“I totally understand, though I appreciated your offer to bring an approved absence letter from the sheriff for your missed appointment.”
“I thought you’d be impressed.”
“Now, of course, I know why you couldn’t make it. Congratulations on solving the Sabrina Morton case.”
“Sorry I didn’t return your call—it’s been chaos since the news broke.”
“No worries.” Mitch glanced at Clayton, who was still absorbed in his magazine, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t believe it was deputies who raped and killed her.”
“It’s been hard for all of us to accept.”
“I was horrified to hear about what happened in your house.”
“Yeah, I didn’t see that coming.”
“And yet after that horrible experience, and your car accident, you still came in to work?” He looked at her, incredulous.
“I’m not good at relaxing.”
“That’s the understatement of the century,” Mitch said. Eve finished her last set of exercises. “How’s your wrist?”
“It actually feels better.”
“Good.” Mitch took a rubber ball out of his bag and put it in her hand. “Let’s try it with the ball.”
Eve started doing the same exercises while gripping the ball. “This isn’t going to be made public until later today, but we found Kendra Leigh yesterday. Her skeleton was in the brush near the Backbone Trail. She didn’t have any ID, jewelry, or her phone on her.”
“That’s so sad. How do you know it’s her?”
“From her hip replacement. We identified Sabrina Morton and Debbie Crawford, the two charred skeletons we found in Hueso Canyon, from their surgical implants, too. We traced the serial numbers on the devices back to their surgeons, who gave us their names.”
“That makes things easy for you. It seems like just about everybody has implants of some kind these days.”
“I don’t.”
“Not for lack of trying. Look at you.”
“Good point.” Eve’s phone vibrated. She picked it up and glanced at the screen. It was a thumbs-up emoji and three photos from Duncan. She set the phone facedown on the table. Mitch gestured to her phone.
“Good news?”
“It’s a big break. We found some of the jewelry belonging to the three dead women.”
“Where?”
“I really shouldn’t be talking about my cases, but I think you might be able to give me some professional insight into this.”
“I’ll be glad to help any way I can.”
“I’m glad to hear that. The women all had different surgeons but they all shared one thing in common. The same physical therapist.” Eve dropped the ball, let it bounce on the floor, and caught it again. “You, Mitch.”
He smiled. “You’re joking.”
It had all come together for Eve after she met the patient with two broken arms in the Ventura hospital corridor and he told her that he was facing months of grueling physical therapy. In that moment, she remembered that all three of the dead women were in physical therapy before their disappearances because they’d all recently had orthopedic surgery. That was why the ME had been able to identify the women from the serial numbers on their implants. Then Eve thought about the deputy she’d left outside her hospital room to guard her “valuables” while she took her stroll down the corridor. That was when she recalled that no jewelry belonging to the dead women had been recovered with their remains, which were all found in canyons near the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. After realizing all that, it only took a few calls for Eve to discover the most important thing that the three murder victims had in common: a local physical therapist who was willing to visit his patients at their homes.
Mitch Sawyer.
Now Eve looked him in the eye. “I’m arresting you for the murders of Sabrina Morton, Debbie Crawford, and Kendra Leigh.”
She read Mitch his rights. He leaned back in his chair as she spoke and glanced over at Clayton, who’d put down his magazine at some point and now had his hand resting on his holstered gun. Mitch was oddly cool, considering that he’d just been accused of being a serial killer. She knew an innocent person in his position would be furious or panicked.
When Eve was finished, she asked: “Do you understand your rights, Mitch?”
“Yes, but this is ridiculous. I have patients all over Calabasas, Malibu, Agoura, Westlake, and Thousand Oaks,” Mitch said. “It’s a coincidence that those three women were my patients, just like it’s a coincidence that I’m treating you, the homicide detective who is investigating their murders.”
“I thought so, too. There’s just one problem, Mitch. We got a warrant to search your house. That’s what my partner has been doing while you’ve been here. Look what he’s found.” Eve picked up her phone and showed Mitch the pictures of Sabrina’s Tiffany necklace, Debbie’s turquoise necklace, and Kendra’s cross. “The missing jewelry.”
“That’s not what it looks like. Those were gifts.”
“They gave you their favorite jewelry?”
“My patients love me. They always want to give me something, so I ask for anything that they think expresses their personalities and means as much to them as I do. Most of the time, it’s pieces of jewelry.”
Eve thought it was a good thing she’d already vomited that morning and hadn’t eaten anything since, or Mitch’s explanation might have made her lurch over a garbage can again.
“I think you made house calls on these women, providing them with physical therapy for their recent surgeries, and maybe you thought they wanted something more. But you were wrong. They rejected you and that pissed you off. These were rage killings.”
“C’mon, Eve. That’s not me. Ask Lisa. She’ll tell you what a nice, sensitive guy I am.”
“My sister doesn’t know you like I do.”
“She knows me better. She’s slept with me. I’m not somebody who needs to hit on his patients to get laid.”
“Maybe that’s why you were enraged when they said no. You killed the women, kept a piece of their jewelry as a souvenir, and dumped their bodies in the nearest canyon.”
“You must’ve sustained serious damage to your head in that accident, because you’ve forgotten that a few days ago, you stood in front of this building and told the world that three deputies raped and killed Sabrina Morton. You were certain of it. The sheriff even said the evidence was indisputable.”
“The deputies raped her, there’s no doubt about that, but they didn’t kill her. You did.”
“Make up your mind. Yesterday it was deputies, today it’s me. Who is it going to be tomorrow? Or the day after that?”
“We know for certain it was you. When you took the bodies from the homes, you wisely left the women’s phones behind. But you forgot about your own. A phone is basically a fancy tracking device, constantly following all of your movements. Here’s a nasty little secret: your cellular provider keeps that data forever. We got a search warrant for yours. On the day each woman disappeared, we can track you from their homes to the spots where you dumped their bodies. Or is that just another coincidence?”
Eve bounced the ball and caught it again. Mitch crossed his arms over his chest and slumped in his seat. “I want a lawyer.”
“We’re not stopping our investigation here, Mitch. We’re going to dig into your entire past. How many other women have you killed?” Eve saw a twitch in his cheek. A tell. “You can save yourself from the needle by cutting a deal now. The truth for your life.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. We’re done,” Mitch said. “I want a lawyer.”
“Okay. Get facedown on the floor, put your hands out in front of you. Deputy Clayton is going to take you into custody.”
Mitch did as he was told.
Clayton got up, went over to Mitch, dropped a knee on the center of his back to keep him down, and handcuffed him. The deputy pulled Mitch to his feet.
Mitch sneered at Eve. “Your sis
ter was a mercy fuck.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Eve said. “She ordinarily goes for doctors, not orderlies. She must have taken pity on you.”
Mitch lunged for Eve but Clayton yanked him back and dragged him out of the room. Eve bounced the ball, caught it again, and wondered how she was going to tell her sister about this.
Shortly after Mitch was booked, Eve went to her cubicle and called Scott Peck, the reporter at the Acorn.
“This is Eve Ronin,” she said. “I have an exclusive for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“Because I was wrong for giving you a hard time at the Hueso Canyon crime scene when you asked me if we were looking for a serial killer.”
“Were you?”
“No, we weren’t. But we should have been, because you were right, Scott. All three women were killed by the same man and we just arrested him.”
“All three? There’s a third victim?”
Eve could feel his excitement through the phone as she gave him the details and he asked her questions. He knew this could be the story that finally launched him into major league journalism. She hoped he was right.
Peck’s last question was the big one, at least for her. “Are we on the record? Can I quote you by name on this?”
Eve knew that if she did, it would make Sheriff Lansing furious. But this time, she wanted to be the one to tell her story, without the hoopla and the spin. She didn’t want to be portrayed as a supercop, but rather as the flawed, inexperienced rookie that she was.
That was when it occurred to her that she’d given the story a spin after all. She was such a hypocrite, as if she needed more proof of that.
“Yes, you can use my name, but give me an hour to call the sheriff before you call him for comment or post the news on the Acorn website.”
“You called me before him?”
“That part is off the record,” she said.
When she finished the call, she got up and went down the hall to Captain Moffett’s office to tell him that she’d solved the murders of three women but that they’d have to drop the homicide charges against the three deputies.
Moffett didn’t take it well. While he was glad to hear that three homicide cases were closed with one arrest, he was afraid that the good news would only slightly mitigate the major embarrassment of having to drop the homicide charges against Towler, Harding, and Frankel that they’d announced with such fanfare.
She left it to him to brief Lansing and Burnside on everything and walked out, using the excuse that she was about to collapse from pain and exhaustion. It wasn’t hard to convince him of that because it was true.
Deputy Clayton drove her back to the Hilton Garden Inn and then remained in the lobby to keep watch over her.
Eve managed to time things perfectly. She was already in bed, knocked out cold by painkillers, with her room phone unplugged and her iPhone off, when Moffett and Lansing got calls from the Acorn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Three days later, early in the morning, Eve sat in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn at a table with Linwood Taggert and signed a representation agreement with CAA. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but her bills were piling up fast and she was expecting to face huge legal fees to defend herself from the inevitable lawsuit from Pruitt’s widow. Eve needed the money from a Hollywood deal.
Taggert shook her hand, took back his gold pen, and gathered up the contract. “This is very exciting and things should start coming together fast. I’ve already got a short list of showrunners and leading ladies to package you with. I’ll get you DVDs, scripts, and credits to look at tonight.”
“It’s too soon to talk about actors. The most important thing to me is the script. If I don’t like it, there’s no show. I want creative control. That has to be clear from the outset with any writer we get into business with.”
“Top showrunners will balk at that. It’s going to be a hard sell.”
“That’s why I have a big shot agent.”
“You’re not going to make my job easy, are you? I like that. Make me earn my commission. I’ll set up some get-to-know-you meetings with showrunners this week.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m having lunch with Simone Harper tomorrow. I’ve got a good feeling about her.”
“She’s a very talented writer and producer, but she’s not one of our clients.”
“Why should I care?”
“Because you’re part of the CAA family now.”
“I’ve already got a family.”
That was when Duncan came in, spotted Eve, and ambled over. “Are they still serving the breakfast buffet?”
“Help yourself,” Eve said. “Duncan, this is Linwood Taggert, my new agent.”
Taggert stood up and shook Duncan’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Brad Pitt would be great as me. See what you can do about that, Lin.” Duncan patted him on the back and headed for the buffet.
Taggert smiled and turned back to Eve. “He’s quite a character.”
“So is everybody in my life now, including me. That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“Champagne problems,” Taggert said and went outside to his Bentley, which he’d parked in the handicapped spot. Before Duncan came in, Eve saw her partner slip a parking ticket under Taggert’s windshield wiper.
Duncan joined Eve with a mug of coffee and a plate piled high with microwaved scrambled eggs, microwaved bacon, microwaved waffles, and a defrosted blueberry muffin. “Aren’t you eating?”
“I already had some fruit and yogurt.”
“That’s sickening.” Duncan sat down.
She knew that he’d been busy over the last few days, going through Mitch Sawyer’s patient files to see if there were any more murder victims in his past. So far, no more victims had emerged, but it was still early in the investigation and Burnside was putting together a task force of her own to look into it. Eve was sure they would find at least one more victim, perhaps a woman who hadn’t been one of his patients.
“So you’re finally going Hollywood,” Duncan said.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m coming back to work on Monday. I’m selling out for the money.”
“Why not? You’ve already got the fame and the sex.”
She certainly had the fame. Catching a serial killer and arresting three deputies in a cold rape case had made her a hero in the media again, despite her own efforts to cast herself as a flawed individual, the lingering questions about her role in Pruitt’s suicide, and the murder charges that were dropped against Towler, Harding, and Frankel.
“What makes you think I have the sex?” she asked.
“I saw Daniel’s car leaving when I drove in.”
“He’s off to Tarawa, some atoll out in the South Pacific, for two months.”
“Why don’t you go with him for a while? You must have a bunch of vacation time and sick leave left.”
“It’s not a tropical resort. It’s a project to exhume and identify the remains of hundreds of American soldiers who were killed in a battle against thousands of Japanese soldiers and Korean slaves in 1943. When the anthropologists aren’t working, they’ll be living in tents, fighting off mosquitos, and digging latrines.”
“You should still take a vacation.”
“This week of sick leave that’s been forced on me is plenty, thanks. I’d come back to work tomorrow if I could.” The bruise on her chest was turning greenish yellow now, which she assumed was an improvement, but it still felt like she had shards of broken glass inside and just about every move she made caused her some pain. She was eager to get back to her job, even though she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to entirely trust the deputies around her.
Duncan’s efforts to find the deputies who tried to kill her in Ventura were going nowhere, mainly because it was a one-man investigation. Neither Lansing nor Moffett were eager to devote manpower and resources to an internal investigation that would inevitably cr
eate another embarrassing scandal for the department and put Eve on a pedestal yet again. Duncan had also heard that Lansing had applied pressure to his counterparts in Ventura County to make sure the case wasn’t a priority for them, either.
“You can’t keep going on this way,” Duncan said. “You’re too driven. You’re all about the case to the exclusion of everything else. Well, I’m telling you that lifestyle will kill you. One way or another. You’ll start making some big mistakes.”
“I’m already making big mistakes.”
“I’m not talking about your work. You solved a cold case rape from six years ago and three murders. Those weren’t mistakes. That was skill.”
Eve shook her head. “Nakamura was right about me. I made the evidence fit my theory of the case and I missed the pattern that was in front of my eyes. The real killer almost got away with it.”
“But he didn’t.”
“But he could have.”
“But he didn’t. That’s all that matters. You’re always going to make mistakes in an investigation, especially when you’re new. It’s called ‘learning from experience.’ I’m not worried about your skills as a detective. You’ve got a gift. I’m worried about your skills as a person.”
“You’re saying I’m a terrible person?”
“You’re not evil,” Duncan said. “You’re just self-destructive and not very likable.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You can’t be a loner on this job. You have to rely on others. It’s not you against the world. That means making friends and establishing trust.”
“But you’re the only one I trust,” she said, though that wasn’t entirely true. Deputies Ross, Clayton, and a handful of others had taken turns during their off-duty time protecting her, right up until this morning, when she’d politely sent them away. She appreciated their concern for her and the visible show of support, but she didn’t want a security detail anymore, volunteer or otherwise.
“That’s going to be a problem for you because I’m retiring soon,” Duncan said. “I’m not going to be around to watch your back.”
“You could watch my fictional back.”
“I don’t understand.”
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