Collecting the Dead (26 page)

“Is that it?” I ask, pointing at the envelope.

I know it is. I can see the amaranth
.

Walt hands it over. “He left it under my windshield wiper. Wanted to make sure I saw it first thing.” He rubs his hands together as if they’re covered in filth. “CSI is already finished with it. No prints. Son of a bitch wore gloves, which means there’s little chance of touch DNA, either, but they swabbed it anyway.”

Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, I open the flap slowly and extract the single piece of paper from inside. It’s cut from newspaper print and folded in half. I unfold it on the hood of the Expedition, holding it flat. A woman’s face smiles at us from the black-and-white image, a joyful moment captured and preserved and displayed.

“Oh, no,” I hear myself say. Jimmy and I study the photo for a long moment.

“He’s taunting us,” Walt says in a calmer voice. “You know that, right?”

“He’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” Jimmy replies gruffly.

I don’t say anything, but my mind is racing. I hope Jimmy’s right; I hope Sad Face is as dumb as a rock in a riverbed, but my gut tells me otherwise. Right now it feels like he’s winning.

Jimmy folds the square of paper and slides it back in the envelope, then places the envelope inside his briefcase. Rain begins to fall from an iron sky. “Call Les and have them bring the jet up. We may need it.” He retrieves his own phone and punches a few numbers, then holds it to his ear.

“Who are you calling?”

“Diane. If anyone can do this fast, it’s her.”

*   *   *

The clock in the conference room at the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office is typical of government clocks, meaning it’s round, it ticks loudly, it has a black plastic case and a white face, and it can intermittently disrupt the space-time continuum to turn minutes into hours and hours into days. Just ask anyone who’s spent an hour at the Department of Motor Vehicles and they’ll tell you about the year they spent in hell.

It’s the clocks
.

That same torturous monotony is upon us now as we wait for Diane’s call. Minutes drag. Seconds announce themselves over and over again, thumping their chests arrogantly:
tick
—I’m special—
tick
—I’m special—
tick
—I’m special.

Time is either your enemy or your friend.

Today it’s the enemy.

Jimmy has his hands folded in his lap and his forehead resting on the edge of the table. He’s not sleeping, though; his eyes are wide open and I can see them darting about as if he sees the case before him upon the floor, the pieces laid out from end to end.

This is the worst part: the waiting.

There’s so much we could be doing right now, but most of it involves being on the road and chasing down leads. The envelope changed all that, at least temporarily. And so we wait for a call from Diane, a call that will launch us into … what?

Another clue leading nowhere?

Another shaken and shattered family?

Another crime scene?

“Come on, Diane,” I breathe at the clock, my voice barely a whisper. She said an hour; it’s been an hour and a half.

“She’s not a miracle worker,” Jimmy says softly, as if reading my mind.

“Yes, she is.”

“The picture was closely cropped with no caption, no date, no text, nothing; just the girl. That’s not a lot to work with.”

“The backside had part of an advertisement with most of a phone number,” I persist. “If she can figure out what business it belongs to, she’ll be able to find out what paper they advertised in, and when.”

“I’m sure she’s doing exactly that,” Jimmy replies. His eyes are closed now.

The clock from hell
tick-tick-ticks
from its perch on the wall as it eats another twenty minutes in small bites.

When the phone rings, Jimmy and I leap to our feet as one.

“You’re on speaker,” Jimmy says simply.

“Susan Ault out of Chico,” Diane says flatly. “She was featured in the
Chico
Enterprise-Record
just last week after she opened her third nail salon. I just called Chico PD and they’re sending someone to her house. You should hear from them shortly.”

“Good work, Diane,” Jimmy says with a sigh.

“Really good work,” I echo.

The phone is silent for a long minute, so long that I think we’ve been disconnected, then, as if from some hollow place where every word is a struggle, Diane’s voice crackles from the cheap speaker.

“Save her,” is all she says, then there’s a click and the line drops off.

*   *   *

Les and Marty set Betsy down on the main runway of the Chico Municipal Airport less than twenty minutes later, and a white Ford Explorer driven by Sergeant Eddie Cooper of the Chico PD is parked on the tarmac waiting for us.

Introductions are polite but short out of necessity and we’re soon rolling down the road on the way to 437 Hollow Wood Drive.

“We have units en route to each of her nail salons, and one to her kids’ day care,” Eddie recites. “Still no answer at the house.”

“What do you mean,
no answer
?” Jimmy turns almost completely sideways in the front passenger seat. “They haven’t made entry yet?”

“I think they’re waiting for you,” the sergeant says sheepishly. “We don’t have probable cause to breach the—”

“I told your captain this woman is in
serious
danger!” Jimmy interrupts. “I made it clear we’re dealing with a serial killer. What are they waiting for?”

Waving his right hand up and down the way you would urge an unruly dog to sit, Cooper says, “I’m on your side, trust me, but we lost a one-point-two-million-dollar lawsuit three months ago for a similar entry, and the powers that be are a bit gun-shy. That’s money the city can’t spare, and it cost us two commissioned positions.”

“Unbelievable,” Jimmy says, pressing both hands into his head as if trying to keep his cranium from exploding. “Let’s just get there.”

Hollow Wood Drive is a quiet, tree-lined road that pours smoothly off West Sacramento Avenue and winds its way to the east, then to the west, before reaching a large cul-de-sac at the dead end.

Susan Ault’s rambler sits on a small lot in the northeast corner of the cul-de-sac. Only a few years old, the house still looks crisp and new, with a wall of river rock and elaborate windows covering the left front of the house and cement-board siding painted moss green and trimmed in cream with just the slightest hint of olive covering the rest.

“Nice place,” I say as we exit the SUV. My eyes walk around the neighborhood, taking in the six homes in the cul-de-sac, with their big windows facing the road and their small trees. “Hard to get in and out without being seen,” I observe.

“Yeah,” Jimmy agrees. “Not too many places to hide. Let’s take a look around back.”

As we step onto the driveway and make for the house, a rather large Chico police officer at the corner of the garage spies us. Despite Sergeant Cooper’s presence beside us, he comes barreling down the driveway with both hands held up in front of him yelling something incoherent. I can only make out the words
back
,
stop
, and
donut
—though I might be mistaken about the donut part.

He’s wearing a captain’s uniform with pretty gold bars on the collar that somehow complement the perspiration stains. His shirt has to be at least size 4X, and even with the extra yardage of shirt fabric, his buttons are straining at their threads—dangerously straining.

Captain Mudge’s momentum nearly carries him past us, but he manages to stop at the last minute, his face splotchy red either from the ten-yard dash he just completed or because he’s yelling at us about
his
crime scene and
his
investigation.

As he spews on, his finger jabbing first at Jimmy, then at me, then at the house, the sky, the road, a tree, and Sergeant Cooper’s left ear, Jimmy calmly pulls out his phone, looks up a number, and dials. This elevates Captain Mudge into an even higher realm of hysterics. Spewing words that would make a rap artist blush, he manages to somehow jump into the air, though I use the word loosely, since the jump looks more like a mountain hiccupping.

My mouth hangs half open as I stare at him in a surreal daze.

“What’s your problem?” I finally bark in horror and disgust.

Big mistake
.

Mudge turns every ounce of his ire on me, solely on me. Spit flies as he gets in my face and vomits a stream of words I’ve never heard before; I swear he’s making them up as he goes. I really don’t know what we did to piss this guy off, but I’m starting to worry that he’s going to have a coronary right here, right now … and I’m not doing mouth-to-mouth.

“Hi, Chief,” I hear Jimmy say. He’s got this index finger poised with authority in front of Mudge’s face, but is otherwise ignoring the captain, his gaze directed at the house, the yard, the street; anyplace but Mudge’s puffing red face and sweating forehead.

“This is Special Agent James Donovan, we talked a little while ago. Yes, sir. I appreciate that, Chief. Yes, we just got to the house, but there seems to be a misunderstanding. Captain…” He pauses long and intentionally as he reads the name on the sweaty shirt. “Captain Mudge is upset at our presence and has ordered us off his crime scene.” There’s a pause as Jimmy nods. “Of course, sir, he’s right here.”

Handing the phone to Mudge, Jimmy says, “Your boss wants to clear up this little misunderstanding.”

I don’t know what the chief of police says, but Mudge’s face goes as white as a powdered donut and he stammers, “Yes, sir,” then “No, sir,” then “Perfectly clear, sir.” He hands the phone back to Jimmy with a stunned look on his face and without a word walks to a silver Crown Victoria parked on the street. He fumbles for his keys, drops them, and finally manages to unlock the car.

As he gets in, I throw him an olive branch. “Buckle up for safety,” I say, bringing my hands together in front of me to demonstrate the proper way to fasten a seat belt. It was a small olive branch.

Mudge ignores me and starts the car.

Turning to Sergeant Cooper, Jimmy says, “How ’bout we take a look at the backyard now?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Cooper says, watching the car go. “Sorry about that.” He gives a little shrug. “I won’t make excuses for Mudge, he’s always been … difficult. But he’s going through a divorce and has some other issues going on; and he doesn’t like the FBI, hasn’t for about ten years now. Says you stole a homicide case from him. Lots of press that he thought he deserved.”

“Well, that wasn’t us,” Jimmy says. “We try to avoid the press when we can; it only muddies the relationship with local law enforcement. We help where we can, then go home. Serial killers are a bit different, though.”

“I can only imagine,” Cooper says.

The backyard of Susan Ault’s home is more cluttered and less attractive than the front but still nice by most standards. A large deck sprouts from the back of the house, complete with railings, benches, a built-in grill, and a steel-and-glass table surrounded by six chairs and covered by a large green umbrella that pokes out from the center of the table.

The deck drops off to a patio, which in turn gives way to thick grass that was due for a mowing two weeks ago. There’s no fence, just the neighboring yards on each side and a transition point between the grass and a wooded area in the very back.

I see it as soon as I come around the side of the house: brilliant rust-textured amaranth glaring at me defiantly, taunting me. The footsteps come in from the woods, cross the yard, and I see handprints where he peered through two windows before going to the sliding glass door.

The prints are fresh, only hours old, and they leave the same way they came, though joined by a second set of prints the color of bone marbled with violet: Susan Ault. Her footsteps are nearly sideways next to those of Sad Face, the way one would walk if struggling or looking back.

I kneel next to one of the prints and place my hand on the bent grass. “She has a daughter … how old?”

“Two.” Sergeant Cooper pulls a notepad from his breast pocket and flips through several pages. “Her name’s Sarah, Sarah Grace Ault.”

Jimmy reads my face, knows what I’ve seen. “We’ve got to get inside,” he says, pulling his Glock in one smooth motion. He fast-walks to the nearest window, but the curtain blocks his view. Moving to the sliding glass door with me and Sergeant Cooper close behind him, he tries the door.

It’s unlocked.

I pull my Walther P22, check the chamber, and flip the switch from safe to fire. The trail tells me that Sad Face is long gone, so I don’t expect a gun battle, but Jimmy and I have walked into too many surprises together to take any chances.

I follow him as he clears the house: first the living room, sweeping into the kitchen, checking closets as we go, then down the carpeted hall. Our feet make little sound as we shuffle through the familiar dance, a dance we call sweep-and-clear. Jimmy shouts, “FBI. Show yourself,” or some rendition of the same, every ten or fifteen seconds, but no one does.

Ducking into the bathroom to check the shower, we continue on to the master bedroom on the right and find a brown and tan Coach purse spilled upon the pale carpet, its contents bleeding out in the form of keys, lipstick, a matching Coach wallet, and even a miniature flashlight. Three feet away from the purse rests a small unused can of pepper spray.
She tried to fight, but he was too fast
.

Sad Face’s shine is on the door handle into the room; it’s on the purse where he grabbed it; it’s on the carpet in the shape of a knee print next to where Susan fell.

Did he strike her?

Push her?

Did she stumble back and fall?

If there are clues here, a story to tell, the shine is not giving them up … though it does whisper an even uglier truth—one more surprise for us to unfold. My stomach tightens into a clenched fist as my eyes follow the shine from the room. He’s pulling her, dragging her, as she continues to struggle. I can see it in the placement of her feet, the drag marks, the sudden jerks forward as he wrenches her along.