“What’s up with you playing pass the buck?” I said, calling him on his bluff.
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Under the force of my kicks, the dirt around the grass came loose in clots. “I mean why do you want to dump this on a department in another jurisdiction? Even if it’s only an assault, it’s our assault.”
“What’s up with me? You need to pull your head out of your pretty little ass. We got a caseload longer than my dick, and you call me at five in the morning to tell me you’ve spotted a unicorn you want to chase instead of doing the work that is already on your desk.”
His voice boomed over the speaker. Clyde looked up, a frown between his dark eyes.
My shoulders came up. “You know damn well that if we wait, it’s going to be that much harder to find Heinrich’s assailant. Not to mention a killer, if that’s what we’ve got. We won’t be hours behind. Whoever catches this will be days late. And we both know what that means when it comes to solving cases.”
Another long silence on the phone. Far away but coming closer, the call of a siren rose and fell. I stared across the field at the necklace with its ugly, red spatter of blood. At the torn cloth.
Bandoni said, “How do you even know it’s blood?”
I took that as victory. “There are flies all over it.” Two flies, perhaps, did not count as a multitude. But I didn’t elaborate.
“Chocolate looks just like blood.”
“That’s why I called Crime Scene. To tell us if it’s blood. And if it’s human.”
“Ah, Jesus.”
“Someone knocked a railroad cop unconscious,” I reminded him.
“Probably thought it was you,” Bandoni muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Look, Parnell. I’m not arguing that there was a crime. The assault on the railroad bull for starters. Felony right there. I get that you’re all hot under the collar to find whoever nailed your friend. But there’s no body. Even if it’s blood, that dress could be from ages ago. Or maybe the mysterious woman spotted by your engineer cut herself shaving. Maybe she sliced her wrists, and when it didn’t take, she drove herself home. That would make the most sense, right? She got into her car instead of on a train.” He grunted. “You got to have more dots before you start connecting them.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Acknowledged to myself that an unconscious cop, an anxious dog, and a piece of bloody fabric did not a murder make.
“Start thinking like a cop,” he said. “Turn it over to the guys handling assaults. If someone finds a corpse while that train’s still in Denver, then it’ll be ours.”
“But—”
“Or go right on down to the rail yard. Poke around to your heart’s content. See if I give a fuck. Then explain it all to the lieutenant when you finally get in to work.”
He hung up.
I looked at Clyde, who returned my gaze with a furrowed brow.
“You think I’m crazy, partner? If I’m wrong about what we’re looking at, this could end our career before it even starts.”
Clyde leaned against me. I rested my hand on the curve of his skull. Dogs were more honest than people, more in touch with the things we tried to explain away. As far as Clyde was concerned, something had gone down here.
But Bandoni was right. No body, no missing-persons report, no witnesses other than a sleepy engineer working the midnight shift who might have been making mermaids out of manatees.
I had only my partner. And my gut.
And sometimes that was all you had.
Because sometimes people just . . . vanished.
And not of their own volition.
I couldn’t let it go.
CHAPTER 3
I don’t need saving. I can be my own damn white knight.
—Sydney Parnell. Conversation with Detective Michael Cohen.
Detective Ron Gabel of the Denver Crime Lab arrived five minutes after the ambulance left with Heinrich. Clyde and I went to greet him as he pulled in next to my Tahoe.
Gabel unfolded his lean body from behind the steering wheel and stepped into the predawn. A tall man with close-cropped gray hair, focused blue eyes, and a lively expression, Gabel had been a cop for longer than I’d been alive, even if he didn’t carry himself like a man twice my age. Marathons. Fourteeners. He was the starting pitcher for the department’s baseball team—Crime Scene dicks against detectives from Major Crimes. Crime Scene always won, and Gabel was the biggest part of that.
He had bags under those baby blues now, though. And he’d skipped the shave.
I said, “I got you out of bed, I hope.”
“Sofa. I was taking twenty.”
We shook hands, and then he squatted and gave the fur along Clyde’s neck and back a good roughing.
I was anxious to get to the crime scene. But I let Gabel set the tempo.
“Busy night?” I asked.
“A stabbing outside a bar on Eleventh. You know the place with the mechanical bull and two-dollar drinks from ten to midnight? I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the bull that turns men into either poets or fighters. Then I caught a hit-and-run on Downing.” He closed the car door, moved toward the trunk. “Don’t take this wrong, Sydney, but I’m hoping you’ve got a whole lot of nothing.”
“You talked to Bandoni.”
“He said you were a little uncertain about the evidence.”
“I’m guessing those weren’t the words he used.”
Gabel smiled and popped the trunk. “I got the gist.”
He rummaged a headlamp out of a plastic crate, then passed a large canvas bag to me. I heard the clink of stakes as I swung the strap over my shoulder. Gabel grabbed a silver-sided case and closed the trunk.
“Look,” I said. “If it’s nothing, then all we’ve lost are a few hours and a little sleep. Right?”
I didn’t mention the delay-of-train costs.
“Spoken like a detective,” Gabel said. “Why don’t you show me what
