“You may never be able to identify the victim,” Carolyn yelled after him, heedless of their audience. “Unless you manage to locate an eyewitness who saw Holden bury the body, no prosecutor will ever be able to convict him. If you don’t arrest Holden immediately, you’re going to have more water, mud, and blood on your hands. This is his dumping ground.”
“You don’t think we’ve been busting our butt trying to pick up Holden ever since we discovered the body?” Hank shouted back. “Since you seem to know so much, why don’t you track him down? Or let your new boyfriend, Marcus, find him.”
Carolyn placed her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe you eavesdropped on my conversation.”
“If you don’t want people to hear you,” Hank said, “make your damn phone calls in private. You think the officers working out here want to listen to you making a dinner date when they haven’t slept since yesterday?”
“Whatever,” Carolyn said, tossing her hands in the air and stomping off.
CHAPTER 11
Monday, September 18—12:30 P.M.
Mary Stevens caught up to Carolyn before she reached her car. “Want to grab a quick lunch?”
Carolyn needed to get back to the government center, but she wanted to see what else Mary knew about the case. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll follow you.”
“Is the Habit okay?”
“Fine with me.” Getting into her car, she waited until she saw Mary pull out in her unmarked police unit.
Ventura had grown up around the historic San Buenaventura Mission, founded in 1782. On one side were miles of sandy beaches, along with multimillion-dollar homes with boat slips. The rest of the city had sprawled upward into the foothills, where the residents had panoramic views of the ocean. But unlike Santa Barbara, a similar city approximately twenty miles north, Ventura hadn’t developed into a playground for the rich and famous. New shops and restaurants had slowly appeared throughout the years, but most things had stayed the same. Carolyn thought there was a tired feeling to Ventura, as if a dusty bubble had been placed over it, trapping it twenty or thirty years in the past. The Spanish influence was still present, but it hadn’t been cultivated as it had in Santa Barbara, where lovely mission-style homes and buildings had been built to harmonize with meticulously renovated existing ones. And, unlike Santa Barbara, Ventura had a sluggish economy. When a new business opened in Ventura, it was a major event.
As they stood in line at the Habit, a popular burger joint only a few blocks away from the mission, Mary turned to her with a smirk. “If Hank hadn’t jumped on me back there, I would have brought him something to eat. He’s a great guy, you know, but I can’t stand by and listen to him denigrate women, even if he is my boss.”
Carolyn wasn’t interested in burgers. What she craved when she was upset was chocolate. Knowing there was a Starbucks next door, she told Mary she’d be right back and went to order a Chantico, a deliciously rich chocolate drink that came in a small container the size of a Dixie cup. She was so addicted to it that she sometimes made a cheap substitute at home, as she and John had done when they’d melted down four Hershey bars in the microwave. While she was waiting, she was tempted to buy a low-fat sticky bun, but the mere thought that a sticky bun could be low-fat seemed absurd. To keep the calories down, she decided to forgo whipped cream on the Chantico.
Mary was already seated at a table, about to dig into her double cheeseburger, large fries, and strawberry shake. “Where’s your food?”
Carolyn took a sip of the chocolate, instantly feeling better. “This is all I need.”
“Suit yourself,” Mary said, unwrapping her burger and taking a bite. “It seems like nobody eats anymore but me. Are you on one of those low-carb diets like Hank? Lettuce wraps. Who in God’s name wants to eat a hamburger wrapped in lettuce? What is that anyway, an espresso or something?”
“Take a sip,” she said, sliding the cup across the table.
“Jesus,” Mary said, “this is sinful. I might have to go next door and get one.”
Carolyn smiled. “It’s like crack, only chocolate. Don’t start, or you’ll be addicted.” Quickly consuming what remained when Mary handed her the drink back, she let her thoughts return to Holden. She’d known he would kill again. The entire system was responsible, not just Abernathy. The DA’s office should have listened to her eight years ago when she’d told them she suspected Holden had killed other women. Maybe the skeletonized woman had been murdered before Holden went to prison, and he’d buried her in the lagoon, thinking that would be the last place anyone would look.
“I haven’t talked to you in months,” Mary said, sucking down her shake. “You got a new boyfriend, right? That’s why you changed your hair. You’re looking good, girl. You’re such a dainty thing. With that new haircut, you look like a teenager.”
Carolyn smiled. “Thanks. I did meet someone. That’s who I was on the phone with right before Hank jumped on me.”
“Ah, now I understand. You’re not eating because you want to look good with your clothes off,” Mary said, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“What I just drank probably has more calories than a five-course meal. You can’t eat anything else when you have a Chantico.”
“Tell me about the guy.”
“It happened so fast.” Carolyn stuck her finger in the empty cup and licked a few remaining drops of chocolate off her fingers. “I was thinking about Holden and ran a stop sign. Another car crashed into me.”
“No one hurt?”
“No, but my car is in the shop. Marcus insisted on paying for the repairs.” She wiped her hands with her napkin.
“He’s setting a good first impression,” Mary said, nodding her head. “So what does he want in return?”
“Nothing that I wouldn’t give him eventually,” Carolyn told her, laughing. “I guess the only way to meet a man these days is by accident.”
“That’s for sure. What’s his last name? Is he black, white, Hispanic, Jewish?” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. “Details, babe, give me some juicy details.”
“He’s white, and his last name is Wright,” Carolyn said. “He looks like he could be European. It’s probably just his clothes. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, not right now, so I’m taking advantage of it. Besides, whenever I get annoyed, I binge out on junk food. Works every time. Anyway, do you know why Hank ripped into you?”
“Not really,” Carolyn told her, staring out over the restaurant. “I think he was mad at himself for not remembering the golf glove. He also didn’t realize that golfers only wear one glove. We’re so close, you know. He’s never talked to me like that before.”
Mary leaned forward. “Hank thinks the world of you, Carolyn. He hasn’t slept in days. We had two robberies go down last night within an hour. And the two boys who were shot last weekend weren’t gang members. Their parents are crawling all over us, demanding we find the killers. You know how hard it is to solve a random gang murder, especially when the victims aren’t linked back to the shooters. The last thing we needed was an unidentified murder victim floating around in a swamp.”
“I’m not involved in this investigation,” Carolyn said, still miffed. “I came out there today as a favor to Hank. He had no right to criticize me for taking a phone call, business or otherwise.”
“Hank’s jealous, that’s all. Try to understand.”
“Why on earth would he be jealous? Hank and I are friends, Mary. I don’t know where you got the idea that there was anything else going on between us.”
Mary glanced over her shoulder to make certain someone from the department wasn’t sitting within earshot. “Why do you think he whipped himself into shape? Maybe he thought if he spruced up his image, you would see him in a different light. If he overheard you talking to a guy, that’s probably what set him off.”
Carolyn was stunned. Hank had never given her any reason to think he was interested in her romantically. “I thought he had s
omething going on with that waitress. Don’t they go dancing every Saturday night?”
The look in Mary’s eyes was wiser than her years. “What a man does isn’t the same as what a man wants.” When the probation officer just stared at her, she continued, “I shouldn’t have said anything. Please don’t mention it to Hank. I just thought if you knew how he felt, things might go more smoothly.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “What you said back at the lagoon was right, by the way. When I heard you mention the golf glove, I remembered reading something about it in the Anderson file. But the first thing we have to do is identify the new victim. I’ve been checking all the missing persons reports. There’re three or four that sound promising.”
Carolyn set her emotions aside. “Three or four? There’re thousands of people reported missing every day. How could you narrow it down this fast?”
“I used Tracy Anderson,” Mary explained. “I pulled her DMV photo off the system and had the computer try to match it to any missing females with similar features within a two-hundred-mile radius of Ventura. Since Holden’s victims were blond housewives in their mid-thirties, most of them fairly attractive, it seemed reasonable to think he would pick the same sort of woman.”
Carolyn listened while the detective rattled off the particulars of four missing females the computer had selected, then began stringing the case together in her head. “I managed to extract some worthwhile information from Holden during the presentence investigation on the Anderson homicide. Didn’t do me any good, did it? He’s back on the street. Why didn’t anyone realize that Abernathy had lost his mind?”
“Forget Abernathy,” Mary said, one side of her mouth curling in contempt. “The guy’s dead. You can’t stay mad at a dead guy. Besides, everyone gets out. You think it drives you crazy? How do you think we feel? We risk our lives to catch these assholes. Then a few months or a few years later the same guy surfaces again, committing even worse crimes. Bitching about it doesn’t do any good. If you’ve got rats in your house, you gotta keep killing them.”
Carolyn fell silent, thinking. “I’d be willing to pick Holden apart again when you manage to find him. That must have been why Hank wanted me involved? Did he tell you Holden walked out on his interview with me Friday?”
“Yeah,” Mary said, nodding at two uniformed officers who walked in the door. “Do you know Daniel Thorn, the county’s general counsel?”
“I’ve heard of him,” Carolyn said. “I thought he had a heart attack and was out on sick leave.”
“You’re thinking of Patrick Green,” Mary told her. “So Thorn caught me in the office Saturday, demanding that I send him everything we had on Holden. Guess Tracy Anderson’s husband went through the roof when he found out Holden’s conviction had been overturned. He hired an attorney to sue the county, and they’re pissing in their pants. I don’t blame Anderson. I mean, I’d sue, too, if the maniac who killed my wife got away with it.”
“I know,” Carolyn said, rubbing the side of her neck. “Troy Anderson recognized me while I was having lunch at the Olive Garden on Saturday. He’s not a happy camper, that’s for sure. I thought he was going to rip my head off right there in front of Marcus.”
“When are you going to see this guy again?”
Carolyn wiggled in her seat. “Tonight.”
“He must be doing something right,” Mary answered. “Even with all this about Holden, you’re lit up like a Christmas tree. You’ve slept with him already, haven’t you? Come on, you can tell me.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t make it a practice to have sex with strangers. To be honest, I haven’t had sex with anyone in over a year.”
“When the pickings are slim,” Mary told her, “you gotta get it whenever you can. What does he do for a living?”
“I’m not sure what he does. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how it goes tonight.”
“Holden’s DNA should already be in the CODIS system.” Mary yawned. “I need coffee, but my stomach’s been killing me. I think I may have an ulcer.”
“Join the crowd.” Carolyn heard her own stomach gurgling. Food might help, but she didn’t think she could handle a hamburger. She decided to pick up something from the courthouse cafeteria when she got back.
“The FBI’s DNA database has genetic samples from almost two million criminals now, taken as soon as they enter prison,” Mary went on. “They also have over eighty thousand samples gathered from unsolved crime scenes. We’ll nail him, Carolyn. Dr. Ferguson is highly esteemed in her field. That’s why I got bent out of shape when Hank said such stupid things about her. So what if Ferguson pushed us to go the extra mile? It’s exhausting work, but the payoff is worth it.”
Carolyn was impressed by Mary’s confidence. She was a realist, though, and knew the investigators had a difficult road ahead of them. In most instances, the police could focus all their attention on tracking down the killer and building their case. This time they had to figure out who the victim was, and from what Mary had said, the department was already stretched far too thin. “Did you put out a national bulletin on Holden?”
“Of course. All we can do is list him as wanted for questioning, though. As soon as we get a positive ID on the victim, we can ratchet up the heat and get everyone’s attention.”
Carolyn rested her head on her hand. “Tell me more about the woman in San Diego.”
“Okay,” Mary said, struggling to keep her eyes open. “Holden’s been out of prison for two years. San Diego PD reported a white thirty-six-year-old blond computer technician missing from her home approximately a year ago. The husband later called in and claimed his wife had gone to live with her mother in St. Louis. The police wanted to close the case, so they went over to talk to the husband in person. By then the neighbors told them the couple had packed up and moved away.”
“Maybe the husband walked in while Holden was raping her, and he killed him. Did you search for other possible bodies in the lagoon?”
“Thoroughly,” she said. “What makes the San Diego case unusual is the couple left all their furniture. Even if the husband killed her, why would he leave everything behind?”
“He didn’t, don’t you see?” Carolyn told her, speaking rapidly. “The killer probably took the things he knew could be used to identify him. There’s only so much you can do to clean up a crime scene. Clothes have hairs on them, toothbrushes have saliva. Nightgowns and underwear sometimes have semen stains. You’re dealing with a sophisticated, devious criminal, Mary. He’s smart, and he knows as much about forensic science as most police officers. Maybe the husband hired Carl Holden to kill his wife, then dispose of the body out of town where no one would find it.”
“Possibly,” Mary said, squinting as she thought. “They never found the husband, so I’ll put in a request for Holden’s phone records from Chino. But, Carolyn, I don’t think Holden could be considered a sophisticated criminal. He was a construction worker. Hank said his brain was fried from booze.”
“Well…he should know.” Hank had been trying for years to live down his battle with the bottle. Most of the people at the department knew he was a recovering alcoholic. The detective had gone into a nosedive when his younger brother had been killed in a car accident. “Carl Holden might have been a construction worker, but he was an extremely bright man. When I interviewed him the first time, he quoted Greek philosophers. Also, remind Hank that he had eight years to sober up. You know how a lot of guys pass their time in the joint?”
Without answering, Mary folded the paper the hamburger had been wrapped in, grabbed their empty plastic cups, and walked over to place them in the trash bin. “Ready to get out of this dump?” she said, placing her hand on her stomach. “That was gross. If you ever see me order this kind of junk again, you have my permission to shoot me.”
“I thought it made you feel better.”
“I lied,” Mary said, walking beside her toward the front of the restaurant. When the two women stepped outside, they felt a blast of
hot air. “Both of us gave Hank a hard time, now that I think about it. Women tear into guys, then act like they’re the injured party when the guys strike back. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like I owe him an apology.” She moved to let another person pass, looking as if she was waiting for Carolyn to come to the same realization. When Carolyn didn’t respond, Mary picked up where they had left off, “You asked me what I thought prison inmates did to pass time. Jerk off. Pump iron. Who the hell cares?”
“They do that, too,” Carolyn said. “A person has to be strong to carry a dead body. That’s not the point I’m trying to make, though. Inmates study law books and read crime fiction. And what about all the cop and forensic science shows on TV? Some prisons even give them access to the Internet. That’s like having every resource in the world at your fingertips.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Mary said, opening the door to her unmarked police unit. “I’ll tell Hank that you said you were sorry. And don’t worry about the other stuff I told you. You know, about him having the hots for you. He’ll get over it. It’s funny you didn’t know. Everyone else does.”
Carolyn started to say something, then stopped, trying to figure out how she felt about Hank. “I’ll see what kind of information I can dig up on Holden,” she said, deciding it was better not to dwell on Hank’s feelings. They both had more important things to focus their attention on.
“Find out if you still have the original glove in evidence,” Carolyn said. “Tell Hank that since we’ve now got two gloves, we don’t have a pair, but we may have a match.”
“Yeah, right,” Mary said, scowling as she slid behind the wheel. “Tell him yourself. I don’t want to end up back in patrol. The way I’ve been eating, I won’t be able to squeeze into my uniform.”
CHAPTER 12
Monday, September 18—5:42 P.M.
When Carolyn got home that evening, Rebecca was sitting on her bed, her room clean and her laundry folded and stacked neatly on top of her bureau. Their eyes met and lingered. “You’ll never find pot in my room again, Mom, I promise.”
Sullivan’s Evidence Page 10
