ramashad lifted it away carefully with a pair of silver-handled forceps.
The deep black crease he exposed was much easier to recognize than her face, and there was nothing tentative about it. If anything, it was overkill. There was no doubt in Sonny’s mind now that the victim was Lisette Bruebaker and the perpetrator was the SoCal Strangler.
Feeling numb, she followed Sergeant DeGrassi downtown and sat in on the autopsy, her mind reeling. When the girl’s hair was matched to the sample Sonny had collected from Ben’s bed, he would be taken in for questioning. Perhaps even booked for murder.
Sonny would be under obligation to arrest the only man she’d ever been in danger of falling in love with. She was powerless to help him, cursed by her inability to trust, a victim of her own investigative fervor.
Deciding not to go down without a fight, Sonny went back to her apartment and took out her laptop, running another, more detailed search on Arlen Matthews. Incredibly, the guy had no official criminal record. In fact, he seemed to have dropped out of thin air sometime in the mid-eighties.
Before then, he’d had no driver’s license, no credit report, no history.
The door was locked, but he didn’t have any trouble getting in. He could be stealthy when he chose to be, slipping in and out of most places undetected.
The cheap hardware on the back door at the Matthews residence was no match for him. Because he wanted to make it look like an inside job, he left the lock intact, and would have to remember to reengage it after he left.
Matthews was a mean, canny son of a bitch, quick to anger and tough as an old boot. He was also a pass-out drunk who wouldn’t be able to defend himself, much less fight back, so the intruder went to the boy’s room first.
It was empty.
An unexpected complication, but no reason to turn around and go home. Unconcerned with getting caught, the man clicked on the bedroom light and studied the contents of the room. The paint was cracked, the ceiling had water damage, and the furniture was atrocious. Despite the dismal poverty reflected here and throughout the house, this room was spotless.
The bed was neatly made, boasting crisp sheets and a scratchy-looking wool blanket. There was a small dresser against one wall with a jagged shard of mirror above it. The hardwood floor was scuffed but clean. In a milk crate next to the dresser, there was a stack of workbooks and a jar filled with stubby pencils.
“What the fuck is this?” he mused aloud. “David Copperfield’s room?”
Shaking his head, he clicked off the light and moved on, finding Arlen Matthews’ personal quarters with no
