Point Deception Page 16

  “Shoot this, would you?” Guy said.

  The man aimed where he indicated, and the strobe brightly illuminated an area behind the open door where the dust was smeared as if something had been dragged across it. A few long blonde hairs were snagged on a splintered floorboard.

  When Moretti finished Guy said, “I’ll stay here. Would you ask Deputy Swift to come down, please?”

  Rho took two aspirin from the container she kept in her slingbag and washed them down with coffee. Her head ached, her eyes burned, and the glare of the interrogation room’s fluorescents didn’t help any. She, Ned Grossman, Denny Shepherd, Wayne, and Harve Iverson—the substation commander—had assembled there to brainstorm, as Grossman termed it.

  The detective finished passing out a sheaf of papers, sat down, and said, “We have three cases of suspicious or unusual deaths, which may or may not be related. I’ve called this meeting, even though it’s much later than we’d planned, in order to get moving on them. Santa Carla’s currently experiencing a crime wave of its own, and Investigations can’t send anyone else out, so the four of us are it. Commander Iverson will coordinate our investigation with his patrol officers. I’ve told Swift and Gilardi that they’re relieved of patrol duties until further notice so they can concentrate on these cases. I’m aware this will put a strain on the other deputies in the area, but that’s how it’s got to be.”

  “I’ve already asked for assistance from the Talbot’s Mills and Cedar patrol commanders,” Iverson said. “They’ll cooperate.”

  Rho glanced at Iverson, a big, dark bear of a man, and noted the pronounced puffiness under his eyes. Harve had had a mild heart attack last year, and she hoped the pressures of the current situation wouldn’t provoke a second.

  Grossman nodded, riffling the pages in front of him. “Okay, in addition to policing the area adequately, we may have trouble with the press. The Santa Carla TV people were filming here this morning and found out about the Lindsay death and Scurlock disappearance. Calls’ve come in here, and I’ve referred them to Santa Carla, but I doubt we can keep a lid on the Scurlock death for long. And given that it happened in that canyon… well, you know what that means.”

  Widespread interest, national publicity, and chaos, Rho thought.

  “Let’s take each case in order,” Grossman said. “First, Ackerman. The autopsy results are in, and you have copies of them, but I’ll summarize. Cause of death was manual strangulation. The bruises on her neck indicate a strong person with large hands. Bruises on her thighs are consistent with rape, but there was no semen in her vagina, no proof either way. Time of death isn’t easy to pin down, as her stomach was empty, but she’d only been in the water a few hours before she was spotted. As Swift has pointed out to me, the prevailing currents and tides indicate she may have gone in as far north as Deer Harbor, but more likely closer to where she was found.”

  Rho said, “Her killer may have picked her up at Point Deception and kept her alive for over twenty-four hours, then.”

  “Right. And that brings us to what your journalist friend found in the Blakeley house. Your turn, Swift.”

  She explained about Guy’s discovery of the hairs. “They’re on the way to the lab to be compared with Ackerman’s.”

  “Okay,” Grossman went on, “we had a possible witness to her abduction, an abalone poacher who was picked up in that DFG raid. Unfortunately, as you know, he was strangled in jail, and his cellmates aren’t cooperating. If it turns out that the hairs found in the canyon house are a match for Ackerman’s, I’d be inclined to say that while the witness saw something, his fellow poachers weren’t involved. These guys come up here, take the abs, and leave. I doubt any of them even know about the canyon.”

  “Ackerman was strangled too,” Shepherd said. “Isn’t that a gook method of killing?”

  Grossman gave his partner a withering look. “Take a tour of San Quentin, Denny. In addition to Asians, it’s full of Caucasian, black, and Hispanic stranglers.”

  Shepherd shrugged.

  “Now,” Grossman said, “Swift and I have been in touch with Clark County, Nevada, where Ackerman lived. They still haven’t gotten back to us with the results of their search of her apartment. Maybe they’re inefficient, maybe their court order didn’t come through. If we get nothing satisfactory from them in, say, twenty-four hours, I want you, Swift, to go down there.”

  Wayne grunted softly and shifted in his chair, while Shepherd looked annoyed. Grossman was undercutting their seniority.

  “I’ve talked with a dozen people who spotted Ackerman on Friday,” he continued, “and we’ll be talking with more of them. The Scurlock woman’s death—when we release news of it—will prompt a new rash of tips. No matter how far-fetched they may seem, take each seriously. I can’t stress that enough. Gilardi, tomorrow I want you to backtrack along the route Ackerman would’ve taken to get here. Since she’s not from the area, she probably didn’t take one of the ridge roads, so start with Highway One. Check every restaurant, bar, motel, and shop south of here till you come up with a lead. Pretty girl in an expensive car must’ve made an impression on someone. Santa Carla will have photographs of her for you by nine hundred hours.”

  Rho glanced at Wayne. His face had reddened and he pressed his lips together for a moment before he said, “How far south on Highway One? San Francisco? The Mexican border?”

  Grossman shook his head as if Wayne were a child who had disappointed him. “Do what you have to, Gilardi.”

  Wayne flushed more deeply but didn’t respond.

  “All right,” the detective said, “let’s go on to Samantha Lindsay. Autopsy showed death was caused by massive internal injuries, all consistent with our reconstruction of the accident. Probably she swerved to avoid an animal on the highway. No evidence any other car was involved, and there were no drugs or alcohol in her system. Case should be closed, but there’s still the problem of her being robbed. We’ve circularized, but so far we’ve received no reports of credit card use or attempts to dispose of the jewelry. Patrol officers throughout the county will keep on that, and Detective Shepherd will coordinate.”

  Shepherd didn’t look any more pleased with his assignment than Wayne, but he held his tongue.

  “Now,” Grossman said, “we come to Virginia Scurlock. Last seen by her husband twenty-some hours before Swift found the body. We won’t have the autopsy results till tomorrow or possibly the day after, but the preliminary examination indicates death from a broken neck, which may or may not be consistent with the fall she took. There is some question about why she went to the canyon.”

  Rho said, “I’d like to point out one thing.”

  “Yes, Swift?”

  “Last night when I interviewed the Scurlocks’ tenant, Clay Lawrence, he said Virge had once asked him to go with her to the canyon so she could confront her fears. He refused, but she may have decided to go on her own. She’d been drinking heavily, possibly to steel herself to do it.”

  Grossman considered. “Anybody have any idea what set off this drinking?”

  Wayne and Commander Iverson shook their heads.

  Rho said, “The Ackerman murder, most likely.”

  “Then there’s something for you to do, Swift: Talk to the bartender at the hotel, the other patrons, anybody who saw or spoke with her on Sunday. Go over every minute of, say, the previous forty-eight hours with her husband.” He paused, looking around the table. “Okay, we’ve all got our assignments. We’ll reassemble here at eighteen hundred hours tomorrow.”

  Rho stood and shrugged into her sweater. When she looked down for her purse she saw a rawhide chew bone lying under the chair. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Cody!”

  Grossman looked up from gathering his papers. “Who’s Cody?”

  “My dog. He was—” Then she thought of Valerie, pictured her reddened eyes and trembling lips as she spoke of her old friend Virge being out there somewhere, alone and afraid. By now Valerie knew Virge was dead and had probably cried hers
elf to sleep, the Lab close by her side. Rho was thankful that she’d inadvertently provided the clerk some comfort on what had to be a painful night.

  “Dog’s missing?” the detective asked, looking concerned.

  “No, he’s fine. I left him here earlier, and our clerk’s taken him home.”

  Grossman smiled knowingly. “Sometimes I think people in law enforcement shouldn’t be allowed to have pets. I’ve got a dog myself—big old mutt named Everett. On Sunday I rushed out of my place so fast that I forgot to feed him. Had to call a neighbor, ask him to go over there, and he, the neighbor, was real apprehensive. Everett gets rambunctious when he isn’t well provisioned.”

  Rho laughed—not much, but still it felt good. After a long, draining day filled with loss and grief, it was a relief to talk about something as mundane as a dog who got testy when denied his rations.

  Behind her Wayne said, “That’s right, Swift, laugh, why don’t you? Your star’s on the rise. Maybe you’ll get a promotion.”

  She swung around, ready to blister him with a reply, but he slammed out the door.

  Guy noticed Lily Gilardi as he was leaving the market, where he’d gone to buy another disposable point-and-shoot camera. The young woman was walking north on the shoulder of the highway, her head bent, long dark hair blowing in the wind. He hurried to his car, pulled out of the lot, and drove up beside her. When he opened the passenger-side door and called her name she started.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Newberry.”

  “It’s me. Need a ride?”

  Lily looked longingly at the car, but indecision clouded her eyes. “I don’t know—”

  “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink, something to eat, if you like.”

  “… Thanks. I could use a drink. But not at the hotel, okay? Alex hangs there, and I don’t want to see him.”

  “We’ll go to the Oceanside, then.”

  She got in, sweeping her thick dark hair across her left cheek, but not before Guy caught sight of a fresh bruise. He didn’t comment, simply pulled away from the shoulder.

  Lily said, “I heard about Mrs. Scurlock.”

  “Oh? How?” Rhoda had told him the sheriff’s department was releasing no information tonight, in hope of preventing another out-of-control public reaction.

  “Wayne’s wife, Janie. I went to see her, and she told me about it. Said you were there when Rhoda Swift discovered the body.”

  “Yes, I was. Have you told anybody?”

  “No. Janie said not to. Was it… awful?”

  “It wasn’t pleasant. Will Scurlock’s in bad shape.”

  “Poor Will. He really loved her, in spite of her problems.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “You can tell when people’re really in love.” Lily’s face was mournful. Nobody would ever make that claim about Alex and her, and she knew it.

  Guy pulled into the lot at the Oceanside and followed Lily through the dining room and into the bar. She chose a booth over which a fishnet loaded with glass bobbers was suspended. A large stuffed fish trophy—some kind of long-nosed shark—glowered down from the wall.

  After the waitress had taken their order Lily said, “You still want to ask me questions about those murders? I told you I was just a kid then.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want anything? That I might enjoy your company?”

  She laughed cynically. “A guy who can take Rhoda Swift to dinner doesn’t need to hang with the likes of me.”

  “And what are those ‘likes’?”

  “See for yourself.” She brushed her hair back, exposing the damaged cheek. “I’m just your basic small-town slut.”

  “Alex tell you that?”

  “Yeah, right before he hit me.”

  “Just because he likes to hit women doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”

  “That’s what they tell you, but try believing it.” She pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, began fiddling with her watchband, and Guy saw another bruise on her arm. A bruise curiously at odds with the beautiful gold links that fitted loosely around her thin wrist.

  “Why do you stay with him, Lily?”

  “I’m in too deep not to. Besides, I got no place to go.”

  “You said you went to see Janie before. Couldn’t you stay with her and Wayne?”

  “God, no! I went to see Janie because she’d understand what I’m going through. Wayne’s always beating on her too.”

  “Then maybe she needs to get out. You two could go in together on a place—”

  “Look, if the price of this drink is listening to you tell me how to run my life, I don’t need it!” She started to slide out of the booth.

  Guy put his hand on her arm. “I’m trying to be a friend. No more advice unless you ask for it. That’s a promise.”

  “Okay, then.”

  They drank in silence, and after a while Lily said, “Mrs. Scurlock—was it an accident?”

  “Possibly.”

  Her eyes widened. “You mean it might’ve been suicide? Or… murder?”

  “The sheriff’s people won’t know till they get the autopsy results.”

  Lily shuddered and finished her drink. “D’you think it had something to do with that other woman who was killed?”

  “Possibly,” he said again.

  “Oh God.”

  “What, Lily?”

  Silence.

  “If you know something about that—and you indicated last night that you do—you should tell the sheriff’s people.”

  “I thought you said no advice.”

  “I’m sorry. But couldn’t you at least tell your brother?”

  “Tell Wayne?”

  “A relative—”

  “Jesus, you don’t understand a thing, do you? Wayne’s a maniac. He scares me to death, even worse than Alex. If I told him what I know, he’d figure out for sure what we’re into. And then he’d kill Alex. Maybe both of us.”

  Rho waved to Ridley Bodine, night-shift bartender at the hotel, and he came down to meet her at the plank. “You working yesterday when Virge Scurlock was in?” she asked.

  The heavyset, bearded man nodded. “The other guy and I alternate football Sundays.”

  “Did Virge say anything to indicate why she was drinking so heavily?”

  “She still missing?”

  So the department’s lid on the news was holding. “Yeah.”

  “Too bad. Well, let me think.… After her third stinger I suggested she might want to go easy. She said she was trying to make a decision and she made decisions better when she’d had a few. When I warned her not to drive in her condition she told me it wasn’t a problem, since Will was using her truck and would pick her up later. So I served her a couple more drinks and then he came and fetched her.”

  “She talk with anybody else while she was here?”

  Ridley looked thoughtful, stroking his beard. “Mimi Griggs and her boyfriend from Santa Carla—I can never remember his name—were at the next table, and they may have talked. Otherwise I don’t remember. Was too busy serving drinks and watching the ’Niners get the shit kicked outta them.”

  Mimi. Rho felt a tightening in her gut. “Thanks, Ridley.”

  She started for the door, but the bartender said, “You want to talk with Mimi, she’s back by the jukebox with her boyfriend from Calvert’s Landing.”

  Ridley was aware of the history between Rho and Mimi and, she suspected, waiting for a reaction. She shrugged and smiled. “Hardly seems fair, does it? She’s cornered the market on all the eligible men in the county.”

  She made her way to the table where Mimi, the town insurance agent, sat with a tanned, blond-haired man who spent most of his time surfing near the Calvert’s Landing Pier. Mimi, a willowy brunette whose birthday was only two days before Rho’s, looked up in surprise at her approach. She said something to her date, and he got up and carried their empty glasses to the bar.

  “So what’s happening, Rho?”

  “I need to ask
you a few questions.”

  “Of course. Sit down.” She motioned at the other chair.

  Rho sat, trying to conceal her unease. Nine years ago her former husband, Zach, had numbered among Mimi’s conquests, and her old friend’s betrayal had carved an unbridgeable chasm between them.

  Mimi leaned toward her and said in a low voice, “This about Virge Scurlock?”

  “Yes. I—”

  “Look, I know she’s dead. And I also know you people don’t want a repeat of last night, so I haven’t told anybody.”

  “Who told you?”

  “… Well, a lot of people in the country have scanners. Word’s getting around.”

  “Who told you?”

  Mimi’s lips twitched in irritation. “Will, of course. When a man’s wife is insured for a million dollars with a double indemnity clause and she dies accidentally, he’s quick on the phone.”

  “I can’t believe Will could be that callous.”

  “Can’t you? I guess not. You’ve always been on the naive side.”

  “That’s not true. And I know grief when I see it. Will was completely broken up earlier; he didn’t just turn around and file a claim.”

  “Then maybe it was a purely altruistic gesture on his part. He probably figured I’d die of shock if I heard on the local grapevine that my company’s going to have to pay out that kind of change on a policy I wrote.”

  Rho and Mimi had been friends since the third grade; she knew when the woman wasn’t telling the truth. It was there in the belligerent tilt of her chin, in the way her fingers played with the edge of the table.

  “What’s the real reason Will called you?”

  Mimi shook her head. “Ask your questions and leave me alone, Rho.”

  She studied her for a moment. “All right. Ridley said you spoke with Virge when she was in here yesterday.”

  “Briefly.”

  “About?”

  Mimi’s date returned with fresh drinks. She took hers, dismissed him with a flick of her hand. “I expressed concern about her drinking, asked her what was wrong. She said… Let me see if I can get this right. She said, ‘Don’t ever try to do somebody a favor. You might end up owing more than you can handle.’ But when I asked her who and what, she told me to forget it.”