He watched the white sails of pleasure boats, the larger ferries, the barges and freighters making their way past the breakwater.
The winds of the past few days had died down but not before they had managed to clear away the smog and haze. It would build up again, but for now, the view from the helicopter was breathtaking.
The journey to Santa Catalina Island would take about fifteen minutes. Alex decided that it might be the last pleasant fifteen minutes of the day and became determined to enjoy it. He had already seen the skylines of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the backdrop of the mountains with the last of their winter snow, and now the harbor and curving coastline. If he could have stayed up here, with this sort of visibility, he might have thought about loving the L.A. area again. But he knew days like these were a come-on for a different bargain, and he didn’t let himself be taken in.
The island, its green and brown peaks rising above the sea, was only twenty-two miles from the mainland. Far too soon, the helicopter was landing.
Due to local laws, most of the vehicles used on Catalina were golf carts. The sheriff’s department carts were painted to look like cruisers, with department insignia. For the short drive from the Avalon Substation to the crime scene, Alex and Ciara rode in the back of one of the carts. He kept waiting for Ciara to make a crack, but she was quiet.
They soon rolled up to the front of a small vacation rental home. The smell hit them before the cart came to a stop.
The day’s best fifteen minutes were definitely over.
Deputy Evan Black met them outside. He was a tall man with short blond hair, and green eyes that held a look of lingering amusement, as if he were a man who had just heard a good joke. His skin was deeply tanned. Alex guessed him to be in his early thirties.
The deputy who had driven them over introduced them to Black but made the common error with Ciara’s name. “It’s pronounced ‘Keer-ah,’ not Sarah,” she corrected. “But you can pronounce it ‘Detective Morton.’”
“I’m sure no one will forget that now,” said Black, smiling. Ciara gave him a hard look, but he didn’t seem to see it. “You made good time. Crime lab folks haven’t arrived yet.”
“How many of you have been inside to have a gander while you waited?” Ciara asked.
Black remained unperturbed. “Just me. Before that, only ones in were the couple that discovered the body.”
“The couple?” Alex asked.
“Yes, sir. The bodies were discovered by a couple that cleans the place every Wednesday. But the next-door neighbors called the owner-guy lives on the mainland-to complain about the smell. He called the cleaning people, so they showed up this morning to check on the place.”
“About what time?” Alex asked.
“A little after six.”
“Kind of early for housecleaning, wasn’t it?” Ciara asked.
“They were planning to take a quick look inside and then go fishing. They saw the bodies, hurried over to the station, and we’ve asked them to stay there so that you can talk to them, if you’d like.”
“Thanks,” Alex said. “A little later, we probably will. When did you get here?”
Black glanced at some notes. “At six-seventeen. Dale Howell-the deputy who’s back there making sure no one tries to enter through the back door-he was with me, but I’m the only one who went inside. It was obvious that there was no chance of the victims being alive, so I backed out. We secured the scene and called the station. I mentioned that this was similar to the scene in Lakewood, so-”
“Just how in the hell did you know that, Deputy Black?” Ciara asked. “We managed to keep most information about the scene off the evening news.”
He gave her a rueful grin. “I don’t want to get him in trouble, but…well, I know the guy who sang into the porcelain amphitheater.”
“The rookie who got sick?”
“Yes.”
Ciara seemed ready to say something, but Alex spoke first. “That turns out to be lucky for us, then. Any sign of forced entry?”
“No, sir, nothing obvious-but, as I said, I haven’t looked around in there much.”
Alex thanked him. Ciara and Alex put on latex gloves and entered the small house. The deputy remained outside.
It was typical of a vacation rental property: mismatched sturdy furniture, the few items of decor firmly nailed down or too heavy to lift. Nothing seemed disturbed. No sign of a struggle, just the overpowering scent of decay. As they walked toward the back, the smell became worse.
The scene in the bathroom was nearly a duplicate of the one in Lakewood, with two bodies instead of one. But here, the air was thick and close-no one had been there before them, opening windows. Alex began to feel more sympathy for the Lakewood rookie.
The bodies faced away this time, toward the wall behind the tub. Alex glanced at the mirror and saw two numbers painted in what appeared to be blood.
“Seven and eight,” he read aloud. “Hell.”
He glanced at Ciara, who was looking a little queasy. “Let’s hope that’s what it means,” she said, “and not seventy-eight.”
“Trust you to find the bright side,” he said, and she laughed.
The female victim had been strong and wiry. Her long brown hair was streaked with gray and dipped into the blood beneath her. The male was thin, his blond hair cropped close to his head. Two letters had been amateurishly tattooed on his neck: AD.
“You know of any local gangs that go by the initials ‘AD’?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Wait-isn’t that one of those El Monte groups? One of those white supremacist outfits-Aryan something or other?”
“Aryan Destiny,” he said, and frowned. He carefully positioned himself so that he could lean over the tub without disturbing the bodies.
“What are you doing?” Ciara asked. He noticed that she had moved nearer the door. Probably trying to get some air, he thought.
“I want to look at their faces.”
“Cripes, Alex-don’t fall in.”
But he wasn’t listening to her. He was staring at the faces of the victims, then back at the mirror. He closed his eyes for a moment, hoping against hope that somehow what he was seeing would change, that when he opened them again, the scene before him would be transformed. But when he opened them again, the same two lifeless faces stared back. Two faces he recognized, even in this state.
“Oh God,” he said quietly.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Ciara asked anxiously.
“We’ve got trouble,” he said, and moved back from the tub. “If we’ve ever had bigger trouble, I don’t know what it was.”
“What are you talking about? Who are they?”
“Valerie Perry and Harold Denihan.”
“What?” She stared at the bodies, then at him. She scowled and said, “You’re shitting me. Very funny, Alex.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“You’re telling me that we’ve got two more fugitives on the FBI’s Most Wanted list dead in our jurisdiction? That two criminals who committed crimes in completely different parts of the country, who have nothing to do with each other, who committed totally different crimes-that they’re both hanging over that tub?”
“Yes. We’d better call Hogan. Hell, we’d better call the captain.”
“Alex-maybe seeing Adrianos last night-”
“Take a look,” he invited, stepping past her to allow her to move into the small room.
She hesitated. “Perry and Denihan have nothing to do with each other!”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “They’ve got at least one thing in common now.”
