Frost read the article. Howell’s body was found near North Lake in a wooded section of Golden Gate Park. He’d been out on an early morning run, and another jogger had found him facedown on the trail at six o’clock. The autopsy gave no indication of foul play, and as a result, there had been no criminal investigation by the police.
There was nothing odd about Howell’s death that Frost could see. Except a red snake. When he looked at the photo Coyle had taken of the snake spray-painted onto a boulder in the park, he could see North Lake through the trees and the exact section of the jogging trail where Howell had been found.
Coyle had texted him other snake photos that he’d found around the city. Frost clicked on each picture, and one by one by one they filled his screen, until his monitor was crowded with eleven snakes. Twelve, when he added the snake he’d found himself in Coolbrith Park. All were identical, all blood red, hissing at him from behind empty eyes and taunting him with their secret.
Seven of the deaths that Coyle had identified near the graffiti snakes were homicides. Frost called up the police reports for each case, looking for details that would connect the victims to each other or to Denny. Nothing leaped out at him. The locations were all over the city. The cause of death varied. Two shootings. Two knifings. One bludgeoning. One hit-and-run. One suffocation. None involved poison, as Denny’s murder had. The victims ranged in age and occupation.
All remained unsolved.
Frost spent two hours examining the case files until the words and photos began to blur on the screen. There was no pattern, nothing to suggest that one murder had anything to do with another. They looked like the kind of random violent acts that happened dozens of times in the city in any given year.
And then, finally, he saw it.
He’d been so focused on the minutiae that he almost missed an obvious coincidence staring him in the face. The cases were all completely different, but not the homicide inspector investigating them. After the Alan Detlowe case, the primary detective on every one of the subsequent homicides was the same.
Trent Gorham.
Gorham, who’d written off Coyle’s snake obsession as a crazy conspiracy.
Frost reached over to his monitor and clicked off the screen so that it went black. He eased back in his chair. A strange sensation of unease pricked up the hair on his neck. Casually, he looked across the warren of messy desks crowded together for the police detectives.
Trent Gorham sat halfway across the room.
And Gorham was staring right at him.
When Frost caught his eye, Gorham stood up from his desk. He stretched the kinks out of his back, then strolled across the office and slumped into a chair next to Frost. The detective wore cream-colored dress pants that emphasized his long legs, black leather shoes, and a burgundy knit sweater. He made a show of idly twirling a pen in his big hands, as if coming over here were no big deal, even though Frost couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had talked.
“How’s it going, Easton?” Gorham asked him.
“Just another day in paradise,” Frost replied.
“Yeah. I hear you.” Gorham tapped the clicky top of his pen against his jutting jaw. “That’s really crazy about the guy who dropped dead in your house. Everybody around here is talking about it.”
“Oh? Are they?”
“Well, it doesn’t happen every day, right?”
“I guess not,” Frost said.
“You got all the help you need?” Gorham asked. “My desk’s not too busy right now. I could lend a hand.”
Frost had never felt so popular. First Cyril Timko, now Trent Gorham.
“I’ll let you know,” he said.
He took a sip of coffee and used the interruption to study Gorham. They were about the same age. Gorham was a large man, almost six foot three, with the powerful build of an athlete. He had blond hair that sprouted from his head like a bristle brush and eyebrows so pale they were nearly translucent. His skin was white, with pink traces of rosacea on his forehead and cheeks, and his eyes were a washed-out shade of blue. His nose was slightly too large for his face, but his overall appearance was handsome. He wore a gullible expression on his face, as if he wanted the world to think he was a dumb jock, but Frost didn’t think Gorham was dumb at all.
He decided to poke the hive and see what flew out.
“I could use your help with one thing,” Frost added. “I don’t know if it means anything.”
“Sure, what’s that?”
Frost zoomed in on the photograph he’d taken of the red snake near Coolbrith Park. He turned his phone around. “Have you ever seen graffiti like this at a crime scene? I found it not far from where the victim was shot.”
He watched Gorham’s eyes. The man was cool, and his expression didn’t change at all. “Let me guess. Dick Coyle’s been talking to you?”
“You’re right. He has.”
“The Red Snake Serial Killer strikes again?” Gorham asked with a sarcastic twitch of his pale eyebrows.
“Something like that.”
Gorham chuckled and shook his head. “That guy never gives up.”
“He told me about several other homicides where he found a snake like this,” Frost said. Then he added after a pause, “Mostly your cases, I think.”
Gorham shrugged. “Lucky me. I guess I catch all the freaky ones.”
“You don’t think it’s a weird coincidence? All these snakes showing up near the bodies?”
“Come on, Easton. Really? This thing should have its own Snopes page. Yeah, it started with a couple unrelated homicides, but then Coyle had to start counting ODs and heart attacks to keep it going. It’s crap.”
“You’re probably right,” Frost said.
“You bet I am. Frankly, this whole snake thing pisses me off. Alan Detlowe was a friend of mine. We worked together when I was in vice. Him getting murdered was personal to me. This had nothing to do with a serial killer. It was a drug scumbag getting back at Alan for his busts. I don’t appreciate Coyle turning his death into some kind of kooky Internet meme.”
“Did you ever track down the origin of the graffiti?” Frost asked.
“I didn’t bother. I’m sure you’ll find it all over the city. It’s probably the logo for some underground band. Or a Japanese anime character. Who knows?”
Frost smiled. “Well, thanks for setting me straight. You saved me some time.”
“Happy to do it. No point chasing a dead end, right?” Gorham stood up from the chair. “Seriously, if you need any help on this case, count me in.”
“I will.”
“And watch out for Coyle. He’s nuts, man.”
Frost didn’t say anything more. He waited as the other detective headed back to his desk, and then he turned on his monitor again.
Twelve red snakes stared back at him.
At the same moment, he felt a vibrating buzz on his phone. He retrieved it and saw that he had a new text message and a photograph waiting for him.
It was from Coyle.
Just found another snake.
Across the bay in Berkeley this time.
That’s lucky #13.
Frost studied the photograph that came with the text and saw a red snake spray-painted onto the sidewalk in front of a bridge that led into a wooded community park. The paint looked vivid and fresh. This was new, not old.
Thirteen snakes.
He knew that meant thirteen bodies. Somewhere close by was another victim.
Frost didn’t have any of the answers to this puzzle yet, but he didn’t think the young private detective was nuts.
8
When Frost got home, he found another visitor in his house on Russian Hill, but this time it was someone he knew well. His friend Herb sat in a lotus position in the middle of the living room floor, with Shack curled up asleep in his lap. Nature sounds played from Frost’s Echo device, as if he’d wandered into the middle of a tropical rainforest. The patio door was cracked open, but the cold fresh air wasn’t enough to erase the aroma of pot that followed Herb wherever he went.