Cut to the Quick (42 page)

Connie Jenkins was arrested for attempted murder. She was put on suicide watch, as she was bereft over the death of her only child.

Crowley had been hit with dozens of shotgun pellets. The wounds were not life-threatening, and he was expected to make a full recovery. Hale rushed to be by his side. There was a media circus outside the hospital in Rancho Mirage. Fortunately for Crowley, due to the preponderance of well-heeled retirees in the greater Palm Springs area, medical care and hospitals were excellent.

Since Scoville had clammed up, the police had to wait until Crowley was lucid before they could learn the details of Jenkins’s and Scoville’s crisscross murder plot.

Hale wasted no time in having her attorney begin divorce proceedings.

Vining and Kissick had stayed at the Salton Sea until late, processing the crime scene with the sheriffs. Vining recovered her Walther PPK from Jenkins’s corpse.

It was daylight before Vining was back home, crawling into bed with only her Walther beneath her pillow as company. Emily was still at her dad’s, and it would have been easy for Vining to have invited Kissick to stay. They had been together constantly over the past several days. Vining detected a flicker of loss in his eyes when he left. Their parting was bittersweet for her, but she needed a
little distance from him. She needed time to think. A different unsolved murder was again at the forefront of her mind: hers.

The next day, there was a news conference at the Pasadena Police Department. Vining and Kissick stood with Sergeant Early and Lieutenant Beltran on the station steps. Beltran boasted about his detectives having broken this important case. He announced that thanks to the work of the PPD, law enforcement agencies were looking into the disappearance of numerous females in the Salton Sea area.

The DNA analysis of the acrylic fingernail found at the Mercer house had not yet come back. No one had any doubt that the DNA would match Jenkins’s. Mercer’s USC class ring had been recovered from Jenkins’s finger. Mercer’s severed right hand was found in the freezer in Connie Jenkins’s house, wrapped in aluminum foil, sealed inside a Glad zipper bag, and stashed behind leftover Easter ham and freezer-burned ground meat.

After Crowley’s condition had improved, Donnie Baker, the father of the man Crowley had murdered, came to see him in the hospital. Hale had orchestrated the event to be captured by a camera crew from her TV show. Crowley’s eight-year-old son Luke, who shared his father’s cinematic looks and love of writing, was also there.

In an Oprah moment, Baker told Crowley that he forgave him for killing his son. He realized he’d been a prisoner of his grief and anger. They embraced and both men wept. Then Baker, tears streaking his face, hugged Luke.

Crowley had agreed to the TV cameras because he believed
the issue of forgiveness was important. The publicity kept
Razored Soul
on the
New York Times
bestseller list a few more weeks.

FORTY

V
ining’s life
returned to manageable chaos, the best any single mom could hope for. It was a quiet weeknight at the Vining home. Emily was in her room busy making photo collages on her computer, archiving the events of the summer of her fourteenth year. Vining was glad that the summer had been happy and eventful, and that Em had fond memories to keep close the rest of her life. It was in sharp contrast to the summer the year before. T. B. Mann had robbed them of that time and much more.

Vining was at her desk in her room. She wore her favorite short cotton pajamas. They were ragged, but she wasn’t yet ready to part with them. After the heat of the desert, the Los Angeles early September evening felt cool. She had the windows open through the house to take advantage.

She’d arrayed the artifacts she’d collected from Nitro and T. B. Mann across her desk. There were three necklaces: hers, Johnna Alwin’s, and Nitro’s. There were two notes handwritten in fountain pen on panel cards: “Congratulations, Officer Vining” and the new one: “Officer Vining, your daughter looks just like you.” There were
the violent drawings Nitro had. One showed her. Another depicted Alwin. Who were the other two women?

She was roused from her thoughts by the sonorous ringing of the wind chimes hanging on the terrace.

She angrily marched down the hallway and into the living room. The sliding glass door was open, as she had left it. The lights were off, as was her habit when she left the drapes open at night. The air was still, yet the chimes continued to ring.

Ducking into the kitchen to grab the stepstool, she saw Emily heading out the door to the garage. She was carrying clothes hangers for the laundry that had finished drying hours ago.

“Frankie’s talking,” she said matter-of-factly.

“She’s gonna have to find another way because I’m taking down those blasted chimes.”

Vining went out the screen door onto the terrace, where the stool slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground.

There was a woman on the terrace. She was running her fingers over the wind chimes, waving her hand back and forth, making them ring. She looked like Frankie Lynde, but it couldn’t be. The LAPD vice officer’s body had been dumped beneath the Colorado Street Bridge in June, three months ago.

Lynde was in full dress uniform, as she’d always appeared in Vining’s dreams. Brass polished, creases pressed, hair in a tight bun beneath her cap, eyes bright. Vining had only seen her in her waking life as a brutalized corpse, but in dreams, Lynde was perfection.

She smiled cryptically at Vining, as if she had the answers to everything if only Vining knew how to ask.

Vining heard a voice in her head. Not a ghostly whisper, but an authoritative decree.

He’s closer than you think
.

Vining was reaching to pick up the stool when she heard Emily shout.

“Mom, come here. Mom!”

In the garage, Vining found Emily backed up against the car, her face ashen.

“Em, what is it?”

“Look in the basket.”

In the laundry basket on the washer, among the sheets and towels Vining had set out to wash, was something yellow. She picked it up. It was a polo-style shirt that had an embroidered logo of a lamb dangling from a ribbon. The shirt was caked with something dark brown. Dried blood. Her blood.

“What is it, Mom?”

Vining knew that shirt. It was the one T. B. Mann had worn when he’d attacked her.

She quickly pulled Emily away and searched the garage. He wasn’t there. She didn’t think he would be.

She carried the shirt into the kitchen. He’d attacked her in a kitchen. As she dropped the shirt inside a paper bag, she reflected that the circle was now complete.

Off the terrace, the chimes rang their last notes, musically echoing Frankie Lynde’s message.

He’s closer than you think, think … think …

Please read on for a preview of

THE DEEPEST CUT
by Dianne Emley
Coming soon in hardcover
from Ballantine Books

Montaña de Oro State Park
Central California Coast
Eight years ago

T
his was
his chance to get it right. He was nervous but confident. This was good. No … Great. Perfect. A fresh start. A new day. His first time had been a bloody mess. Of course, it counted. It had been
everything
—which was part of the problem. He’d lost control. He wouldn’t do that again. Because he’d learned that killing is never as easy as you hope, but it’s so worth taking the time and trouble to do it with style. Practice makes perfect. Here he was and here she was. Take two.

Looking up at California State Park Ranger Marilu Feathers, he let a smile tickle his lips and said, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

He pulled one corner of his mouth higher than the other, crafting what was intended to be a rakish grin. She’d know that he knew it was a corny old saying, and that would show his mastery of the situation. While he was at it, he arched an eyebrow, aiming to look clever, disarming, maybe even handsome. He was rewarded. She smiled. She was flirting with him.

In no mood, Feathers smirked. It was Christmas Eve and this clown was about to make her late to dinner at her parents’ house with her brother and his family. Her young niece and nephew wouldn’t care, but her sister-in-law would find it an opportunity to remind single, childless, thirtysomething Feathers about the importance of schedules for children.

She’d taken her horse instead of the Jeep to do one last patrol of the nearly deserted sand spit, ringing in the holiday and a well-earned break with a sunset gallop. And now this.

The stranger looked Feathers over with a measure of scrutiny and delight, as if examining a long-sought-after rare book found by chance at a yard sale. He had watched in awe from the moment she’d appeared with Gypsy, her big roan mare, from the pass-through between the dunes and had begun galloping across the sand. She scattered spindly legged sandpipers and inky black cormorants feeding in the surf while brown pelicans and Western gulls circled above, the gulls calling, “
Kuk, kuk, kuk.
”

He had known she’d take Gypsy from the stable behind the dunes, would go down the Jeep path onto the spit, and would turn right, toward the Rock. He had known exactly where to position himself. She often rode at sunset, when the sand spit was quiet, but not always. He’d spent disappointing hours, primed, waiting, only to return home unfulfilled. While frustrating, waiting taught him discipline, which he knew he sorely needed. Now, at last, his
reward
. His heart had thrilled with each beat of the horse’s hooves upon the sand.

He felt his emotions running away with him and, like Feathers reining in her horse, he seized command of himself. His reward was near. His memories of this
moment would keep it alive and fresh forever. All he had to do was hold on.
Hold on
.

Feathers pulled up her horse beside the makeshift barrier and managed an insincere, “Good evening, sir,” and then the admonishment. “You’re in the snowy plover restricted habitat. You can’t be here, let alone have a campfire.”

He knew that. Who could miss the miles of yellow nylon rope on four-foot metal stakes marked with signs, some drawn by schoolchildren, “Share the beach!” “We love the snowy plover!” He thought the stupid bird deserved to go extinct, but he knew that if she could, Ranger Feathers would sit on their nests—mere shallows in the sand, lazy birds. He’d not only purposefully gone into the restricted habitat, he’d built a fire with driftwood. Brilliant. Did he know how to push her buttons, or what?

Standing near him now, she was a sight to behold, tall in the saddle, her dun-colored uniform fitting loosely on her big-boned, lean frame. He was beguiled by her uniform, her round, flat-brimmed Ranger Stetson hat, her gun, and her badge. Her plain face so easily adopted that no-nonsense bearing. He’d seen her laugh, but soon after, her face would reassume that stern countenance, that
command presence
coveted by cops. It came naturally to Feathers. She had been born for the job.

He’d told her, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Rakish grin. Arched eyebrow.

He returned his attention to the marshmallow he was roasting on the end of an opened wire hanger. The next move was hers. He was so excited, he could hardly stand it.
Get a grip, buddy!

Feathers thought, “What’s he doing? Trying to flirt with me?” She guessed he was one of the college kids that abounded in Morro Bay and Los Osos, the relaxed
beach cities adjacent to the sprawling state park. A state university was nearby and students frequented the park to hike in the jagged coastal mountains or to surf and raise hell on the long stretch of secluded sandy beach reached by foot or horseback via twisting, steep trails that traversed the dunes. Only rangers were allowed to drive there.

She had invested a lot of time over her years at the park reprimanding, citing, and sometimes arresting the drunken, the loaded, and the pugnacious of all ages. In addition to providing the public with information about hiking trails, campsites, local flora and fauna, and the locations of public restrooms, her job was to enforce the law in the park. Those who did not revere this sacred space would feel her iron hand. She was protective of these eight thousand acres. Her corner of paradise. Her mountain of gold.

The young adult visitors were usually in packs, or at least pairs. This jackass was alone, sitting on a cheap, webbed-nylon folding chair. He wore a heavy plaid wool jacket, buttoned to the top, blue jeans, and sand-caked athletic shoes. A wool watchman’s cap was pulled low over his ears. She saw no belongings other than the chair, the open bag of marshmallows on the sand near his feet, and the wire hanger. The jacket, though, had deep pockets.

The park was nearly empty. Only a few campsites were occupied. The sand spit was deserted except for this guy. He was burning driftwood, an additional insult to the park. Her park.

“Sir, you’re going to have to put out that fire and move out of the restricted area. Now.”

“I know, Ranger Feathers.” He pulled the golden, softly melting marshmallow from the flames and swung the wire toward Feathers. “Toasted marshmallow?”

The sudden motion startled the horse and she pranced backward. Gypsy was Feathers’s personal horse and unaccustomed to aggressive movements.

“Watch it, pal.” Feathers steadied Gypsy, the horse moving so that Morro Rock was behind them. The giant, crown-shaped, long-extinct volcano at the mouth of the bay was silhouetted by the fading winter sun.

She was wearing a brass name tag, but his vision had to be extraordinary if he could read it at that distance in the fading light. She leaned forward and gave the horse a couple of firm pats while eyeballing the stranger.

The watch cap covered his hair and part of his eyebrows. He was seated, but his legs and arms were long. She guessed that standing he would be at least six feet. His clothes were bulky, but his build looked average. His face was ordinary. Not handsome or ugly. No distinguishing scars or marks. It was a blank canvas, brightened only by the way he looked at her: adoring and consuming. It put her in mind the way her brother played with her infant niece, slobbering kisses over the baby while taunting, “I’m gonna eat you up.
Eat you up
.”