Poisoned Tarts (10 page)

And one other item that was less encouraging.

A well-worn denim purse.

Savannah took it out, opened it, and found Daisy O'Neil's cell phone, her driver's license, a library card, a discount card from a local nursery, an employee's ID from Drug Mart, and the credit card that they had checked less than an hour ago. And three pictures. One of Daisy and Stan, one of her mother, and one of a lop-eared red boxer.

Savannah felt tears well up in her eyes. There was just something about handling a victim's personal items that always got to her, tugged at her heart-strings like little else did.

And what was more personal than a woman's purse?

Immediately, she turned on the cell phone and checked the incoming calls. There were a bunch from Daisy's mother, an old one from Stan, and a flurry of them made in the past few hours that were also from Stan.

The rest of the incoming and outgoing history had been cleared.

“Why is her purse in the trunk?” Frank asked. “That's a weird place to put a purse, isn't it?”

“Not really,” Savannah said. “When a female has her purse with her but doesn't want to carry it or leave it in the interior of the car where it might be seen and snatched, she throws it into the trunk.”

Savannah looked around her at the thick woods, the dense brush, the hiking trails stretching into the foothills behind them. And she shuddered to think of all the bad things that might be out there, the dangers that could beset a young woman like Daisy.

The rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the paths were bad enough.

But it was the two-legged snakes Savannah worried about most.

“I think she parked here, locked her purse in the trunk, and took a hike,” she told them.

Dirk and Frank said nothing, but the looks on their faces showed that they, too, were contemplating what might have happened on that hypothetical hike that might have prevented Daisy O'Neil from returning home for nearly forty-eight hours.

Again, Dirk flipped open his phone and punched in numbers. “Coulter here,” he said. “Yeah, I'm at the vehicle. Send me a K9 tracker. Get Don Thornton if you can. And tell him to haul ass.”

He hung up. “We have to find this kid,” he said, his eyes filled with deep concern, even sorrow. “It's already too late.”

“Don't say that,” Savannah said. Maggie filled her mind, clutched at her heart. “Damn it, Dirk, do
not
say that!”

Dirk shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. He swayed on his feet, exhausted. When he opened them, he gave Savannah a long, loving, understanding look filled with defeat. “Come on, Van,” he said softly, “Like it's gonna make any difference what I do or don't say.” He reached over and put his hand on her forearm.

She shoved it away. “It makes a difference,” she said. “You watch your mouth. She's still alive out there. I can feel her. She's waiting for us.”

Waiting like Maggie was waiting
.

Savannah shook her head. But the thought remained.

She turned away from them and headed for the gate at the end of the road.

“Savannah,” Dirk called as he came after her. “Savannah, where are you going?”

“I'm going to start looking for her.” She swung one leg over the gate. A piece of rusted metal caught and ripped her linen slacks and scratched her thigh, but she didn't notice. “I'm not going to stand around here waiting. I'm going to—”

“Honey, stop!”

Strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her off the gate.

A moment later, her face was pressed against Dirk's warm, hard chest, and he was holding her so tightly that she was pinned against him, unable to move.

Sagging into him, she breathed in the comforting, familiar smell of him—leather, his Old Spice deodorant, and now…the recent addition of cinnamon to replace the old tobacco smell.

He reached up and stroked her hair. “You can't go out there and just start running around those hills looking for her, babe,” he said. “Wait for the K9. And if that doesn't work, we'll organize a search party.”

Savannah fought back tears. “It's just…you know…she's a kid. Kids are different. They're…hard.”

He squeezed her a little tighter. “Oh, I know. Kids are the hardest.” He reached down, put his hand under her chin, and forced her to look up at him. “This is a new case, Van. It's not her.”

She looked into his eyes and borrowed a little of the strength she needed. She bit her lip and nodded.

“Let's take this one minute at a time,” he said, “Okay?”

She reached inside and, as Granny Reid called it, gathered up her strength. “Okay. One minute at a time.”

T
he CSI tech arrived before the K9 unit, but Dirk wouldn't let her begin dusting for prints. “Sorry, Michelle,” he told her, “but I don't want anybody walking around the vehicle until the dog's tried to find a scent.”

“No problem,” the petite blonde replied. “It's time for my morning coffee break anyway. Come get me when you need me.”

She returned to the white van with its county logo and the coroner's seal on the side, where she sat and sipped coffee from an enormous Styrofoam cup.

Savannah stood behind the Honda talking on her cell phone, the contents of the SCHS gym bag in her hand. “Yes, Pam,” she was saying to Daisy's mother. “The vehicle looks fine. No signs of an accident or anything unusual. Her purse was locked in the trunk, so there's no reason to worry about robbery or anything bad like that.”

Just rabid coyotes, rattlesnakes, and sexual predators on wilderness trails,
she thought.
Okay, rabid rattlesnakes and coyotes aren't much of a problem. Stop it, Savannah. You're supposed to be logical and comforting here.

Pam didn't sound all that comforted. “But what could have happened to her! She's been gone so long now! Even if she parked there and took a hike, she would have come back long before now unless something horrible—”

“Not necessarily something
horrible
. It could be something just…well…a
little
bad or not too bad at all. We may very well find her out there somewhere with a turned ankle, in need of a lift out. Something a lot less awful than all the stuff you're imagining.”

Or that I'm imagining.

“But she would have been out there at night,
two nights
, in the dark.”

“Yes, but the weather's been very mild. She's a big girl, who, judging from the books in her room, knows a lot about nature. Even if she can't walk out, she could still probably take care of herself. Please try hard not to worry yourself sick.”

“A little late for that.” Pam sighed, and the pain and misery in the sound went straight to Savannah's heart.

A squad car with a large K9 on the door was coming down the road, and Dirk was motioning the car over to him.

“Listen,” Savannah said. “You can help us here. I'm looking in a gym bag that was in the trunk. Inside, there's a red T-shirt with the high school bulldog logo on it, black shorts, and some gray sneakers. I assume these are Daisy's clothes?”

“Yes, they are.” Pam started to cry. “Why?”

“Because we have a K9 unit—a dog tracker—arriving right now. We can use these clothes to help him identify her scent. He might be able to track her down whatever trail she took.”

“Oh, good. I'm coming over there right now.”

“You don't need to, Pam. Really. We've got it.”

“No! I want to! I want to be there. I want to look for her myself.”

The last thing they needed was a distraught parent in the middle of what they were trying to do. Just knowing that a worried mother was sitting at home, sobbing her face off was pressure enough.

“Pam, please stay there by the phone. There's really nothing you can do here. Maybe if we get to the point of organizing a search party, then you could help. But for now, you need to stay there. If Daisy phoned you and you weren't there to take her call, you'd never forgive yourself.”

There was a long silence on the other end as Pam thought that one over. Finally, she said, “Okay. But would you please call me the second you find anything? Anything at all.”

“Of course I will. And you have my number. If you can't stand the waiting, you give me a ring, okay?”

“I'll try not to bother you.”

“It's no bother. Really.”

“Thanks, Savannah. For everything.”

“You're most welcome.”

Savannah hung up and hurried over to the tall, slender young officer who was holding an enormous German shepherd on the end of a thick choke chain.

Dirk was greeting him and the dog, who was barking and straining against the chain, eager to get on with his duties. Getting down on his knees, Dirk grabbed the big dog's head in both hands and shook him hard from side to side. “Hey there, Mongo, old buddy! How's my boy?”

Once, when Officer Thornton had gone on vacation, Dirk had dog sat for him. Now Dirk considered himself the Dog Handler Master. He had taught Mongo to fall onto his side and roll onto his back when Dirk fake shot him with his finger.

Dirk didn't realize that Don had already taught Mongo that trick years before. And Don had been kind enough not to mention it when Dirk had crowed about his accomplishment.

“Is that the vehicle?” Don asked, nodding toward the Honda.

“That's it,” Savannah told him. She held out the T-shirt, shorts, and shoes. “And these are her clothes. You're in luck. They haven't been laundered.”

Don gave her a broad, proud smile and said, “Even if they
were
laundered, Mongo could pick it up. But he doesn't like lavender-scented fabric softener. Makes him sneeze.”

Dirk was pointing his finger at Mongo and saying, “Bang.” But the dog didn't respond, only continued to whine and prance anxiously at the end of his lead.

Don chuckled. “If you're finished playing with my dog, we could get down to business here,” he said.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” And for once, Dirk really did look a bit embarrassed as he got up off his knees. He cleared his throat and donned his serious business demeanor.

They walked over to the car, and Savannah and Dirk watched as Don scented the dog with the gym clothes. A moment later, the dog had his nose to the ground and was sniffing, sniffing all around the car.

Having seen the dog work before, they waited anxiously for his particular alert, his signal that he had found something. Sometimes, he sat on the ground, looked up at Don, and gave an excited bark. Other times, he would just take off, following the trail, his nose to the ground.

But although Don circled the car over and over with him and even the surrounding area, Mongo seemed to be unable to find any trail.

The animal whined and shook his head, looking up at his partner with frustration, obviously as disappointed as they were.

Finally, Don drew him up short and gave him a treat. “Let's give him a minute or two, and then maybe we'll try something else. That's her car, right? Your missing girl?”

“Yes, it is,” Dirk said.

“The one she usually drives?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Let's have him scent off the driver's seat. See if that helps.”

Dirk opened the front door of the car, and Don led Mongo over to it. The dog had followed this routine many times before and knew it well. He hopped up and put his front feet on the driver's seat, then sniffed all over it.

Immediately, he dropped to all four feet beside the car and put his nose to the ground. He followed along, smelling, intent and focused. He traced a line from the car door, around the back of the car to the parking space next to it. There he stopped. Sitting on his haunches, he looked up at his handler and gave one sharp bark.

“That's it,” Don said. “She walked from one car to here…probably got right into another one that was parked here in this spot.”

Savannah didn't know whether to be relieved or not. “I guess it's a good thing if she's not up in those hills,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “but getting in another car? That could mean anything.”

“I guess somebody picked her up,” Don said. “Maybe they snatched her, forced her into their car.”

Dirk was walking around the spot where the dog had indicated the end of the trail. “But Mongo says the trail ends here, on the left side of this parking space. If the car she got into was nosed into the space the way most people park, she would have gotten into the driver's side. Not the passenger's.”

Savannah nodded. “That's true. Some reincarnated gunslingers and gangsters park facing out for a quick getaway, but most people nose in, like you said.”

“Maybe somebody drove out here with her,” Dirk said, “with the intention of leaving her car here. They pulled in, she got out of the Honda, the other person slid over onto the passenger's seat, she got into the second car and drove off.”

“Could be,” Savannah mused. “Could be. And that's a cheerier scenario than her getting snatched and shoved into the passenger's seat.”

Michelle, the CSI, sauntered up to them and gave Don a flirtatious smile. “My coffee break is way over, and I can only justify so many games of sudoku on the taxpayers' time,” she said. “Can I start dusting yet?”

“Yeah,” Dirk said, “you might as well. It looks like it's been wiped down, though. Good luck.”

She grinned. “Oh, those are the fun ones. I just lo-o-ove a good challenge.”

As she walked back to the van to retrieve her kit, Officer Don watched her backside with avid male interest.

Savannah leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, “Um…isn't your wife the one who threw a beer bottle at you at the Fourth of July picnic because you were checking out some gal in a tight halter top?”

He snapped out of it instantly. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Come on, Mongo. Let's go get you an ice cream cone.”

 

An hour later, Michelle was still inside the Honda, sitting in the driver's seat, swirling fingerprint dust with a thick, soft brush onto the dash.

Savannah watched as she worked, dropping the dust, placing sheets of tape onto the area, peeling it off, and then attaching the tape to white evidence cards.

“Anything yet?” Savannah asked, standing by the open driver's door, trying to see what she was doing.

“Nope. Nothing. Dirk wasn't kidding when he said it was wiped clean. I've covered just about every surface up here. And I haven't found one print, even a partial.”

That small bit of hope that maybe there was a nonsinister explanation for Daisy's disappearance evaporated. There was simply no good, honest reason why a person would remove their fingerprints from a car…or anywhere else, for that matter.

“That Officer Thornton,” Michelle said as she dusted. “He's a hottie. Is he married?”

“Yes, absolutely married,” Savannah told her.

“Happily?”

“I'm not sure, but you don't want to go there. Trust me.”

“You a moralist or something?”

“Let's just say if you're a survivalist, you'll steer clear. She's got a temper and a half. Very jealous. Prone to violence.”

“That bad? Really?”

“Clocked him in the head with a beer bottle in front of at least fifty off duty cops at a picnic. I heard it took nine stitches to close up the gash. He bled all over the potato salad. Ugly. Very ugly.”

“Oh, okay. Gotcha.”

Dirk walked over to the car, opened the passenger's door, and stuck his head in. “How's it coming?”

“Lousy,” Michelle said. “Nothing. And I'm about done.”

He grunted. “Don't forget to do a Night Stalker.”

“Yeah, yeah…telling me how to do my job again. None of us
ever
forget to do a Richard Ramirez.”

Dirk left them and wandered away. Savannah could tell he was getting tense, just waiting around. To Dirk, wait was a nasty, obscene four-letter word.

Savannah watched as Michelle carefully dusted the back of the rear view mirror, applied the tape, and ripped it off.

Years ago, the horrific murder spree of serial killer Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, had come to an end because the cops had found a single fingerprint on the rearview mirror of a car he had driven.

And as a result, any CSI tech worth their brush and dust checked all sides of a vehicle's mirror before the job was done.

“Oh my God, I don't believe it!” Michelle said, staring at the white card where she had affixed the tape. “I've got one. It's a partial, but I'll bet it's enough for a match.”

“Hey, Dirk,” Savannah called out to him. “Come back here. She's got one.”

It took him only five seconds to return to the car and snatch the card out of Michelle's hand. One look, and a big grin spread across his face.

“Fantastic!” he said. “Michelle, consider yourself kissed, kiddo!”

He handed the card back to her and said, “Sign it and fill it out. I want to get that over to the lab right now so they can process and run it.”

Michelle began to write on the card, filling in the necessary information to properly document it. Then she slipped it into a manila envelope and sealed and signed the envelope as well.

She handed it to Dirk and started to get out of the car.