“The Deer Sleigh’R is a carcass sled?”
“Yeah, it’s got a rope to secure the game on it, then you use the rope to pull it.”
Hess tried to picture the Deer Sleigh’R in the back of the Purse Snatcher’s silver panel van. “So, there’s no wheels on it — it’s stiff and flat?”
“It’s flat, but it rolls up. That’s one of the marketing things they’re proud of. You can roll it up like a sleeping bag. Doesn’t take up much room. And it’s light, too, in case you’re packing in.”
“No skinning knives, cleaning tools?”
“Nothing like that. Just something to move a body and something to hang it with.”
Hess thanked Matt and hung up. He looked at Merci. She was still hovering over his desk. He could see the malice bumping around behind her clear brown eyes.
“A clerk at Arnie’s recognized the man in the sketch,” he said. “He bought some hunting equipment out of season. February — nine days before Lael Jillson disappeared. Things you move bodies with. Hang them up with. Cash, of course.”
The anger and the stubborn resolve were still on her face. “I should have had this picture out there sooner. I should have had this asshole two days ago, when Ronnie Stevens was still drawing breath.”
“You didn’t kill Ronnie Stevens. Be kinder to yourself, Rayborn. You’re stuck with you for about another fifty years.”
A very young uniformed deputy worked his way through the pen toward them, a large cardboard box in his arms. The look on his face said he had interesting bad news.
The deputy nodded at Merci, then at Hess, setting the box down on Hess’s desk. His mustache was mostly fuzz.
“Excuse me, Sergeant Rayborn, but CalTrans found these on I-5 in Irvine about an hour and a half ago. CHP got the call. I just pulled over because I was driving by, wanted to see what was going on. When I saw these, I thought of you-know-what. They got handled pretty good by the road guys and the patrolmen. But who knows?”
Hess looked down into the box at the three purses.
“One of them must have broken open on the freeway,” said the deputy. “The other two, they’ve got ID, credit cards, personal items. No CDLs. No cash.”
Merci looked at the young man.
“Good work, Casik.”
“Sergeant, I want to work with you in homicide someday. So I took the liberty of running the two names through our missing persons files. Both of them vanished without leaving any trace we could find. One had car problems on the 55, her car broke down and she apparently went for help. That was twenty-six months ago. The other was shopping at a mall here in Orange County, three months later. Riverside County Sheriffs found her car in Lake Matthews a week after she disappeared. I’ve got no idea where these purses have been since then, but I’ve got a hunch.”
“I see you do.”
“And also, the CalTrans guys shuffled through the purses a little, let some stuff fell out. Then they just threw everything in this box. I couldn’t help but notice the newspaper clipping you’ll find near the top of the black one.”
Hess watched Merci use her pen to lift the top of the stiff black purse, and he saw the folded newsprint. He lifted it out with a couple of paper clips, then set it on the desk and pried it open enough to see inside.
It was the article and photos from the Orange County Journal, six days ago, when Hess was brought back to help on the Purse Snatcher case. Mugs of Merci and Hess, standard issue from Press Information, and apparently in the Journal photo file. Hess hated it when they ran pictures of him.
In the shots, both his and Merci’s eyes were burned out, the paper browned around the holes like a kid’s pirate map.
Twenty-Three
Hess was still at his desk late that evening, on the phone with the head of the mortuary sciences department of a local college, fishing for something he couldn’t articulate yet. Something to do with Deer Sleigh’R, formalin and missing women.
Brighton, who rarely came in on Sundays, appeared in the bullpen and waved him over. Hess made the appointment with the mortuary sciences director, then hung up and followed Brighton down a short hallway into his office. Brighton waited for him, then shut the door.
“Three more?”
“Two look real likely. The third, probable.”
“He’s been at this for two years?”
“Just over. The first went missing twenty-six months ago. Car trouble. The next was last seen, guess where — at a mall.”
“Oh, good Christ. No break this morning? Nothing?” He pointed to a chair in front of his desk.
“No.” Hess sat.
“He’s thorough and careful, isn’t he?”
“I think he’s using chloroform to put them out. One of the CSIs recognized the smell from his vet. It makes sense. There’s been some struggle in the cars. But not a huge amount. No blood.”
“Can Gilliam verify the gas?”
“Not with the blood we’ve found. Chloroform metabolizes out real quick. But we think he’s driving a silver panel van with a set of mismatched tires. It’s the best thing we’ve got.”
“Jesus, Tim. Six.”
Brighton sat back and crossed his arms. He was a big man with a rural face and a cool intelligence in his eyes. Hess had always liked the way Brighton made ambition for power look easy and natural. He shared the spoils. He wasn’t the kind of man always looking around corners at you.
Then again, Hess had little idea what the sheriff did with his spare time, though he did know that like a lot of ranking law enforcement people in Southern California, Brighton owned a house and property somewhere in Wyoming or Montana. Hess had rarely visited Brighton’s home, never dined there or associated with the sheriff outside of department functions, never learned the names of his children. Those intimacies had been shared over the decades with more family-oriented men and women on the force — the ones who, like Brighton, had kids to raise. Children and the raising of them seemed to adhere the parents to each other in ways that didn’t stick to Hess and his childless marriages, ugly divorces and the long stretches of aloneness that separated them.
Hess was drawn to people more like himself: on the make for something they might understand but often didn’t, either recovering from or searching out the next romantic disaster. It always seemed to work out that way, but it was never how he planned it. He saw that you needed to put aside that selfishness if you wanted to fit in with the department pack, otherwise you were perceived as a danger at some point. A family made you understandable, declared your values and your willingness to sacrifice.
Hess hadn’t wanted children with Barbara — who was willing — because he was young and hogging his liberties. The world seemed huge then, though his place in it with Barbara — who was insecure and jealous as time went on — seemed constricted. He was stupid to leave her but only realized it later. His guilty conscience had left everything of value to her and to this day he was thankful for that.
He was willing and interested with Lottie when he was in his thirties, but she was young and enjoying her liberties. They drifted away from each other in the classic fashion and parted with minimum drama and no rancor. What amazed Hess more than the divorce was the way a decade could come and go so quickly.
Children hardly seemed to matter until he was halfway through his forties and married to Joanna. His paternal instincts crept up on him like a big cat: a bold but calm desire to guide his blood into the world, to give life. He actually began looking at other people’s babies, thinking of names he liked, picturing himself with an infant in his arms. Doted on his nephews and nieces. Thought a lot about his father. And his mother. Something inside him was changing for the good.