“You’re not going anywhere near my office,” she returned.
My Mercedes was parked right there in the front row. “How about if we go sit in my car, then?” I suggested. “Let’s at least get in out of the cold.”
I clicked open the door to let her in, and as soon as we settled inside, I knew that was a tactical blunder on my part.
“Since when does an employee of the state go cruising around in a Mercedes-Benz?”
When he started S.H.I.T., Ross Connors had made an executive decision that the organization would dispense with company cars. Having lived through Seattle PD’s brief and poorly thought-out romance with K-cars back in the eighties, I was more than happy to be able to use my own wheels. Keeping dutiful track of the mileage and turning in the resulting expense reports on time can be a pain, but it certainly beats the alternative. I’ll choose riding in my used Mercedes over being stuck in a brand-new Crown Victoria any day of the week.
“Forget about the car,” I said. “Let’s talk about cases.”
“Yes, let’s,” she said. “Which cases?”
And so I told her. Most of it, anyway, but not all the telling details. I didn’t know this woman and I didn’t really trust her to keep things quiet. What if she went running off at the mouth to some local newspaper reporter, or, even worse, to some visiting newsie from Seattle? So I made no mention of the victims’ missing teeth in the five previous cases. That was an official holdback in our investigation and I decided to keep it that way. I settled, instead, for focusing on the tarps that had been used to wrap the various bodies and on the fact that the manufacturer tags on those had all been systematically removed in what appeared to be a very similar fashion.
Despite Detective Caldwell’s previous display of attitude, she now appeared to be paying close attention. “I was there when our CSI tech found that piece of tarp,” she said. “And I was there when he put it into the evidence log. We both noticed that missing tag. What I want to know is how you found out about it.”
I didn’t know for sure how that had happened, but I had my suspicions.
“Ross Connors is a very smart man,” I said. “I would imagine that a discreet inquiry has gone out to CSI units all over Washington State and beyond asking for information on any incidents in which blue construction tarps or parts thereof were found at crime scenes.”
That statement was followed by a brief silence. I figured Detective Caldwell was about to give me another blast of temper. Instead she issued a resigned sigh. “All right, then,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “I’ve still got what’s left of the watch. I need to get it into the evidence log along with the engagement ring and the toe ring.”
“What toe ring?” I asked.
“It was in the boot,” she said. “A snakeskin cowboy boot that didn’t quite burn.”
“One boot but not two?”
“Only one,” Detective Caldwell said. “Let’s go. How about if you follow me back to the department. I’ll give you a look at what else we have. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come up with an idea or two.”
Her grudging acceptance wasn’t exactly a heartfelt apology, but it was as close to one as I was going to get.
“Great,” I said, turning on the ignition. “Lead the way.”
As far as Joanna was concerned, sending Margie Savage to rescue Guy Machett from the sand was well worth the price of admission. He had been ripped before. He arrived at the crime scene in a state of high dudgeon and without Margie Savage, who had pulled him out and then gone on her way. Considering the M.E.’s state of mind, that was probably a good thing.
“That woman’s a nutcase,” he complained as he opened the cargo door and hauled out a bag of equipment. “She absolutely floored it. She yanked me out of the sand like it was some kind of grudge match. It’s a wonder I don’t have whiplash, and look at what she did to my bumper.”
Machett was right. The minivan’s front bumper had been mangled beyond all recognition. What was left of it was rubbing up against the right front tire and would most likely have to be removed before the vehicle could be driven back to town.
“No doubt she thought you were in a hurry,” Joanna said. Just beyond Guy Machett and outside his vision, Ernie Carpenter favored Joanna with a wink and a very small grin.
“Now where the hell’s this damn body?” Machett continued.
“Out there,” she said, pointing. “Dave Hollicker laid down a trail of click-together pavers to make it easier to walk out to the body while preserving the crime scene as much as possible.”
Machett gave Dave’s plastic path a disparaging look. “You expect me to run a gurney across that?”
As a matter of fact I do, Joanna thought, but she was done. She’d had enough of Guy Machett’s temper tantrums for one day, and she didn’t need any more.
“You do whatever you need to do,” she said. “I’m sure you and Dave will be able to work it out. In the meantime, Detective Carpenter, how about if you give me a ride back out to my vehicle. I’ll leave the rest of you to it.”
“That guy’s no Doc Winfield,” Ernie said, once they had climbed into the Yukon and driven out of earshot.
The understated elegance in Ernie’s comment was enough to make Joanna smile. “No, he’s not,” she agreed.
“And he’s not going to last,” Ernie added.
That unequivocal statement was enough to make Joanna sit up and take notice. Maybe something was going on that she hadn’t heard about.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“Because he’s a balloon full of hot air and somebody needs to pop it-somebody who’s got his twenty years in and doesn’t have anything to lose.”
Joanna knew Ernie wanted to be the one doing the popping, but he was now one of the grand old men of her department. Having already lost the services of Frank Montoya and the good counsel of Dr. George Winfield, she couldn’t afford to be without Ernie’s time and experience.
“Ignore him,” she said. “I need you around far more than I need Machett to be taken down a peg.”
When they arrived back at the gate, Natalie Wilson’s dog pound vehicle was gone and Miller was as well. A second Crown Victoria was parked next to Joanna’s. That Crown Vic, which had once been driven primarily by Frank Montoya, had now been passed down to her three-man homicide team. Detective Jaime Carbajal was inside it, talking on the phone. When Joanna approached the vehicle, he rolled down the window and waved a piece of paper.
“The search warrant?” she asked.
He nodded. “Be right with you.” When he stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut a few moments later, the thunderous appearance on his face told Joanna something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
He let out a long breath. It sounded like air being released from an overloaded tire. “That was Debra Highsmith,” he said. “Luis got in another fight today. He’s being suspended. She’s of the opinion that whatever’s wrong with Luis is all my fault, and she wanted me to come get him. I told her I can’t. Delcia’s going instead.”
Luis Andrade was Jaime’s nephew, the son of Marcella Andrade, Jaime’s ne’er-do-well sister, a sometime prostitute who had abandoned her progeny the previous summer. Despite having a son of their own, Jaime and his wife had gone to court and petitioned for custody, which had been granted. At the time taking their nephew in seemed like a no-brainer. Luis had come across as a good, self-motivated kid who had looked after his mother more than she had looked after him. At first Luis had convinced everyone, including himself, that his mother’s disappearance was temporary. As the months went by and the loss of his mother seemed more and more permanent, he had started getting into trouble. His grades had fallen. He’d lost interest in sports. And Joanna knew that this was the third time in as many weeks that he’d been in trouble at school for fighting.
As for Debra Highsmith, the high school principal? Joanna had done a few rounds with the woman herself. Two years earlier, one of the high school counselors had suggested that Joanna, as sheriff of Cochise County, be invited to speak to the students at a career day assembly. Joanna had been pleased to accept until she’d been told that due to the school’s zero-tolerance weapons policy, she would have to check her weapons at the door. She had complied that one time, but since then, in the aftermath of a rash of school shooting fatalities around the country,
