Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake - Страница 121
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If he didn’t purchase those in the area, you could forget about that.
The storm hit just as she reached Tucson. She took the Valencia Road exit and drove west to the Department of Public Safety on Tucson Boulevard down the street from the Tucson International Airport.
Lightning sizzled across the sky as she turned into the parking lot. Built in the sixties, the DPS building reminded her of a grain elevator. In the blowing rain, the concrete building darkened to the same slate color as the sky. US and Arizona flags whipped in a wind-driven frenzy, their chains rattling. Laura waited for the automatic gate to roll back and drove in, taking note of the cars in the inside lot. Victor’s truck wasn’t there. She doubted she’d see anyone at this hour.
She booked the tire moulage, the matchbook, Jessica’s clothes, and other items from the autopsy into evidence, filled out the paperwork, and requested the types of tests she wanted from the crime lab. On her way to the squad bay, she passed Mike Galaz’s office and noticed something new—two rows of photos on the wall by his door. Mostly of the Tucson social scene, Let’s Go People! and his wife standing in groups of three or four at various fundraising events. Expensive coifs, more expensive smiles.
Laura had never been part of that social circle, and knew by now she never would be. Fortunately, she didn’t need an expensive evening gown to send her check to the Hermitage No-kill Cat Shelter.
Everybody had gone home except for Todd Rees, the youngest and newest member of the squad. His desk was catty-corner to hers, facing the other direction. She liked that, because it kept their interaction to a minimum. He looked up and then back at his computer.
Her plant was looking a little dry. She prodded it, filled a coffee cup with water from the bathroom sink, and gave it a drink before checking her messages and her voice mail.
One message had been placed on the center of her desk in Rich Lockhart’s handwriting: “Call Myra Maynes at the medical examiner’s office.”
“My remains. Very funny,” she muttered, tossing the note into the wastebasket.
A California detective named Barry Endicott of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department had left a message on her voicemail, “regarding your child homicide in Bisbee.”
She didn’t recognize the name. One of her contacts at another agency must have made some calls. As she picked up the phone, Todd Rees slipped on his suit jacket, picked up his briefcase, and ambled past her. He always dressed in a suit and tie.
Tall and thin, he reminded her of a praying mantis. Now he craned his neck over her shoulder, looking at her notes.
She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Watcha need?”
“Nothing.” He slouched past her, but she could feel him lurking in the doorway. Todd had a reputation for keeping his mind on other people’s business, always looking for a way to ingratiate himself with the brass. “You have a good time in Bisbee?”
The phone started ringing on the other end and she broke the connection. “’Good’ is not the way I’d describe it.”
“The lieut kind of wondered why you didn’t come back with the techs.”
So that was it. What, he thought she turned it into a vacation?
One of the new rules Galaz had instituted was financial: He wanted to see a justification of every expense over a hundred dollars. This affected overnight stays. If at all possible, he wanted his detectives to drive back rather than stay the night.
“I used my own money,” Laura said, mad at herself for letting Todd put her on the defensive.
“Did you use your own time?”
It was a parting shot; he was already out the door and halfway down the stairs. Todd had a habit of sniping at people and then running for cover. Still, she knew she’d have to smooth it over with Jerry Grimes, and he in turn would smooth it over with Galaz.
She wasn’t going to worry about it. Jerry knew she got results. Maybe her methods were a little unorthodox, but that had always been the way she worked.
Lieutenant Mike Galaz had been here for five months. Other than his watchful eye over the budget, he was an unknown factor, generally considered to be a good (if political) administrator who left the sergeants to run their own squads.
His first official act was to institute weekly briefings where everyone in the criminal investigation division got together and discussed their cases. Galaz himself didn’t take part, but stood at the front of the room listening intently. At the end of each meeting, he’d give a short speech about the importance of their mission, ending with a phrase he must have picked up from a TV show: “Let’s go, people!”
Laura punched in Detective Endicott’s number, but got his voice mail—gone for the day. She looked at the clock: seven-thirty. Next she called Cary Statler’s uncle. No answer, no machine.
Where was Cary Statler?
It nagged at her, even though Laura’s instincts told her he wasn’t Jessica Parris’s killer. Strangling a person face-to-face showed rage, which would fit a domestic abusive relationship. But Laura worked under the assumption that the killer was older. Dressing her like that didn’t fit with a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. And the way he’d cleaned her up; so careful not to leave evidence. It was possible Cary could have done all that, but unlikely.
Still, she wished she knew where he was.
When she looked at the clock again it was eleven thirty. By this time there were stacks of papers all over her desk, some on chairs, some on the floor. Transcripts of interviews, autopsy results, her own notes torn from a yellow legal pad. A sea of information, including a printout of City Park drawn to scale. She had looked it over three times now, worrying that she was missing something. Now she was staring at it without really seeing it.
Time to go home, and sleep—if she could.
14
The 4Runner’s tires rumbled over the cattle guard marking the entrance to the Bosque Escondido Guest Ranch. The storm had gone, leaving a few luminous clouds and a full moon that turned the dirt road white, a chalk line through the desert.
The moment she drove onto the Bosque Escondido, Laura felt something give in her chest. She loved her job, but it wasn’t natural to have to look at so much ugliness day after day. The evils people visited on one another, the unspeakable cruelties she saw almost daily, had the cumulative effect of a house of cards—one insult building up on top of another until over time the whole thing threatened to come crashing down. She was almost to that point now. She could feel it, tiny cracks running through the wall she’d put up.
Structural damage.
Tonight she had nothing to go home to except the flat-roofed Mexican adobe in the middle of the desert.
Normally she liked being way out at the edge of Tucson, in a shallow indentation in the desert where she could not even see the city lights, but tonight she didn’t want to walk into an empty house. Putting it off, she drove past the main ranch house, the guest bungalows, the cantina, then turned onto the short loop road that took her by Tom’s place—a tin-roofed adobe with a screened-in porch. The place was dark—no welcoming light. She wondered if he was thinking about her.
Right now—at this moment—she wanted him to move in and never leave. It was almost physical, this need she had. She wondered how she had managed to go so long without someone. When you had someone, everything was better. You had a mate in a world where most people had mates. You went more places, and there was an aura to being in love, like you had God’s blessing. People saw you differently.
She thought of all the places she wanted to go with him. Just overnight stays because she worked so much. But good times. Good times piling up one on top of the other, photos in an album.
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