Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (47 page)

“I asked them to show me the log-in sheets. The whole month’s worth, so Henry didn’t get suspicious. They were more than happy to comply. And here’s what I found: The day Juan Millar died there was one visiting physician—the hospital has a continuing-ed lecture series and he was probably there for that. There were also six job applicants—two for maintenance spots, one for the cafeteria and three nurses. I’ve got copies of their résumés. None of them look suspicious to me.

“Now, what’s interesting is this: There were sixty-four visitors at the hospital that day. I correlated the names and the people they were there to see, and every one of them checks out. Except one.”

“Who?”

“It’s hard to read the name, either the printed version or the signature. But I think it’s Jose Lopez.”

“Who was he seeing?”

“He only wrote ‘patient.’ ”

“That was a safe bet, in a hospital,” Dance said wryly. “Why is it suspicious?”

“Well, I figured that if somebody was there to kill
Juan Millar, he or she would have to have been there before—either as visitors or to check out security and so on. So I looked at everybody who’d signed in to see him earlier.”

“Brilliant. And you checked their handwriting.”

“Exactly. I’m no document examiner but I found a visitor who’d been to see him a number of times, and I’d almost guarantee the handwriting’s the same as this Jose Lopez’s.”

Dance was sitting forward. “Who?”

“Julio Millar.”

“His brother!”

“I’m ninety percent sure. I made copies of everything.” Ramirez handed Dance sheets of paper.

“Oh, Connie, this is brilliant.”

“Good luck. If you need anything else, just ask.”

Dance sat alone in her office, considering this new information. Could Julio actually have killed his brother?

At first, it seemed impossible, given the loyalty and love that Julio displayed for his young sibling. Yet there was no doubt that the killing had been an act of mercy, and Dance could imagine a conversation between the two brothers—Julio leaning forward as Juan whispered a plea to put him out of his misery.

Kill me. . . .

Besides, why else would Julio have faked a name on the sign-in sheet?

Why had Harper and the state investigators missed this connection? She was furious, and had a suspicion that they knew about it, but were downplaying the possibility because it would be better publicity against the death-with-dignity act for Robert Harper
to go after the mother of a state law enforcement agent. Thoughts of prosecutorial malfeasance buzzed around her head.

Dance called George Sheedy and left a message about what Connie Ramirez had found. She then called her mother to tell her directly about it. There was no answer.

Damnit. Was she screening calls?

She disconnected then sat back, thinking about Travis. If he was alive, how much longer would he have? A few days, without water. And what a terrible death it would be.

Another shadow in her doorway. TJ Scanlon appeared, “Hey, boss.”

She sensed something was urgent.

“Crime scene results?”

“Not yet, but I’m riding ’em hard.
Rawhide,
remember? This’s something else. Heard from MCSO. They got a call—anonymous—about the Crosses Case.”

Dance sat up slightly. “What was it?”

“The caller said he’d spotted, quote, ‘something near Harrison Road and Pine Grove Way.’ Just south of Carmel.”

“Nothing more than that?”

“Nope. Just ‘something.’ I checked the intersection. It’s near that abandoned construction site. And the call was from a pay phone.”

Dance debated for a moment. Her eyes dipped to a sheet of paper, a copy of the postings on
The Chilton Report.
She rose and pulled on her jacket.

“You going to go over there to check it out?” TJ asked uncertainly.

“Yep. Really want to find him, if there’s any way.”

“Kind of a weird area, boss. Want backup?”

She smiled. “I don’t think I’m going to be in much danger.”

Not with the perp presently residing in the Monterey County morgue.

THE CEILING OF
the basement was painted black. It contained eighteen rafters, also black. The walls were a dingy white, cheap paint, and were made up of 892 cinder blocks. Against the wall were two cabinets, one gray metal, one uneven white wood. Inside were large stocks of canned goods, boxes of pasta, soda and wine, tools, nails, personal items like toothpaste and deodorant.

Four metal poles rose to the dim ceiling, supporting the first floor. Three were close to each other, one farther away. They were painted dark brown but they were also rusty and it was hard to tell where the paint ended and the oxidation began.

The floor was concrete and the cracks made shapes that became familiar if you stared at them long enough: a sitting panda, the state of Texas, a truck.

An old furnace, dusty and battered, sat in the corner. It ran on natural gas and switched on only rarely. Even then, though, it didn’t heat this area much at all.

The size of the basement was thirty-seven feet by twenty-eight, which could be calculated easily from the cinder blocks, which were exactly twelve inches wide by nine high, though you had to add an eighth of an inch to each one for the mortar that glued them together.

A number of creatures lived down here too. Spiders, mostly. You could count seven families, if that
was what spiders lived in, and they seemed to stake out territories so as not to offend—or get eaten by—the others. Beetles and centipedes too. Occasional mosquitoes and flies.

Something larger had shown an interest in the stacks of food and beverages in the far corner of the basement, a mouse or a rat. But it’d grown timid and left, never to return.

Or been poisoned and died.

One window, high in the wall, admitted opaque light but no view; it was painted over, off-white. The hour was now probably 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.—since the window was nearly dark.

The thick silence was suddenly shattered as footsteps pounded across the first floor, above. A pause. Then the front door opened, and slammed shut.

At last.

Finally, now that his kidnapper had left, Travis Brigham could relax. The way the schedule of the past few days had turned out, once his captor left at night he wouldn’t be back till morning. Travis now curled up in the bed, pulling the gamy blanket around him. This was the high point of his day: sleep.

At least in sleep, Travis had learned, he could find some respite from despair.

THE FOG WAS
thick and briskly streamed overhead as Dance turned off the highway and began to meander down winding Harrison Road. This area was south of Carmel proper—on the way to Point Lobos and Big Sur beyond—and was deserted, mostly hilly woods; a little farmland remained.

Coincidentally it was close to the ancient Ohlone Indian land near which Arnold Brubaker hoped to build his desalination plant.

Smelling pine and eucalyptus, Dance slowly followed her headlights—low beams because of the fog—along the road. Occasional driveways led into darkness broken by dots of light. She passed several cars, also driving slowly, coming from the opposite direction, and she wondered if it had been a driver who’d called in the anonymous report that had sent her here, or one of the residents.

Something . . .

That was certainly a possibility but Harrison Road was also a shortcut from Highway 1 to Carmel Valley Road. The call could have come from anybody.

She soon arrived at Pine Grove Way and pulled over.

The construction site that the anonymous caller had mentioned was a half-completed hotel complex—now never to be finished, since the main building had burned under suspicious circumstances. Insurance fraud was initially suspected but the perps turned out to be environmentalists who didn’t want the land scarred by the development. (Ironically, the green terrorists miscalculated; the fire spread and destroyed hundreds of acres of pristine woods.)

Most of the wilderness had grown back, but for various reasons the hotel project never got under way again and the complex remained as it now was: several acres of derelict buildings and foundations dug deep in the loamy ground. The area was surrounded by leaning chain-link fences marked with
Danger
and
No Trespassing
signs, but a couple of times a year or so teens would have to be rescued after falling into a pit or getting trapped in the ruins while smoking pot or drinking or, in one case, having sex in the least comfortable and unromantic location imaginable.

It was also spooky as hell.

Dance grabbed her flashlight from the glove compartment and climbed out of her Crown Vic.

The damp breeze wafted over her, and she shivered with a jolt of fear.

Relax.

She gave a wry laugh, clicked on the flashlight and started forward, sweeping the Magna-Lite beam over the ground tangled with brush.

A car swept past on the highway, tires sticky on the damp asphalt. It eased around a corner and the sound stopped instantly as if the vehicle had beamed into a different dimension.

As she looked around her, Dance was supposing that the “something” the anonymous caller had reported was the last roadside cross, the one intended to announce James Chilton’s death.

There was, however, none to be seen in the immediate vicinity.

What else could the person have meant?

Could they have seen or heard Travis himself?

This would be a perfect place to stash him.

She paused and listened for any calls for help.

Nothing but the breeze through the oaks and pines.

Oaks . . . Dance pictured one of the improvised roadside crosses. Pictured the one in her backyard too.

Should she call in and order a search? Not just yet. Keep looking.

She wished she had the anonymous caller here. Even the most reluctant witness could be the source of all the information she needed; look at Tammy Foster, whose lack of cooperation hadn’t slowed down the investigation at all.

Tammy’s computer. It’s got the answer. Well, maybe not
the
answer. But
an
answer. . . .

But she didn’t have the caller; she had her flashlight and a spooky, deserted construction site.

Looking for “something.”

Dance now slipped through one of the several gates in the chain link, the metal bent by years of trespassers, and eased through the grounds, moving slowly. The main building had collapsed completely under the flames. And the others—service sheds, garages and complexes of hotel rooms—were boarded
up. There were a half dozen open foundation pits. They were marked with orange warning signs, but the fog was thick and reflected back much light into Dance’s eyes; she moved carefully for fear of tumbling down into one.

Easing through the compound, one step at a time, pausing, looking for footprints.

What the hell had the caller seen?

Then, Dance heard a noise in the distance, but not that distant. A loud snap. Another.

She froze.

Deer, she guessed. They were plentiful in the area. But other animals lived here too. Last year a mountain lion had killed a tourist jogging not far from here. The animal had sliced the poor woman apart then vanished. Dance unbuttoned her jacket and tapped the butt of her Glock for reassurance.

Another snap then a creak.

Like a hinge of an old door opening.

Dance shivered in fear, reflecting that just because the Roadside Cross Killer was no longer a threat, that didn’t mean meth cookers or gangbangers weren’t hanging around here.

But heading back never entered her mind. Travis could be here. Keep going.

Another forty feet or so into the compound, Dance was looking for the structures that might house a kidnap victim, looking for buildings with padlocks, looking for footprints.

She thought she heard another sound—almost a moan. Dance came close to calling out the boy’s name. But instinct told her not to.

And then she stopped fast.

A human figure was silhouetted in the fog no more than ten yards away. Crouching, she thought.

She gasped, clicked the light out and drew her gun.

Another look. Whoever—whatever—it might have been was gone.

But the image wasn’t imagination. She was certain she’d seen somebody, male, she believed from the kinesics.

Now, footsteps were sounding clearly. Branches snapping, leaves rustling. He was flanking her, to her right. Moving, then pausing.

Dance fondled the cell phone in her pocket. But if she made a call, her voice would give away her position. And she had to assume that whoever was here in the dark on a damp, foggy night wasn’t present for innocent purposes.

Retrace your steps, she told herself. Back to the car. Now. Thinking of the shotgun in her trunk, a weapon she’d fired once. In training.

Dance turned around and moved quickly, every step making a loud crinkle through the leaves. Every step shouting, Here I am, here I am.

She stopped. The intruder didn’t. His steps telegraphed his transit over the leaves and underbrush as he continued on, somewhere in the dark fog to her right.

Then they stopped.

Had he stopped too? Or was he on leafless ground, moving in for an attack?

Just get back to the car, get under cover, rack the 12-gauge and call in backup.

It was fifty, sixty feet back to the chain-link fence.
In the dim ambient light—moon diffused by fog—she surveyed the ground. Some places seemed less leaf-strewn than others, but there was no way to proceed quietly. She told herself she couldn’t wait any longer.

But still the stalker was silent.

Was he hiding?

Had he left?

Or was he coming up close under cover of the dense foliage?

Near panicking, Dance whirled but saw nothing other than the ghosts of buildings, trees, some large tanks, half buried and rusting.

Dance crouched, wincing from the pain in her joints—from the chase, and the tumble, the other day at Travis’s house. Then she moved toward the fence as quickly as she could. Resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to break into a run over ground strewn with construction-site booby traps.