Would he really go after Michael’s brother? The slowest, most vulnerable beast in the herd?
CHAPTER 27
Tess arrived at John Wayne airport at 7:38 a.m. and picked up her rental car. She took the 405 to Irvine, and from there she made her way to the gated entrance to Asteroid Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains.
A detective had been briefly assigned to the Farley case, but it was soon classified as an unnatural death due to misadventure. Barry Zudowsky of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office North Operations was in his mid-to-late twenties. Tall and skinny as a string bean, he had freckles and a crew cut. His posture was erect, and he struck her as serious, if maybe humorless.
He’d e-mailed her reports on the case and she’d read up on them. There was little evidence, but the conclusion was that Peter Farley had gone up to a canyon pool, maybe to cool off, when he was attacked.
Tess had also read up on mountain lions as part of her homework. “I heard attacks like this are rare.”
“They are.”
“So the thinking here is that the lion had a cache of food, something it had killed, and somehow Mr. Farley came too close?”
“Either that or it could have been a female with a cub. Farley wasn’t located for three days and there’d been at least one big rainstorm. There was no sign of a mountain lion.”
“No evidence at all?”
“No tracks, no scat. Not even a sighting. The only evidence was Mr. Farley himself. The ranger and the subsequent mountain lion expert I talked with were skeptical.”
Tess looked up the gate barring the forest road. The asphalt ended just before the gate and turned to graded dirt.
Zudowsky nodded to the padlock and chain. “The Mullets.”
He opened the trunk to his unit and took out a lock cutter, then went to the gate and removed the padlock and chain.
“The Mullets?”
“It’s a clan of hillbillies, that’s what we call ’em, they have a homestead about a mile up this road. This is Forest Service land, but as you can see from the signs, there’s access for people who want to drive up in the canyon to the first place where the creek comes in. Dave Mullet thinks this whole canyon is his property and he’s been known to threaten people. He and his wife are always yelling at folks that it’s a private road, and if you heard what they were screaming your ears would turn blue. So get ready.”
They got into Zudowsky’s unit and drove through the open gate.
“Be ready,” Zudowsky said. “I heard one time Mullet’s wife pelted a ranger with cantaloupe rinds.”
The canyon was beautiful. Sycamore trees filtered the sunlight, and it was beautiful and quiet in late afternoon.
They came around a curve and there was the Mullet homestead. It looked like every squatter’s camp Tess had ever seen. Shotgun shack with a green asphalt roof. Corn patch. Falling-down corrals. Goat staked to what passed for a lawn. Kids’ toys scattered everywhere.
Tess asked if an asteroid had hit the canyon, if that was how it got its name.
“That’s the legend, but the locals think it was made up. The Manson family lived out here for a while. People who’ve lived out here a long time think it was them that came up with it. Used to be called Sycamore Canyon.”
“The Mansons?”
“Amazing, huh? Some official decided to change the name to Asteroid, and now that’s what it says on our maps.”
As they drove up canyon, he told her that mountain bikers loved the thirteen miles of road they had access to, as well as trails up into the hills. One of the trails led to the small waterfall and pool where Peter Farley’s remains were found. “Not much of a waterfall, except when it rains. It’s not year-round. Farley parked his vehicle outside the gate back there, so he could ride all the way up.”
“When was his car discovered?”
“After the weekend. It had been a couple of days—Monday was a holiday. He lived alone and it wasn’t until after the long weekend that a ranger called it in.”
They reached the bike and hiking trail to the waterfall, parked on the verge, and started up.
When they arrived, Tess glanced around. A pretty spot. Oaks and a willow leaning over the lower pool.
“He was up there.” Zudowsky pointed up at the rocks above. They followed the path and came to another pool with a small beach, but most of it was wild. Oaks, tall grass, underbrush, and a mat of wild grapevines. Tess recognized it from the scene photos and diagrams. A wire stuck up through the leaves—an orange flag. Someone had left candles at the base of the oak tree, plastic flowers and the fender of an old bike.
“So that’s it.”
He folded his arms and rocked on his heels. “Yup.”
“No mountain lion sightings?”
“No legitimate ones. People around here just say stuff. Anything brown they might call a mountain lion. But no confirmed sighting in this part of the mountains.”
“But they’re shy. You wouldn’t see them.”
“No, you wouldn’t. A mountain lion’s range is about a hundred miles. So there would probably only be one.”
Tess had read the report. She also had read up on mountain lions. They did not stalk people, unless that person was a threat to whatever cache of food they had, or if the victim came too close and threatened a female’s cubs. “And no cat tracks.”
“Yeah, but you have to remember—”
“That there was a rainstorm between the time he went missing and was found. That was over the three-day weekend?”
“Can’t remember which day. The vehicle wasn’t ticketed until Tuesday at the earliest, and towed later.”
“So no one was looking for him. They assumed he was out there somewhere camping?”
“Yeah.” He scratched his neck. “But bottom line, he was mauled by a mountain lion. The claw marks, the teeth marks, the measurement of the jaw. That’s all in the report. It bit into his neck and face, and ate a little of his heart. A chunk was taken out of his lung. Then it buried him under all this stuff for later.”
On the way back, a dirty Dodge Ram parked outside General Mullet’s place.
A man came out onto the front porch and stared at them.
“Here goes nothing,” Zudowsky said, turning in.
They got out.
“Hey, you here about the trespassers?” the man yelled.
On the way in, Tess had noticed the property was plastered with NO TRESPASSING signs.
Barry Zudowsky yelled. “We wanted to ask you about the guy who died up by the waterfall.”
“That’s old news.” Dave Mullet remained on the porch. He had a massive white handlebar mustache like a Civil War general, if a Civil War general wore dungarees and a biker T-shirt. He obviously used the weight bench and barbells on the porch, because his arms looked like balloon animals.
Even from where Tess stood, she could smell his cologne. It wasn’t the good stuff.
“What I want to know is why you keep opening that gate! This is private property.”
Zudowsky kept his hands on his belt, close to his weapon, but looked casual enough. “Now, Dave, you know that’s not true. This is Forest land.”
“You tell people to stay off my land. I have grandkids here. People are racing up and down that road at night. Maybe that’s what happened to that bike guy.”
“We lock the gate at night farther up.”
“Yeah, but what about down here?”
They stayed where they were, in the threadbare yard, and he stayed on the porch.
“This is Detective Tess McCrae from Arizona Sheriff’s,” Zudowsky said. “She’d like to ask you a couple of
