“You could have called,” he pointed out.
“I tried. You weren’t picking up.”
“Ah…I was in the basement. The bowling alley.”
She looked at him askance.
“Business,” he said. “I’m a sucky bowler. Don’t go there.”
“It’s my fault,” she said, as Walt turned into the massive parking lot looking for her car. He hoped she might direct him, but her tone told him to keep his mouth shut. “You know when you’ve got a name or something right on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t for the life of you remember it? It was like that for me.” She looked at him, her eyes begging that he make the connection.
Walt stared back blankly.
“The bird droppings,” she said, holding the newspaper out in front of him now and blocking his vision.
He took her by the wrist, moved the paper out of his way, and pulled over. “What about them?”
“I made the photos.”
“I was there, Fiona. I know that.”
“Not those photos,” she said dismissively, as if it was the clearest thing in the world. “Read!”
Walt took the paper from her. It was folded open to page five. The article was titled “Bombs Away: County Pound Goes to the Birds.” Walt recalled his father teasing him about the article.
“And there’s something else-” she said.
Walt cut her off. “Let me read.”
“I blew it.”
“Hang on. Swallows at the pound,” he said, remembering.
“Hundreds of them leaving bird droppings on all the cats and dogs,” she said, caught up in his enthusiasm. “The health department threatened-”
“To close them down. Yes.”
“Bird droppings, Walt.” She stared at him, once again somewhat condescendingly. “The cougar that was darted was transferred to the Humane Society until Fish and Game figures out what to do with her. She was at the pound, Walt.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
Seventeen
W alt entered the shed extension of the Humane Society a few minutes behind his deputy, Randy Anderson, and a few minutes ahead of Fiona, who’d headed home to pick up equipment. The garish green steel building sat atop a sagebrush knoll three miles out Croy Canyon, west of Hailey, where coyotes cried in the wee hours of the morning and area snowplows struggled to reach in the dead of winter. The volunteer worker, a middle-aged woman Walt recognized from the softball bleachers, threatened him with a cup of coffee. Walt politely declined. He and Anderson donned latex gloves and slipped their boots into paper covers. Anderson, a lanky guy with a narrow, boyish face and big teeth, was as close as Walt’s sheriff’s office got to a forensics technician. He’d taken a single course called Death Sciences at a technical school outside of Nampa, just after high school.
“You got everything?” Walt asked him, not sure he wanted the answer.
“Yeah. All set.” Anderson hoisted a black duffel bag. “Take me about five minutes to mix the chemicals.”
Walt approached the interior door that led to the kennel. From the other side came a chorus of loud barking. He opened it, revealing a central aisle that gave way to shelves of cages of varying sizes on either side. The occasional plywood partition segregated the cat cages from the dogs. Though every effort was made to keep the room smelling clean, it was a losing battle. To Walt’s left stood a much larger, heavily reinforced cage. As with others along the left wall, it offered a sliding door to an outside run, currently padlocked shut. Pacing silently wall to wall, the cougar kept a wary eye on him.
All down the center aisle he noticed ghostly white stains that had been vigorously scrubbed off the concrete. He looked up and saw the scars where hundreds of the swallows’ mud nests had been plucked off the ridgepole. Dozens more had yet to be removed. A few bold swallows peeked their heads from the remaining nests. Made of dried mud and grass, they looked like tiny caves.
“It’s a never-ending battle,” the volunteer said from behind him. “And a health issue. Most of the smell is the bird poo, I’m afraid. We’re still working on a more permanent solution.”
“Can we move the cat?” Walt asked.
“Oh, no, sir. Not us. Have to call Fish and Game to do that.”
He shouted, “ Anderson, will the luminol hurt the cat?”
“Shouldn’t. No, sir. It’s basically nothing more than hydrogen peroxide.”
“Then hurry it up.”
Twenty minutes later, Anderson had sprayed the concrete flooring inside most of the cage. The cougar wisely chose to stay as far away as possible during this, pacing the opposite wall from Anderson.
Fiona arrived. She had donned a hairnet, gloves, and shoe covers and made a point to set up her camera gear quickly.
“Was she alive when he did it?” Fiona asked.
“We don’t know anything yet. Let’s take it step by step.”
Anderson returned from mixing another batch. He backed them away from the cage and sprayed the outside perimeter as well.
“I’m all set,” Fiona announced.
“Okay, then.” Anderson plugged in a two-foot tube light-a black light like the kind McClure had used in the morgue. “Okay,” he said, somewhat nervously. “Anything blue-green is evidence of blood.”
Walt asked the volunteer to leave the room. He shut the door, and as he did the dogs barked viciously in a chorus that ran chills down his spine. He switched the long wire of overhead lights off. The room went dark. Mixed in with the dogs was the sound of Fiona gasping.
Then Anderson croaked out in raspy voice, “Mother of God.”
Eighteen
T he cage floor was stained in ungainly neon green smears and streaks and splatters. It looked like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock painting. Walt maintained his poise as he imagined a semiconscious, paralyzed Ailia Holms being mauled, bitten, clawed, and dragged around the cage.
As Fiona clicked off time exposures, Walt thought he heard her crying. Anderson pointed out the long green tail that tapered from the edge of the cage toward the room’s central drain.
“Someone tried to clean it up,” Anderson explained. “Hosed it down. Maybe mopped. Spent some time on it. I’ll luminol the brooms and mops.”
“We’ll want to check the drain for tissue, the brooms for prints.” Walt indicated an area in front of the cage. “Get pictures of this as well, please.”
Anderson illuminated the area in question. “Interesting,” he said, his teeth glowing white and standing out from his blue face.
The green smear indicating spilled blood was interrupted by two columns-representing clean concrete.
“These are blood shadows,” Anderson explained.
“I don’t want to ask.” Fiona sounded frightened.
“Blood splatter traveled out of the cage and was blocked.” Anderson hesitated. “Someone stood here and watched her die.”
Nineteen
B randon had rounded up Patrick Cutter’s seven-person staff, and two security personnel, and was detaining them on the patio until further notice, ensuring they didn’t attempt to manipulate the environment or damage possible evidence.
Doug Aanestad read through the hastily scrawled search warrant. “Must be nice to work in a place where judges can be bent to favor at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Small-town living,” Walt said. “This may take a while.”
“Ginny will make us both a latté, if you’ll release her for a minute. Best latté you’ve ever had. Patrick gets his beans flown in from Colombia.”
“Pass. Everyone stays where they are.”
“It’s a fishing expedition, Walt, and you know it. She got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck is all.”
“Don’t I wish.”
“You have evidence to the contrary?”