“It’s my political future, Kali. Kind of hard not to let it get to me.” Owen didn’t exactly snap at her, but it was close. “The primary’s only weeks away, remember.”
“You’re right.” It was easy to give advice. And hard to put worry on a back burner.
“I appreciate that you’re trying to be encouraging,” he said after a moment. “I’m in a foul mood, that’s all.” He shook out two aspirin and held them in his hand.
“Understandable. I would be, too, with all that pressure.”
“It’s not just this stuff with the murders.” Owen paused, studying the pills in his hand. “Things aren’t going so well with Alex, either.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He says I never think about anyone but myself. You think that’s true?”
A loaded question, and one Kali didn’t feel competent to answer. But there was something about Owen’s tone, genuine dismay tinged with a plea for guidance. She didn’t feel right about brushing him off either. “You’re a good man, and your heart’s in the right place,” she said after a moment. “I know you care about him a great deal, but I imagine Alex is sensitive to unintended slights.”
“In other words, I do put myself first.”
“You wouldn’t be where you are today if you didn’t. But when it comes to family, there are different expectations. I imagine Alex wants a father he feels connected to, not one who simply goes through the motions.”
Owen’s gaze was flat. Kali realized suddenly that she’d gone too far.
She’d recognized so much of her own teenage angst in Alex when she’d first met him. He’d been sixteen then, sullen and resentful. But his eyes had spoken of hurt, not anger. Over the course of the trial, she’d seen him frequently, especially at the “working bar-b-cues” Owen regularly hosted. She and Alex became ping-pong buddies, and when Marilyn died, she’d talked to him about her own experience losing a mother. In truth, though, she hardly knew Alex now.
“I’m sorry,” Kali offered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, no, I asked you. It’s the same thing Marilyn used to say. Same thing the family counselor said, too. I thought I was getting better.”
“I’m sure you are.”
He smiled and stood. “Apparently I’ve still got a ways to go.”
“You’ll get there.”
“I was thinking I might ask Alex if he wanted to take a trip this spring after the primary is over and before the main campaign gears up for real. Just the two of us. Maybe down into Mexico. Alex always talked about us doing that when he was younger.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Owen’s expression relaxed. “I hope Alex thinks so too.”
The minute Owen was out the door, Kali’s phone rang. “Detective Keating called,” Gloria said. “He asked you to call him as soon as you were free. He said he’s at his desk.”
Kali returned the call and Bryce picked up on the first ring. “We found Ruby Wings’s car,” he said without preamble.
“Where?”
“Near Jack London Square. She apparently met a friend there Sunday evening for drinks. Had a few too many so the friend drove her home. That’s the last anyone saw of her.”
Kali shivered, picturing what must have followed. But she also felt a glimmer of hope. They had a lead. “Who’s the friend?”
“A woman. Lou and I talked to her. She claims she had some sort of ESP experience the night Ruby Wings disappeared, but otherwise she seems fairly together. She told us Ruby tried on a pink bikini at Macy’s the day before.”
“The reference in the poem?”
“Right. Either Ruby Wings mentioned it to her killer or he was there in the store, watching her.”
“He was watching Jane Parkhurst, too.” A killer who stalked his victims. It made Kali’s skin crawl. “When was she at the store?”
“Saturday afternoon, sometime between one and four.”
“You’ll want to talk to whoever was working there that day.”
There was a beat of silence; then Bryce laughed. “You think I wouldn’t have come up with that on my own?”
Kali could feel the blood rise to her cheeks. She was doing a good job of putting her foot in her mouth today. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”
He didn’t sounded offended. “Hey, it’s like the old saying— two sets of eyes are better than one. And when it comes to shopping for women’s bathing suits, you’ve got a leg up on me. A rather nice leg, I imagine.”
She was glad he couldn’t see her blush.
“I just talked with Bevin Moore, the head criminalist on the case,” Bryce said. “We should be getting the evidence reports from Ruby Wings’s house any minute now. If you have time, why don’t you come by and take a look?”
“Will do.”
Kali completed the draft of a press release explaining why the DA’s office wasn’t going to be pressing charges against Kurt Lancaster, printed out copies to run by the detectives and Owen, then headed out. She got as far as the lobby, where she caught sight of Nathan Sloane just as she exited the elevator. He was standing by the revolving door, one hand in his pocket.
Damn. She hadn’t returned his last phone call because she’d decided she wanted nothing more to do with him. She started to retreat back into the elevator. He saw her and waved. Double damn.
“What you doing here?” she asked when he approached. She tried for a neutral tone, but didn’t quite pull it off.
“Hoping to run into you, actually.” He gave her a quirky little smile. “You haven’t been returning my calls.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have been so short with you on the phone.”
Kali was still adjusting to the shock of finding him waiting for her. “No, you shouldn’t have been,” she said after a moment.
“I guess I was hurt that you seemed so uninterested.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I thought we had a good time the night we met for dinner. I know I did. I was hoping to convince you to do it again.” He rocked back on his heels and gave her a lopsided smile.
Now that he was standing in front of her, Nathan seemed like a nice-enough guy. Maybe a little goofy but in an appealing sort of way. And he was obviously interested in her. That, in itself, intrigued her. But when she was away from him, the image she carried in her mind left her feeling a little uneasy.
Best not to get involved. How did she explain without coming across like a snob?
“I did have a good time,” she told him. “But I don’t really see the relationship going anywhere.”
“How do you know if you don’t give it a chance?”
“I’m not really in a place to—”
“Besides, why does it have to go somewhere? Can’t people just have fun?”
“Of course.” She didn’t know why she’d made the remark in the first place. It seemed whiny.
“How about after work tonight? We could go out for a drink.”
She grimaced. “Sorry, I’m busy.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Sorry again.” Couldn’t the guy take a hint?
“Three’s a charm, right? Are you free Thursday?”
She tried putting him off. “I’m not sure how the week will play out in terms of work. Let me call you later, okay?”
“You won’t forget?”
Kali shook her head. This way, at least, she’d have time to figure out how to tell him she didn’t want to see him. “But I need your home number. All I have is your cell phone.”
“It’s the best way to reach me.”
“Don’t you have a home phone?”
“I’m never there.” He grinned at her and started for the exit. “I hope you can make it on Thursday.”
Kali made her way to the homicide room. Lou and Bryce were seated at their desks. Between them, in a plastic visitor’s chair, was a woman about Kali’s own age. She had a heart-shaped face, ligh
tly freckled, and short feathery hair that was frosted at the crown. Kali’s first impression was of a pixie.
Bryce looked up as Kali entered. The sight of him caused her stomach to do a little flip-flop whereas the sight of Nathan never did.
“Perfect timing,” he said, meeting her eyes with a smile. “Have you met Bevin? She’s one of our best evidence technicians.” He made the introductions, then pulled up a second chair.
Bevin shook Kali’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. I was just telling the detectives, we didn’t find much.”
“Did you come up with anything?” Lou asked.
“A number of prints. Of course we don’t know if any of them belong to our guy. But here’s something—a print on one of the shoes on the bed matches another found in the bathroom.”
“Couldn’t it be Ruby’s?” Kali asked.
“Unlikely, since there were just those two. We don’t have hers for comparison, but there were a lot of the same ones all over the house. We’re guessing those are hers.”
Lou rubbed his cheek. “Does it match any of the ones pulled from the Port-A-Potty in the Parkhurst case?”
“Afraid not. We also found a metal Levi’s button in the garage.” Bevin looked at Kali. “Could be Ruby’s, of course, but all the jeans in her closet were from the JJill.”
“Could have come from a friend’s jeans,” Bryce added. “In any case, Levi’s are hardly a specialty item.”
“I told you, Bryce, there wasn’t much.” The twinkle in Bevin’s eye spoke of a familiarity that caused Kali a flicker of jealousy. She noted it and tucked it away to analyze at a later date.
“There was also a trace of cigarette ash in the toilet bowl,” Bevin said. “Again, could have come from anyone, but friends don’t usually hang out in the bathroom to smoke.”
“There was a cigarette found at the Parkhurst crime scene,” Kali noted.
“What about the poem?” Lou asked. “Anything there?”
“No prints. Nothing unusual about the paper. It’s standard twenty-pound, white printer paper. But the font is Goudy Old Style. Not one of the more common ones. Were the other poems the same?”
“They looked the same. We never actually focused on the font.”
Kali looked up to see Maureen Oliver approaching.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Maureen addressed the two detectives. “A call just came in from the southern division. I think we’ve found your missing woman.”
CHAPTER 34
Kali drove her own car, following the detectives by probably a good twenty minutes. She’d had to retrieve the car from the lot, and had then taken her time on the road. In her heart, she’d known the call would come sooner or later, but she’d tried holding on to the hope that Ruby Wings was alive. Even now, a part of her was willing to believe the body that had turned up was unrelated to the case.
She exited the freeway and headed east across the railroad tracks, both literally and figuratively. She entered an area of housing projects, boarded-up buildings and broken windows. Undoubtedly a lot of broken dreams, as well.
Kali spotted the cluster of official vehicles on a side street near an empty field. A clear signal to anyone passing by that something was amiss. Some of the local residents were, in fact, peeking out from behind curtained windows, but there wasn’t the usual gathering of curious onlookers. People in neighborhoods like this were wary of police, whatever the reason for their visit, and they weren’t about to get any closer than they had to.
Kali parked outside the cordoned-off area and walked into the cold wind the half block to where a uniformed cop was standing sentry. He was one of the few cops she recognized, and he apparently recognized her, as well.
“You’re becoming a regular at our little festivities,” he said with a touch of gallows humor.
She smiled. “Can’t stay away from a party.”
“The action is down there.” He pointed to the far end of an open lot.
She crossed the rutted field and passed through a large tear in the adjacent chain-link fence. It was wide enough to drive a tank through, and so old the metal had begun to rust. A hole like that defeated the purpose of having a fence in the first place. But in this area of the city, maintenance was not a high priority.
On the other side of the fence was an open cement culvert, probably ten feet across at the top, filled with slimy green water. The surface was pockmarked with algae and every kind of debris imaginable. Rags, tires, a shopping cart, even a baby carriage.
“Watch your step,” Bryce called. He and Lou were huddled with one of the evidence technicians.
Kali looked down. The narrow ledge that ran along the culvert was uneven and badly cracked. She didn’t want to trip. The thought of slipping into that cesspool of a culvert gave her the willies.
“Was she in the water?” Kali asked when she caught up to the detectives. She felt more sure than before that she didn’t want to view the body.
Bryce shook his head. “Against the fence. Propped up with her hands folded in her lap like she was at the beach watching the sun set.”
Kali picked up on the sarcasm in his tone, but there was something else too. A brittleness maybe. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Is it Ruby Wings?” Kali glanced at the center of activity about twenty yards ahead. She saw Bevin talking to another criminalist who was sweeping the area and carefully depositing his pickings into a collection of paper bags.
“We don’t have a positive ID yet,” Lou said, “but it looks to be her.”
“Same MO as before?”
“Pretty much.”
A uniformed cop called to them from the other side of the fence. “The boys who found her are getting antsy,” he said. “What do I tell them?”
“Guess we’d better talk to them,” Lou said.
Bryce kicked at a broken piece of cement. “You and Kali go ahead. I want to check a few things with Bevin.”
Lou turned to Kali. She could tell he wasn’t happy with the arrangement. Neither was she.
“Let’s go,” he said with a sigh. “They’re in the cruiser at the corner.”
Kali followed Lou back across the field. It was a community sports field, she realized, only with so many potholes and boggy spots that anyone moving at more than a careful clip was bound to end up with a sprained ankle.
Lou opened the back door to the cruiser and invited the two boys inside to step out. They were in their early teens, dark complected, probably Hispanic. Skinny and awkward, with baggy pants and baseball hats turned backward. The taller boy had tattoos on his neck and hand. The other boy sported what he no doubt envisioned as a beard but was really a scraggly collection of chin hairs. They were street kids, and not the Berkeley, regular-allowance-from-mom-and-dad variety.
“What are your names?” Lou asked.
The boy with tattoos answered. “I’m Mando. He’s Gus.”
“We appreciate the call,” Lou told them. “Tell us how you found her.”
The boys were jittery. “We already told someone.”
“And now you’re going to tell us.”
“We gotta get home, man.” It was Gus who spoke this time.
“You live around here?”
Mando gave Lou a look of disgust. “Course we do. Who else you think come here?”
Kali reached for her phone and offered it to Gus. “You want to call your mom and tell her you’ll be late?”
He gave her a sullen look. “I don’t got a mom, and his”—he pointed to his companion—”she ain’t home.”
“So what’s the rush?” Lou asked.
“We got shit to do, man, that’s what.”
More likely, Kali thought, they were simply eager to be done with all the questions. And the police. Little had they suspected what they were letting themselves in for when they’d reported finding a body.
Mando sighed. “What you want to know?”
“Start from the beginning, why don’t you.”
“We was fishing the
river—”
“You fish in that?” Kali couldn’t help herself.
A thin smile pulled at Mando’s mouth. “Not for fish. For, you know, stuff.”
Cheaper than a flea market, Kali supposed, but she cringed at the thought of children, even toughened kids like these, playing in such a place.
“We seen her, didn’t think much about it. Some drugged-out whore sleeping it off, you know. Wouldn’t be the first. Then we get closer, and we’re like, hey, this ain’t right.”
“Did you take anything?” Lou asked. “Touch her?”
Gus jerked his head in contempt. “What you think we are, man? She fat and ugly.”
From the picture Kali had seen, Ruby had been an attractive woman. Then it dawned on her that Ruby’s body was probably horribly swollen and disfigured from being a day or more dead.
“We called the cops right away,” Mando said.
“And they make us sit here, wait forever.”
“We appreciate your help,” Kali offered.
“What time did you first see the woman?” Lou asked.
“Couple of hours now.”
Lou checked his watch. “You don’t have school today?”
Mando shrugged. Gus looked like a bull facing down a red cape. “We cut out a little early.”
“Do you come here often?” Kali asked.
“Every day just about.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
Lou blew on his hands. “You think you’d have seen her if she was here then?”
“Guess so.”
“Did you ever seen anyone around who looked like he didn’t belong?” Kali asked.
“Whad’ya mean?”
She knew exactly what she meant, but not how to put it into words. “Someone you wouldn’t expect to find nosing around a culvert,” she said at last.
The boys thought for a moment. “Some lady and a man,” Mando said.
“When was this?” Lou’s voice was edged with eagerness.
Kali shared his excitement. It might be the break they’d been hoping for.
“Last summer. I heard ‘em talking. She with some agency was going to clean the place up, but ain’t ever happened.”
Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5) Page 29
