Sight Unseen (2 page)

“Now?”

“Yes.”

He was silent a moment. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those fetishists who get off on—”

“Someone needs to talk to them before they break down the scene and destroy evidence.” She turned and looked him in the eye. “I walked here. Either you’re giving me a ride there, or I’m calling a cab.”

“So our date is over?”

“It’s only over if you don’t give me a ride.”

Dean looked back at the television, where the news copter was circling the platoon of emergency workers and their flashing vehicles. He shook his head. “Got to be the weirdest date of my life.”

*   *   *

KENDRA’S CELL PHONE RANG WHEN
they were on the road only ten minutes. She made a face when she glanced at the ID. “Mom. I was half expecting this.”

“Really? We haven’t had time for her to wonder if I’m threatening your virtue.”

“It’s not my virtue Mom’s concerned about.” She accessed the call. “Hi, Mom. I’m with Dean Halley now. I didn’t no-show, and I haven’t scared him off yet.” She looked inquiringly at Dean. He shook his head. “No, he thinks I’m weird, but he’s sticking with me.”

“Brave man. I knew I could count on him. He’s a fine teacher and a great guy. You have to admit I did a good job of bringing you two together. Now all you have to do is cement the relationship.”

“A relationship neither one of us wanted from the beginning. Why, Mom?”

“You know the answer. Dean is steady and wonderfully normal. He’s as close to the guy next door as I could find. That’s what you need, Kendra. Dean could lead you away from all those police and FBI types and make you enjoy it. He’s intelligent, gorgeous, and has a sense of humor. The only thing he’ll want from you won’t be anything more complicated than sex.”

She chuckled. “I told Dean you wouldn’t be concerned about my virtue.”

“Screw virtue. I’m concerned about your life. I want you safe.”

“I know, Mom,” she said gently. “And that’s the only reason I gave in about tonight. I love you and wanted to give you the chance to play Mother Teresa and save me from myself. You’ve done that all my life and done a great job. Tell me, are you missing it?”

“Maybe a little. You were my whole life for quite a while.” She cleared her throat. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not right in this. Now, do you like Dean?”

“We haven’t had time to—” She glanced at Dean. “Yes, I like him. At first, I thought that he was too pretty, but maybe he can’t help that. And he doesn’t try to dodge, and I think maybe he’s honest.”

Dean smiled, still staring out the windshield. “You do know I can hear everything you’re saying, right?”

“You didn’t put him through any hoops?” Diane asked.

“Not intentionally.” She had just spotted blinking lights ahead. “Look, Mom, I have to go. I’m in his car and I—”

“You’re going out to dinner?” Diane sounded pleased. “That’s progress.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I’ll talk to you later, Mom.” She hung up.

“You’re very close,” Dean said quietly. “I thought so when Diane was talking about you to me. But you just confirmed it.”

“I love her. She made me what I am. Both physically and mentally.” She grimaced. “Well, maybe not quite. I take full responsibility for my faults and the wild oats I’ve sown. She had nothing to do with them.”

“Wild oats? You’re a music-therapy teacher.”

“Who after I began to see believed that the wine of life should be tasted to the last drop.”

“Really?” He looked intrigued. “Diane never mentioned wild oats to me.”

“She wouldn’t. You’re her idea of the wholesome guy next door. She wouldn’t want to scare you away.”

“I notice you didn’t disillusion her … yet.”

“No. I’ll have to probe a little more.” She smiled. “Guy-next-door types generally bore me. It shows a lack of courage to reach out.” She held up her hand to stop him from answering. “Later. Those lights up ahead is our destination. We’re going to have to run the gauntlet.”

*   *   *

“MA’AM, YOU’LL HAVE TO GET BACK
in your car and clear out. Authorized personnel only.”

Kendra and Dean had driven around the two-mile-long line of stopped cars that extended from the bridge, down Laurel Boulevard and across the 1-5 freeway. A stocky, female traffic cop was holding back the curious onlookers, mostly joggers and dog walkers, angling for a glimpse of the chaotic scene.

Kendra turned back toward Dean, who had just parked his car on the side of the Prado Road that transitioned to the bridge’s two-lane roadway. She motioned for him to join her.

The traffic officer glared at him and raised her walkie-talkie as she would a lethal weapon. “Sir, don’t even think of leaving your car there. I have a tow truck on speed dial.”

Kendra waved him over again. Dean hesitated, then climbed out of the car.

The stocky cop shouted something that was lost in the roar of the circling news’copters. Kendra surveyed the scene behind her. There
had
to be someone she knew here. She had assisted in a few police investigations in the past few years, but none of them involved the accident-investigations cops now on the bridge snapping photos and taping off the scene.

Finally, she saw a familiar face. Lieutenant Wallace Poole, a tall, gangly, bald man who seemed to be doing little other than positioning himself toward the bank of news cameras.

Poole …

Kendra tried to remember if she had pissed him off during the Petco Stadium case a couple years before. Not that much, apparently. He stepped closer and waved her through the police line while simultaneously quieting the walkie-talkie-wielding traffic cop. He smiled. “Why, Dr. Michaels, what brings you here?”

“The same thing that brings you. How many fatalities?”

“Four.” He gestured back to the three wrecked vehicles on the bridge. “A man and woman in the convertible, a man in the pickup truck, and a woman in the minivan.” Poole’s eyes narrowed on her face. “I thought you only helped out on murder cases. Who called you in?”

“I’m being rude.” Kendra motioned toward Halley. “This is Dean Halley. Care to walk us through it?”

Poole appeared more mystified than before, but he nodded. “Uh, sure.” He led them past a fire truck and a line of road flares.

Dean shot her a “what-in-the-hell-are-we-doing” glance, but Kendra was busy scanning the scene in front of her.

The pickup truck, charred and dripping with extinguisher foam, was still smoldering alongside the bridge’s right-hand railing. A gray tarp was thrown over the driver’s compartment, obviously to conceal a corpse. The convertible BMW was right behind, grill first into the granite railing. The minivan was on its side a few paces behind, also surrounded by mounds of extinguisher foam.

Poole motioned toward the pickup truck. “We figure the driver of the truck lost control and plowed into the bridge. It triggered a chain reaction. The Beamer swerved and hit the stone railing. The van swerved the other way, rolled, and ended on its side.”

Kendra nodded. “No one was wearing seat belts?”

“No. That’s probably why none of them survived.”

“And no air bags deployed?”

“No. The investigators say it’s not all that uncommon unfortunately. They get stolen, or if they’re deployed once, they’re expensive to replace, and some people just don’t do it. It’s also possible that the crash sensors were faulty, or the trigger wires can get severed early in the crash sequence.”

“That took four lives.” Kendra leaned toward the BMW 320 coupe. It was easily the most intact of the cars, with no fire and only damaged at the crumpled front end. Two bodies were slumped in the front seat. They were a man and a woman, late twenties, both dressed in buttoned-down business attire, as if they were on their way home from a Fortune 500 board meeting. Blood ran from their heads and was splattered across the windshield. There were two impact shatter points on the glass, one in front of each victim.

“Anything about this look strange to you?” Kendra asked Poole.

“It
all
looks strange to me. What are you getting at?”

“Look at the number of windshield cracks radiating out from the impact points. The number is proportional to impact speed. With the speed that would have been necessary for those skulls to cause these kind of cracks, there should have been much more damage to this car’s front end when it struck the railing. I could see that from a barroom TV on Fifth Street. That was the first thing I noticed.” She leaned over the windshield and examined it more closely. “May I borrow an evidence glove?”

Poole peeled off his right glove and gave it to her. Kendra slipped it on and rubbed her fingers across the cracks, both inside the windshield and outside. She occasionally closed her eyes, letting her sense of touch guide her in a way that was seldom necessary anymore.

She finally looked up and stepped away. “And, what’s more, the force of impact came from outside this windshield, not the inside.”

Poole leaned down to look. “Both sides are shattered. How can you tell?”

“There are two kinds of fractures here. Radial fractures, which jut out like the spokes of a wheel, and concentric fractures, which are like a series of circles radiating outward. The concentric fractures are always on the impact side. It’s difficult to see which side they’re actually on, but you can feel them.” She peeled off the glove and handed it to Poole. “Want to try?”

“No thanks. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Anyway, your forensics guys will back me up.” Kendra glanced around. “I take it no one actually saw the accident?”

“No. The zoo and botanical gardens had been closed for hours. There’s not a lot of traffic here after dark.”

“So what were the victims doing here?”

“Don’t know. We’ve just started notifying the next of kin.” He motioned toward the still-circling news’copters.” Although some may have found out already.” Poole turned to Dean. “What about you? Are you with the media? Who are you again?”

Dean extended his hand. “Dean Halley. History professor. Just along for the ride.”

Poole looked at Kendra.

“He doesn’t have anything to do with this,” she added quickly. “Blind date.”

Poole glanced from one to the other. “Huh. And how’s it going?”

“Pretty good, I think,” Kendra said.

Dean nodded. “Except for the dead bodies. Could have done without that.”

Poole stared at Kendra. “Then why in the hell are you here, Dr. Michaels?”

“I didn’t want evidence compromised. I’m sure your medical examiner will tell you this later tonight or tomorrow, but these people didn’t die here.”

Poole gazed at her for another long moment. “What makes you say that?”

“There would be a lot more blood if they had hit this windshield with enough force to kill them. They both have identical bruising on their necks, as if they were strangled by the same patterned belt or cord.”

Poole examined the corpses in the BMW more closely. “And how did you know you would find this?”

“I didn’t. But like I said, I could see this accident wasn’t what it seemed to be.” She pointed to the long skid mark behind the overturned minivan. “This was meant to look like it came from that van, but I don’t think it did. If you skid on antilock brakes, the mark looks like a series of dashes, not an unbroken line. Another thing I spotted from the news helicopter.”

Pool walked over to the unbroken skid mark and squatted to look at it.

Kendra followed him. “The van burned quickly. There was a Toluene-based accelerant used.”

“Toluene?” One of the investigators, whom Kendra had just seen draw a chalk line around a severed hand next to the van, looked up at the word. “As in a solvent for paint?”

“Or for model-airplane glue.”

“How do you figure that?”

Kendra grimaced. “I smell it. It’s a lot like benzene.”

The investigator, a slender man with short gray hair, stood up and sniffed the air. “I’m smelling a lot of things right now, but that isn’t one of them.”

“Trust me. Take samples and run your tests. These cars were burned intentionally.”

The investigator looked at her skeptically. “Trust you? Pardon me for asking, but who the hell are you?”

“Someone you should listen to, Johnson,” Poole said. He took Kendra by the arm and guided her away. “Look,” he said in a low voice, “I’m going to call in Homicide. Stick around for a few, and I’ll have you—”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m not sticking around. This has taken up enough of my evening already. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Your forensics people can take it from here.”

He stared at her in shock. “You can’t be serious. You came out here just to—”

“Just to keep you from mistaking a murder scene for an accident. Though I guess I shouldn’t blame you too much. It’s probably one of the most unusual murder scenes any of you have ever seen.” She glanced back. “Although, like I said, I doubt whether any of these people actually died
here.
”

“And this doesn’t pique your curiosity just a little bit?”

“Sure. I’ll keep up with it in the newspaper. Good luck with your investigation.”

Poole frowned. “I can make you stay, you know.”

Kendra smiled. “On what grounds? Failure to perform police work on command?”

“What about civic duty?”

“I just did it. I told you everything I know. Good night, Poole.”

Kendra turned and moved around the forensics techs crouched behind the BMW.

Dean cast another look at the scene as they walked away. “I know you were just trying to impress me back there.”

“Did it work?”

“Of course, but it was totally unnecessary. You had me at ‘prison.’ You still owe me an explanation for that, you know.”

She took a quick look over her shoulder. Poole was still glaring at her. “Later. Right now, we’d better get to your car before Poole has it towed. He isn’t very happy with me at the moment.”

*   *   *

THEY DROVE BACK TO KENDRA’S
condominium complex in less than fifteen minutes.

“You were amazing,” Dean said, as he walked her to the building’s front door. “The cops thought so, too. You could see it on their faces.”