Darker here, shadowed by the ridge and oak trees. Damp. The raven flew to an oak and chortled at him as he approached the open doorway.
The stench hit him with almost physical force.
He stepped back, his mind reeling. Something dead here. Steeling himself, he breathed through his mouth before peering in.
At first he thought it was just a pile of black rags. No, it was jeans and a T-shirt. Naturally, his gaze wandered up the t-shirt toward the face.
His disbelieving eyes registered the green fright mask for just an instant before he reeled backwards out the door, gulping for air.
Officer Randall Noone found himself on all fours, the scrambled eggs Marcie cooked for his breakfast ending up in a steaming pile on the grass.
16
“What do you think?” Laura asked Victor. Early afternoon now, and the crime lab techs had finished collecting evidence and the ME’s people were on their way to remove the body of Cary Statler.
Victor sighed. “Whoever killed Jessica probably killed him.”
Laura knew what he was thinking: more trouble. Just seven hours ago he’d been making arrangements for a studio portrait of his family, including his new daughter, and now he’d been dragged back here in this heat to look at the corpse of Cary Statler, which in his view only complicated the case.
Laura agreed with Victor that there was a high probability that Jessica and Cary had been attacked at the same time. With a body this far gone, it would be impossible to fix a definitive time of death, but Laura didn’t believe in coincidences. The fact that Cary Statler and Jessica Parris had both been victims of homicide was just too big a coincidence to ignore.
Detective Holland said, “He wanted the girl and this poor sad bastard was in the way. So he bashed him in the head and took the girl where he could have his fun without being rushed.”
Laura kept her gaze on Statler, although it was hard to do. He was riddled with maggots. One eye had been pecked out, and several fingers had been torn from one hand, probably dragged off by animals. It was fortunate he had ID on him, because skin slippage and a hardening and darkening of his complexion made his features unrecognizable—his face was marbled lime-green and black.
But Laura knew who it was the moment she saw the Megadeth tee and the yellow pineapple hair.
She straightened up, feeling the twinge in her back. The shade, which had stayed with them most of the day, had given way to full sunlight coming in through the southern window. The air was stifling; the stench almost unbearable. Victor and Buddy had shared dabs of Victor’s jar of mentholatum to block out the smell, but Laura had made it a policy not to use the stuff, since she knew from experience that the stink would linger in the mentholatum long after she had left the scene. She breathed through her mouth, but could still feel death lying on the membranes on her tongue, in her nostrils, on her skin.
Victor cocked his head. “Man, that was some hit he took.” The force of the blow had broken Cary Statler’s neck, even though the wound itself had been higher up to the side of the head. One blow. It had come close to separating his head from his body.
“Had to be someone who knew about this place,” Buddy was saying. “You can’t even see these cabins from the road.”
“Could be.” Laura kept her voice neutral.
Buddy had the ball and he ran with it. “I think he knew them. He wanted Jessica, she fit his fantasy. My guess is he followed them, or knew about their little hangout—“
“If it was their hangout.” Laura could feel sweat trickling under her hair. She wanted out of this cabin now. She desperately wanted to go back to the car and get to her purse, scrub her face and hands with hand sanitizer, and salve her dry lips.
“If it was Cary’s hangout, this guy would know they hung out there. He’d be able to keep tabs on them, look for his opportunity. I think he planned it,” Buddy said.
“What I still can’t figure out though—why the dress?” Victor asked. “Why did he do all that? He leaves the kid here, like so much garbage dumped out by the side of the road, but he’s careful about the evidence with her.”
Buddy said, “He didn’t think anyone would find the kid. That’s why he brought him to this cabin, farthest from the road. Nobody comes out here. That’s also why I think he’s local. He knows this place. He had to act fast and move this kid, and he knew exactly where to put him.”
“And then what?” asked Laura.
Buddy looked at her and his eyes narrowed. “He takes her to his place.”
“So he’s parked up on the road?”
“I guess he would be.”
“Wouldn’t he be afraid that someone would see his car? Or see him come up to the road with the girl?”
“He’s pretty bold—you said so yourself, dressing her up like that and putting her in City Park. If you don’t like him taking him somewhere, he could have killed and raped her up here, came back later that night, cleaned her up and planted her in City Park.”
“Why?”
“To taunt the police. To show us up.”
Buddy’s theory was logical. Still, something about it bothered her. She had spent a large part of yesterday talking to various law enforcement agencies in Arizona. No one she’d talked to could even remember a case like this one, but there was the phone call from that detective—Endicott—in Indio, California. She’d tried him twice today, would have to keep trying.
If he was a local, she guessed that he had not lived here long. A year or two at the most. She knew he had done this before. He had built up to this.
The mesquite leaf, too, bothered her. She didn’t recall seeing a mesquite tree anywhere up here; it was too high up.
And there was the matchbook she’d found at the bandshell, CRZYGRL12 written in block letters on the inside cover. “Why would he leave the matchbook behind?”
Buddy stared at her. “We don’t know for sure it was his.”
Gauging her reaction.
“No, we don’t know he was the one who put it there. We have to consider it, though. We have to consider everything. This might have something to do with the Internet.”
“That’s how he could have met her.”
“But you think he knew her from here.”
“He knew her from here and he knew her on the Internet. They were probably e-mail buddies.”
She could tell he was getting steamed. She saw Victor grin—the first time today. Victor understood Buddy’s frustration, maybe even sympathized. He’d often said she was too even-handed.
“Besides,” Buddy said, “I talked to her teachers. She was carefully supervised and never left alone on the computers. No way someone could have reached her—they’d know. I think CRZYGIRL12 doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
Laura didn’t bother to reply. Instead, she stepped outside the cabin. She couldn’t stand the stench in there, and she couldn’t stand Buddy Holland’s attitude. His barely-veiled belligerence. His hints that she’d planted the matchbook.
Concentrate.
She walked out beyond the crime scene tape. From here, she could see the dumpster near the road. The lab techs had removed the dumpster’s contents and already taken it to the crime lab in Tucson, even though they had found nothing overtly related to Cary’s murder.
What Laura hoped for was a blood-stained towel or T-shirt. There had been evidence that Cary’s head had been wrapped in something to keep his blood from getting all over. This dovetailed with her theory that Cary was moved to the cabin from the spot where he’d been killed.
The killer had probably taken the shirt or towel with him. Maybe he knew that it was possible to get latents from cloth. Or maybe it was his natural neatness.