Just the act of carrying Jessica up here and placing her against the wall would cause him to shed fibers, hair, skin, and some of that would stick. How would he deal with that?
Would he sweep up?
Or could he have used one of those sticky rollers, the one people used to pick up pet hair? Lab techs now preferred the sticky rollers to vacuum cleaners when they looked for trace evidence.
Water dripping from the band shell roof: tap tap tap.
Where are you tonight? Holed up in a motel or have you moved on already?
The wind rose, whipping the treetops. Their restive shadows danced on the band shell wall beside her. Rain started up, speckling the concrete.
Where are you tonight?
As if in answer, notes from an alto sax trickled down from a window somewhere up the street. Pure and sweet; a soulful, lonely sound.
All the buildings in that direction were dark. The music stopped almost as soon as it had started.
The rain came down harder, a curtain of clear beads in a doorway. Laura stood under the arch, feeling the chill draft as rain blew inward. With the rain came the stench of death.
Suddenly, she could feel him, his essence leaking out of the wet cement, the air around her. Controlled rage. A predator. For a moment, she knew what it was like to be a rabbit in the shadow of the hawk.
Was he watching her now? She looked around, but saw nothing. Imagined she heard footsteps, but it was only the rain.
The wind blew harder. The tree shadows lashed back and forth on the wall of the band shell in tortured shapes, as if they were being strangled.
She stared out at the park.
Something caught her eye in the gleam of the streetlight, wet and shiny at the edge of the stage. A matchbook.
Laura had been over every inch of this stage earlier today, and she knew the matchbook had not been there when they removed the body. The crime scene had been clean. The matchbook could belong to anyone; kids, tourists, curiosity seekers. The morbid.
Donning latex gloves, she hunkered down beside the matchbook. The words “The Copper Queen Hotel” were stamped on the front. Holding the edges with her fingertips to avoid smearing any prints, she pried it open.
On the inside cover, someone had written a message in block letters with a roller ball pen. The cardboard was so soggy it threatened to come apart in her hands, the letters starting to blur where the raindrops hit them.
Laura scooted back under the overhang. Holding the matchbook open against the concrete, she aimed her flashlight at the block letters.
CRZYGRL12.
The rain hissed, chortled, murmured.
CRZYGRL. Short for crazy girl? The twelfth in a line of crazy girls?
She caught a movement in the corner of her eye. Suddenly, a bright light shone in her face and a voice demanded, “What are you doing?”
8
Laura squinted into the glare of a MagLite.
“What are you doing?” Detective Holland repeated. The MagLite steady on her face.
She wondered if he was keeping it on her purposely. Letting her know she was the trespasser here rather than the lead on this case? It made her angry, but it also goosed her heart up a notch. What did he think—she was planting evidence?
“What’s that?” he said, motioning at her hand with the light.
She stood up and brushed off her slacks. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on the crime scene, same as you.”
“Earlier today, did you see anything like this?” She held the copper-colored matchbook up to the light.
“Nope.”
“Take a look.”
“I don’t have gloves.”
“I’ll hold it for you.” She opened the matchbook as carefully as she could. “CRZYGRL12. What do you think that means?”
He stared at the letters on the matchbook, his gaze stony. But she could tell that something was going on behind his eyes, the cogs turning.
Laura said “I need a paper bag for this.”
He just watched her.
“I have plastic evidence bags but no paper. This thing’s falling apart and it’s wet. If we’re going to put this into evidence, I’ve got to have a paper bag. I’ve got some in the 4Runner. Would you mind running down and getting me one?”
She tossed him the keys and he caught them. But he made no move to go.
“I’m parked outside the Jonquil.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a request.” She added, “Don’t you want to catch this guy?”
He stood there for a moment. Drawing it out—that she needed a favor from him. Then he shambled down the steps, in no hurry.
Way down the block she heard the big engine of his Chevy Caprice start up.
Laura wondered how long Buddy Holland had been up here. She would have heard him if he’d just driven up. If she could have planted the matchbook, so could he.
The rain kept coming down. After a while, her back started to hurt, and she needed to sit down. She sat against the bandshell wall as far away as she could get from where Jessica Parris was. She tried not to look at the spot. Breathed through her mouth and let her mind wander.
She remembered someone telling her that before the citizens of Bisbee built City Park, this place had been a cemetery. Where did she hear that? On a trip down here a few years ago? Probably. She used to come down overnight with her boyfriend, a member of the Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team. Mostly they came down to cool off from the Tucson summers and make love. It didn’t work out because he had an ex-wife who kept tabs on him even though they’d split up years ago.
Counting Tom Lightfoot, that made six serious or semi-serious relationships since college, if she included her ex-husband Billy, who was before, during and after.
Suddenly she flashed on the night two months ago at the Vail Steak House, going off to the bathroom with Karen, who did the books for the Bosque Escondido. They’d run into each other in the bar on Laura’s first foray out into the world with Tom. Tipsy, blundering into the vinyl-walled cubicle, verging on conspiratorial giggles, Laura asking: What do you think? Like asking someone off the street to tell her if she ought to buy a certain car. On cue Karen said what Laura wanted to hear. He’s so good-looking, and he can’t keep his eyes off you. You guys make a really cute couple.
It doesn’t bother you that he doesn’t have a real job? Laura asking this as if Karen’s opinion was more important than her own.
Who cares? You earn enough for both of you.
A car cruised up the street and the engine died. Buddy appeared at the steps to the band shell a minute later. He pulled a folded evidence envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Sorry it took so long.” He didn’t tell her why.
She placed the matchbook in the envelope and marked it with a pen. “To preserve the chain of custody, I’ll keep it with me tonight and take it to the crime lab when I get back to Tucson.” Looking for a reaction. He didn’t give her one. “Do you have any ideas who CRZYGRL12 is? Is she a local?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Anything come to mind at all?”
At first she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “It could be something to do with the Internet.”
“What, like an e-mail address?”
He rubbed his nose. “Or a nick.”
Looking at her for some sort of reaction. All she could offer was confusion. “Nick?”
“Nickname. In a chat room.” He stared out at the park. “Are we about through?”
“Why did you come up here tonight?”
“Same as you. I wanted to see the place how he saw it.”
She didn’t get back to the Jonquil Motel until a quarter of four. The rain stopped on the walk back.