Текст книги "Solitude Creek"

Автор книги: Jeffery Daeaver

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

PRECAUTIONS

FRIDAY, APRIL 7

CHAPTER 27

‘Never rains but it pours,’ Michael O’Neil offered, walking into Dance’s office.

TJ Scanlon glanced at the solid detective, who was sitting down across from her desk. ‘I never quite got that. Does it mean, “We’re in a desert area, so it doesn’t rain but sometimes there’s a downpour and we get flooded because, you know, there’s no ground cover?”’

‘I don’t know. All I mean is, my plate’s filling up.’

‘With rain?’ TJ asked.

‘A homicide.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ TJ often walked a fine line between jovial and flippant.

Dance asked, ‘The missing farmer? Otto Grant?’ She was thinking of the possible suicide, the man distraught about losing his land to the eminent domain action by the state. She couldn’t imagine what he had gone through, losing the farm that had been in his family for so many years. She and the children had been at Safeway recently and she’d noticed yet more 8.5-by-11 sheets of paper, attention-getting yellow, with Grant’s picture on them.

Have you seen this man? …

O’Neil shook his head. ‘No, no, I mean another case altogether.’ He handed Dance a half-dozen crime-scene photos. ‘Jane Doe. Found this morning at the Cabrillo Beach Inn.’

A dive of a place, Dance knew. North of Monterey.

‘Prints come back negative.’

The photo was of a young woman who’d been dead seven or eight hours, to guess from the lividity. She was pretty. She had been pretty.

‘COD?’

‘Asphyx. Plastic bag, rubber band.’

‘Rape?’

‘No. But maybe erotic asphyxia.’

Dance shook her head. Really? Risking death? How much better could an orgasm be?

‘I’ll get it on our internal wire,’ TJ said. This would send the picture to every one of the CBI offices, where a facial-recognition scan would be run and compared with faces in the database.

‘Thanks.’

TJ took the pictures off to scan them.

O’Neil continued, to Dance: ‘The boyfriend’s probably married. Panicked and took off with her purse. We’re checking video nearby for tags and makes. Might find something.’

‘Why wasn’t she on the bed? I don’t care how kinky I was, sex on the floor of that motel is just plain ick.’

O’Neil said, ‘That’s why I said maybe about the erotic asphyx. There were marks on her wrists. Somebody might’ve held her down while she died. Or it could have been part of their game. I’m keeping an open mind.’

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘you still with us on the Solitude Creek unsub?’ She was afraid that the death – accidental or intentional – would derail him.

‘No. Just complaining about the rain.’

‘You still on the hate-crime case too?’

‘Yeah.’ A grimace. ‘We had another.’

‘No! What happened?’

‘Another gay couple. Two men from Pacific Grove. Not far from you, down on Lighthouse. A rock through their window.’

‘Any suspects?’

‘Nope.’ He shrugged. ‘But, rain or not, I can work Solitude Creek.’

He was then looking down at the newspaper on Dance’s chair. The front page contained a big picture of Brad Dannon. The fireman, in a suit and sporting a bright flag lapel pin, sat on the couch next to an Asian American reporter. Hero Fireman Tells the Horror Story of Solitude Creek.

‘You interview him?’ O’Neil asked.

She nodded and gave a sour laugh. ‘Yep. And his ego.’

‘Either of them helpful?’

‘Uh-uh. In fairness, he was busy helping the injured. And we didn’t know it was a crime scene at that point.’

‘You ran the Serrano thing, in Seaside?’

‘Yep.’

‘How’s that working out?’ The question seemed brittle.

‘It’s moving along.’ Then she didn’t want to talk about it any more.

Her phone rang. ‘Kathryn Dance.’

‘Uhm, Mrs Dance. This’s Trish Martin.’

The daughter of Michelle Cooper, the woman killed in Solitude Creek.

‘Yes, Trish. Hi.’ She glanced toward O’Neil. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Not so great. You know.’

‘I’m sure it’s difficult.’ Thinking back to the days after Bill had died.

Not so great … Never so great.

‘I heard, I mean, I was watching the news and they said he tried to do it again.’

‘It’s looking that way, yes.’

There was a long silence. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

‘Just to ask what you saw that night.’

‘Okay. I want to help. I want to help you get him. Fucker.’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

‘I can’t talk here. My father’ll be back soon. I’m at my mother’s house. He’ll be back and he doesn’t want me to talk to you. Well, to anybody.’

‘You’re in Pebble Beach, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You drive?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Meet me at the Bagel Bakery on Forest. You know it?’

‘Sure – I have to go he’s coming back bye.’ Spoken in one breath.

Click.

CHAPTER 28

She’d been crying.

Dance gave her credit for not trying to hide it. No makeup, no averted eyes. Tears and streaks present.

Trish Martin was sitting in the corner of the Bagel Bakery, toward the back, under a primitive but affecting acrylic painting of a dog carefully regarding a turtle. It was one of a dozen for sale on the walls, this batch by students, a card reported. Dance and the children came here regularly and she’d bought a few of the works from time to time. She really liked the dog and turtle.

‘Hi.’

‘Hey,’ the girl said.

‘How you doing?’

‘Okay.’

‘What do you want? I’ll get it.’ Dance was tempted to suggest cocoa but that smacked of youthening the girl, marginalizing her. She picked a compromise. ‘I’m doing cappuccino.’

‘Sure.’

‘Cinnamon?’

‘Sure.’

‘Anything to eat?’

‘No. Not hungry.’ As if she’d never be again.

Dance placed the order and returned. Sat down. Automatically reaching for the plastic holster that held her Glock, which usually needed adjusting upon sitting. Her hand went to nothing and she remembered.

Then she was concentrating on the girl. Trish wore jeans and scuffed but expensive brown boots. Dance, a lover of footwear, spotted Italian. A black, scoop-neck sweater. A stocking cap, beige, pulled down over her hair. The sleeves of the sweater met her knuckles.

‘Thanks for calling me. I appreciate it. I know what you’re going through.’

‘Totally.’ Her keen eyes stabbed at Dance’s. ‘You have any idea who it is? Who killed my mother and those other people?’

And nearly you, Dance thought. ‘Not much. It’s not like any case I’ve ever seen.’

‘He’s a fucking sadist, whoever he is.’

Not technically but that would do.

Dance opened her notebook. ‘Your father doesn’t know you’re here?’

‘He’s not so bad. This, like, freaked him out too. He’s just being protective of me. You know.’

‘I understand.’

‘But I don’t have much time. He’s packing up stuff at his house now. He’ll be back to Mom’s soon.’

‘Then let me get right to the questions.’

The drinks came, cardboard cups. They both sipped.

‘Can you tell me what you remember?’ Dance asked.

‘The band had just started. I don’t know, maybe the second or third song. And then …’ After a deep breath, she gave much the same story as the other witnesses. The smell of smoke, though not seeing much. Then, almost as if somebody had flipped a switch, everyone in the audience had risen, knocking over tables, scattering drinks, pushing others aside and rushing for the exits.

Her expression mystified, she repeated, ‘But there was no fire and still, you know, everybody went crazy. Five seconds, ten, from the first person who stood up. That was all it took.’ She sighed. ‘I think it was Mom. The first. She panicked. Then this bright light came on, pointed at the exit doors, you know, to show everybody where they were. I guess that was good but it made some of us panic more. They were so bright.’

She sipped a little from her cup, stared at the foam. Then: ‘I got surrounded by this one bunch of people and my mother by another. She was screaming for me and I was screaming for her but we were going in different directions. There was no way to stop.’ Her voice went low. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. It was like I was totally … I don’t know, not even me. I was part of this thing. Nobody was listening to anybody else. We were just out of control.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She was going toward the fire doors. I could see her fight, trying to get back to me. I was going the opposite way – toward the kitchen, the group I was in. There wasn’t an exit sign there but somebody said there was a door we could get out of.’

‘And you escaped that way?’

‘Eventually. But not at first. That’s why it was so bad.’ She teared, then wiped her eyes.

‘What, Trish?’

‘Somebody on the PA system said, “The fire’s in the kitchen.” Or something like that.’

Dance remembered Cohen had made the announcement.

‘But somebody nearby saw that the kitchen was okay. No fire at all. We went in that direction. We tried to tell everybody else but nobody could hear us. You couldn’t hear anything.’

Dance jotted down the girl’s recollections. ‘What’s most important for us to find out is anything about him, this man. We have some description but it’s not very much. We don’t think he was in the club. He was outside. When did you and your mother get there?’

‘I don’t know, maybe seven fifteen.’

‘I want you to think back. Now this guy—’

‘The perp.’

Dance gave her a grin. ‘We say “unsub”. Unknown subject.’

‘I say asshole.’

‘Now, this asshole drove a truck from the warehouse to the club around eight. He had to’ve been there before. Did you see anybody hanging around, maybe near the warehouse? Checking out the club? Near the oil drum where he set the fire?’

Trish seemed to find more comfort in cupping the beverage between her fingers, her nails tipped with chipped black polish, than from drinking it.

A sigh. ‘No. I can’t remember anyone. You know, you go to a place, there’s going to be a show, and you’re just talking and thinking about what you’re going to see and have for dinner, and you don’t pay much attention.’

Much of Kathryn Dance’s job had nothing to do with spotting deception on the part of unsubs: it was about helping witnesses unearth useful recollections.

Teenagers were among the worst when it came to remembering details. Their minds danced around so much, they were so distracted, that they observed little and recalled less – unless the topic interested them. Still, the images were often there. One task of an interviewer is to guide witnesses back to the time and place when they might have noted a tiny kernel that was nonetheless vital in nailing the suspect. As she considered how she might do this, she noted the girl’s keyless fob sitting on the table beside her purse.

A Toyota logo from a local dealer.

‘Prius?’ Dance asked.

She nodded. ‘My mom got it for me. How’d you know?’

‘Guess.’

A sensible car. And an expensive one. Dance remembered, too, that the girl’s father had driven a new Lexus.

‘You like to drive?’

‘Love it! When I’m upset I just drive up and down One. Big Sur and back.’

‘Trish, I want you to think back to the parking lot that night.’

‘I didn’t see anybody in particular.’

‘I understand. But what I’m wondering about is cars. We know this guy’s pretty smart. There’s no indication he’s working with anyone so he’d have to drive to Solitude Creek but he wouldn’t have parked too close to the club. He’d’ve been worried about video cameras or getting spotted climbing out of the truck, after he parked it, and getting into his own car.’

Trish frowned. ‘A silver Honda.’

‘What?’

‘Or light-colored. We were pulling off the highway, off One, on the road that led to the club, and Mom said, “Wonder if it’ll get stolen.” It was parked by itself, on the other side of that line of trees that surrounded the parking lot. Of the club, you know.’

Dance recalled an area of weeds and dunes between the parking lot and Highway One.

‘We’d just seen a news story about the gangs around here? They drive around in flatbeds and, you know, scoop up cars parked in deserted areas. That’s what Mom was talking about.’

‘You know the model?’

‘No, not really. Just the style, you know. Accord or Civic. A lot of kids at school have them. Mom and I talked about calling the police to report it, so it wouldn’t get stolen. But we didn’t. I mean, if we’d done that, maybe …’ She ran out of steam and cried quietly for a moment. Dance reached over and gripped her arm. Trish gave no response. She calmed eventually and took a sip from her cup. ‘You think that’s his car?’ she asked.

Dance replied, ‘Possibly. It’s the sort of place somebody would park, out of the way. Did you notice the plate, what state it came from, the number?’

‘No, just the color, silver. Or light-colored. Maybe gray.’

‘And nobody nearby?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘That’s a big help, Trish.’

Dance hoped.

She sent a text to TJ to get a list of light-colored Honda owners in the area. She knew this was a weak lead. All law enforcers know that Honda Civics and Accords are close to the most plentiful sedans in America – and therefore the most difficult to trace. She wondered if their unsub had bought or stolen the car for that very reason.

She also asked TJ to hit the list of witnesses from Solitude Creek once more. And see if anyone had spotted the car and had any more information that could be helpful. He should put it out on the law-enforcement wire.

A moment later: On the case, boss.

Trish glanced at her iPhone. ‘It’s late. I should go.’ No teenager had a watch now. ‘Dad’ll be bringing his stuff back to the house soon. I should be there.’ She finished her coffee quickly and pitched the cup into a rubbish bin.

Maybe destroying evidence of a furtive meeting.

‘Thanks.’ Trish inhaled and then, her voice breaking, said, ‘Not okay.’

Dance lifted an eyebrow.

‘You asked me how I was. And I said, “Okay.” But I’m not okay.’ She shivered and cried harder. Dance pulled a wad of napkins from the holder and handed them over.

Trish said, ‘Not very fucking okay at all. Mom was, like, she wasn’t the best mom in the world – she was more of a friend to me than a mom. Which drove me fucking crazy sometimes. Like she wanted to be my older sister or something. But despite all that crap, I miss her so much.’

‘Your nose,’ Dance said. The girl wiped.

‘And Dad’s so different.’

‘They had joint custody?’

‘Mom had me most of the time. That’s what she wanted and Dad didn’t fight it. It was like he just wanted out.’

Fell for his secretary. Dance recalled her earlier scenario of the break-up.

‘It’s just going to be so weird, living in the house again, with him. They got divorced six years ago. Everybody tells me it goes away, all this stuff, what I’m feeling. Just time, it’ll be all right.’

‘Everybody’s wrong,’ Dance said.

‘What?’

‘I lost my husband a few years ago.’

‘Hey, I’m sorry.’

A nod of acknowledgment. ‘It doesn’t go away. Ever. And it shouldn’t. We should always miss certain people who’ve been in our lives. But there’ll be islands, more and more of them.’

‘Islands?’

‘That’s the way I thought of it. Islands – of times when you’re content, you don’t think about the loss. Now it’s like your world’s under water. All of it. But the water goes down and the islands come up. The water’ll be there always but you’ll find dry land again. That helped me get through it.’

‘I should go. He’ll be back soon.’

She rose and turned away. Dance did too. Then in an instant the girl turned and threw her arms around the agent, crying again. ‘Islands,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you … Islands.’

CHAPTER 29

‘Hello?’

Arthur K. Meddle turned from surveying the placement of chairs at the Bay View Center to see a man in the doorway.

‘Help you? Hold on.’ He turned away and shouted, ‘Charlie, add another row. Come on. Four hundred. Got to be four hundred. Sorry. Help you?’

The man stepped closer. He seemed bored. ‘Yessir. I’m a Monterey County fire inspector.’

Meddle gave a fast glance at the ID. ‘Officer Dunn. Or inspector?’

‘Officer.’

‘Sure. What can I do for you?’

‘You the manager?’

‘That’s right.’

The well-dressed polite fellow looked around the interior of the center, with furrowed brows. Then his eyes came back to Meddle. ‘You may’ve heard, sir, about the incident at Solitude Creek? The club?’

‘Oh, yeah. Terrible.’

‘We’re thinking it was done intentionally.’

‘I heard that on the news.’ Meddle didn’t know this guy so he didn’t add what he wanted to: ‘What kind of crazy shit would do that?’

‘The county board of supervisors and the Sheriff’s Office – the Bureau of Investigation too – they’re thinking he may try another attack.’

‘No! Hell, is it really a terrorist? That’s what Fox was saying. Was it O’Reilly? I don’t remember.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Between you and me, I’d think if it was terrorists, somebody would’ve taken credit for it. They do that.’

‘True.’

‘Anyway, sir, the county supervisors’ve issued a reg that requires any venues with events of over a hundred people have to postpone or pass a special inspection.’

‘Postpone?’

‘Or pass the inspection. We’re making sure that what happened at Solitude Creek won’t happen again. I mean they could catch the perp first. That’s a possibility.’

‘We can’t very well cancel. Tonight? It’s bringing in seven thousand dollars. It’s a book signing. The author’s publisher’s paying for it. You know the economy out here. We can’t afford to shut down.’

‘Like I said, your choice.’

‘What’s this inspection? I’ve got a current occupancy cert.’

‘No, this is different. We have to make sure the fire doors can’t be blocked. You need to remove all the locks from the emergency-exit doors, or tape the latches down and chain off the area around them from the outside, so nobody can block them.’

‘Like that guy did at the roadhouse, with the truck.’

‘That’s right,’ Dunn said. ‘Exactly. Everybody inside at this event tonight has to be able to get out, unobstructed.’

‘Chain off an area outside the doors?’

‘And I mean chain off. Literally. Ten feet away. So he can’t block them. Frankly, it’d be easier to cancel the event.’

‘You want me to cancel?’

‘I’m just telling you the options.’

‘But you’re leaning toward our closing.’

‘Easier for everybody,’ Dunn said.

‘Not for us.’

Seven thousand dollars …

‘Look, I’m just saying,’ Dunn said. ‘Protect the exit area with chains and make sure the doors don’t latch, so everybody can exit quickly in an emergency. Or you can cancel.’

Shit on a stick. As if he didn’t have enough to do already. ‘No, I’m not cancelling. But if people sneak in because we’ve left the doors unlatched, that’ll be on you.’

‘It’s a book signing, right? You get a lot of gate-crashers at book signings?’

Meddle hesitated. ‘It’s not like a Stones concert.’

‘So. There. Now, your smoke alarms? They’ve been tested recently?’

‘We had an inspection ten, twelve days ago.’

‘Good. Still, I’ll double-check them.’

Meddle asked Dunn, ‘For the chain, to block off the perimeter, any type in particular? Brand names?’

‘I’d probably pick one that a truck couldn’t break through.’

It sounded expensive. Meddle said, ‘I’ll go to Home Depot now.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’m sure everything’ll be fine. … What is this book thing anyway?’

Meddle explained, ‘Hot new self-help thing. About living for tomorrow. I read it, like to keep informed about who appears here. The author says people live too much in the present. They need to live in the future more.’

‘Like what? Time travel?’ The inspector looked perplexed.

‘No, no, just think about where you want to be in the future. Picture it, plan it, think it. So you’ll reach your goals. The title is Tomorrow Is the New Today.’

Dunn frowned and nodded. ‘I’ll check those detectors now. You’d better measure for that chain.’

CHAPTER 30

Well, okay. Interesting.

Dance braked her SUV to a stop in one of the driveways that led to the Bureau of Investigation parking lot. She was between an unruly boxwood and a portion of a building occupied by a computer start-up.

Near the front door of CBI headquarters, Michael O’Neil stood in the lot talking to his ex-wife, Anne. Their two children – Amanda and Tyler, nine and ten – were in the back seat of her own SUV, visible through an open door. Anne’s was a pearl-white Lexus, California tags.

The woman was dressed in clothes that were very, very different from what Dance recalled when Anne had lived on the Peninsula with Michael. Then, it was gossamer, close-fitting gypsy outfits. Lace and tulle, New Age jewelry. Boots with heels to propel her to a bit more height. Today, though: running shoes, jeans and a gray jacket of bulky wool. And, my God, a baseball cap. Exotic had become, well, cute and perky.

Who could have imagined?

It had been her decision to end the marriage and move to San Francisco. Rumors of a lover up there. Dance knew Anne was a talented photographer and the opportunities in the Bay City were far greater than here. She’d been a functional but unenthusiastic mother, a distant wife. The split hadn’t been a surprise. Though it had certainly been inconveniently timed. Dance and O’Neil had always had an undeniable chemistry, which they let roam only professionally. He was married, and after Bill died, her interest in romance had vanished like fog in sunshine. Then, over time, Dance had decided for her sake and for the sake of the kids to wade into the dating pool. Slowly, feeling her way along, she’d met Jon Boling.

And, bang, O’Neil announced his divorce. Not long after, he’d asked her out. By then she and Boling were tight, however, and she’d declined.

It was a classic ‘Send In The Clowns’ moment, the Sondheim song about two potential lovers for whom the timing just wasn’t cooperating.

O’Neil, gentleman that he was, accepted the situation. And they fell into ‘another time, another place’ mode. As for Boling – well, he’d said nothing about Dance’s connection to the detective but his body language left no doubt that he sensed the dynamic. She did her best to reassure him, without offering too much (she knew very well that the intensity of denial is often in direct proportion to the truth being refuted).

She now noted: O’Neil had his hands comfortably at his sides, not in his pockets, or clutching crossed arms, either of which would have been a defensive gesture that meant: ‘I just don’t want you here, Anne.’ Nor was he glancing involuntarily to his right or left, which was a manifestation of tension, discomfort and of a subconscious desire to flee from the person creating the stress.

No, they were, in fact, smiling. Something she said made him laugh.

Then Anne backed away, fishing keys from her purse, and O’Neil stepped closer and hugged her. No kiss, no fingers cupping her hair. Just a hug. Chaste as soccer players after scoring a goal.

Then he waved to the children and returned to the office. Anne fired up the SUV. She drove toward the exit.

And Dance suddenly recalled something else. The other night when she’d asked about O’Neil’s new babysitter, his body language had changed.

New sitter?

Sort of.

So that’s who it was. And the ‘friend’ at Maggie’s recital? Anne, of course.

Dance watched Anne pull out of the lot.

Then a brief honk from behind the Pathfinder. Dance started. She glanced into the rear-view mirror and waved at the driver she’d been blocking, whispering a ‘Sorry’ that he couldn’t hear. She headed to the CBI building, parked and climbed out.

Thinking of Anne and Michael, she found herself humming the song.

Let it go …

Inside Headquarters she found O’Neil in her office with TJ, poring over what turned out to be DMV records.

‘Five thousand, give or take, Honda sedans in the three-county area. Gray, white, beige, anything light-colored.’

‘Five thousand?’ Ouch. As she sat down beside O’Neil, she smelled his aftershave, as last night … but it was slightly different.

Mixed with perfume?

O’Neil added, ‘No reports of theft.’

TJ added, ‘And none of the other people at the club, the ones I’ve talked to, remember it. The wheelbase and the track, they’ll give us the model. Civic and Accord’re different. Might help.’

Narrow the number down to 2500, she thought wryly. If – big if – it was even the unsub’s vehicle.

‘Want to take a look?’ O’Neil asked. ‘At where it was parked?’

Dance checked the time. It was three twenty. ‘The kids are at Mom and Dad’s.’

‘Mine’re covered too.’

I know.

She said, ‘Let’s take a drive.’

‘For this, it’s not Serrano. You going to take a weapon?’

He knew the rules. Wondered why he’d asked. ‘I’m still Civ Div.’

A nod.

Dance told TJ to start canvassing the owners of light-colored Hondas.

In a half-hour she and O’Neil were at the roadhouse. The club was still closed and the trucking company, where she’d nearly received a concussion, was also dark. But there was some activity. A couple was laying flowers at the front entrance. Dance and O’Neil approached and she asked them if they’d been patrons the other night. They hadn’t: the husband’s cousin had died, and they were paying respects.

There also were some workers about two hundred feet from the club, in the direction of the path she’d taken the other day to the witness’s house. It was a team of surveyors, with their tripod and instruments set up. They were engrossed in the obscure art of reckoning longitudes and latitudes, or whatever it was surveyors did.

‘Maybe?’ O’Neil asked. His voice sounded optimistic.

‘Sure, let’s give it a try.’

They approached and identified themselves.

The crew leader, a slim man, long hair under a cap, nodded. ‘Oh. Hey. Terrible, what happened.’

Dance asked, ‘Were you working here the day of the incident?’

‘No, ma’am, we weren’t. Had another job.’

O’Neil: ‘Anytime before that?’

‘No, sir. We just got the contract the other day.’

‘Who’re you working for?’ Dance asked.

‘Anderson Construction.’

A big commercial real-estate operation, based in Monterey.

‘Know what the job is?’

‘No, sir.’

They thanked the crew and wandered back toward the driveway. She said, ‘We should talk to the company. They might’ve had other workers out on Tuesday. We’ll see if they saw the Honda or anybody checking out the trucks or the club.’ She called TJ Scanlon and put him on the assignment to find out who’d hired Anderson and see if either the developer or the construction company had had workers there the day of the incident or before.

‘Will do, boss.’

She slipped the phone away.

O’Neil nodded. They continued past the roadhouse and headed down the driveway to the field where Michelle and Trish had seen the Honda.

Dance had wondered if she’d have to risk a call to Trish and find out exactly where the Honda had been parked but there was no need. It was clear from the trampled grass where it had turned off the driveway and bounded over the field of short grass and flowers to a stand of trees. Drought-stricken in most of the region, the ground was soggy from the creek, and the Honda’s tires had left distinctive prints in the sandy mud. When the driver had reversed out, one had spun reaching for traction.

They stopped before they reached the tracks, however, and examined the ground carefully, then surveyed the surrounding area. Dance dug into her purse and pulled out elastic hair ties, four of them. She and O’Neil put them around their shoes – a trick she’d learned from her friends in New York, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. It would differentiate their shoeprints from those of the suspect when the forensics officers ran the scene.

‘There,’ O’Neil said, pointing into the trees. ‘He got out of the car and walked back and forth to find a good route to circle around to the trucking company.’

Several cars drove past on the highway. One turned in at the next driveway. O’Neil was distracted and followed it until the lights vanished.

‘What?’

‘Just keeping an eye out.’

Guard dog. Because I don’t have a weapon. Though the odds on their unsub charging out of the woods with blazing guns seemed rather narrow.

He turned back to the scene. They moved closer and Dance looked down, circling the area where the car had been, carefully so as not to disturb any evidence.

‘Michael. Look. He wasn’t alone.’

The solid detective crouched down and pulled out a small flashlight. He aimed it at what she’d seen. There were two sets of shoeprints, very different. One appeared to be running shoes, or boots, with complex treads. The other, longer, was smooth-soled.

O’Neil rose and, picking his steps carefully, walked around to the other side of where the car had been parked. Examined that area.

‘No. Just one. Nobody got out on the passenger side.’

‘Ah. Got it. He changed shoes. No, changed clothes altogether.’

‘Had to be. Just in case somebody saw him.’

‘We should get your CSU team here, search for trace, run the prints.’

The MCSO and the FBI had tread-mark databases for both tires and shoes. They might find the brand of shoe and narrow down the type of car, with some luck.

Though luck was not a commodity much in evidence in the Solitude Creek investigation.