I gestured in the direction of the tracks. “This way.”
Ron Gabel was one of the best crime scene guys working for Denver PD, according to pretty much everyone. I knew this personally from our brief encounters when I’d been a railway cop, and also from our conversations around the project I’d been assigned as part of my three-week training period: processing years-old rape cases that had never been solved. Gabel had agreed to help me with the backlog of rape kits, and he both guided me through the process and shared the load. In his late fifties, he’d been around long enough to see things change in the department. Not just new technology, he told me, but a changing culture. Like new dress codes and the rule against cursing in the detectives’ room. We’d gone from being cowboys to toe-the-line professionals. No one was sure if the change was for the best.
I stopped next to the clump of grass I’d destroyed earlier and pointed.
“I figured we’d run tape here,” I said. “The soiled cloth and the rest of it is just over that rise.”
“Seems about right.” He paused long enough to push a single stake into the ground. “Let’s get closer.”
With the world growing lighter, the makeshift cross seemed even more forlorn than before. Weightless, almost invisible. I imagined the woman bending down, pushing the thin wire into the hard earth. Removing her necklace just before someone grabbed her dress and ripped it.
Gabel’s voice brought me back. “You make that mark?”
I followed the direction of his finger. On the far side of the cross, a section of the soil had been smoothed flat, with a little ridge of dirt on each side.
I shook my head. “I didn’t get that close.”
“Sure looks like someone scraped across the ground with the toe of their shoe. Or a boot, rather. That might be a bit of a waffle pattern.” Gabel squatted, let his hands dangle between his knees. “But there’s something else there as well. Part of a word, maybe. You see? The only thing left is at the end of the scrape. Looks like part of a capital letter T. Or maybe an L. Even a P.”
“She wrote something.”
“Could be.”
“Then someone wiped it out.”
“Might be one and the same person.” He pulled his silver case close and popped the lid. “You find any other footprints?”
“No. And I was careful.”
“Maybe you should have another look around. For footprints. For anything else.”
“Right.” I stared at the cloth. “Does it look like blood to you? On the necklace and the fabric?”
“Let’s find out. I’ll run a presumptive.” He pulled out a camera, snapped photos of the fabric, then removed four dropper bottles.
“The Kastle-Meyer test,” I said.
“You were paying attention in class.” He placed a drop of water on a swab, then leaned over the fabric and dabbed the swab on a corner of the stain. He next added a drop of ethanol to the swab, followed by phenolphthalein and a drop of hydrogen peroxide.
The swab turned pale pink.
I released the breath I’d been holding. “It’s blood.”
“Mammalian.” He nodded. “I’ll run a precipitin test as soon as I’m back in the office to see if what we’ve got is animal or human. That will get us over the next hurdle.” He closed up the bottles and rubbed his jaw. “I’m going to start by taking photos. Why don’t you string tape? When we’re done here, you can show me where the railway cop was assaulted.”
Forty-five minutes later, Gabel had taken photographs of both scenes, and I’d strung crime scene tape after doing another search for prints. I’d found nothing. This area of eastern Denver consisted of grass, cactus, and antelope droppings, with very little exposed dirt.
“What do you think?” I asked when he rejoined me.
“No way to tell right now,” he said, taking the roll of remaining tape. “I’ve learned the hard way not to pass judgment too soon.”
“Unlike Bandoni.”
“Don’t let him get under your skin. He’s got a big bark, but his bite isn’t bad. He listened to what you found, and now he’s looking for the simplest solution.”
“Occam’s razor. He brings it up all the time.”
“It works pretty well.”
The crow was back at the fence. It gave a deep caw that rattled my spine.
“Don’t start second-guessing yourself now,” Gabel said. “This is normal procedure, Parnell. You’re doing it right.”
“From your lips to the lieutenant’s ears.”
He laughed.
“You get down to the rail yard,” he said. “If you find anything, let me know, and I’ll come back out here with the van. For now, I’m going to take a few samples and bag everything. I’ll be in touch later today.”
The fog thinned as Clyde and I walked back to the truck, and the world shouldered into view as a series of low hills. Light simmered along the ground. The fog changed from the color of ashes to pearl and then to opals, as if the world were dragging itself up from hell.
Away from the crime scenes, Clyde became pure dog. His tail swished, his tongue lolled. He nudged up against me, then bounded ahead in the direction of the vehicle. He bore only a faint limp from when he’d been shot six months earlier by a man trying to keep secrets from the world.
My sense of service—instilled by the Marines—was one reason I’d switched from railroad bull to murder cop. But Clyde was an even bigger reason. My original, post-Iraq decision to work on the trains had been meant to provide the two of us enough quiet and space to heal from the war. But things hadn’t worked out that way, and Clyde had been injured twice. My lover, Detective Michael Walker Cohen, assured me that being a murder cop was nothing like what you saw on TV. It was more a matter of single-minded persistence, sitting in front of a computer screen or working the phone. Making the occasional walk across the plaza to the crime lab. Lots of paperwork, lots of
