by Alton Gansky
Bud glanced at her. “I said almost.” He pulled onto the 282 and started for the blue bridge that linked Coronado proper with San Diego. “So what then? You think he knows Cohen?”
“I doubt it. There’s something else. Something eating at him.”
“Cuz if you think he might be tied in, we could get a couple of warrants and search his boat and his condo.”
“We might have trouble with that. We don’t have a connection. Not yet, anyway.”
Carmen’s cell phone sounded. “Rainmondi.”
“Officer Heywood here, Detective.”
“Found something on the video?”
“Not yet, and I’m doubtful we will, but I’ll keep at it. I’m calling to tell you CHP has found Cohen’s car.”
Carmen had issued a BOLO shortly after identifying Cohen. There was one out for Doug Lindsey’s Volkswagen Beetle, too. The “be on the lookout” went to all law enforcement organizations.
“Where?”
“Near Temecula.”
Carmen muttered a curse. “Okay, give me the location.” She listened. “Rainbow? That’s south of Temecula, right?”
“Yes, it’s more a village than a town.”
“You sound like you’ve been there, Heywood.”
“I broke down there once. It’s a long and boring story. I’ll let the Chippers know you’re on your way. Just so you know, they said there’s not much left. It’s been stripped.”
“Thanks.”
Bud glanced at Carmen and raised an eyebrow. “Temecula?”
“Yep. Well, Rainbow. Ever heard of it?”
“I have. It’s a berg that used to be important back in the days when the old 395 ran by there. The I-15 has pretty much bypassed the place.”
“They found Cohen’s car. What’s left of it. We got an hour’s drive or so, depending on traffic.”
“You know . . .”
Carmen closed her eyes. “Don’t tell me. You know a great place to eat in Rainbow.”
“Nope. See? You don’t know me as well as you think.” A second later, “It’s in Temecula. Mexican place. They have sopaipillas.”
“Do they have beans?”
“Of course.”
“Then we’re not going.”
San Diego was in one of its rare moods: northbound traffic was light and the ever-present construction in north county had turned traffic friendly. Returning to the city might be more difficult. Traffic in San Diego was fickle.
Rainbow was a tiny community of two thousand. Most of the homes were World War II era. An old filling station waited just off the side road that joined the I-15 to the community. The buildings looked ready to collapse. Rust covered the metal pole that held a sign that once beckoned travelers to fill up their twenty-gallon tanks so their large V-8s could swill down the juice at twelve miles to the gallon. Carmen could imagine the place and the deserted diner nearby once surrounded by station wagons, Ramblers, and Fords, all with hoods large enough to serve as a landing pad for a helicopter. Only ghosts visited the sites now.
The homes and small businesses were a mixture of well-tended structures situated on large lots next to rundown houses that hadn’t seen a coat of paint since Reagan occupied the Oval Office.
The GPS unit in the dash of the Crown Vic led the detectives to the eastern-most part of the town—a place with metal buildings that had once served the orchard ranchers in the area. Their road ended in a junkyard at the foot of a mesquite-covered hill. A black-and-white California Highway Patrol car was parked next to a chain-link fence that looked ready to topple any moment. The officer was a woman with brownish-blonde hair. She stood about five-foot-six and had a fair complexion. Carmen thought her pretty but not movie-star gorgeous. The officer exited her patrol car when Carmen and Bud pulled up.
“I take it you’re the investigators from San Diego?” Her no-nonsense way with her words wasn’t unusual for a cop. They sized up most everyone they spoke to. In the field, the goal was to separate friend from foe. With others of the profession, it was to establish professionalism and determine the pecking order.
Carmen nodded. “Carmen Rainmondi, homicide. This is my partner, Detective Bud Tock.”
“Lilly Carr.” Lilly looked to be under thirty. They shook hands.
“What have we got?” Bud seemed eager.
“We have the remains of a 2012 Lexus LS.” The officer started for a gate in the rickety fence. “At one time it was a luxury car. Sixty or seventy thousand dollars. I ID-ed it by the chassis number.”
Carmen frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s just a heap, now, Detective. This is a dumping spot for strip shops in the area. It’s far enough off the beaten bath to avoid observation. We patrol the community, but not much. Usually, we show up here if someone calls.”
“No LEOs?”
Lily shook her head in answer to Bud’s question. “Too little population to pay for a local sheriff. Technically, this place isn’t even a town, just a Census Area. County sheriff has the responsibility, but we have patrol privileges. It’s one of those handshake things. They handle crime; we deal with transportation and traffic.”
Carr led them through the gate. “Auto strippers pay some flunky to do the drop off. Even if we catch him, he knows nothing about the operation. Anyway, I got to thinking that someone might have dropped your vic’s car here. It was a one-in-a-million shot, but it paid off.”
“You’d be surprised how often a one-in-a-million shot does so.” Bud shrugged. “Luck is the part of police work no one talks about.”
“There’s no lock on the gate,” Carmen said.
“Hasn’t been one for years. Wouldn’t matter. The car thieves just bring bolt cutters.”
“Who owns the place?” Carmen glanced around. The place was a graveyard for once-dignified cars. Most were old models looking for someone to recycle them into something useful; others were just chassis, the remains of stripped luxury or high-performance cars.
“My understanding is that question is up in the air. The owner died intestate and had no family. The state owns it, but no one seems to be paying any attention. It’s hard to sell property in this berg, at least for a profit.”
They didn’t walk far, something that made sense to Carmen. It was a dump-and-run. Drive in late at night, drop off the carcass, and go home.
Sure enough, what Carr pointed out was the metal frame of an expensive car. The engine was gone, as were the doors, the seats, the dash, the wheels, the tires, and the brake system. In short . . .
Everything.
Carmen scanned the area around them. “Any idea if the chop shop is nearby?”
“No idea. As I said, there are several. Some are in the hills. There’s no way to tie this to any particular shop. They remove what they want and haul it away, so there’s nothing to tie anything to them. These guys are pretty sophisticated.”
Carr started to move closer.
“Hang on a sec, Officer.” Carmen touched her elbow. “I want to take some photos and analyze the lot. We have to treat this like a murder scene.”
“For all we know, it is.” Bud turned back toward their car. “I’ll get on the horn to the San Diego sheriffs so we can bring them into the loop. I’ll make sure they know it’s our case.”
“You may have to argue that point,” Carmen said, “but you’re right.”
Carmen returned to the Crown Vic, slipped on a pair of blue gloves, and grabbed the digital camera. She returned to the heap that had once belonged to the man lying in a cooler in the ME’s office. She glanced at Carr. “How much walking around did you do in here?”
“Not much. I had to find the chassis number.” Carr squatted. “This is my footprint.”
Carmen photographed it and the surrounding scene. Then she
approached the metal carcass, taking photos as she did. The interior showed no signs of violence. No blood. No tissue. At least that she could see. The techs would go over it with a fine-toothed comb.
Twenty minutes later, two men, both in their fifties and sporting round middles and graying hair, appeared. After introductions, Carmen brought the county detectives up to speed.
“Our murders happened in the city, but the vehicle—well, what’s left of it—is in the county.”
The larger of the two detectives eyed her. “How do you want to handle it?”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like our forensics team on this. They’re already working evidence from two homicides that appear related. I know you guys do the forensic work for what, a dozen other cities?”
“Thirty.” The man looked at his partner, who seemed to be the junior of the two. “Okay. How can we help?”
“There are a lot of buildings around here. Any one of them could have been the murder scene. We could use some of your guys canvassing the area.”
“You think your man was killed in Rainbow?”
Carmen shook her head. “No. It doesn’t fit the profile we’re developing. But that doesn’t mean our killer didn’t do the deed here. We know he stole, or caused to be stolen, an older Dodge Caravan that belongs to an elderly couple in Rancho Bernardo. That’s fairly close to here.”
“So he could have stolen the Caravan, killed your vic anywhere, then left the Lexus out in the open where some thieves helped themselves.”
“Maybe, but our guy is smart—twisted beyond imagination, but smart. He has a plan. I’m thinking he arranged for the Lexus to be stolen. Let other people tear it up.”
“What do you mean the guy is twisted?”
At the second detective’s question, Bud jumped in. “Come with us.” He led them to the Crown Vic and removed the folder with photos of the victim.
“Before you do that . . .” Carmen made eye contact with the counties. “This is not a typical murder. We have to keep our cards close to our vest. Keep this to yourselves. Deal?”
“Deal.” The lead county detective smirked as if humoring “the little lady.” Ah, male chauvinism. It was alive and well in every police force.
“Thanks.” Carmen nodded at Bud, who whipped out the gruesome photo of Cohen.
Eyes widened.
“The guy hit him with a Mac truck?” The junior detective turned his head.
“Nope.” Carmen watched the men. “Our guy did this with his fists.”
The senior officer’s gaze hardened. “We’ll help any way we can, Detective. Just say the word.”
18
Homicide work begins with dread at what the investigator will find, followed by days of exhaustive, sometimes dreary work, punctuated with the occasional bit of useful information and culminating in an arrest. Usually.
Every year, approximately thirteen thousand people in the United States die as victims of murder. Carmen, however, knew what few citizens did: nationwide, one in three murderers got away with the crime. Some cities had it worse. Only thirty-five percent of homicides in Chicago were solved. New Orleans and Detroit were even worse, with only one in five homicides solved. Other cities such as Philadelphia and Denver fared better, closing the book on seventy to ninety percent of the crimes. But San Diego?
They had a closure rate of more than 90 percent.
That was something to be proud about, but it also brought great pressure.
What really depressed Carmen, though, was that a third of the serial killers went unpunished. She took some comfort in knowing that serial killers tended to stay around. It was part of their sick game. The irony wasn’t wasted on her.
She steered her car up the I-15 in no rush to reach her destination. Driving was thinking time for her, and since Bud had gone home to his family, she was making the trip alone. The week had been grueling, the slow flow of evidence grinding away layer after layer of her confidence. It had been four days since the CHP found Cohen’s car. Forensics found nothing of value in what was left of the vehicle. The sheriff’s department had assigned a number of officers to search abandoned or otherwise empty buildings for clues that might tie a pair of deaths to the location.
The negative report didn’t surprise Carmen. She didn’t expect any revelations. Their killer was too smart to leave something behind that might identify him. He left behind only what he wanted the police to find.
Doug Lindsey’s Volkswagen had yet to turn up. DNA from the Dodge Caravan was inconclusive, damaged as it was by the hydrogen peroxide and bleach. A bit of useful DNA made it through PCR, but it matched the swabs taken of the elderly couple who owned the vehicle.
Dr. Norman Shuffler had released both bodies to the families. Cohen was buried almost immediately. Rabbi Singer performed the service, a steady stream of tears lining his face. Carmen had attended, ostensibly to show friends and family that the SDPD cared and did more than ask questions of the family. She also attended because she wanted to scan the crowd. The murderer might just be whacked enough to attend the funeral of a man he beat and kicked to death.
She looked into eyes and stole glances at everyone she could, especially of the larger men. A bruised hand might indicate injury from repeatedly beating a man hanging from the ceiling.
She struck out.
Dr. Shuffler had also found two small puncture marks on Doug Lindsey’s body, a miracle since the kid’s skin had more holes than the moon has craters. “These holes don’t fit the pattern,” Shuffler had explained. “Remember, the killer used a pizza docker to inflict the wounds. The docker had evenly spaced pins on the cylinder. That created an even pattern. These two holes don’t match.”
“What’s your best guess, Doc?”
“Taser. Police grade.” He apologized for not coming up with more.
Something else weighed on Carmen’s mind, something her partner said yesterday when he was seated at his desk, his face bathed in the light from his computer monitor. It made him look anemic.
He’d looked at her. “Hey, didn’t you go to Madison High School?”
“Um, yes. Didn’t you have eggs for breakfast?”
“What?”
She had shrugged. “I thought it was a game. You know, toss out unconnected, meaningless questions.”
“You’re a laugh a minute, that’s what you are, but there is a connection . . . I think. Did you know that Ellis Poe went to the same school? About the same time as you. Did you know him then?”
“What are you doing?” She moved to his desk and looked over his shoulder.
“I’m doing a deeper background check on some of the people we’ve interviewed. I just noticed that Poe and you were schoolmates.”
“It’s a big school. Our paths may have crossed, but I don’t remember it.”
Bud studied the screen. It was the Web site of the seminary and he was on the faculty page. “Looks like he graduated a year after you. Maybe he knew your sister.”
The sentence was a long, fiery sword to the gut. “Like I said, it was a big school. Shelly never mentioned him. She had her own crowd.”
“Maybe. I doubt Poe was the kind of guy who ran with a crowd. Probably just went to class, then to the library, then home. You know, the bookworm type.”
She did know. She was a bookworm type. Getting into med school required the best of grades, something Carmen worked at day and night—until Shelly’s murder. “I’ll ask next time I see him.” She stepped away, but each step took concentration and more strength than it should.
Carmen pushed the thoughts of yesterday from her mind as she pulled off the freeway and onto the street that led to the San Diego Theological Seminary.
Lindsey’s memorial service would be held there, at 6:00, then a graveside at a local cemetery. At first, Carmen’s motives for attendi
ng were the same as for attending the Cohen service: to see who showed up. But now . . .
With Bud’s revelation, she had new reasons.
Darkness cloaked the small school set on a hill overlooking the city of Escondido. Evening was one of Ellis’s favorite times. It meant the day’s duties were done and an evening of relaxation awaited him. Tonight would be different. Dr. Bridger had offered the seminary chapel to Doug Lindsey’s parents, an offer the cash-strapped family accepted. Their small church, Ellis had heard, had made the same offer, but their facility could not hold the student body that was certain to come to celebrate the “home going” of their classmate. “Celebrate” was a misunderstood term. Those outside the faith imagined Christians gathered around the open casket of the departed, swapped jokes and sipped Kool-Aid. Those who attended a memorial service in honor of a Christian who had passed knew better. One celebrated eternal life but wept openly for the personal loss.
Ellis was glad he wasn’t officiating. During his career he had been asked to perform a simple graveside or a small memorial service, but he had never been able to do so. He admired the pastors who did this work week in and week out. He had no idea how they did it. Just attending a funeral made his spine quiver.
He waited behind the closed door of his office where he hid from the incoming crowds. From his dark space he could hear voices as people walked past his door; he could hear the solemn tones of their conversation. For a few moments, he listened to what sounded like a young woman weeping and someone—a male friend—comforting her. Then he heard the familiar cadence of prayer. He couldn’t make out the words, but the emotion was clear enough.
Five minutes before the service was to start, Ellis rose, slipped into his black suit coat, smoothed his dark blue tie, and buttoned the jacket. Then he straightened his spine and took a deep breath.
As a rule he walked with his gaze down and set a couple of yards ahead of him, but as he stepped from his office and into the darkening evening, headlights caught his attention. The lights went off, the driver’s door opened, and Detective Carmen Rainmondi stepped into view. She waved, and for some reason he thought that an odd thing to do. Nonetheless, he waved back.