Lost Hills (Eve Ronin Book 1)

by Lee Goldberg

  “We’ve had over two hundred tips since last night’s episode of Deathfist and the Sheriff,” Garvey said. “One caller says he saw Coyle digging graves in Palmdale, another thinks he saw him in the desert near Palm Springs.”

  “A lady is sure she sat next to him on the Universal Studios tour and that he copped a feel,” Biddle added.

  “We’re feeding any tips related to possible burial spots to the watch commander, who is coordinating the search parties,” Garvey said. “But we’re keeping a file of the tips that deserve a closer look from seasoned detectives.”

  “Show me the file,” Eve said. Garvey handed her an empty file folder. “Really? We’ve got nothing?”

  “Nothing even remotely useful has come in from the tip lines,” Garvey said.

  “It’s almost always a waste of time and resources,” Biddle said. “Though we usually get some good stories out of it to share at parties.”

  “Is there any good news?” Eve asked.

  “Coyle was the guy who attacked you on the hill,” Biddle said. “CSU got a DNA match off the piss they collected up there.”

  “Yee-haw,” Garvey said. “We can’t prove he’s a murderer, but we’ve got him for petty theft and hitting Deathfist with a rock. Quick, schedule a press conference and break out the champagne.”

  It wasn’t much progress, but Eve found it encouraging anyway. “Any other DNA hits?”

  “Not yet,” Biddle said.

  At least he held out some hope, Eve thought. Her phone, which she’d recharged in Duncan’s car, vibrated in her pocket to alert her to a text message. She took out the phone and checked the screen. It was a text from Nan. She read it and shared the message with her team.

  “CSU has finished their work at the crime scene and are releasing the house to Jared Rawlins,” Eve said and pocketed her phone. “I’m going out there. I’d like one more look at it before it goes public and gets trampled.”

  “You think Jared will open his house up for tours?” Duncan asked.

  Eve vividly recalled the TV footage of reporters trooping through the Redlands condo that belonged to the husband-and-wife shooters behind the Inland Regional Center massacre in San Bernardino. The landlord opened the condo to a swarm of reporters and camera crews within minutes of the FBI releasing the property to him. There were still clothes hanging in the closets, food and baby formula in the refrigerator, papers scattered on desks, prescription bottles in the medicine cabinets, and dirty dishes in the sink, and all of it got pawed and photographed by the press.

  “It’s happened before,” she said.

  “We’ll dig deep into Coyle’s pathetic life in the meantime,” Duncan said. “I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Eve had the house to herself. The CSU investigators had removed the cones, tape, and other evidence markers, as well as a few small sections of carpet, drywall, and bathroom tile for testing, but otherwise the crime scene hadn’t significantly changed since her last visit. The overpowering smell of cleansers and motor oil had either dissipated or she’d become nose-blind to it. All she could hear was the thunderous whoosh of the dry, hot Santa Anas blowing past and the whistling that the winds created in the chimney.

  She stood in the kitchen, cleared her head, and tried to imagine how the murders occurred, letting the events play out as if they were happening right in front of her . . .

  Tanya rushed past Eve into the kitchen for a quick bite before showering and changing to meet her Realtor. She was in her tank top and leggings, her cheeks still rosy from the exertions of her Pilates class. Her purse was over her shoulder and she was reaching for the box of granola bars on the counter when she sensed a movement behind her. The dog?

  No, it wasn’t.

  As Tanya turned, Coyle burst into the room and slashed her across the throat with a huge combat knife, blood spraying out of her like a broken sprinkler head. She dropped to the floor, clutching her throat. Her purse slid off her shoulder and spilled open as she fell.

  Coyle reached down, grabbed her by an arm, and dragged her out of the kitchen, leaving a smeared swath of blood behind on the yellowed linoleum.

  Eve stood there for a moment, surveying the blood spatter, freshly dripping down the cabinets in her imagination, and wondered again why Coyle slashed Tanya’s throat rather than sexually assaulting her, the way he had with Vickie Denhoff.

  She followed the trail of blood down the hall and peeked into the bathroom as she passed, seeing the dog’s corpse in the bathtub, the white-tiled shower walls only spotted with blood. The real butchery hadn’t begun yet.

  When Eve got to the master bedroom, Coyle was straddling Tanya on the bed, stabbing her in a wild rage, ripping her and the mattress to shreds and splattering himself, the headboard, the walls and floor with her blood. Each stab into her body, each arc of his arm, lifting the knife up and down, sent drops of blood flying.

  Eve turned and went back down the hall, fast-forwarding by hours, and getting to the front door just as Caitlin and Troy came in from school. They were shrugging off their backpacks when Coyle, drenched in blood and now wearing dish gloves, charged at them with the bloody knife he’d been using to dismember Tanya in the bathtub.

  The children both screamed. Coyle pounced on Troy, stabbing him deep in the chest, killing the child instantly. Caitlin ran past him. Coyle yanked the knife from the boy and chased Caitlin down the hall. Eve followed them both.

  Caitlin scampered into her room, jumped onto the bed, and struggled desperately to lift the double-sashed window. But it wouldn’t move. Coyle burst in, grabbed her by the upper arm, lifted her off the bed like a rag doll, and slit her throat, the blood spraying the walls and her shelf of stuffed animals. He dropped her on the floor and lumbered out of her room to continue butchering her mother in the bathtub.

  The image of Caitlin evaporated and Eve was left staring at the bloodstain on the floor where the child had bled out. Something about the chain of events didn’t fit. It was something she felt rather than knew. What was wrong with the scenario?

  Eve glanced at the bed. All the bedding was still there, except for the pillowcase, which she assumed CSU took with them for evidence analysis. Her gaze strayed to the headboard and the walls beside it. She didn’t see any blood spatter, which struck her as odd. She bent down and examined the sheets and comforter. There was no blood there, either. How did blood get on the pillowcase but not on anything else around it?

  She turned, faced the door, and began searching for any other blood drops she might have missed before. Her head was down, her attention focused on the walls and floor, and she bumped her side into the standing fan. She caught the fan before it fell and, while she was at it, examined the blades and grille to see if there was any blood on them and noticed the power cord dangling from the back of the unit. The cord appeared to be way too short. She gathered up the cord and came up with a ragged end. The plug was gone. The cord had been cut.

  Eve was puzzling over that when she heard the front door open and a man’s voice say: “Oh my God.”

  She hurried out of Caitlin’s room into the hall and saw Jared Rawlins standing in the living room, staring wide-eyed and horrified at all the blood.

  His gaze settled on her. “What did he do to them?”

  Eve gently grasped his upper arm and tugged him toward the door. “Let’s go outside, Mr. Rawlins. You don’t need to see this.”

  He wrenched his arm free of her light grasp. “I lived with Tanya and her kids. They were part of my life . . . and you thought I could . . .” He struggled to find the right words, his eyes panning over the trails of blood on the floor, the streaks and splatter on the walls, before returning to her. “. . . slaughter them? Me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Eve said.

  “It’s worse than that. You actually believed I’d hack them up, splash my home in their blood and guts, and go back to a hotel in Lancaster for a good-morning fuck with a set decorator. What the hell is wrong with
you?” Eve didn’t answer him. There was nothing she could say. His eyes filled with tears and his face was pale. “It’s a slaughterhouse and I haven’t even left the living room yet. What am I going to see back there?”

  He gestured down the hall.

  “You don’t want to see it, believe me,” she said. “I can recommend a good crime scene cleaning service that will—”

  Jared cut her off. “How am I supposed to live here now? How can anyone live here now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They stood there for a long moment in silence. When Jared spoke again, it was in a near whisper. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted one more look to see if I missed anything,” she said, which reminded her of something. “What happened to the fan?”

  He stared at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “What?”

  “The standing fan in Caitlin’s room. The power cord was cut. I was wondering how it happened.”

  Now his uncomprehending stare turned into disbelief. “You see all of this, all the blood, and that’s what’s bothering you? What happened to her fan? Jesus Christ. Get out. Just . . . get out.”

  She wasn’t upset about what he said because he was right. Because now that she thought about the fan cord, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. It didn’t fit. In fact, that wasn’t the only thing that was nagging at her about what she saw in Caitlin’s room. She needed to focus on that and not worry about how Jared was feeling right now, though seeing him reminded her that Tanya had been looking for a new place to live.

  Eve walked past him and out the front door. She continued down the front walk to her car, the wind whipping up leaves all around her, took out her phone, and texted Nan.

  What did you find on Caitlin’s pillowcase?

  She got into the car and, while she waited for a reply, called Duncan’s cell. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Eve. What’s up?”

  “Did Biddle or Garvey ever talk to the Realtor that Tanya was supposed to meet on the day she was killed?”

  “Hang on,” Duncan said. Eve could hear phones ringing in the background and the indiscernible chatter of voices. It was like being on hold with customer support in Mumbai. He came back on a moment later. “No, they didn’t. We zeroed in on Coyle before they got the chance to speak to her. But they did get her name and where she works.”

  “Let me have them both,” Eve said.

  She made a note of the information, thanked him, and was about to start the car when her phone vibrated to signal the arrival of a text. It was from Nan.

  Her pillow didn’t have a pillowcase.

  There were a lot of reasons Caitlin might not have had a pillowcase on her pillow, but it still struck Eve as odd.

  Eve texted.

  Did Coyle take the pillowcases from Tanya’s bed?

  Nan replied.

  Yes. He took all of the bedding, most likely because it was covered with blood and perhaps his own DNA in the form of semen, saliva, or body hair.

  That made sense. It also explained why he left Caitlin’s bedding behind. There was no blood on it.

  But did he take Caitlin’s pillowcase? And if so, why? Did he need it to carry something? If so, what?

  It was frustrating. The last thing Eve needed was more questions. What she wanted now were answers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Parkway Realty was in an old storefront shopping center that had been remodeled to match the architectural style of the Commons and its Rolex clock tower across the street. The real estate office was tucked in a corner of the shopping center between a clothing store that sold $500 jeans and a bakery that sold $12 cupcakes, prices Eve would never pay for either item.

  Eve badged the petite blonde twentysomething receptionist at Parkway’s front desk, asked to see Donna Stokes, and was greeted instead by Clarissa Kelton, who introduced herself as the managing Realtor.

  Clarissa was long limbed and long necked, her equine physique underscored by a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and the skintight Ariat horse-riding breeches that she was wearing. Eve was sure that Clarissa had a crop to go with the ensemble.

  “How may I help you, Detective?” Clarissa asked, looking down her long, narrow nose at Eve.

  “I’d like to talk with Donna Stokes.”

  “Donna hasn’t been in for a few days. The last time I saw her was Monday, but I’m in and out a lot myself, showing houses.” Clarissa turned to the receptionist. “How about you, Tess?”

  “I don’t go anywhere,” Tess said. “I haven’t seen her since Tuesday.”

  “Is it unusual for Donna not to visit the office for days?” Eve asked.

  “Not really. Realtors aren’t required to spend time in here. I have some who work almost entirely out of their cars,” Clarissa said. “Donna could be out of town or maybe she got lucky. There was one time she hooked up with a guy on Tinder, a tantric sex instructor, and she didn’t come up for air for three days.”

  “It’s not as fun as it sounds,” Tess said. “After a few hours, it starts to feel like constipation.”

  Clarissa regarded Tess with a raised, sharply tweezed eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  Eve asked, “Do either of you have Donna’s cell phone number and home address?”

  “Her numbers are on her business card and I have her home address.” Clarissa took out her phone to look up the address. “In fact, I sold her the house. It’s what got her interested in real estate after her divorce. She sold cosmetics before that.”

  Tess handed Donna’s business card to Eve. Clarissa showed her screen to Eve, who made a note of the address on the back of the card. Donna lived in Greater Mulwood, one of the first Calabasas housing tracts, off Mulholland Highway, near the Gelson’s shopping center.

  “Thank you,” Eve said.

  “Is Donna in some kind of trouble?” Clarissa asked.

  “No, I just want to ask her some questions about one of her clients, Tanya Kenworth. Donna was helping her find a home to rent. Would you have any of that information here? Or Donna’s calendar perhaps?”

  “Donna would have all that and we don’t have the password to her computer,” Clarissa said.

  “That’s okay.” Eve handed Clarissa and Tess each one of her cards. “Please have Donna call me if she checks in.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Donna’s house was a 1960s-era tract home that had been restored to its original midcentury modern style and bold colors: bright green, with white trim and red doors. The front courtyard was surrounded by see-through cinder block walls with white decorative gravel beds at their base. The other tract homes on the street had either been drastically remodeled and stripped of their midcentury architectural details or had been torn down and replaced with Spanish-Mediterranean-style homes with red tile roofs.

  Eve parked in the driveway, knocked on the front door, and rang the bell, but there was no answer. The drapes were drawn on the windows and she didn’t sense any sign of life. She pushed open the mail slot on the door and peeked inside. There was no mail on the floor, so unless Donna had filed a mail hold with the post office, somebody had been home in the last few days.

  “What are you doing, lady?” asked a man behind her.

  Eve stood up and turned around. A balding man in his sixties, wearing an untucked safari shirt with about thirty-seven pockets, cargo shorts with twelve more pockets, and a pair of flip-flops, stood on the sidewalk with his hands on his hips.

  “I’m Detective Eve Ronin.” She took out her badge and flashed it as she approached him. “Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “We’re colleagues,” he said.

  “We are?”

  “I’m Irv Rothstein, commander of the Greater Mulwood Neighborhood Watch Patrol. That’s why I was checking up on you. I live across the street.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a tract home with four obvious, poorly constructed room additions that hung on the house like the pockets on his cargo shorts. A placard i
n the window, shaped like a stop sign, said THIS HOUSE IS PROTECTED BY NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH. “We watch for intruders of all kinds, including coyotes.”

  “It’s good that you keep a close eye on your homes. I’m looking for Donna Stokes. Have you seen her around?”

  “Not since Wednesday. Her dog started barking early Thursday morning so I went in to check on him,” he said. “It’s not like Donna to leave Captain America in the house all day. The Captain pooped all over the living room, I’m talking big piles, and there wasn’t any water in his bowl.”

  Eve’s heart rate quickened. Donna had been gone since Wednesday, the day she was supposed to meet Tanya to show her some rental homes, the same day the family was murdered. That couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. The question was: What did it all mean?

  “You have a key to her house?” Eve asked.

  “Oh sure, and she has mine, too. We take care of each other’s dogs when we go on vacations or if something comes up that keeps us away from home for too long. We can’t keep our dogs outside because of the coyotes, so they’re house dogs. The problem is, we can’t be away for more than four or five hours or we’re going to have a mess to clean up. We have shag carpet and the stains never go away.”

  “Donna didn’t call you to say she’d be away?”

  “No, she didn’t and it makes no sense. She even calls if she has an unexpected amorous encounter, if you follow my meaning. Captain America has been over with Martha and me since Thursday. He’s such a sweet dog. Snickerdoodle loves him. She’s a French poodle.”

  “Did everything look okay inside Donna’s house?” Eve asked.

  “Besides the poop and the pee I had to clean up? Yeah, it was fine, but I’m not a fan of retro furniture. It was dated then and is even more dated now. Classic furniture never gets old. Always buy classic designs. I should know. I’m in the furniture business.”

  “Is her car in the garage?”

  “Never,” Irv said. “She uses the garage as a storage unit. It’s wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling boxes of God knows what. She always parks in the driveway. That’s the problem with these midcentury houses. All windows and no place to put anything.”