(2002) Chasing Darkness

by Danielle Girard

  Derek shook his head, turning away from her and tucking the covers under his chin.

  Sam had a feeling Derek knew exactly when his brother had come home, but she respected him for not ratting. She would talk to Rob herself. Something had to be done before it got out of hand. “Remind him about the room.”

  “I’ll tell him, but he won’t do it.”

  She waved him off. “I’ll bug him later.”

  “Won’t help,” Derek said, his face deep in his pillow again.

  Sam looked around the neat room and shook her head. She definitely needed to have a talk with Rob.

  “Shut the door,” Derek groaned as she left.

  Sam fought off chills as she stepped from her car and walked toward the group up ahead. Thick fog drifted over the tops of the half-dozen parked cars. The cool night air in Diablo seeped under the collar of her parka and through the cotton of her turtleneck and sweater like long, icy fingers. The headlights of police cars reflected off the fog, casting muted shadows across the trees. The smell of damp eucalyptus hung in her nose, a single comforting sensation among the foreign ones.

  It had been eight years since she’d been at the scene of a murder. When the boys came, she had left the sheriff’s department to go to the Department of Justice to get away from the death. The immunity she’d built up in her days as a homicide detective had eroded since she’d been with the Department of Justice, leaving more than one chink in her armor.

  She still had no idea what she was doing at the scene, but she was determined to stay calm and handle whatever was thrown her way. She’d spent enough time in male-dominated situations to know what it required to keep her reputation as one of the boys. Throwing up at the sight of blood was grounds for permanent weenie status.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” Nick Thomas said as he approached. He was tall, six-three to Sam’s five-six, and lean. “It’s been a long time, eh?” His voice was low and raspy, and she realized he’d been awakened from sleep too. The tone of his voice was like an old record, scratchy and deep, and she caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes and forced her gaze away.

  She looked around the darkness and nodded. “Not long enough. Why am I here?”

  He turned her toward the scene with an arm over her shoulder.

  She stared at the arm and gave Nick a sideways glance.

  He looked at his arm as though it didn’t belong to him and dropped it back to his side. “We still on for my birthday dinner?”

  “You didn’t call me up here to discuss your birthday, I hope.”

  Nick shook his head without comment.

  She motioned to the police, still hovering in a small circle around the body. Their voices mixed with the low rustle of the wind in the trees, and she wished they were louder, closer. She wanted to talk about the job. Shoptalk would be a huge relief. That she could handle. Everything else was the problem. “Walters?”

  Nick studied her a moment longer than he needed to, then turned away to face the scene. “Yep—Sandi.”

  Sam let the breath she’d been holding out through her teeth as she started to relax. At least it wasn’t the girl. “She O.D. ?”

  Nick didn’t answer, his eyes evasive.

  Sam looked over his shoulder. A flashbulb shot off in the distance, and Sam caught a glimpse of skin against the dark ground. Not healthy, glowing skin but skin infused with the whitish-blue tint that came with death. She looked back at Nick. “Why call me up here?”

  “Remember the serial killer you had as your last case in homicide—the one they got a conviction on right about the time when I finally got the balls to ask you out?”

  “Nick,” she started to protest. “If this is some sort of sick fantasy, calling me out here with cases that remind you of how we—”

  “Slow down and listen,” he retorted. “What do you remember about the victimology?”

  She shook her head and reviewed her mental notes. “Six victims—all Caucasian females from the Berkeley Hills, all between the ages of thirty-five and forty-seven with blond or light brown hair and light eyes. Two were prostitutes, three were all-night-diner employees, and one was a convenience store clerk.

  “Killed by manual ligature, a eucalyptus branch with six leaves tucked over each ear. Charlie Sloan, a San Francisco stockbroker and local swim coach, was arrested and charged; convicted almost three years ago and went to the chair for the murder of the six women.”

  “And all that without your notes,” Nick added.

  “So what’s the point?”

  “He’s dead, right?”

  She ground her teeth. “Killed on death row, Nick—February 5 of last year.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Sam turned to get back in the car. She was too tired for this shit.

  “I’m not joking around,” Nick said.

  She glanced back and the look in his eyes confirmed that there was nothing humorous about what was going on.

  He nodded toward the scene and started walking back.

  Sam zipped up her coat beneath her chin and shoved her hands in her pockets, heading after him. Nick carved a path through the police officers. As she stepped closer, the flash of cameras glared in her eyes and she blinked hard to clear the black spots from her vision.

  When her eyesight sharpened again, she took two steps forward and gazed into the vacant stare of a stick-thin woman in her forties. In life Sandi Walters had never looked so calm. Simple white briefs were all she wore. Her straight bottle-blond hair hung limply over her shoulders, the twig of a eucalyptus tree tucked behind each ear. She was propped against a tree, one knee up and her salon-tanned arms flung to her sides. Her legs were parted slightly, like she’d passed out. Sam could see why Nick had called her. It was familiar.

  Cheap bracelets lined her right wrist. A thin silver ring with a knot, the kind sold at street fairs, circled her thumb. Track marks still showed blue in the creases of her elbow.

  Sam blinked hard and forced back the pictures that entered her head. Death always brought a litany of snapshots of her own youth. She saw her father with a cigarette hanging off his lip, her mother nursing a third G&T that was mostly G, her sister cowering in a corner, trying to stay out of the way.

  Sam stepped forward and inspected the twig tucked behind Walters’ left ear.

  “Maybe Molly’s father killed her in a moment of rage and made it look like a copycat.”

  “How could it be copycat? No one ever had the information on the eucalyptus. It was never released to the media.”

  “It was during the trial.”

  “Not the detail about how many leaves.”

  She shook her head. “That we know of. It’s probably in some new serial killer book by now. That stuff just leaks. I say you look at the dad.”

  “Dad’s got an airtight alibi.”

  Sam shook her head. “They always have an airtight alibi.”

  “He’s been in county on a DUI for the past twenty-four hours. According to our guy’s estimate, Sandi here’s been dead around five.”

  “Who else is in the household? Just Molly, Sandi, and Sandi’s mother, right?”

  “Molly’s grandma uses a walker. No way she got the body up here by herself.”

  Sam nodded, remembering.

  “Plus, look at those twigs. Recognize them?” Nick asked.

  Without looking away from the body, Sam nodded noncommittally. “I agree it’s familiar.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  She raised an eyebrow at Nick. “It’s a couple of twigs, Nick, not a tattoo. It could be a coincidence.”

  He raised an eyebrow back at her. He had an angular jaw and large brown eyes with flecks of green and gold. His mother was black and his father was white, and Nick had the warmest color skin Sam had ever seen. It contrasted with his broad shoulders and lean frame to keep him from looking too hard.

  She knew cops weren’t supposed to believe in coincidences, but Sloan was dead. She looked at the twig again. Six leave
s, just like the others.

  Sam shook her head. “It’s got to be a coincidence. Sloan’s dead. This is something else. Maybe the eucalyptus symbolizes something else.”

  Nick nodded. “There’s the c-word again. It worries me.”

  Fighting off the chill, Sam turned and peered over at the other twig. “Damn. You’re saying Sloan wasn’t our killer? The wrong guy was executed?”

  Nick shrugged. “Maybe he had a partner.”

  Sam surveyed the area. It wasn’t possible. Sloan had been alone. They’d worked eighteen months to nail him and almost six years to get him convicted and sentenced to death row. He’d never confessed, but he’d done it. The evidence had proved it. She could not accept that the system had killed the wrong man. “What else have you got?”

  “Signs of sexual intercourse,” Nick added.

  Sam frowned. “Semen?”

  “Oh, yeah. First guess is postmortem.”

  “Charlie Sloan never had sex with his victims.”

  Nick met her gaze. “Okay, not identical.”

  Sam found herself coming back to someone Sandi knew. “What about other relatives in the area? A new boyfriend?”

  “The girl was staying with her grandmother. Dad and Grandma are it.”

  Sam noticed an odd pattern in the dirt by Sandi’s foot. It was the faintest rectangular shape, and Sam wondered what had caused it. On her knees, she searched for evidence. She found it on the instep of Sandi’s left foot. “You see this?”

  Nick knelt beside her. Using his pen, he pushed on the woman’s toes, shining his light on the bottom of her foot.

  A gum wrapper was stuck to the arch of Sandi’s foot. It was silver and Sam recognized it as Extra. She put her nose to it. Spearmint. Her favorite.

  Sam studied the wrapper. “Someone left you a clue.” She stood up and brushed off her jeans. “Looks like you’ve got a new killer on your hands—one with some inside info on our old cases.”

  Nick shook his head. “Not me, Sam.We . You’re working this one, too.”

  Chapter Two

  Pulling down the street where Sandi’s mother lived, Nick Thomas cringed. He wanted to be at home already. Turn up the Miles Davis, pull out his bass, and maybe tinker for a while. Probably be too late when he got home after the baseball game. The upstairs neighbor threw a fit when he played after ten, threatened to call the cops on him. Even though she knew hewas the cops. Hell, his bass skills weren’t great but they weren’t bad either. Or maybe they were.

  His sister, Gina, had invited him to dinner at her house. But he’d probably have to miss that, too. What with two sisters and a married brother all within a ten-mile radius, Nick ate at home only one night a week as it was. And that one night was takeout. He had even less talent for cooking than for playing bass.

  He looked up at the Walters house. The houses on the block were cookie-cutter styles built in the fifties: aluminum siding with chipping paint in white, yellow, and gray. Each had two windows in its ranch front. A set of shutters on the outside would have broken the monotony had someone taken the time. Even he, with no decorating sense, could have suggested that. The dandelion-pocked grass formed perfect rectangles in front, only the shades of brown differed. Each house seemed to come with three cars. Garage doors open, cars set up on blocks in each driveway. The town of Danville had very affluent pockets, but this wasn’t one of them. His beat-up Honda would certainly go unnoticed.

  He would’ve preferred company for his visit to the family, but Sam was spending her day pulling records from the Charlie Sloan murders and following up on every person who had been involved, even peripherally, in the case. It was a task he didn’t envy. Paperwork had never been his forte. In comparison, interviewing Sandi’s mother ought to be quick, at least.

  Other than the endless paperwork, interviewing a victim’s family was the worst part of any investigation. A grieving family—and he had to give them the third degree. But he knew it was a necessary step. Eighty percent of the time, families knew the killer, even if they didn’t realize it. The family was a solid place to start an investigation. Still, he hated the response he always got. Guilty or not, the family inevitably stared at him like he was a cockroach.

  Shaking off the thought, Nick tucked his car keys under the mat, as he always did. Otherwise he had a tendency to lose them. With a deep breath, he pulled himself out of the car and straightened his tie. He felt the comforting weight of the gun resting beneath his left arm as he approached the house. At least he wasn’t there to break the news of Sandi’s death. Her family had already been informed. Pulling back the screen door, he knocked firmly on the door’s surface.

  “Who is it?” called a haggard voice from inside.

  “Detective Thomas from the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department,” he called back.

  Murmured words were exchanged, and Nick heard the sliding of locks before the door creaked open. The little girl who opened the door had to be Molly. Nick knew Sandi and her husband had only one child. But beyond deduction, Nick could see the resemblance. Molly had her mother’s tiny, straight nose and thin lips. Molly’s hair was brown, probably her mother’s natural color.

  “I’m Detective Thomas. Is your grandma or dad home?”

  Big, sad eyes stared at him without a response. Then someone called from the background, “Let them in, Molly.”

  Molly stepped back quickly and let the door swing open.

  “In here,” the voice called, and Nick walked inside to see the woman he assumed was Molly’s grandmother sitting in a worn olive-green La-Z-Boy. The room was a blue-gray haze of cigarette smoke. He took a last deep breath of clean air and approached her. She had the look of a basset hound, a droopy face with heavy jowls. Large, wary brown eyes studied him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t get up,” the woman apologized.

  “No need.” Nick stepped forward and shook her hand. “I’m Detective Nick Thomas of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department. I’m very sorry for your loss, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

  The woman pointed to Molly. “Get to your room, child. And shut the door.”

  Molly stared at him and then back at her grandmother.

  “Now,” the woman bellowed.

  Molly jumped slightly and ran, her bare feet slapping against the stairs.

  The grandmother shifted her considerable weight in the chair and pointed to the couch. “Feel free to sit.”

  “Thank you.” The couch looked deep and worn, and Nick picked a stiff chair instead. The ability to move from a spot quickly had saved him on more than one occasion. A deep couch made that nearly impossible. He pulled out his pad, watching with his peripheral vision for someone else to appear. With his pen poised, he said, “I’d like to ask some questions about your daughter if I may, Ms.—”

  “Wendy. Wendy Mayes. Ask away,” she said, as though he were taking a poll on her choice of gasoline.

  “Can you tell me about when you last saw your daughter?”

  The woman cast a look over her shoulder. Nick followed her gaze but saw nothing. Only a nail in the center of a wall papered in dingy blue stripes. The paper was yellowed around an area of about a square foot where a picture must have been hung. He wondered briefly when the picture had been removed and what it was.

  “I was looking after Molly,” Wendy Mayes told him. “Sandi was off, and I told her I’d stay with the child.”

  He studied her face, the thick wrinkles in her skin coming as much from extra weight as from age. “Did your daughter tell you where she was going?”

  “Never. And I didn’t ask,” she said without raising an eyebrow. “Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it ain’t.”

  He glanced at her hands crossed on her lap, remembering Sandi’s resting pose. The two women had the same hands—long fingers with thick blue veins and large, square nails. “Where did Mrs. Walters work?”

  “Weren’t never married, those two.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sandi an
d Mick weren’t never married.”

  Nick glanced at his notes. “Sandi’s last name on her driver’s license was Walters.”

  The woman harrumphed. “They weren’t married. Changed her name at the drop of a hat, she did—like there was something wrong with Mayes.” She shook her head.

  Nick made a note to check for priors under other names. “Where did your daughter work, Ms. Mayes?”

  “Denny’s in Antioch.” She shot the response out like a bullet.

  He nodded. “How long had she been working there?”

  The woman shrugged. “Five, six months, maybe.”

  “And before that?”

  The woman sighed. “Detective, my daughter held a lot of jobs. You really expect me to keep track of ’em all?”

  Nick looked at the woman, wondering how hard it could have been. “What about friends that your daughter spent time with?”

  “Didn’t have no female friends. None that I know of, anyway.”

  “Male friends?” Nick asked.

  The woman laughed. “Detective, I couldn’t even keep up with her jobs. I don’t have a clue who she went around with.”

  “What about men living in the house?”

  “Been a few,” she said.

  “Do you know their names?”

  “Mick’s one. They’ve been off and on since Molly. He moved out about four months ago, I think. There might have been someone else. I don’t know.”

  “Mick’s last name is Walters?”

  “Same as Molly’s,” she said without answering his question.

  Nick kept his temper under his vest. “Mick is Molly’s father?”

  The woman nodded like he was a moron.

  “Is Mick here now?”

  She shook her head.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Been a couple days,” she said.

  “He hasn’t been here in a couple of days?” Nick repeated.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I just said.”

  “You know anyone who would want to hurt your daughter?” he asked.

  “No.”