"It's too much to hope that he checked himself back into UCI Med Center, isn't it? Or went to his parents, or out to the Kuerners in Norco?"
"We'll see," he said, pulling the phone from his pocket.
"Dawes is going to love this."
"Everyone's going to-detectives let armed and dangerous murder suspect drive away." Zamorra mimicked the grave tone of a TV news intro:
"Or did the cops want him to get away? "
"Dial Abelera, Paul. And don't forget the partner, Damon Reese. Archie saved his life."
She looked out to the pale blue sky and listened to a hawk crying and cursed herself again for letting this happen.
They walked back to the driveway so Merci could quiz the deputies again. While Merci learned nothing at all, Zamorra used his cell phone and found out that the Wildcrafts hadn't seen Archie since leaving here just after one.
William Jones, legs spindly but head purposefully angled, crossed the street toward them. Merci saw the huge purple plastic tumbler in his hand, heard the clink of the ice as he raised it in salute to the uniforms.
"Detective Rayborn," he said. "And of course, Detective Zamorra over there with the phone."
"Hello, Mr. Jones," she said.
"Archie was home last night, wasn't he?"
"Yes."
"The news said he checked himself out yesterday afternoon. Got a ride home from Gwen's sister."
"Can I help you, Mr. Jones?"
He sipped his drink and eyed her. "I just came over to tell you a couple of things. One, the gardener works Tuesdays. I know that because Tuesdays are trash days and I remember seeing him putting the empty trash cans back on the curb so he could park his truck. So, soon as he gets here tomorrow, I'll call you."
"I'd appreciate it."
Jones gave her his cagey, sideways look. "CNB made it sound like he killed her. You saw the show, didn't you?"
"Part of it."
"First they had that guy here with his camera, pestering Arch.. Archie said he'd kill himself. Then afterwards they had him on-the reporter, I mean-saying how scary Archie was. How he thought Arch was going to blast him. Then the prick says what he thinks happened that night. He thinks Archie killed Gwen and tried to kill himself, and now he's trying to get out of it. And he says you guys don't want t arrest him because he's a cop. Because of the big scandal last year. But you'll get a chance to see the whole thing because they'll show again. You know how they do at CNB."
Zamorra walked toward her, pressing down the antenna of the cell phone and shaking his head.
"Good evening, Detective Zamorra."
"Jones."
Jones smiled wickedly, turned away from Zamorra then looked at Merci. "I got a tip for you, young lady."
"Shoot."
"Two and a half hours ago, four o'clock this afternoon. I went down to get some smokes and vodka. I ride my bike because they too my license away. So I coast down and push the thing back up, right? Well, down the road about three hundred yards there's a little park with a table and some trees. Seen it?"
"I've noticed it," said Merci.
"Well, on my way down, there was nobody in the park. On my way back up the hill, pushing the bike, I saw a guy standing by the table, looking back through the trees. He had binoculars and he didn’t hear me until I was almost across from him. When he heard me, he turned, gave me a drop-dead look and raised the binoculars the other way. This is what I'm saying: go down to that park and stand beside the table-the south end of it-and look through the trees. What you see is the back of Archie and Gwen's place."
"Describe him," said Merci.
"Second biggest guy I've ever seen in my life. I met Refrigerate Perry once. Anyway, he was dressed in a blue jogging suit, dark hair and beard, sunglasses. Not a big mountain-man beard, but a close cropped one. Ugly and huge is how I'd describe him."
"What about his car?"
"White Lincoln Town Car. There was another guy in the driver' seat, blond hair, staring at me, face like a stone. I did not look at the plates."
"Why not?"
"I had this feeling they'd kill me if I did."
"Mr. Jones," said Merci, "if we had a couple thousand more citizens like you in this county, we'd be crime-free."
"Thank you. I was about to call you when Archie came on the TV. After that I figured it would take you about fifty minutes to get here. It took you thirty-four."
"You're something," she said.
"I'm a harmless drunk trying to help the cops catch the guy who shot my neighbors. Tell your partner I'm not a bad guy, no reason to look at me like I'm an unflushed toilet."
"I'll tell him."
Jones drank from his enormous purple tumbler and winked at her, then turned and headed back across the street toward his son's garage, his white legs faintly luminous in the early-evening light.
On their way down the hill Rayborn and Zamorra stopped at the little park. There was a concrete picnic table and benches, a green mesh trash can holder with a lidded steel can in it and a drinking fountain back by the trees. Merci stood to the south side of the concrete bench and looked through the sycamore trees. In the middle distance she could see the slope of wildflowers in Archie's backyard, the gate through which he had escaped, the roof of the house, some of the windows and the pool area surrounded by the big Canary Island palms.
Zamorra rang off his cell phone, then paced the grass with his head down and his hands behind his back. Merci walked into the little grove of sycamore and oak. She found a crumpled soft drink can that had been there for a lot more than three hours, a couple of old cigarette butts, a horse magazine with its pages dimpled and cracked by dew and sun. She lifted the trash can lid by its edges and set it on the grass. Inside she saw a bicycle inner tube, a fast-food sandwich box with the sauce stains gone almost to black, a white fast-food bag beside it, a black banana peel, a paper soft drink container with the lid still on and the straw stuck through it. The drink container was from a different fast-food chain than the box and bag.
Ike Sumich got there half an hour later. She explained what William Jones had told her. "Size Sixteen again," said Ike.
"Maybe."
"These guys aren't birdwatchers."
"Dust the tabletop," she said. "Extra careful on the south end. Ger the stainless push-button on the drinking fountain and the bottom and top side of the trash can lid handle. I hate to send you on a wild-goose chase, Ike, but there's a drink container with a straw in the can over there. There might be saliva or epithelial cells on that straw. If Size Sixteen used it, we can DNA print him, then check the markers against the shop rag we got at the STS on Sand Canyon. Shoot some stills this place, will you, show the angle up to the Wildcraft house. Maybe stand by that smaller sycamore and shoot up at the pool area."
Ike nodded and grinned. "And I thought I was an anal-retention control freak with grandiose delusions of power."
"We control freaks are still the best at what we do, Ike. No matter what they say."
"Where do you think Wildcraft got to?"
"I've got no idea. Do you?"
"I take it you tried partner, friends and family?"
"No luck, or one of them was lying."
Sumich shook his head. "When's her funeral?"
"Not until Wednesday. I think they wanted to wait until he was out of the hospital."
"I'll bet you a hundred bucks he'll show."
Rayborn tried to guess the chances of Wildcraft showing his face at the funeral now. Slim and none? "I want him before then."
"I can see why. Disaster on CNB today, and you know the networks will pick it up."
Rayborn hadn't thought it through quite that far until now. The idea of Archie all over the networks made her heart feel heavy. And who would they be coming after for statements, to answer why the cops hadn't arrested him-or at least brought him in for a formal interview-before he could vanish?