He continued around a bend, then slowed his pace. This was more like it. No houses for another mile and then the road would curve again and back into the populated area of West Central.
The dark nostalgia stuck with him even after he passed the houses on his route. He remembered Betty and how she’d always called him an old curmudgeon when he’d complained to her about the first houses that had gone in along Ohio. He’d growled at her about having to find something sunny about everything. Now when he thought of that, he felt a stab of loneliness, and a little guilt, too. He wished he had treated her better when she was still with him.
He walked along, thumping his walking stick on the dirt road, rolling in his dark thoughts, when he realized Buck was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn dog,” he muttered and called out for him. “Buck! C’mere!”
The dog answered him almost immediately with a bark. Neal spotted his head and tail about twenty yards ahead and in the field to his left.
“Git over here!” he shouted.
The dog barked back and started toward him. Then he turned around and trotted back to where he started.
“Buck! C’mere, goddamnit!”
The dog whined and barked at him, but reluctantly loped toward him. Neal kept walking onward.
When the dog reached his side, he gave him a pat and a hard rub behind the ears. Despite his gruffness, he wasn’t angry. He knew the dog couldn’t help being a dog. There was probably a dead animal out in the field or something.
Then he saw the tire tracks that left the dirt road and marked the soft earth next to the roadway. The tracks headed out into the field.
Neal paused in his stride. Buck yelped happily and bounded back out into the field, heading for the same location he’d reluctantly left only moments before.
“Probably someone dumped their garbage,” he muttered. “Damn dog is going blitz-o over old pizza boxes.”
He left the roadway and walked along the tire tracks. The further he got from the road, the thicker the weeds were. The tire tracks faded as he moved into the field, the weeds having sprung back up after being forced down by car wheels.
More likely a truck, Neal thought.
Buck barked excitedly as he drew closer. He expected to find trash bags and garbage strewn everywhere, but as he approached the barking Labrador, he could see there weren’t any large piles. He thought he could see the black plastic of a garbage bag, though.
“Buck! Shut it!” he hollered at the dog.
The Lab stopped barking, but continued to whine.
It was definitely a trash bag, Neal saw. Some jerks dumping their garbage in the middle of what little nature was left inside the city limits and-
He stopped walking and stared at the black plastic bag. A pair of feet protruded from the end of the bag, shod with a child’s dirty white tennis shoes trimmed with pink shoelaces.
“Oh, Jesus,” Neal Grady said. His stomach lurched and he leaned heavily on his walking stick.
Buck barked at him.
“Oh, Christ,” he said, running his hand through his hair. A photo from the television newscast flashed in his mind’s eye.
“Oh, Christ,” he repeated.
Buck barked again.
0603 hours
Browning rubbed the sleep from his eyes and wished he had taken up Tower’s offer to go get coffee when they first arrived on scene. The hulk of the burned out van reeked of gasoline, water and burnt plastic and some coffee would have at least helped to deaden that smell. Not to mention wake him up a bit.
“Any luck?” he asked Tower as the detective returned from his car.
“Call it what you will,” Tower said. “It ain’t great.”
“Run it for me.”
Tower looked down at his notebook. “The registered owner is a guy named Brad Dexter. Lives up in Hillyard. No telephone listing for him, but hopefully the address is current. But get this-he put in a report of sale two months ago.”
Browning frowned. That meant he’d sold the van and notified the Department of Licensing that he was no longer the owner. But the new owner hadn’t registered the van yet.
“Could be something.”
“Could be nothing,” Tower said. “But we better check it out.”
Browning nodded and waved Corporal McGee over. “Get good photos of the whole scene and then have it towed as evidence to Impound,” he told him.
McGee nodded and went to his car to get his camera.
“Could just be a coincidence,” Tower said.
“Coincidences are for the G.D., John,” Browning said, referring to the General Detective’s Division. “I don’t come across many in Major Crimes.”
“Now you sound like Crawford,” Tower told him.
Browning grunted and mimed a cigar in his hand.
“Ida-437," squawked Browning’s portable radio.
“Go ahead,” he said into it.
“Contact L-143 at 2100 West Ohio reference a crime scene. CSFU is already en route.”
Browning and Tower looked at each other. If the Crime Scene Forensics Unit was in route, that meant a body had been found.
“Copy,” Browning said.
“You think they found her?” Tower asked.
“We’ll know shortly.”
“What about this guy who used to own the van?”
“We’ll send Patrol to check it out,” Browning said. “Come on, let’s not keep Crawford waiting.”
0643 hours
Kopriva limped slowly toward the employee entrance to the police station. The glass double doors entered into a small lobby. From there, a person could go upstairs to the locker room and the patrol division briefing room. Going straight ahead led to the records division and a left-hand turn led to the investigative division.
As Kopriva opened the doors and started through, Officer Jack Stone came in the other direction. The surly veteran was in uniform and carried his patrol duty bag over his right shoulder.
Kopriva moved to his right to give Stone a little extra room to pass.
“Morning, Ja-” he started to say.
Stone stepped to the side and drove his shoulder into Kopriva’s left shoulder. The smaller officer staggered back a step. Pain blasted through his shoulder and arm, memories of the bullet wounds from the previous summer taking no time at all to spring up.
“What the hell is your problem?” Kopriva managed through gritted teeth.
“Worthless fuck-up,” Stone growled at him, not breaking stride and continuing out the door.
Kopriva watched him go, struggling to figure out what had just happened. He figured it had to do with Karl Winter’s death. Stone was still sore about that. But all he’d ever done was show his displeasure with attitude.
He knew he should be angry. He knew his gut shouldn’t burn when people cast disgusted looks his way. But whenever Kopriva thought of Karl Winter dying on the asphalt in front of him, the only emotion that he could dredge up was guilt.
The pain in his shoulder throbbed, but was already fading. He rubbed it, shaking his head. Everyone knew Stone was a jerk. Maybe he’d just been biding his time for the right opportunity to get his digs in.
Kopriva continued to rub his shoulder as he walked into the station. Some people were just impossible to figure out.
0644 hours
Browning stared at the two dirty tennis shoes with pink laces. He hated being right.
“You want to remove the bag here or back at the lab?” Diane from the Crime Scene Forensics Unit asked him.
“Your call.”
“The lab is better,” she said. “But I can cut the bag open if you want to get a look at her now.”
Browning looked over at Tower, whose face was pale. He took a drink of coffee from a Styrofoam cup and grimaced, avoiding Browning’s eyes.
Browning could hear Lieutenant Crawford barking at one of the patrol officers about the outer perimeter a short distance away. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to set up an outer perimeter far enough to keep the media vans away. They were probably already shooting footage.