A World the Color of Salt (5 page)

I held the back door open for him, glancing into the storeroom toward the cooler. Joe was there, his evidence kit resting on a fold-up field table. The cooler door was still open, the blotches on it brown now. Ordinarily you come to a crime scene once; you do your job and get out. But we'd all worked together before, knew it would be okay. Gary made me sign in, of course, before we stepped in.

Svoboda said, “You know El Cochino? It means
pig
.” proud of himself for that.

“I know, Gary.”

You couldn't miss it. There's a happy pig you talk into at the drive-through. Pigs are on the paperware.

“Somebody over El Cochino's saw a pickup. Sort of a light green. Older, maybe fifteen years. Driver had a ponytail, he saw that. Another guy had a baseball cap, red or orange. The manager over there heard several pops—that woulda been the double deuce in the front there—but didn't connect it with anything. Only reason the little Mexican guy saw anything—not the manager, now—he's taking the garbage out. He hears the truck leaving rubber. No shots, though, just the truck peeling out.”

“Green pickup and a ponytail,” I said.

“But all we got is vaporware here so far.” Gary likes talking computerese. He's fifty-five and just found Mac-heaven. “Let's see.” He thumbed over the first few sheets on his FI pad—FI for field interrogation—as he was talking to me. “I also questioned two people who came in soon after commission—a housewife wheeling a stroller, who freaked, and an Iranian potato chip salesman. Both of them pretty shook. Did not see a soul. They just walk in, there's blood all over the place. They go hollering next door.”

“They touch anything?”

“Would you touch anything, you see blood all over? The door was open, they see blood the first thing.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Why not?” Then he was settling into his belt, ready to defend himself, taking a modified form of the stance, astraddle something invisible.

I said, “I'm coming into a store with something on my mind, okay? Something I want to buy. Twinkies, whatever. I'm not looking up toward the back of the store. I'm looking at
things
, checking which aisle my Twinkies are in.”

“Well, that's the deal. They're a few feet in, they smell something,” he said, coming loose again. “Cordite, only they don't know it. The Iranian looks up. The woman, she's looking over the top of the stroller easing in the door.” He planed his hand out, eye level, to show me. “She looks up. Straight on. The stains don't register at first. She's pushing the kid down the aisle. All of a sudden the tire skuds on a shell casing. She fingers it out, looks up, starts screaming.”

I asked him how much time he was going to give this case. He shrugged. These days, plain old robberies just don't get much attention, burglaries less than that. Crimes of property have to wait: bike thefts, forget it; car thefts, mmm, maybe you'll get a second phone call from an investigator, but not likely. Crimes of person—assaults, rape, murder—get manpower despite the fact that the numbers are increasing in alarming proportion. On murder the case never closes till it's solved; because murder, to civilized minds, is still unacceptable.

Joe walked up, and Svoboda said, “Unless you guys do your magic, we don't have much.”

“We'll do what we can, Sergeant,” Joe said, and looked at me a millisecond. Probably still mad.

I said, “Can't you do an NCIC pattern check for stop-and-robs?”

“I don't think it's refined down that far,” Svoboda said.

“You doing the sergeant's work now, Smokey?” Joe broke down a Styrofoam cup, one piece flipping onto the leg of his pants, and when he leaned over to pluck it off, his eyes leveled out over the store. Checking, where he'd checked before. And then he grinned a little, and that's all that counts.

Bud Peterson came up behind us. Joe said hello. Bud's always nice and polite, respectful. He's thin, with a stoop to his shoulders that makes his chin jut out when he walks. His green tie this morning sported a miniature golfer in back-swing. Most lab folks don't wear ties; they wear knit shirts and look like they've been out shopping with their wives in the mall. Joe wears suits, because Joe's been management. Bud aspires, and I wish I could say he'll never make it.

After Joe and Gary went off, Bud said to me, “I'll tell you what you could do. You could go back to the coroner's and pick up the autopsy report.”

It was almost a shock, hearing the word
autopsy
. Maybe I thought the procedure wouldn't be over so soon, yet I know how proud the coroner's office is of how they shove them through. They do their work on a contract basis; piecework, you could say. The more bodies, the more pay. I didn't want to think of Jerry Dwyer on the table, because the worst thing is, the dead have no privacy. Pretty woman, ugly woman; shy person, bold; the dignified and the dirtbag, it doesn't matter: Once they wheel nude into the semipublic room, all is seen, all is known, and it isn't done with the finesse you might imagine. I did not want to attend Jerry Dwyer's autopsy, no matter that I saw him a mess on the floor. Most people avoid autopsies on their friends. Most people avoid them, period, unless they must be there.

I thought about what the report would reveal—the type of slugs that would be dug out, the bullet trajectory—and knew it was important to get the report for Bud, but it irritated me. Bud Peterson is like a few people I've met. He seems to be passive, but underneath plays games. I think it bothers him
that I'm team leader sometimes, because he's got the seniority and hasn't been yet. What Bud was saying was, Take a hike, will you? Give me a chance to buddy up with old Joe, maybe I can take his place when he retires. How do I know this? Bud'll tell you. He thinks you'll think that because he confided in you, he won't be after your frijoles.

“Will the report be ready so soon?” I said.

“Only takes a couple hours, Watanabe on it. That guy can sling the guts.”

Bud plays bridge with Dr. Watanabe, noons, in the morgue conference room while they eat lunch. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. The thing is, Dr. Watanabe's running for mayor this year.

“You're so couth, Bud.”

“That's me. Couth youth. By the way, you want to join Toastmasters? A guy dropped out.”

“I'm not good at giving speeches.”

“That's what it's
for
. People exactly like you.”

I said, “Listen, I'll check with Firearms and Trace when I'm at the lab. What about your print run, how long will it take?”

“At least a three-day wait.”

“Why does it take so long, Bud?”

“That's
fast
. You know how long Tox has been taking? Six to eight
weeks.
”

I looked away from him, fiddling with my hair, which felt too short to me again.

Fingerprint identification is still tricky. There has to be a print on file to check against. Though I volunteered a check with Trace on the fibers found on the door frame, we both knew it would be wasted motion. Fibers is tough duty—too many brands, and the manufacturers don't like to reveal information that might help their competitors; we all live in our small worlds. On cases involving cars, we sometimes have to go take a test drive with a dealer in order to swipe a few carpet fibers.

Bud said, “Put whatever you get on my desk, if you will, okay?”

“Isn't Joe going to want to see it first?” I needed him jumping all over my case again. I could go ask Joe if I should be getting the report for Bud first, but that seemed chickenshit.

Bud said, “Joe's taking tool-mark impressions now off the door, where they forced it open. Then he says he's got a dentist's appointment.”

“Good,” I said, uncharitably. Bud loosened up then and tried to grin, though it fell off at one side.

I moved away and went up to the cooler where Jerry's body had lain.

The mess, now darkened, reminded me how quickly the molecules of change take over, how the earth urges itself onward, into more change, and then again. By now, not even twenty-four hours later, Jerry Dwyer “was,” not “is.” Still, the face was there in my memory. The happy, friendly face with child-sized teeth. I could see him smiling at me, in the eyes as well as at the mouth. And I did not want him to be dead.

Off to the left of the cooler, Joe was putting the plastic molding gunk used for impressions back in the kit. The light from the high windows made his hair shine silver.

I asked him about the restrooms, remembering the tape that fluttered down.

“Yes, somebody used it.”

“The women's?”

“Yep.”

“The new guy?”

“Nope. Billy.”

“Billy? He knows better.” I said, under my breath, “Much as I don't care for Billy K., he's smarter than that. How do you know?”

“He told me yesterday. After you left.”

“Christ.”

Joe glanced at me. “Not a problem.” Dismissing me. Joe gives everybody the benefit of the doubt, likes to think good thoughts, even if they're not reasonable, about everybody in police or forensics work. I, on the other hand, keep track of jerkhoodness. Born in late August—that makes me a Virgo, highly critical—what can I say?

He said, “What we did find was in the men's.”

The little devil—I knew him well enough to know he couldn't wait to tell me. Until eight months ago, Joe had been two notches up the ladder from me. Then he had a heart attack, a bad one. When he came back to work and into Crime
Scene Investigation, he was atwinkle-twinkle, saying no more red tape, no more wall-to-wall meetings, and freedom, man, freedom.

Joe removed a brown bag from his satchel near the table, tugged open the staple, and held the bag open for me to see into. Inside was some kind of tool, shaped like a T. Electrical tape was wrapped around the crossbar to the vertical. He read the question on my face and said, “It was in the restroom, and no, we don't know. The victim's father said he doesn't know where it came from either.”

“When did you find this tool?”

“After you left.”

“When did you talk to Mr. Dwyer?”

“Last night.”

“Joe . . .”

“What?”

“Why didn't you tell me last night instead of getting all over my case? Although I admit I was wrong—I admit that. But you've been grouchy with me even before I went on disability.”

He rubbed the side of his thigh and looked away.

I said, “This thing is probably just some repairman's. Why would the creeps come in, go toity, leave an identifying tool for us, and then hit the store?”

He said, “It was on the paper-roll rack, right across the roll. But you know what?”

“What?”

“Criminals are stupid.”

“Svoboda says he talked to a worker from next door,” I said, walking along with Joe as he was leaving.

“That's right.”

“You satisfied?”

“Not really.”

“Well?”

“I've got a dentist's appointment.”

I stopped. He stopped too, turning to look at me.

I said, “The tooth hurt?”

He grinned at me. “Guess I could reschedule.” After putting the evidence kit and satchel in the trunk of his car, he slipped the keys in his pocket and we headed back toward El Cochino. Police investigators do the field interviews, but Gary wouldn't mind us double-checking, I was sure. Like I say, he's not a
total
ass.

We cut between the end of the chain-link fence and the scrubby bushes separating Dwyer's from the taco stand, past the round pink tables to the front. “They serve breakfast,” Joe said as he opened the door. A whiff of heavy sweetness took my breath away. He nodded toward the overhead menu straight ahead. “Early, too. Scrambled eggs, sausage-gravy.” His eyebrows lifted as he said, “You should try it sometime.”

I wondered just how early he'd gotten there, anyway. Or was he here other times, near my house? No. Couldn't be. He lived in the upscale part of Tustin, where lately million-dollar homes were popping up like movie sets. Who owns all those castles? All the rich people in the world must be moving to Orange County. The time I asked who all these people could
be, out loud, near Joe, he said with disgust, “Drug dealers and cops on the take.” This came on the heels of front-page stories about six L.A. cops busted for buying land and houseboats, using recovered drug money, a skim here, a skim there.

As Joe held the door open for me, his face shut down, so that I knew he'd become official. Behind the counter, a square-faced girl looked our way as she turned to fill an order for a car at the drive-through window. Her rose-colored uniform pulled tight across the back, creating pillows under her arms. A heavy kid, Samoan-looking, with a bad case of purple acne dotting his yellow skin, filled up the window in her place. He leaned forward on the counter as he said, “May I help you?”

“I'd like to talk to your manager, please,” Joe said.

Then a worried look ran across the kid's face as he passed the tortilla oven and headed to the back.

A white man in his sixties, dressed in a white shirt and light gray pants, opened the door into the eating area. Joe told him who we were.

“I told you people everything yesterday. I got a business to run here. It won't run itself.”

“This won't take long,” Joe said. “My name is Joe Sanders, this is Miss Brandon. We are forensics personnel.”

“You cops upset the help. They're all the time jabbering after you been here.” He lowered his voice then because a woman with two toddlers entered, herding them, as they stumbled forward with fists in their mouths, nearer the order window. “I got one didn't come in today because of this. You know how these people are.”

We followed him to one of the tables in a corner. Joe slid into a molded pink bench and, before we'd even settled, had the first word. “Are you working with illegals, Mr. Smith?” We could read his name tag now, the letters barely visible, incised on a white wooden background:
WILLIAM SMITH
,
MANAGER
. “Is that why they're upset?”