“Mrs.
Chase, then,” she said. “As we discussed on the phone, Polly Ann Austin was
killed in a car accident. In her will, you are named guardian of the children.”
Sam
blinked hard. “Polly Ann.”
“Austin,”
the woman repeated, glancing at a piece of paper she held in her fist. “Relationship
says sister. This should have all been discussed on the phone.”
Sam
nodded.
The
woman pushed the children forward, and Sam focused in on their wide blue
eyes—Polly’s eyes. How in the world could she ever protect them from people
like Gerry Hecht?
June
25, 2001
Walnut
Creek, California
“Chase,”
the voice said when Sam mumbled “Hello” into the receiver. “It’s Thomas. I’m in
the Diablo foothills. You’d better come.”
Sam
sat up straight and fumbled for the clock on the bedside table, tilting it
until the red numbers came into focus: 2:15
A
.
M
. Blinking, she surveyed the room for a sign of
something wrong. “What is it? Has something happened to Rob?” Her throat had
the gritty texture of sandpaper as she spoke.
“I
sure as hell hope not. Rob’s supposed to be with you. It’s the middle of the
night. You want to check his room?”
“I’ll
look when we’re done. Why are you calling?”
“We
found Walters.”
The
tone of Detective Thomas’ voice let Sam know this was business, and the
business was that a child was dead. Not a fun business to be in. A victim of
child abuse, Molly Walters had been removed from her mother’s home more than
once in her seven years. Sam wished she had been able to keep her away for
good. She sighed, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes to clear the fog
of sleep from her brain. “Damn.”
“Uh,
it’s not the one you’re thinking.”
“What
do you mean?”
“It’s
not Molly.”
“Nick,
for God’s sake, say it in English. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You
need to come up here.”
“The
boys are still asleep. I’ll come to the station house later.”
“No,”
Thomas insisted. “The boys are sixteen years old, Sam. They’ll be fine. You
need to come to the scene now.”
At
the tone of his voice, Sam set her feet on the floor and focused on the far
walls of her dark room. Her head swam, sleep pulling her eyelids closed like a
wet cloth. “Why? What’s going on?”
“There’s
something you should see.”
Sam
swallowed hard. She’d dealt with abuse and death since she left homicide, but
rarely face-to-face. She handled perpetrators. It was mostly bullshit with
them—trying to push their buttons and act tough. She could do that. She could be
tougher than any gang of criminals, but the victims she left to someone else.
It was a routine she wanted to maintain. She hesitated. “I don’t know, Thomas.”
“Get
your ass out of bed,” he said, his tone urgent but not angry.
“Watch
it.” If Molly wasn’t dead, though, what was going on? “You picked up the
mother?” she asked.
“The
mother’s not going anywhere—ever. You coming or what?”
Sam
pushed the warm covers off her legs and was instantly cold. Unmoving, she tried
to sort it out, unclear why she needed to see the dead Walters woman unless the
police suspected that seven-year-old Molly was the killer. Doubtful. “I’ll be
there.”
“Good.
And come with an empty stomach.”
Despite
the ache in her gut, Sam tried to joke it off. “Doesn’t sound pretty.”
“It’s
not. Take 680 to El Cerro. Head east until El Cerro becomes Diablo Boulevard. A
mile later, take a left at the sign for Diablo Country Club. We’re about a mile
and a half up on the left in the wooded lot across from the pasture. You’ll see
the cars.” As he rattled off his location, Sam committed it to memory. “You
write that down?” he asked.
“Never.
See you in a few.” Switching on her bedside light, Sam blinked yellow flashes
until her vision cleared. She crossed the room, and found a pair of jeans and a
cotton turtleneck and sweater from the night before and dressed quickly,
thankful for the no-nonsense ease of her short hair and her taste for no
makeup. It defied everything she’d ever known for the first eighteen years of
her life. Even twenty years later, it still felt great.
Pulling
the holster from its post at the back of her closet, she strapped on her gun
and hurried down the hall, pushing open the door to the first bedroom. Posters
of Cal Ripken, hands raised to the crowd, at his record-breaking 2,131st game
and Barry Bonds hitting his 73rd homer covered the two walls above the single
bed. Several days’ worth of clothes were scattered across the floor, creating
patterns of gray that played in the shadows of the room. Despite the mess, she
exhaled at the sight of sheets pulled loose and strewn across Rob’s body. He’d
missed curfew again last night. At least he’d made it home. She watched the
steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept. She would deal with him later.
Closing
his door, she moved to the next one and opened it. “Derek,” she whispered.
The
sleepy boy shifted slightly, his blond hair covering his eyes. “Huh,” he
grumbled, his arm falling out of the covers and dangling toward the floor.
Above his head hung a poster of the constellations, beside it a Bruce
Springsteen poster from
Darkness on the Edge of Town
, an album that had
come out while Sam was in college. His books were carefully stacked on the
desk, clothes put in their place, only the most recent Grisham novel
spread-eagled on the floor.
“I’ve
got to go to a scene. I’ll be back before you’re up. If you need me, page me.”
“Uh-huh,”
the sixteen-year-old mumbled back.
She
moved into the room. “Derek,” she whispered a little louder.
He
opened his eyes and blinked hard, squinting as he pushed the hair from his
face. “I heard you—you’re out, page you if Rob sets the house on fire.”
She
smiled and winked. “If you’re up before I’m back, remind him he needs to clean
that sty. And tell him not to go anywhere until we’ve talked. He missed curfew
again. You know what time he got home?”
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.”