Russell handed Thackrey a phone.
“Am I old boyfriend or eager suitor?” Thackrey asked.
Russell jumped to answer. “Old boyfriend.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Victor said. “Haven’t we resolved enough of Ben’s issues with women for one night? Let’s just get this over with.”
Thackrey peered at the phone screen. “Do I need to enter one of your Hong Kong prep school passwords? Which one was it? The King George School?”
“Give it a rest, Ben,” Russell said. Checking his reflection in the car window, he pinched a wave in his hair.
Thackrey typed Stacie’s number on the keypad and tapped the phone icon. The call was picked up on the third ring. Thackrey put it on speaker.
“Hello?” The voice was high and impatient.
“Hey, Stacie.” Thackrey balanced the phone in his fingertips. “How’s it going?”
“I’m sorry. Who’s this?”
“It’s me. The one who was shtupping you before Brian.”
“What’d you say? Jerry?”
“I miss our nights listening to Bruno Mars and watching Sandra Bullock movies.”
The voice was more cautious now. “Do I know you?”
Thackrey consulted the Facebook page. “How’s Mister Tingles?”
Russell laughed. “Is that a pet?”
“What is this?” Stacie asked. “Who else is there?”
Thackrey mugged a look of surprise. “You look great, by the way. Is that scarf a Fendi?”
“In her dreams,” Russell said.
The phone went silent.
“If this is supposed to be a joke, it’s not funny,” Stacie said after a few seconds.
Russell held up one hand. “No joke. Five points.”
“But you really should take better care of yourself, young lady.” Thackrey wagged a scolding finger in the air. “You drive that little Mazda way too fast.”
Across the parking lot, they could see Stacie come out the front of the Quik Mart, looking at the other cars. “Where are you?”
Thackrey watched Stacie through the windshield. Women amused him, until they bored him to death. And there always seemed to be something that needed cleaning up. “And how really safe are River View Apartments? Every time I was there, I worried about the deadbolt. Come on—all it takes is a couple of tweekers following you home one night. With a tension wrench, they’d be inside. I could be in there right now, for all you know.”
“Listen, you sick jerk…” Her voice rose. “I’m calling the police right now and have them trace this call.”
Russell’s hand went up again. “Police. Ten points.”
“Do you still look under the bed before you go to sleep?” Thackrey put his mouth close to the phone. “You really should from now on. We’ll be there next time.”
“Fuck you,” Stacie said.
Russell slapped the seat-back. “F-word. Five points.”
“The problem is, you need to be less stupid if you don’t want to get hurt. That’s going to be a problem for you, isn’t it, Stacie?”
“Fuck you.” She hung up and shoved the phone in her pocket.
“Five more,” Russell said.
Stacie pointed her remote lock at the Mazda, and the horn blared again. She jumped in and gunned the car out of the lot.
“Fifteen, love, front seat,” Thackrey said. “Second set.”
Victor watched Stacie’s car roar down the street. “Now can we stop screwing around and get out of here?”
Thackrey held up the phone for Russell and exchanged it for the plastic bag. “We’ll talk about what comes next. First let’s order that trunk liner.”
Chapter Four
(i)
(TUESDAY, 11:07 A.M.)
Mahler walked into the VCI room and took his usual spot on the wall where he leaned against the filing cabinets. The other detectives turned their chairs to face a whiteboard.
Taped to a corner of the board were two color photos of the latest homicide victim, one showing the length of her body on the bench, the other a close-up of her face. Under the photos in red marker was: Jane Doe, Spring Lake, Violetti Gate, 10/19. Beneath that, someone had written: Connection to 2017 Homicides? Next Victim = Time of Death Plus 72 Hours.
In the past year, without being fully aware of it, Mahler had begun to doubt the business of detection—crime-scene evidence, eyewitness testimony, database patterns—the things that were supposed to identify a suspect. The two earlier homicide victims took with them to the next world not only every trace of their killer but also Mahler’s belief that any killer could be found. Facts, he discovered, were useless without faith in them, and he’d lost his, as another man might lose faith in his religion or his god.
He looked across the room. For a major homicide investigation, the group was an untested squad. Rivas and Coyle had been through important cases before, but Eden and Frames were new to VCI. This would be the first major case he’d lead with his new agnosticism. How long before one of them noticed he was racing the clock with tools he no longer trusted?
Rivas took a file from his desk and handed it to Mahler. “Two pounds of meth in Peña’s house. A nine mil that looks like a match for the weapon used to kill Castillo Saturday night. Mike took in the cousin and uncle for possession. Arraignment on Thursday. Gang Crimes is waiting to see if they want to talk.”
Mahler scanned the first page of the file and handed it back. “If Peña talks, make sure Mike gives you a call. We might clear a few other cases while we’re at it. Any problems?”
“Peña pulled a gun.” The room went quiet. Rivas shrugged. “We took care of it.”
Mahler waited to see if Rivas would say more. Threatening situations brought out different reactions. Some officers responded with bluster; others kept it to themselves. Rivas was usually a joker, underplaying the gravity with a wisecrack. A year earlier, when a teenage drug dealer had fired two rounds during an arrest, Rivas had said his weight-loss regimen made him a smaller target.
Now something new in his manner caught Mahler’s attention. He made a mental note to talk to Rivas when they were alone. “Do we have a crime-scene report on our Jane Doe?”
Coyle looked at his laptop. “Shoe prints on the path from the parking lot to the victim. Still trying to sort them out. No usable fingerprints on the wooden seat or seat back. No indications the body was dragged. Blood on the bench and the ground under it. We’re waiting on analysis, but it’s probably the victim’s.”
“Blanket’s a Pendleton brand.” Coyle scrolled further down the screen. “What the company calls Eco-wise wool. Southwestern Red. King size. Can be purchased at a store here in town, in any of five other retail outlets in California, or online. They sell about five thousand a year. Hair fibers on the blanket are canine.”
“Does everyone in this town have a dog?” Frames asked.
Coyle smiled. “I’ll bet Animal Services would let you adopt those two puppies you were playing with this morning.”
“Tell me about the victim,” Mahler said.
Coyle looked back at his screen. “Five ten. One thirty-two.”
“Which makes her a little taller than the girls two years ago,” Rivas said. Nicknamed Señor Database, he was renowned in the department for his memory, able to recall MOs, known associates, and crime-scene details from twenty years before.
“Some makeup—eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick.” Coyle read the words as if they were in a foreign language. “No tattoos or body piercings. Evidence of old scarring on her forearms and ankles.”
“She was a cutter,” Eden said. “What about her clothes?”
“Navy silk blouse,” Coyle read on his screen. “Blood on the back, probably her own. Sixteen-inch black skirt. Black underwear. No shoes.”
“It’s an aggressive look.”
Frames turned in his chair. “So what’re you saying there, Eden? She’s a pro?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. But that’s a short skirt. It’s a look.”
“You mean for the East Coast?”
“I mean for anywhere. With the makeup and clothes, it’s like she’s dressing up for something.”
Mahler watched the intensity with which Eden leaned toward the whiteboard. Maybe this is what you get when you hire a former FBI analyst.
“It was Monday night,” Rivas said. “Who dresses up on Monday?”
“Viejo.” Frames laughed. “Not all of us go home to watch Wheel of Fortune.”
“And one weird thing,” Coyle said. “Techs found something written in black ballpoint ink on the inside of her left calf. Difficult to read, but it looks like eight words: To take into the air my quiet breath. Whatever that means.”
Eden raised her hand. “Wait, I know it. It’s a quote. One of those things we had to memorize at boarding school. What’s-his-name, you know, Keats.” She worked the screen on her phone. “Yeah. ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ verse six.”
Frames whistled. “Narrow the search to English majors.”
“No, but the quote’s about death, losing your breath. If she was strangled, it might tell us something about that.”
“We don’t have cause of death,” Coyle said.
“We also don’t know if it was written by the victim herself, whoever killed her, or someone else,” Rivas said.
“Okay, okay.” Eden sighed. “But if the victim wrote the words, it could tell us something about how she was killed or who she was. Habitual skin-writing might be a symptom of depression or bipolar disorder.”
It was always like this at the start, Mahler thought. Lots of ideas. No one knowing which detail would turn out to be important. In most cases, the veteran homicide cop Woodhouse once told him, you find a shell casing or fingerprint and you’re done. Makes you think the answers will always be there, leaves you unprepared for the ones that are nothing but being lost in a dark woods. “I think we’re getting ahead of the real evidence.” He looked at Eden. “Did you do what I told you with the press release?”
“Yes, sir. A physical description of the victim went up on the department’s website at eight fifteen.” She handed him a paper copy. “Press release to the media at the same time. Phone number and email address for anonymous tips. So far, we’ve got twelve hits on the website and five calls.”
“Get through the tips as fast as you can. Keep a log of everything. I’ll arrange for some patrol officers to start on it.”
“I don’t suppose anyone’s found what was used to hit her?” Frames asked.
Coyle shook his head. “Nothing at the crime scene yet. When Trish does her exam, we might know more.”
“Why’s the victim there?” Rivas asked. The others turned to look at him. “It was a lot of work, right? Carrying the body would take two strong men. They have to get past the locked gate. I mean, there are a million easier places to leave her.”
Frames pointed to the photos on the whiteboard. “Whoever did it wanted her to be found there.”
“If it’s Partridge, he’s showing us he’s starting again in the same place,” Coyle said.
Mahler frowned. “Partridge’s a thin guy. He couldn’t have carried her. In 2017, we figured both women were killed where we found them.”
“Maybe he had help,” Frames said. “Or he’s changed his pattern.”
“Serial killers don’t change patterns,” Eden said.
“How do you know?”
“Statistics.”
Coyle rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”
“What do you have against data?” Eden turned in her chair to face him. “You don’t think data can help solve cases?”
“Maybe for the FBI. Maybe for national cases. We’re a small town. We don’t have a lot of data.”
Eden looked back at the victim’s photo. “Anyway, what’s interesting here is the killer’s arrogance. It’s like someone’s saying: Look, I can do this. I can put this woman here.”
Mahler stood in front of the whiteboard. “All right. Let’s find some facts. Martin, talk to the parks people and get the video feed from the surveillance camera at the Violetti Gate. We should also have something by now from the uniforms’ canvass of the campers and neighbors. Steve, talk to whoever’s in charge of that. Daniel, take a look in ViCAP for any similar homicides like this in the Bay Area. Check Missing Persons, and look into that famous memory of yours and tell me if any of the guys we’ve picked up in the last couple of years for assault and sexual offenses might be good for this.”
“What about Partridge?” Rivas asked.
“His lawyer’s bringing him in at one thirty.” Mahler looked around the room. His gaze settled on Eden. “Eden and I’ll talk to him. Let’s meet back here at five, and I want to hear something new.”
(ii)
(TUESDAY, 11:38 A.M.)
Police Chief William Truro stood behind the desk with his back to Mahler, looking out the broad windows that wrapped around his corner office. He wore a stiffly pressed white shirt and dress trousers. The window faced a busy intersection, and the chief appeared to be watching something on the street below. Only three months into the job, Truro was young for a chief, ten years younger than Mahler. He had been recruited from a department in a Seattle suburb.
Mahler shifted in his chair and waited.
Truro, still referred to as the “new chief,” was a departure from his predecessor—an ex-Army MP, up-from-the-ranks officer named Frank Stone. Stone’s hair had been chopped in a buzz cut, and his face had held a permanent flush of frustration. He had been a desk pounder with the same loud bark in a public auditorium as beside you in the hallway. By contrast, Truro was contained, cautious, and given to long pauses in conversation.
Mahler checked his watch. How long was he supposed to wait? He was wasting time. He felt again the churning sensation that awakened him in the night. Adrenaline charged through his veins. If he had any doubt about his nighttime experience, he was sure now. His doctor called the sensation pre-migrainous excitement, an early symptom of an impending migraine. You’ll get to know the signs, the doctor said. Once you do, that’s a signal you’re about to have another one.
“Still getting those headaches, Eddie?” Truro asked without turning.
“Sometimes,” Mahler said, not wanting to get caught up in a conversation about headaches when he knew the meeting’s agenda.
“I’ve never had one, but I understand the pain is tremendous. Jen says you should try magnesium supplements. Apparently magnesium relaxes the blood vessels in the brain.”
“Yes, sir.” No sense disagreeing. Men hated for another man to challenge their wives. Mahler stared at the polished, empty surface of Truro’s desk. Was Truro a next-generation no-paper guy? Everything stored on his phone, in the cloud?
Truro swung around to look at Mahler. “Mayor Ransom was just in here. Very intense woman. Do you know Marsha?”
“I’ve met her a few times.” Here comes the message, Mahler thought.
Truro smiled. “I like her energy. Great to work with, gets things done.” He sat and pulled himself to his desk. “Marsha’s concerned about this murder in the park. Thinks we should let the public know we’re on top of it. Press conference, community meeting, special task force—allay the public’s fears. That sort of thing. What do you think?”
“A press conference is probably a good idea, at least to confront the misinformation on social media, but we’ll need to be cautious. I don’t think we need a special task force. I could use a few more officers, on a temporary basis, to look at back cases and follow leads.”
Truro did not seem to hear him. “You know, Eddie, a crime like this—a homicide in a park—does a terrible thing to a community. Breaks the social compact. Takes awa
y the sense of safety the public feels entitled to.”
Mahler nodded. This was the reason he was in the room. Truro was trying out a speech on him. He thought again of the early symptoms of migraine. He could buy himself a few more hours with ibuprofen. Four hundred milligrams every six hours. A bottle of pills sat on his desk, which, unlike the chief’s, was cluttered with folders and uneven piles of paper.
“This kind of case defines a department and its leaders,” Truro continued. “I’ve seen it in other cities. It’s what they all remember years afterward, no matter what else you do. What’s your caseload like?”
“We suspended all other cases. We’re on round-the-clock.”
“On this kind of homicide, what’s your average time-to-arrest?”
Mahler shrugged. “Varies. Sometimes it happens right away, other times longer.”
“On average. Realistically?”
“Couple of weeks, maybe longer.”
Truro studied Mahler’s face. “You all right? You look a little pale.”
It’s called white migraine. “I’m fine.”
Truro seemed to accept that. “I understand you were the lead investigator on the homicides in the same park two years ago. You get all the support you needed from this office?”
Right up to the betrayal. In his mind, Mahler saw the TV4 reporter waiting in a chair outside the chief’s office. “Chief Stone took an active part.”
“How about you? No judgments in hindsight, of course. But all of us can learn from the past. Anything you’d do differently?”
“I don’t think so, sir.” This time Mahler felt the shortness of his answer. He remembered Coyle’s two columns on that whiteboard, one for each girl. The spontaneous memorials at the crime scenes: candles, construction paper hearts, stuffed bears. The news footage of Susan Hart’s father, a thick, doughy-faced man, climbing to the podium at the funeral, unfolding a single sheet of paper, looking out at the faces, and the first thing from his mouth a cry of pain like an animal sound.
The Silenced Women Page 3