Black Water (13 page)

Then Merci saw the flashlight in the gravel, pointing toward the road. Less than a yard away lay a citation book. Then a sunglass case. Then, closer to the STS, a bundle of road flares, unlit.

Her heart sped up and she thought of young Dobbs and wondered what all this debris was.

"What's this stuff doing everywhere?"

"He'll want to tell you."

Dobbs was already trotting toward her—head steady, up on his toes—but staying way out by the perimeter of the tape. She saw the triangle of his torso, the big chest and arms.

"Sergeant Rayborn," he said crisply.

"Deputy."

He knelt and picked up the flashlight and aimed its beam down into the dirt and gravel. It barely showed up against the fierce light of the floodlamps. She knelt, too.

Dobbs traced a small circle on the dirt with his light. In the middle of the small circle was a large footprint.

"I found a total of ten indentations, leading from the car toward the road. I marked the best ones with whatever I had handy. None of them are very good, but the first four, up by the car, are better. Two people. One set starts from the passenger side of the Caddy. The other from the driver's side. I took the liberty of holding my duty boot over the ones from the passenger side—don't worry, I didn't even come close to touching one."

Dobbs stared intently down the beam of his light.

"I wear a twelve," he said. "And these are bigger than mine. A lot. Big dude."

"Very."

"I approached on the passenger side, from the rear, checked for anything suspicious, then taped the whole scene off before I called in. Got into kind of an argument with one of the CSIs over how close the generator should go. After that driveway thing,
nobody's
getting too close to my crime scenes. Including me."

"You with Crowder tonight?"

"He called in sick so I'm solo. Sergeant, guess what's laying on the front seat of the Cadillac?"

"That could take a while."

"Today's
Journal
, folded into quarters, with the article about Archie facing up. About Archie and Gwen, I mean."

"Nice work."

"Thank you. I'll be over there with the order log, if you need me."

Merci picked her way over to the rear end of the car, following Zamorra, avoiding Dobbs's markers and the footprints. She glance out at the strawberry field, saw the furrows converging back toward hill with the moon above it. The furrows were lined in plastic to protect the berries and the plastic shined like water in the moonlight. The fruit smelled sweet on the air, not heavy like the Valencias, she thought but higher in pitch and less determined. She could see the Irvine Medical Center from here, which was where Tim Jr. was born. She thought of how small and red and afraid he'd been, of the plastic ID brace that dwarfed his wrist, of the little blue-and-white-checked cap they gave him to keep his head warm in the New World. And she remembered the great fear and anger she felt when she was being wheelchaired to the pickup area to take Tim home.

She shined her light on the STS plates and the registration stick

"It's not on the hot list," said Zamorra. "Registered owner George Massati of Lake Forest. His CDL says forty-four years old, five-ten, one-ninety. No criminal record. I sent two uniforms to his place. There are twelve models like this on the state hot list—three them here in this county. If somebody got fancy and swapped out plates and tags, this still might be a stolen vehicle."

"You seen the trunk yet?"

"Not much to see, but here."

Zamorra popped the trunk from inside the cab and Merci ran her light across the recess in a slow back-and-forth motion. Not much was right: a bungee cord, an old red shop rag, three paper funnels with the Union 76 logo on them. The trunk liner was clean.

"George runs a tight ship," she said.

"Even adds his own oil."

"Then drives his clean Caddy out here and ditches it? I wonder.

"I do, too," said Zamorra. "If he ditched it, he probably got picked up. Maybe the getaway car left us some tracks."

"The crime scene guys probably set up the generator on them."

"You can't blame Dobbs for that," said Zamorra.

"He's a good kid," said Rayborn.

The front passenger door was open and Ike Sumich was bent into the opening, hands on his knees, not touching the car. He turned when he sensed her and she saw the tight anger on his face. "They were either wearing gloves, or they wiped the interior. All the slam dunks— steering wheel, shifter, door handle, headlight switch, turn signal— clean."

"Too hot for gloves," said Merci. "They probably wiped. They used one of the red shop rags from the trunk, then threw it over in the culvert there. I know just where to find it."

He backed out, shaking his head. "I already looked."

Ike had blond hair that fell over his forehead and he was as thin as a wire hanger. He was a terrific CSI, the best sketcher she'd ever worked with. She'd decided years ago that he was to be one of
her
people, one of the then-under-thirties who—along with her—would be running the department someday. That particular plan had gone bust with the Mike McNally arrest, but that had nothing to do with Ike. She remembered Hess telling her once that he wished he was Ike's age again. She wished he had been Ike's age then, too. And about her age now. And hadn't gotten cancer. And hadn't taken from a scum-bucket punk the bullet that ended his life.

Dadda is all gone?

Dadda is all gone.

Dadda is here?

Dadda is not here.

Is in the picture?

Is in the picture but is all gone.

Is not all gone?

Dadda is all gone. Good night, Tim. I love you. Good night. Good night, little man.

"Sergeant, I might be able to dust up something from the door handles or body, but it's getting damper and damper out here. I suggest towing this thing into impound as fast as we can, put it in the covered part. I can try tomorrow, when it's dry and clear and warm out. If the print dust won't raise anything, I can try alternative light source on the big parts, maybe superglue some of the controls."

"You've got it."

Then Sumich changed subjects without missing a beat, something that often caught Merci off guard. "Al Madden has been hanging around my crime lab. In conference with the Big Man. Doors closed."

This was news, not good. "And you heard the name Wildcraft

"I did. Gilliam has to give him what we find. I mean, that's our job. To
not
give him the findings would be awfully damned strange.”

"I understand."

"Dawes, too."

"Shit."

"I dislike telling you this kind of thing."

"If you didn't it could hurt me."

"I see what I see. I think I detect unhappiness in Gilliam, for what it's worth. He . . . well, you know how he likes you."

"The proud, the few."

He smiled again, shook his head to get his hair back. "You say what you think and you're the best detective in Homicide Detail.'

"Thanks."

"I see what I see."

"You'll be making more footprint casts tonight."

"I'll be up a while. Gravel and sand are tough. I hope the breeze stays down."

"What are your chances of matching them to the Wildcraft’s ones, if they came from the same shoes?"

He thought about that a moment. "I'd need luck—some visible anomaly that would make that pair of shoes unique. Or almost unique.

"You're lucky, Ike."

"I try to be."

Merci looked into the car. She noted that the front passenger seat was adjusted far back.
Very
far back, she thought.

"Did you move the seat to get at the floor mats?"

"Not yet."

Right where Size Sixteen left it.

Don Leitzel was doing the photography. He'd opened the drive door for the interior shots, which he took with the limitless patient of a professional cameraman.

"Be sure to shoot the front passenger's seat," she said.

"Already done, Sergeant."

"And make a written note of the height adjustment before you change it, okay?"

"I've got all the light, window, door and seat positions written down. Lights to lighter."

"Where was it?"

"Height-wise? All the way down. And the back was reclined to about forty degrees. If you need the seat all the way back and forty degrees of recline in a car this big, you're a very large person."

About what you'd figure for Size Sixteen, she thought. "Did you guys find anything good in here?"

"You mean like a driver's license or a checkbook? No."

Merci ran her light over the dashboard and the puffy-looking leather seats. Pale gray interior. Some shiny wood. It looked almost familiar, though, and she realized it was like a fancy version of her Impala. The keys hung in the ignition.

Her light beam caught the LCD face of an onboard navigation unit. That was one thing the Impala sure didn't have.

"Can you program that navigator thing to bring up the last map it was asked for?"

"Sure. And I definitely will."

"How about right now?"

"Might have to get in for that."

"No. Get Ike to hold you." Ike held Leitzel and Merci braced Ike and Leitzel leaned in, switched on the key and had the navigator showing the last requested map in about thirty seconds. He never touched a thing but the buttons. Merci loved guys who could figure out basic stuff like this: gadgetry usually threw her, though she could fieldstrip and reassemble her nine—blindfolded—as fast as anyone she knew.

"Some place down in La Jolla," said Leitzel. "It looks residential."

"Go back one more."

He leaned in again, did his thing, looked back over his shoulder at her. "Newport Beach," he said. "Up on the bluff there, above the bay."

"Go back another," she said.

A moment later she saw the Newport map vanish, replaced by a new one.

"University of California, San Diego," he called back. "The School of Medicine."

Merci thought about those three specific geographical points, came up with nothing whatsoever. "That gadget will give you address, won't it?"

"Yeah, sure," said Leitzel. "That's how you cue up the map in first place."

Leitzel gave Ike his hand and Ike gave Merci his other and Lei leaned in again. She heard the click of the controls, could see changing lights on the LCD screen.

"Here's the UCSD address."

He started to read it to her, but she stopped him and called Zamorra over. He looked at them with some amusement as Merci told him get the blue notebook and pen from her windbreaker pocket, take do some addresses and wipe the smirk off his face.

Merci could find no useful tracks left by a pickup vehicle. Tracks,
yes,
but too many of them. And too faint, also, with the gravel content high and the summer too dry to let the shoulder pack down hard enough hold a pattern. Dust to dust. She had to figure that Ike's foot casts would also be too vague to help.

Still, she had Leitzel photograph what looked like two distinct set of tire tracks.

Then, with her flashlight quartering the darkness in front of her, she walked to the culvert that ran along the road between the dirt and the strawberry fields. The ditch was wide and steep and she could see a trickle of liquid down at the bottom. The moon was behind the hill now. The smell of the fruit hit her again. Funny how it comes and goes, she thought—not like the oranges.

She took two long steps down the bank and stopped again, surrounded by the dank rounded smell of old water. Quiet here. Brush and weeds to her left and right, cattails down near the stream. She could hear the frogs and crickets now, with the noise of the blast generator trapped above her. Something rustled in the grass, then splashed.

She took four more long sideways strides, which brought her the bed. The scar on her side felt tight and irritating. She thought being surprised from behind, remembered the awful realization that she was about to get shot and how long it took to go down.

The culvert was lined with concrete. Her light picked up the dark shimmer of water and the black shine of mud. She slowly turned a circle with the flashlight beam leading the way. A soft drink can, smashed. A foam fast-food container, partial. One tire, automobile. One refrigerator, doorless. One garden hose, cracked and faded.

On her way back up the side, Merci kept moving her flashlight beam left to right, then back again, hoping to find a little swatch of red in the darkness and the brush.

Near the top of the embankment, she did. She climbed her way through the brush, then settled on her knees for a better look. It was a red shop rag. Half wadded, half loose. When she lifted it with a stick the wadded part stayed together, like it was held with glue. Or God knew what, thought Merci.

She slipped a new paper lunch bag from one of her hip pockets— always carried three on a crime scene investigation—and popped it open with one hand. It took five tries. Then she teased the shop rag inside with the stick. Dropped in the stick for good measure.

Too bad you can't get fingerprints off a rag used to
wipe
fingerprints, she thought. But there was plenty else Size Sixteen might not have thought of when he tossed the rag: skin particles, hair, fiber from clothing or furniture or carpet or cars, dandruff, sweat. And what's holding the wadded-up cloth together, Size Sixteen? Did you blow your fat murderous nose before you chucked the rag into the bushes? Maybe I can send you to death row on snot evidence.