At eight o’clock the body of Darlene Beckett was being carried down the hiking trail on its way to the morgue wagon, and crime scene techs were in the last stages of their investigation. The sheriff, under arrangements made by Chief Kyle Rothman and Jim Mabrey, the public information officer, had held a press conference at seven to insure getting plenty of face time on the eleven o’clock news. The first news helicopter appeared over the crime scene thirty minutes later, creating a downdraft that dislodged any remaining evidence and diminishing its value in any future prosecution.
Harry walked down the trail, a look of resigned disgust on his face. He let out a long breath and willed himself to get past the self-serving stupidity that seemed to emerge in every major investigation. You just work past it, he told himself. And you hope for the best. You’ve done it before; you’ll do it again now.
When he reached the bottom of the trail he found Jim Morgan, the deputy he had met when he arrived, still guarding the way in. He had been joined by three others.
“Still at it, I see,” Harry said. “Where are the reporters?”
“They’re being held at the main gate.” Morgan grinned. “We’ve had a dozen or so try to sneak in through the brush, but it’s so thick we could hear ’em coming a hundred yards off. Then one of them stepped on a rattler and we ended up calling in the rescue squad. Didn’t stop the others from trying, though.”
“How’s the snake?” Harry asked.
Morgan laughed. “Probably died.”
Harry made his way to the car and headed up to the education center to reconnect with Vicky. He found her in an office with the elderly bird watcher who had discovered the body and the park ranger who had been first on the scene. He introduced himself, thanked them for their help, and then took Vicky out into the hall.
“Anything worthwhile?” he asked.
“I interviewed everybody who was working here today and no one remembers seeing anything unusual,” Vicky began. “The woman who found the body isn’t much help either. All she can remember is seeing the leg sticking out from behind the cypress stump. She may remember something later when she calms down, though right now she’s so shaken she can hardly remember her own name. But the park ranger remembered something interesting.”
“How so?”
“Three or four days ago he noticed that somebody else had driven into the same area, and went all the way back to where the body was found. It’s rained a lot since then, so those tracks are probably gone. But he said it’s really unusual to have somebody drive in on one of the trails. There are signs letting people know they are off limits to vehicles, and getting caught on one gets you a citation. It’s also pretty easy to go too far and get stuck. He checked it out when he saw those earlier tracks, but whoever had driven in there had already left.”
“So it could have been the perp scouting the area,” Harry said.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Harry paused to consider what Vicky had said. “We need a list of everyone who’s worked here in the past year,” he said at length. “Paid employees, volunteers, everybody. It could have been somebody who knew the patrol routine, knew when he could drive in with the least chance of being seen.”
“And then did a test run to be sure,” Vicky said.
Harry nodded, then paused again. “Damn, I wish we had that second set of tracks to compare to the ones there now.”
“It would be nice,” Vicky said.
“We better tell the CSI techs to look for old tracks, just in case there are traces still there,” Harry said. “Even a partial would help. Then we could be reasonably sure our perp was here earlier getting the lay of the land. And that would increase the chances that somebody saw him.”
“We can stop and talk to them on the way out of here,” Vicky said. “Speaking of which, where do we go from here? Darlene’s home?”
“You got it. We search her place, and we talk to her neighbors; start putting together a list of her friends, relatives, lovers, anybody we can find out about. Then I want to check out that empty book of matches we found on the trail.”
You mean the bar in Tampa?”
Harry nodded.
“The topless bar in Tampa?”
Harry gave a small shrug and fought to hold a deadpan expression. “Sorry, but a good detective has to go where the evidence leads him.”
“Yeah,” Vicky said, her voice turning mildly sarcastic. “And sometimes it’s even fun.” She gave him a long look. “This time it will be more fun for you than for me.”
CHAPTER THREE
Harry knew from newspaper accounts of her trial that Darlene Beckett lived in Tampa, but since no ID was found on her body he called in and asked for a computer check of the sex offender’s registry to get a current home address. A computer technician radioed back five minutes later, and as the information came through the radio’s speaker, Vicky noticed Harry’s hands visibly tighten on the steering wheel. She resisted her natural curiosity and just stored the information away.
The place that Darlene Beckett had called home turned out to be a slightly rundown garden apartment complex in northern Tampa, a mixed neighborhood both racially and economically with a smattering of college students thrown in from the nearby University of South Florida.
The apartment was a half hour drive from the Brooker Creek Preserve and throughout the trip Harry hadn’t spoken a word. Again, Vicky said nothing. She simply concentrated on the passing scenery.
“Darlene wasn’t exactly living high, was she?” Vicky observed as they pulled up in front of the address listed on the registry. It was an end unit in a two-story apartment building, one of four built in a square surrounding a central green. Each apartment had its own entrance, driveway, and garage, making them seem more like town houses. The original intention was a quaint village effect, but the buildings’ white painted bricks were now flaking badly, and the grass front yards of several units had patches of heat-hardened earth showing through. Darlene’s was simply overgrown and dotted with weeds.
They tried the front and rear doors, found them locked, and located the building super, a short Latino about thirty years old with a ragged goatee and cynical eyes. He answered their questions, telling them the little he knew about Darlene. When told she was dead he simply shrugged, and asked when her apartment could be shown to prospective tenants.
“Nobody goes in until the crime scene tape is taken down,” Harry said, nodding to the roll of yellow tape Vicky carried.
The super, who had given his name as Juan Vasquez, sneered at the answer. “Owner’s gonna want it rented. Gonna be all over my ass about it.”
“Anybody goes in before the tape comes down they get busted,” Vicky said. “You tell the owner that goes for him too. In fact, you tell him he sees the tape’s down he better call us anyway. Make sure it was us who took it down.”
The warning produced another sneer. “Doan know why anybody gives a shit. Broad was nothin’. Jus’ a fuckin’ short eyes.”
Harry noted the prison term for a child molester and looked at the man more closely. Detecting something at the bottom edge of his T-shirt sleeve, he reached out and raised it, exposing a crude prison tattoo of a dagger piercing a heart. “Where’d you do your bit?” Harry asked.
Juan stared up at him. He was short and stocky with a swarthy complexion and dark brown eyes. His mouth twisted into a sneer that held a lifetime of hard-earned cynicism. He looked away and shook his head.
“Up north. New York.” He shook his head again. “So now I’m a fuckin’ suspect.”
Vicky took a step forward. “Hey, Juan, it’s like they say on TV. Everybody’s a suspect.” She gave him an innocent smile, and then let her eyes slowly harden. “So fish out your driver’s license.”