First Offense (11 page)

“Go,” Ann said, waving him away. “We’re talking business. You know I don’t like you listening to this stuff.”

A sly smile appeared on his chubby face. “I’ll go watch the news then. I think some guy cut a kid’s head off, and they’re showing it on TV right now.”

Ann’s mouth fell open in shock just as David broke out giggling. “I’m just teasing, Mom.”

“Thank God,” she said with relief, thinking all they needed was another gruesome killer running loose. “Go on inside, guy. Start working on your homework.”

As he reluctantly shuffled back to the house, the next-door neighbor drove past in a battered Ford and waved out the window. It was a nice neighborhood, Ann thought, although not an affluent one. The houses were older and small. Her house was beige stucco and had a large picture window in front. A huge sycamore in the front yard provided shade in the heat of summer. The grass was high, however, for Ann generally mowed it herself and hadn’t been able to do so since the shooting. She made David rake leaves, but she was still too protective to let him handle the lawn mower. Reed spotted the tall grass about the time Ann did and looked embarrassed that he hadn’t asked to help her out with the yard work.

“I’m cut your grass this weekend,” he said. “I’m sorry I haven’t already—”

Ann cut him off, unconcerned about her grass, her mind back to the Delvecchio case. She’d provided a possible link to the homicides, and Reed was telling her they’d destroyed the evidence. “You need the teeth from the dog to make a valid match, Tommy,” she said, frustrated. “Maybe it’s in a freezer at the lab. It was evidence, right?”

“These killings occurred over a year ago, Ann,” he said defensively. “It’s doubtful if we can substantiate this even if you’re right, and thinking the dog is still being held as evidence is way out of line. I have no idea what happened to the dog. I just told you.”

“Well, you have to find out,” Ann demanded, kicking a snail off the sidewalk.

“Don’t start up with Delvecchio. Christ, Ann, he’s dangerous…a monster.”

“He’s in jail, Tommy. He’s not going anywhere. Believe me, when I get through with him, he’ll get the full boat on the rapes. Then if we put the homicides together, no more Randy Delvecchio. By the time he sees the light of day, he won’t be able to walk out the front door of the joint, let alone rape and torture old ladies. They’ll have to push his ass out in a wheelchair.”

Reed exploded, yelling at her, “Let it go. Do you hear me? Let it go, Ann.”

“No,” she said, stubborn, pouty. “Find the dog.”

“I’ve said it before—you’re going to get yourself hurt,” Reed said. “Correct that statement, okay? You were already shot. Next time they’ll kill you.”

Ann was silent, her upper lip twitching. Tommy had been all over her for years, telling her that her habit of manipulating violent offenders would come back to haunt her one day—that one of them would get out and come looking for revenge. Now she was wondering if the detective had been right.

“Want me to take the kid out to dinner?” Reed said. “You know, give you some time to rest up. You look bushed, Ann. You shouldn’t have gone back to work so soon.”

The sun had gone down while they were talking, and it was becoming dark and chilly out. Ann hugged herself to stay warm, unable to put Estelle Summer out of her mind. Yes, what she did was dangerous, but she couldn’t worry about it. How could she stop trying? How could she turn her back and just walk away? Someone had to speak up for people like Estelle who no longer had a voice.

“No, I don’t need you to take David out to dinner,” she told the detective firmly. “You know what you can do for me, though?”

“No,” he said, a scowl on his face, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

Ann tossed her arms around his neck, smiled, and kissed him on the cheek. Before she released him, she pulled his head down to her level and whispered in his ear, “Find the damn dog.”

Chapter
6

A
nn had been so exhausted after her first day back on the job that she’d collapsed right after dinner and slept straight through to the next morning. Spotting her calendar on the bulletin board in the kitchen, she saw that she had a doctor’s appointment that morning. He’d already removed the stitches, but the doctor insisted that she return for a follow-up.

Ann called Claudette at her house and told her she would not be in until later, then yelled at David. “Hurry up,” she said. “You’re going to be late for school.”

David was grumpy. “I’m starving,” he said. “I haven’t had breakfast.” Then his face brightened. “Let’s stop for donuts.”

Ann put her hands on her hips. Donuts, she thought, seeing his shirt straining around his midsection. “You can have a bran muffin, David. No donuts.”

“I don’t want a bran muffin,” he whined, following Ann out the kitchen door to the garage. As he got closer to puberty, David’s voice had started to change. One minute he was a soprano and the next a baritone. “They make me fart all day.”

“Blueberry, then,” Ann said, laughing.

Leaving the doctor’s office at eleven o’clock, Ann was pleased with the report. Her wound was healing properly, and in all probability the scarring would be minimal. Heading back to the office, she wondered why Glen had not called the night before. Surely he knew about Estelle Summer’s death by now. Perhaps he was discouraged and had gone out drinking with some friends.

Ann was on the 101 freeway, when the traffic abruptly came to a standstill. Soon thereafter she heard sirens and knew there must be an accident up ahead. She glanced at her watch, eager to get to the office. Then she remembered Jimmy Sawyer. She’d forgotten all about him yesterday. She wanted to test him for drugs. Ann steered the Jeep to the shoulder, made her away around the string of cars, and exited the freeway.

Ten minutes later, she pulled up before a modest residence. An older abode, the house had an arched overhang over the front door, and the walkway leading to the house was lined with rose bushes. The neighborhood as a whole was quiet and shady, dotted here and there with mature trees. Ann speculated that the houses up and down the street were probably occupied by thirty something professionals. She saw a lot of pride of ownership—yards neatly manicured, houses freshly painted. It was similar to Ann’s neighborhood, except these houses were newer and in a better state of repair.

So, this is where Jimmy lives. Mommy and Daddy got sick of him and tossed him out. Figures, Ann thought, getting out of her car and locking the door. She recalled reading in the file that Sawyer lived here with two roommates. She wondered if they were the two young men she had seen in the courtroom: the Chinese man and the blond who looked like a movie star. If Sawyer was doing drugs, his roommates were probably into drugs as well. She shrugged. She couldn’t do anything about them. Opening her briefcase, Ann retrieved a paper specimen cup and a pair of rubber gloves and placed them in her purse.

Making her way to the front door, she rang the doorbell. As she waited, she noticed that the rose bushes that looked so respectable from the curb were straggly and brown when seen up close. Becoming impatient, she tried to see in the windows, but they were all covered with what looked like blankets.

Finally she noticed that the door was ajar. Knocking it open halfway, she yelled out, “Anyone in there?”

There was no reply. From her vantage point she could see into the living room. There was very little to see. The room was mostly vacant, containing only a tattered sofa and some moving boxes. But these were single guys, Ann thought, thinking of Hank’s rental house before they were married and how sparsely it had been furnished.

“I said, is anybody home?” She’d seen a blue Porsche in the driveway when she drove up, so he had to be inside. I may have come just in time, she thought, sizing up the boxes. He might be planning to abscond, leave the state, in clear violation of his probation. She stepped inside.

Passing through the living room, Ann headed to the back of the house to check out the bedrooms. Other than debris and some miscellaneous items scattered on the carpet, the rooms were empty. As far as she could tell, the house was vacant and Sawyer nowhere to be found.

The kitchen was a disaster. The floor was filthy, and in several spots the linoleum had been burned. A little freebasing? Ann wondered, looking down at the scorch marks. Walking over to the refrigerator, she pulled the latch and peered inside. It wouldn’t be the first refrigerator used to store LSD. She’d once found a stash of pills frozen inside a tray of ice cubes. For a few moments, though, she just stood there and soaked up the frigid air. All the windows had been closed, and it was extremely hot inside the house.

A thick layer of ice had formed on the contents, the ice more yellow now than white. Either no one had opened the door in months, Ann thought, or the temperature had been turned down too low. Knocking some of the ice away with her hands, Ann spotted five cans of Miller Light, then thought she saw a can of Coke situated behind several jars of pickles. Beer and pickles, she thought. What a diet.

Still, the Coke looked tempting. The house was stifling and her throat was dry. Everything was crammed inside the tight space in the small refrigerator, and to get to the soda, Ann had to take the beer and pickles out and set them on the counter. The Coke in hand, she wiped off the top, popped the tab—and slushy frozen liquid squirted out.

“Shit,” she said, looking around for a paper towel. Finally she spotted a rag on the countertop. Once she had rinsed her hands in the sink and wiped them, she turned to put the other items back in the refrigerator. Lifting a jar of pickles, Ann noticed something odd. Her Coke was frozen, but the liquid inside the jar didn’t appear to be frozen at all. What could be inside? At first she thought she was looking at stalks of white asparagus. She’d seen things like that in the gourmet supermarket, but didn’t they store asparagus in water?

When Ann realized what the glass jar contained, her hand involuntarily opened and the jar dropped, shattering on the linoleum floor. The contents tumbled out in a murky greenish-brown liquid.

Fingers.

She was looking at severed human fingers: a thumb, a little finger, and three other fingers. They had to have come from one hand. Bile rose in her throat and her heart pounded a staccato beat. She squatted down on her knees to get a better look at them. The fingernails were painted. Whatever color they had once been, they were now a pale orange. In some spots the pickle juice had eroded the polish and the nail was white. Ann didn’t try to pick them up or touch them. She knew better than to disturb a crime scene. Already she was chastising herself for dropping the jar. They could still lift prints from glass fragments, however, so the damage might not be that bad.

Looking around the house for a phone, she found only an exposed jack. She’d have to call from a pay phone. Rushing to the front door, she flung it open and stumbled down the steps. She hardly looked where she was going. All she could picture in her mind were those grotesque fingers strewn on the dirty floor.

Ann jerked her head around, having a wild flash that Sawyer would jump out at her and drag her back in that house. The Porsche was still in the driveway. Had he been inside with her? Was he hiding right now somewhere inside that house? He might cut off more than just her fingers, she thought. He could cut her legs off, maybe hack her up entirely. No, don’t panic. Although she was breaking out in a cold sweat, she willed herself to relax. Ann took several deep breaths and with trembling fingers unlocked the door to her car.

The man who had saved her life was a monster who sliced off human fingers and saved them in a pickle jar. Glen had been right. Sawyer had to be the one who had shot her. She should have never come out here alone. She was a fool, a complete idiot.

Ann fired up the Jeep and floored it, tires burning asphalt; the smell of rubber filtered in through the open window.

Heading straight to the freeway, she decided not to make a call. She was only a few minutes away from the Ventura police department. Why recite this grisly tale to a dispatcher? Half the city and all the newsrooms had police scanners. Before they could even dispatch a unit, Sawyer’s house would be surrounded by reporters. It wasn’t the way to start a homicide investigation. This one could be big, and Ann didn’t want to make mistakes that would compromise the case.

Ann steered the Jeep into the parking lot at the police station and leaped out, jogging to the front door of the building. The receptionist was new and tried to stop her, but she flashed her ID and hurried down the hall to Tommy’s office. Whatever had happened to the fingerless woman, it had happened in Reed’s jurisdiction, and his unit would catch the case. She spotted him draping his jacket over the back of his chair, about to sit down.

“Ann,” he said, alarmed. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes darted around the room frantically. Two other detectives were present. “I’ve got something. Tommy,” she said, collapsing in a chair and taking a breath. “You might want Abrams and Harper to hear this. We need to move fast.”

Reed slid his chair up to the desk, and his facial muscles tensed. The other men gathered, overhearing what she’d said. “Shoot,” he said. “We’re waiting.”

“Okay, here’s what I have,” she said, speaking rapidly. “Jimmy Sawyer has human fingers in his house. I went there for an unannounced home visit and found them in a pickle jar.”

All the color drained from the detective’s face. “Fuck. Fingers? Real fingers? You went to Sawyer’s house alone with no backup?”

“I know,” Ann said. “I should have called a unit for backup, but Tommy, I never dreamed—”

“Start from the minute you got there, Ann,” Reed said, grabbing a pen and a yellow note pad.

Ann took a breath and continued, “Okay. There was no one there, although Jimmy’s Porsche was in the driveway. He does drive a Porsche, doesn’t he? Isn’t that what you told me?” She looked up at Noah Abrams, and he nodded.

“Go on,” he told Ann.

“Most of the furniture and stuff is gone. He must be planning to flee. He’ll come back for that car, though, so if we get out there fast—”