His calves started to ache, and he was breathing hard.
What about Rebecca Travers? Was she as innocent as she tried to be? And how was Willow Valente involved? Why was she murdered? And by whom? Why stage her death to appear a suicide, then take a picture of her dead body and send it to a newspaper, the same newspaper Charity Spritz worked for, the same newspaper that received pictures of Charity in death?
What the hell kind of nutcase were they dealing with?
Or was it more than one case? Were the murders and disappearance linked or separate crimes?
The latter seemed unlikely. On a side note, he’d learned that the owner/manager of the Cascadia Apartments, Phoebe Matrix, was in the hospital, in a coma, one of her tenants having called 9-1-1. The only reason he noted her condition was that Matrix was the landlady for the building where Sophia Russo, a suspect in the case, resided. It might just be coincidence, but James Cahill too, the man who had been dating Sophia for a while, had been in a coma recently.
And Rivers had never put any stock in coincidence.
He hit the INCLINE button, and the treadmill responded, its nose inching upward so that he was running uphill, the sweat rolling off his muscles and dripping off his nose, his calves and thighs protesting.
The answer to the case was right in front of him, he was sure of it, he just couldn’t see it.
Why?
Because he was wearing blinders?
Was he too focused on James Cahill, who was at the center of the investigation, linked to the victims, suspects, and crime scenes? Could Cahill really be completely innocent?
“No way,” he said aloud.
Today, he promised himself, things were going to break.
He would make them.
First, by leaning on Bruce Porter.
He’d viewed the footage from the airport parking-lot security tape that Detective Tanaka in San Francisco had sent, and all they could determine from the grainy black-and-white image was that the individual appeared male, though there was no certainty in that hypothesis. Just because the driver leaving Charity Spritz’s parked van was nearly six feet, that was no guarantee. In an oversized sweatshirt, face obscured by a hood, and loose jeans, the figure could be a woman in disguise.
But he was betting on Gus Jardine. The reason? Teeth marks on Jardine’s hand. Rivers had learned about Gus’s injury from a surgical nurse who hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut despite the current HIPAA rights of patients. She’d called, spoken anonymously, but swore there had been a human bite mark on Jardine’s palm that had been visible, despite the damage done by the tile saw. Also, she’d insisted there had been other marks on him, bruises on his arms and torso that he claimed were all due to the accident, but the nurse didn’t buy it—she’d seen her share of injuries from a struggle. She’d found a way to send over the pictures of Jardine’s wounds, including the bite marks, and Rivers had forwarded the info to Tanaka, who had promised to have a lab take an impression of Charity Spritz’s teeth for comparison.
Rivers had discovered it was possible to fly back and forth to the San Francisco area with enough time to kill Spritz in between. Unfortunately, Gus Jardine’s name hadn’t shown on any flight manifests.
Of course, he could have driven—but that would have pushed it time-wise. Why would Jardine go to all the trouble to follow Charity to San Francisco to kill her?
Rivers only hoped the scrapings beneath Charity’s fingernails would ID the person who attacked her.
Bruce Porter, Jardine’s friend, might have the answers.
He shut off the treadmill and television and faced the day.
Forty minutes later, he was walking into the sheriff ’s office.
At this hour, it was quiet, the furnace rumbling a soft but constant background noise. The arrests for drunk driving, bar fights, and domestic violence usually having tapered off, and few cars on the road, so not so many accidents—this was usually Rivers’s favorite time of day, far before dawn, when his mind was fresh and the rest of the world slept.
The day shift wasn’t due to arrive for a couple of hours, only a few cops on the graveyard shift hanging out at their desks or rummaging around in the lunch area. The phones too were quiet, the fax machine stilled, no personal cells playing ringtones.
Rivers ditched his coat in his locker, then headed directly to the basement, where it seemed five degrees cooler and was much more silent. The air here wasn’t fresh, dust evident despite the overriding odor of a cleaning agent used on the floors. He made his way through the labyrinth of corridors until he came to the evidence room, where Neville Dash was singing under his breath, his smooth baritone a reminder of his claim to fame: appearing on American Idol and “making it to Hollywood” years before. Of course, he’d been cut from the show, made a stab at a career that didn’t get off the ground, and eventually joined the force here, but he kept right on singing.
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful—” He looked up as Rivers approached. “Well, hey, Detective,” he said, flashing a mouth full of straight white teeth. “How’s it hanging?”
“It’s—going,” Rivers said as Dash chuckled.
“Whatever you say.” In uniform, he was seated at a desk, glasses perched on the end of his nose, his naturally curly hair receding so that it was little more than a black fringe around a shiny mocha-colored pate. “What’s up?”
“Need to get into the evidence locker. Double-checking the victim’s things.”
“You got it. Which one?”
“Victim is Willow Valente. I think all of her items have been processed.” Rivers knew they had been, but had double-checked.
“Oh, yeah.”
So he wouldn’t be messing with any evidence.
Dash asked, “You taking anything out?”
“No. It’ll just be a sec.”
Dash eyed Rivers above the tops of his half-glasses. “Good. Less paperwork that way. Just sign in.” He waved to the board sitting on the counter separating the evidence lockup
