A S MAX HARPER moved out with a dozen other police officers, their silent units seeking the blue van and the tan Suburban, Dallas Garza headed for the hospital on the tail of the EMTs, cursing the medic’s slow, careful driving even with its siren blasting, wanting to jam his foot on the gas. He was going to get his hands on Betty Wicken, on all three of those bastards, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do to them. If violent retribution lost him his job, so be it. Swinging a sharp U into the emergency parking beside the rescue van, he moved beside Ryan’s stretcher as they hurried her in through the emergency entrance. She hadn’t moved. She didn’t move now.
In the ER, he hovered over her while Dr. Hamry took a look, cleaned up the wound, and then had her moved to a bed where he could watch her. Ray Hamry was young, maybe forty. A tall, thin, athletic man with short brown hair and blue eyes, tanned from tennis and swimming. He was a man Dallas had known a long time, and respected-but even Hamry could not have all the answers to her condition until he’d examined Ryan further, and run the X-rays and scans. Hamry tried to ease Dallas’s fear and rage, knowing that wouldn’t do much good, that Dallas was going to fuss and pace until he had answers.
T HE THREE CATS couldn’t very well hitch a ride in the rescue vehicle with Ryan or in Dallas’s squad car. Beating it to the station across the rooftops, they were on the dispatcher’s counter waiting for word about Ryan when the call came in about the body, Dulcie and Kit curled up beside Mabel’s in-box, Joe Grey sprawled across a stack of outgoing reports. Mabel had the phone speaker on, leaving her hands free for a copying job. The caller was a woman.
She sounded young, and shaken. “There…there’s a dead man. Below the cliff. In a wrecked car. It went over the side, you can see the marks. He’s been dead for a long time. Swollen.” She sounded like she was trying not to retch.
“Where?” Mabel said. “Can you tell me exactly where you are?”
“I…just below the state park. My car’s at the top by the stairs. About two miles south of the village, I think. I was walking the beach, and…the wrecked car’s all sand and mud, and dripping water.”
“How many people in it, besides the driver? Can you see anyone else inside?”
The girl didn’t answer.
“Stay on the line. Please stay on the line,” Mabel shouted, turning to the radio to send two cars on their way. Then, “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“What kind of car are you driving?”
“White, two-door Civic.” The girl gave Mabel the license-plate number.
“Stay on the line, I’m putting you on hold.” Punching another line, Mabel called the coroner, and then tried to reach the captain and Detective Garza. The cats heard the back door slam as officers headed out to their units. They heard two cars start and race away, and then Dallas came on the line.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“How is she?” Mabel said.
“Concussion, but stable. They don’t know any more, yet.”
“We have a body in a wrecked car, bottom of the cliff, two miles south of the village. Caller says it’s been dead awhile. Two cars dispatched.” Mabel gave him the location, near the cliffside stairs. “Caller’s car’s parked there, a white Civic.”
“I’m on my way,” Dallas said. Mabel kept trying to reach the chief, but couldn’t raise him. It wasn’t like Captain Harper not to answer, either on his radio or his cell phone, and Mabel began to fidget. Joe wanted to tell her that Max was chasing the Wickens and maybe was too mad or too involved to pick up the call, but he could only lie there, mute, edgy, and frustrated.
Ten minutes later, Mabel reached Harper’s cell phone. She was relaying the information about the body when the radio came alive. Four officers were at the scene. Brennan said, “Looks like we might have the Christmas-tree body.”
Three sets of ears pricked with interest, three small bodies tensed.
“There’s a teddy bear in the car,” Brennan said, “and a little girl’s sweater about the right size. Pillows and a blanket, like maybe they’d traveled a ways. No kid, no luggage, no other clothes. Car’s a gray 1997 Toyota Camry. No plates. Nothing in the glove compartment. McFarland’s checking for…Hang on.”
There was a lapse of some minutes. Mabel and the cats could hear background voices and bouts of disturbance that sounded like gusts of wind. Brennan said, “VIN number’s been filed off. No ID on the body. Coroner’s here. See if you can pick up a stolen report on that make of car.”
As Mabel typed the information into the computer, Joe Grey grew increasingly restive. He wanted to be at the scene; Mabel’s electronic command post was good, but it was second best. Mabel was talking with Dallas again when they heard Detective Davis coming up the hall.
Mabel filled her in, and Davis spoke with Garza, and because the victim might have been traveling but no luggage was found, they decided to pull a couple of guys off their beat to check the motels. See if they could find a man registered with a little girl, someone who hadn’t been seen for a couple of days.
Now that they had a body, there was an outside chance they might get an identification through the DNA. At least they’d have DNA to compare with the blood around the Christmas tree.
“Lucky,” Mabel said, “that the lab has two new technicians.”
“Lucky if they stay,” Davis said. “With the cost of living in the area, it isn’t likely.” For over a year the lab had been understaffed, with two desks vacant. And the county was making little effort to raise the salaries for those urgent positions. Cases had been backed up, with resulting complications, and many minor cases let walk or ignored because the arresting officers couldn’t get the latents processed or get the lab work needed to get these cases into court.
“With pillows and a blanket in the car,” Mabel said, “does that sound like the dead man kidnapped her?” She looked around. “Where is your young charge?”
“She’s with Sand. Eleanor took her up to the seniors’ for a while. No, I don’t buy kidnapping. Informant said she was huddled up to the guy. If you can believe her. Why would…”
Mabel nodded. “Why would she lie? That informant has never led us wrong. I know her voice, I’ve taken her calls enough times.”
“And this call from down the coast? That wasn’t the same?”
“Not at all,” Mabel said. “But the call when Ryan was hurt…No doubt about that one. I’d know his voice anywhere.”
The two women were quiet, looking at each other. The cats were quiet, and seemed to be dozing. “How do they do that?” Mabel said softly. “How can those snitches always be at the scene?” She stroked Dulcie nervously. “I think about that too much, Juana. Sometimes it gives me the shivers.” Under Mabel’s stroking hand, Dulcie was getting shivers. On the counter beside her, Joe Grey felt his skin twitch, his nerves so jumpy his whiskers quivered. Kit was very still, as if wishing she could vanish-like a rabbit gone to ground hoping to disappear in the tall grass.
Dallas came back on. “If the motels don’t turn up their luggage, maybe the killer dumped it so we couldn’t ID the victim.”
Davis said, “What about I pull the two rookies, let them do some Dumpster diving?”
Dallas chuckled. “And what about the charity shops?”
“I’ll do that, and take the kid,” Davis said. “She seems to like pretty clothes, as much as you can tell what the silent little thing likes. She might recognize something of her own, a favorite little dress, and go for it.”
“Good idea,” Dallas said. “Gotta go, I’ve got Max on…”
As Davis turned back toward her office, Joe Grey yawned and rose. Davis’s idea, to try to pick up the little girl’s clothes, hoping to find trace material from the victim, was fine. The kid might go for her own clothes. But to find the dead man’s clothes, mixed with all the others on the rack, would be harder. Davis would have to find out when recently donated clothes of the right size had been brought in, if the volunteer on duty even knew. And once she’d narrowed the search to the right size and time frame, she’d still be working in the dark.