"Where's the evidence?"
"In the storage locker at the lab."
"We'll get Aaronson on the stain, see if he can pull a rabbit for us. Now, the gun-"
"Yes, it was registered to her. A Glock 19."
"I'd expect her to have a revolver. Easier."
Bear nodded at Tim's Smith amp; Wesson wheel gun, snug in the holster. "Not everyone's stuck in the 1860s, Rack."
"She's a gun gal," Dray said. "Which means the gunshot-residue analysis on her hand is inconclusive. She had an ammo card for the Littlerock Canyon Gun Club, which showed she'd shot there just the day before. In his statement the range operator there said she's pretty good, learned from her brother in the marines."
Guerrera finished with the autopsy glossies and passed them to Tim. A pale version of the face Tim had first seen gummed to the wall of Walker's cell. Strong residual powder burns and a star-shaped hole at the left temple indicated that the muzzle had been touching the flesh. Her features had been pressed out of shape by the explosion-nothing obvious, but a subtle shifting of the position of the nose, the levelness of the eyes, the cant of the mouth-a minuscule yet grotesque reskewing that spoke to the destruction beneath.
Tim set down the close-up of the entry wound as if dealing a card. "'The left side.'"
Bear shrugged, unimpressed. "Maybe. What would that tell Walker, though?"
Tim flashed on Tess's Swatch in her photo, ringing her right wrist. The smudged handwriting on the letter she'd sent to Walker. The criminalist had confirmed that she was left-handed, the entry wound unremarkable in that regard. "Nothing, I guess."
Tess's voice had come through in her letter to her brother; she'd impressed Tim as a decent, struggling woman saddled with responsibilities and trying to carve out a niche for her son and herself. He felt a welling of sadness as he studied the close-ups, the tiny details that composed her. Hair died in a streak pattern, amber against chestnut. Dark roots. Gray threads at the hairline. Slender nose, slightly concave on either side. The fingernail of her right index finger was shorter than the others, a break that she'd taken care to file the edge off. Bare feet. A varicose vein touching the ankle.
Zimmer's voice broke him out of his reverie. "I got you that address for Kaitlin Jameson." He slid a piece of notebook paper over Tim's shoulder.
Tim glanced at it. The background noise dimmed, crowded out by his sudden focus. He set the notebook sheet down beside the top page of Tess's investigation file, looked from one to the other, then turned them to face Dray and Bear.
The address in Zimmer's hand was identical to the one on the crime-scene report.
Chapter 32
Wearing a light cotton Tommy Bahama camp shirt against the balmy August night and a pair of leather slide huaraches, Ted Sands whistled through his teeth as he strolled from his Cheviot Hills house en route to his eight o'clock poker game. His third child, an '88 Bronco geared for off-roading and rock crawling, waited in the driveway. With its custom geared-down axles, widened rims kicking out the tread a few inches on either side, hybrid suspension with three inches of lift, and flared wheel wells accommodating thirty-five-inch Mud Terrain tires, the Bronco was too wide to fit in the garage with his wife's Chrysler Pacifica.
Stopping on the walk, Ted picked up a melted army man and a discarded Barbie sundress and tossed them back at the front step. He had the type of gym-enhanced build common in L.A., heavy on biceps and quads, with more muscle definition than could be achieved without kidney-straining supplements. As a third-string quarterback at a Division One college, he'd learned the art of physical upkeep without having to endure the rigors of injury. The sole nondoctor, — lawyer, or — studio exec on his tree-lined block, he moved across his front lawn with confidence, the erect stride of the proud homeowner.
He pressed the "unlock" button on his key chain, and the Bronco greeted him with a friendly chirp. Spinning the keys around his finger, he paused a few feet from the truck. A folded note fluttered from the tinted driver's window, Scotch-taped, his name rendered in red ink.
He turned a quick circle, laughing in anticipation of a practical joke, but his front yard and the street were empty. A neighbor passed in a Lexus with a tooted greeting, and he waved before returning his attention to the note. He took a step forward, plucked it from the window, and opened it.
Puzzled, he stared down at the blank interior.
A pair of hands shot out from beneath the truck, the left clamping over the top of his foot, the right, which held an unfolded knife, hooking around the heel. Before Ted could move, the blade drew back toward the undercarriage shadows, carving around the rear of his ankle and severing the Achilles tendon. Spurting blood made a soft tapping noise against the driveway. Ted bent, hands shoved to his thighs, emitting a breathy, incredulous moan. The blank note fluttered to the concrete, blood soaking through it in spots. Ted turned to run toward the house, but his right leg didn't respond, and he fell flat on his chest, still unable to find his voice. The hands seized him around both calves, dragging him beneath the Bronco. Limbs rattled against the oil pan.
The brief struggle ended with a thud.
Propped in an uncomfortable sitting position, a cramp vise-gripping his lower back, Ted came to in a dank room. A thickness had seized his legs, which were extended before him, and his head throbbed. He groaned and struggled to move his arms. A lamp hooked to a workbench ten feet away provided meager lighting. Scattered tools, a bundle of antique rifles, a few powdery bags of rapid-set concrete. He strained to look behind him; his body wouldn't obey, but he managed to twist his neck. A roll-up door had been raised, revealing the silhouette of his beloved Bronco outside. The spare tire swing-arm carrier had been released, the tailgate laid open. Two strips of aluminum formed a loading ramp, extending down from the truck's well-advertised cargo space.
A clicking jerked him back around. A form crouched just past his feet, where moments before there had been mere darkness. His night vision was starting to kick in, enough for him to make out the glint of a knife. With a thumb and forefinger, the figure raised the folding steel blade from its handle, then let it snap back into place. The knife, a wicked-looking compression-lock Spyderco, featured a hollow-ground blade, hump-spined with a thumb hole, and a precision-drilled titanium handle, multiperforated for lightness and balance. Ted had come across similar models in some of his shady "security" dealings, generally in the hands of word-of-mouth referrals with extensive unspecified training. The man holding him was the real deal, not like the tough-guy producers, playboy entrepreneurs, and gun-waving pseudogangstas-cum-record producers who generally paid his mortgage. He looked down and saw the reason he couldn't move his legs or feet.
They were sunk into concrete.
The block encased him to the waist, as if he were sitting in a half-filled bath. He shouted and jerked his arms, but his hands had also been immersed in the gray mass, the ragged mouths of the entries cutting into his wrists. Oddly, he and the block rolled a few inches back before striking something that halted their motion. Recollection crashed in on him-the bite at his ankle, his fingernails snapping as he was pulled backward across the driveway, devoured by the shadows beneath the truck. When he refocused, the man was down on a knee, winding black tape around the laces of one boot. The man picked up a hand mallet and hammer and advanced on him. Ted strained and thrashed but could barely rock his powerful torso. The mallet clinked into position. Ted closed his eyes and bellowed.
A bang. A clatter of wood on the floor.
Tentatively, he took a glimpse. The man had knocked free one of the forming boards from around the concrete block. A few steps and the man disappeared behind him. Another bang shocked Ted upright, and a second board fell free. He tried to talk, to reason, but his throat had chalked up, issuing only rasps. The man proceeded with his quiet, measured pacing and hammering until only the block and Ted remained, centered on what he now saw was a carpeted dolly.