by Steven James
Tessa and Lien-hua went to pick up some passes from the front desk while I pulled on a pair of latex gloves and approached Cassandra’s car. She’d parked at a hurried angle between a pair of the parking lot’s light posts, and the two criminalists who were pawing through the trunk had used the light posts, as well as the back bumper of the Cassandra’s car, to define the crime scene.
Why not? After all, they were handy.
One of the criminalists was shaped like a pear, the other reminded me of a giraffe. I found out that the squat, round man was named Ryman, the gangly, long-necked guy, Collins. After identifying myself, I flipped open the sheath on my belt, pulled out my Mini Maglite flashlight, and leaned into the car.
“What are you looking for?” Ryman asked me.
“Clues,” I said.
Silence.
I stood back, scanned the parking lot, taking note of the location of the employee’s entrance about twenty meters away, the surveillance camera pointed directly at the door, and the service road that wound around the back side of the building. Based on the angle of her car, I guessed that Cassandra had entered via the service road rather than the main entrance.
I knelt and looked under the car, then beneath the seats. Cassandra had kept the interior of her vehicle meticulously clean, no trash, no scattered papers. I didn’t even see any sand on the carpet, which was especially surprising considering we were in the beach city of San Diego. “So. Have you moved anything?”
“No,” Ryman replied.
Cassandra’s purse sat upright on the front passenger’s seat. A suitcase lay in the backseat. I looked through her purse and then opened the suitcase. A pile of clothes was strewn inside. “Did you go through these clothes, or is this how you found them?”
“I told you we didn’t move anything.” Ryman seemed to be the spokesperson.
“Was the car locked or unlocked?”
“Locked. We had to break in.”
“Engine?”
“Off.”
“Headlights?”
“Off.”
I inspected the glove box, then asked, “What station is the radio set to?”
After a blunt silence, “What?”
“The radio station?”
“I don’t know.”
I checked. The radio button wasn’t depressed. I pressed eject, no CD in the player, no mp3 player input. So, she’d had the radio off when she arrived. No music playing.
They just looked at each other. “What does that matter?” asked Collins.
“Everything matters.”
I took note of the climate control settings, the predominant genre of music of the CDs stacked between the seats, and the position of the driver’s seat and steering wheel. Based on the seat position, I figured Cassandra was tall for a woman. Not much shorter than me: five-eleven or perhaps six feet tall.
I took one final look around, thanked the criminalists for their cooperation, and turned to go.
“You’re done?” I heard Ryman say.
“Yeah.”
I’d made it six steps when I heard Collins whisper, “Idiot Fed.”
Alrighty then.
As anxious as I was to get inside, I figured I could spare one more minute. I turned and faced them. “Gentlemen. What’s your take on this? What do you think happened here?”
“She was arriving for work,” Ryman said. “Got out of her car.
Maybe someone snatched her. Maybe she went for a walk. Who knows? Probably took off with her boyfriend.”
“If Cassandra had been heading to work for the day,” I said,
“would she have parked crookedly, taking up two parking spots instead of one, and left the purse containing her makeup, cell phone, wallet, lunch pass, and name badge in the car?”
He hesitated. “Probably not.”
“She parked with the intention of quickly retrieving something or delivering something, and never made it back to the vehicle,”
I said.
“Maybe she was grabbed as she got out of the car.”
“Then the car doors would have been unlocked. If you abduct a woman as she’s leaving a car, you don’t take the time to lock the doors behind you.” I pointed. “Also, we have these light posts close by, no other cars in the vicinity. She would have seen her abductor approaching, even though it was dark when she arrived.”
Collins stuck his hands on his hips. “How do you know she got here in the dark?”
“Heater settings. This morning was cool early, but the temperature rose quickly right around dawn. Her heater is set on high.
If she arrived anytime after sunrise she would have had her air-conditioning on, or she would have at least turned off the heat.”
Both men stared at me blankly.
OK. Enough. This lesson could go on all day. Time to get inside.
My guess was that whoever met her—or abducted her—waited until after she entered the aquarium, to avoid being captured on the surveillance camera aimed at the employees’ door.
“Thanks for your good work, gentlemen. I especially like how you used those lampposts to mark off your crime scene. Very clever.”
“Yeah,” Ryman said. “That was my idea.”
“I’m not surprised.”
So.
I knew something I hadn’t known before: Cassandra’s jumbled suitcase in the back of her impeccably neat car told me that she’d rushed to pack and then left in a hurry—just as it appeared Hunter had done. It seemed likely they were planning to meet, maybe flee together. But why now, after all these fires? And what was the hurry?
Was Detective Dunn’s presence last night related to Cassandra’s disappearance? And what was so important to her that she had to stop by here early this morning?
Too many questions.
I retrieved my computer bag from my car and stepped into the lobby of the aquarium.
30
I found Lien-hua and Tessa admiring an expansive tank of tropical fish that created the backdrop for the main ticketing area. “OK, Tessa, this is where you’re on your own.”
She didn’t look away from the fish. “OK.”
To our left, a labyrinthine passage wove past a series of small exhibits featuring squid, octopuses, and sea horses. A walkway on the right disappeared into a dark cove emitting eerie music and guarded by a large tank of grim-looking barracuda. Three more paths led to additional attractions and interactive oceanographic and marine biology exhibits in different arms of the aquarium. I assumed that eventually all the walkways would converge at the huge Seven Deadly Seas exhibit at the far end of the facility.
I pointed to a concession stand nearby, at the center of the hub for all the different wings. “Tessa, meet me over there by that snack area in one hour, OK?”
“One hour.”
“Look at your watch, OK?”
She did. Then, without another word, she set off on her own.
When Tessa was out of earshot, Lien-hua read my mind and said,
“Cassandra was taken, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. She arrived in the dark, deep in thought, planning her day, left her car with the intention of returning, and never made it back.”
“How do you know she was deep in thought?”
“Working theory. Her radio and CD player were both off.
Typically, people drive without music only when (a) they’re on the phone, but it was probably too early for that; (b) when they’re talking to someone in the car, but as far as we know she was alone; or (c) when they need to concentrate on something. My money’s on C.”
“Hmm. I do believe you’ve started profiling, Dr. Bowers.”
“No, no, no. It’s called induction. Very different. Completely different.”
“Uh-huh,” she said as we went to find the aquarium director.
An hour ago Creighton had pulled some of Randi’s personal information off her cell phone and then ground the phone to pieces beneath his heel.
Since then he’d been in the manager’s
office considering his options.
It was possible that Randi would come back looking for her phone. He doubted she’d be able to find the warehouse, but it was possible. So maybe he should just wait and take care of her then.
But then again, since it was the middle of the day, she might not come alone or she might tell a friend where she was going. In either case, it was likely she’d be missed and then others would come looking for her. Not good. Too many bad scenarios.
Before he destroyed her phone, he’d gotten enough information from it to find her, so he could go after her. Maybe he should pay her a little visit.
That’s what his gut told him to do.
Find her.
Get the phone back.
Teach her a lesson or two.
Yes, that’s what his gut told him, but his mind told him not to rock the boat any more than necessary. He really shouldn’t leave Cassandra alone, and besides, he knew that if Shade tried calling the phone Randi had grabbed, Shade would immediately discover the mix-up and find another way to contact him, but only if Creighton stayed put.
So. Stay or go looking?
Really, the best choice was to stay. Trust that Shade would be in touch, but still keep an eye out for Randi and only deal with her if she somehow did find her way back to the warehouse.
Creighton watched Cassandra for a moment through the video monitor. Then he had a thought. Now that he’d completed the video for Hunter, he only needed one camera trained on her.
Which meant he could use the other camera for something else.
Yes. If he moved one camera outside, he could keep one eye on Cassandra and the other on the road to see if Randi came back.
As he began to unhook the output cords of the camera on the left, Creighton admitted to himself that he hoped Randi would come back looking for her phone. Then he could kill two birds with one stone. So to speak.
A lanky man in his midforties led Lien-hua and me through a door marked “Restricted Area! Aquarium Staff Only!”
“This is where our aquarists work,” he informed us proudly.
Like the rest of the staff, he wore shorts, a Sherrod Aquarium polo shirt, and sport sandals. Stenciled on the pocket of his shirt was the name Warren Leant and his title: Managing Director Animal Husbandry. He had a weary face and made me think of someone who takes the elevator up to his condo in order to work out on his stair-stepper. “Please.” He motioned for us to follow him. “The animal husbandry wing is right through here.”
“So, Pat,” Lien-hua said as we followed Warren Leant past the backstage entrance to the Poseidon’s Odyssey 4-D attraction. “Back at the elevators earlier this morning, what were you and Ralph talking about?”
“Mostly Margaret. She’s on the West Coast.”
“But didn’t I overhear Ralph say he wanted to check on you and me? What was that all about?”
“Maybe he thinks there’s something going on.” I said the words before I realized I’d done more than just think them.
Oops.
“Well?” she said softly. “Is there?”
Thankfully, Mr. Leant interrupted our conversation. “Animal necropsy rooms.” He gestured toward a hallway that led to a row of six rooms. “You know what necropsies are?”
Lien-hua and I answered almost in unison: “Autopsies on animals.”
“Oh.” He looked deflated. “Yes. That’s right. All right then. It’s just a bit farther.”
He led us down the hallway, and I felt the pressure of Lien-hua’s question leaning against me.
“Well?” she repeated. “Is there?”
Once on a stakeout we’d almost kissed, but at the last moment we both hesitated and retreated back into ourselves. Since then we’d never spoken to each other of that night, but it brought both an understated intimacy and a careful distance to our friendship.
But now, with the question laid so prominently on the table, I said,
“I’d like it if there was.”
Lien-hua was quiet, and I wasn’t sure how to take her silence, but then we arrived at the animal husbandry facility and I knew we’d have to finish this conversation another time.
The stark scent of antiseptics mixed with the wet smell of dead fish greeted us as we entered a brightly lit anteroom to the main work area. Leant gestured toward the far end. “Ms. Lillo’s office is just past the shark acclimation pool. You don’t think anything might have happened to her? I mean, it would be bad for the aquarium if it did—not that I’m unconcerned about her or anything, it’s just that I want to be prepared for the worst. For the media. You understand.
So, if there’s anything I should tell our board of directors …”
“Right now,” I said, “our main concern is just finding and speaking with Ms. Lillo, wherever she is. I need access to your security camera footage for last night and early this morning. Let’s start with 9:00
p.m. through 7:00 a.m.” I figured I could convince Ralph to assign a team of agents from the San Diego FBI field office to review the videos, to see if we could catch a glimpse of either Cassandra or the offender. “And I’d like you to clear your staff out of this wing but keep them here at the aquarium. I don’t want them to leave, but I want them out of the way.”
“Well, you see, that might be difficult. We’re already behind schedule with our shark feeding, and eight of our sharks haven’t been fed since last night.”
“Mr. Leant, with all due respect, I’m more concerned about finding Cassandra than about when your fish have lunch,” I said.
“Yes, well, I really don’t see the need for—”
“I’m not asking.”
“This is highly unusual.”
I glanced at Lien-hua. “If we can’t process this area properly, we might need to shut down the aquarium for how long? Two, three days? Does that sound right to you?”
“At least three days.”
Warren opened his mouth as if he were going to respond, then closed it soundlessly, stepped to the side, and dug out his walkie-talkie.
I knew that the animal husbandry area for an aquarium this size would need to be large, but I didn’t expect it to be fifteen meters wide by forty meters long. The wall on our left held four offices and then opened on the second story to include access to the water filtration towers that rose from a lower level, passed up the offices, and nearly touched the ceiling. They looked like giant cones with horizontal ribs.
The wall on our right held a series of inset view ports to the neighboring Seven Deadly Seas exhibit. A glass door led to a pathway that I could see allowed surface access. The shark acclimation pool Warren had mentioned lay beside one of the view ports halfway to the far wall.
The ceiling of the husbandry area climbed nearly four stories above our heads to accommodate a suspended track that ran through the center of the room. One end of the track terminated above the shark acclimation pool’s sliding metal door that separated it from the Seven Deadly Seas attraction. The other end of the track stopped abruptly beside a double-sized garage door that I assumed led to the outside of the aquarium.
“Must be for transferring sharks into and out of the exhibit,”
said Lien-hua.
I set down my computer bag, approached the acclimation pool, and peered inside. Dimensions: four meters deep, five meters wide, five long. Sides made of thick, reinforced glass that appeared strong enough to stop even a frenzied, half-ton shark. I guessed that the sturdy steel drain located on the pool’s bottom allowed the aquarists to empty and then replace the water, maybe after transferring a shark into or out of the exhibit, or quarantining a sick shark. Since the pool was empty, I assumed they were currently in the process of doing that.
When I looked up, I saw that Lien-hua had approached the doors to the food preparation area on my left. Two aquarists wielding slender knives were skinning fish for the next shark feeding.
Buckets of white meat smeared pink with blood lay on the floor beside the sink. Lien-hua caught my eye and spoke softly enou
gh so that only I could hear her. “You don’t think …”
It was a gruesome possibility. “We’ll need to check. See if there’s any evidence of an unscheduled feeding this morning. It’s possible.
We’ll also need to have an officer interview those two.”
“I’ll make the call.”
She stood beside a row of scuba tanks to call dispatch and the aquarium’s water quality control center, and Warren strode over to me with a young Hispanic woman in tow. He raised his nose as if he were sniffing me. “The staff will be waiting in the employees’
break room. And I certainly trust you’ll do all you can to make this … inspection go as quickly as possible.”
“You have my word.”
“Yes, well.” Nose still in the air. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have to go and change the text on the television displays again so our paying customers won’t be disappointed when the feedings they were planning on viewing don’t occur.” He gestured toward the nervous-looking woman beside him. “Maria works with Cassandra.
She’ll show you around. And if you need anything else, don’t hesitate to contact me. Obviously, I would like to help wrap up this whole matter as quickly as possible.”
“Obviously.”
He went to summon the aquarists from the food prep area; I greeted Maria, and my guided tour began.
31
Grace and death.
Those were the two things Tessa thought of as she watched the sharks patrol the Seven Deadly Seas. She’d seen sharks on TV and in movies and in books and everything, but that was nothing compared to watching them glide only a few feet away from her face, just on the other side of the glass.
Tessa quickly identified the distinctively shaped hammerheads and the sand tiger sharks with their ferocious-looking, snaggly teeth. She also recognized the shortfin makos, nurse, lemon, bull, and tiger sharks. She saw a number of other species, too, that she couldn’t identify. And that kind of bugged her.
From inside the glass-enclosed pathway that wandered along the floor of the twenty-foot-deep exhibit, the sharks looked like a flock of great, dark, six-hundred-pound birds—who just happened to have rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth.