by N. M. Brown
‘She always does.’
‘And wear your seatbelt.’
‘I will.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Okay, honey, when will you be back? Tonight?’
‘No, tomorrow, maybe, but I’ll let you know.’
‘You’ve got your key?’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you. I love you, kiddo.’
‘Speak to you later, Dad,’ she said, and hung up.
Leighton put down his phone and dragged two hands slowly down his face. His daughter was slipping further away from him every day and he didn’t know how to fix it. The thought of her in a car with a newly qualified teenager at the wheel, on the chaos of the freeway, terrified him.
It was almost lunchtime when Leighton returned to the station. Thankfully, the silver car from the previous night was parked outside, along the back fence of the parking lot, with all the other seized vehicles. Having parked in a bay nearby, Leighton grabbed a couple of items and a sheet of white paper from the glovebox, and made his way through the parking lot to the car. Looking at it in different circumstances, Leighton wondered if the victim’s DNA would be all over the trunk, or the back seat, of the innocuous looking vehicle.
That type of evidence gathering was a fine art and would have to be authorised from above; collecting tyre tracks might help justify a more detailed search – that was what he was hoping anyway, as he knelt beside the car. First, he checked to ensure that all the tyres were of the same type.. They were all Marshalls – a fairly rare brand, which was good. Then, he opened a small ink pad and laid it on the ground, and took out a rubber roller, sliding it backwards and forwards over the pad until it was sufficiently coated. He took the roller to the near side tyre and rolled it over the curve of the tread from side to side. Finally, he took the paper and pressed it on the tyre. Running his hand over the sheet, he smoothed it down to ensure good contact. When he peeled the paper away from the tyre, it revealed a neat print of wavy blue lines. The image reminded Leighton of Annie’s kindergarten paintings of the ocean.
After crossing the parking lot to the Explorer, Leighton opened the trunk and leaned in. He picked up one of the plaster casts from Carpenter road and peered at it for a moment. He then looked at the printed paper in his other hand. They matched perfectly. Rochelle, it seemed, had been right – she had witnessed an abduction or possibly something worse than that.
Chapter Eighteen
Nina Shindel got a genuine fright when Leighton tapped her on the shoulder. She was listening to an audiobook through her headphones as she worked on removing a stubborn 9 mm bullet from the neck of a homicide victim. As an assistant medical examiner, she had no fear about handling the remains of the dead, but she hated the idea of people creeping up on her. Perhaps it was because, unlike most people, Nina got to see up close just how much damage humans could actually do to each other.
‘Jeez,’ she laughed, with relief as much as shock. She pulled off her earphones, leaving them dangling down the front of her lab coat. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Sorry for the scare, I’m Leighton Jones – I work traffic. I don’t know if you remember, but I think we spoke a little last year at the Police Department Christmas lunch.’
‘We did?’ Nina frowned as she pulled off a latex glove.
‘Yeah,’ Leighton grinned guiltily. ‘I believe we were both avoiding the speeches. You’re Nina, right?’
‘Ah,’ Nina smiled, ‘I remember. You were the guy hiding out by the fountain.’
‘Yeah, that was me. I’m not much of a fan of public speaking – from either side of the podium.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled, ‘you’re not alone there. So, what brings you down here?
‘I just wanted to ask you about the Jane Doe from Carpenter Road. Were you working on that case?’
‘Sure,’ Nina nodded, ‘what exactly do you want to know?’
‘Well, cause of death to start with.’ Leighton said with a shrug.
‘Asphyxiation. Most likely as a result of manual strangulation, by someone standing in front of her, looking her straight in the face.’
‘Any foreign tissues present?’ Leighton asked.
‘Yeah, there was some evidence of sexual activity – non-penetrative. I found a couple of artificial fibres, but she had been left in the open so they could simply be environmental. I still have to compare them with fibres recovered from the scene. They were passed on to your colleagues in Homicide. However, we lifted a partial print from her cheek. That might provide a quicker match. It’s all in the report. Anyway, what’s your interest? I didn’t think Traffic were involved.’
‘We’re not. I’m just following up on a lead. Thanks for the update, I appreciate it.’
‘There’s more,’ she said, ‘but it’d probably be easier to show you.’
‘Sure,’ Leighton nodded.
Nina led him to the longrow of square doors at the end of the room. She gripped asteel handle and pulled one of the doors open. Leighton instinctively took a step backwards as the pathologist removed the long tray that was holding the body. However, there was no need: unlike some of the human remains that Leighton had encountered throughout his career, this body had been cleaned – inside and out. Nina turned and looked at him as if he was a child.
‘Get over here, officer. You’re the one with the interest in the case.’
‘You see this?’ Nina indicated a plum coloured bruise on the neck and shoulder of the pale body.
‘Where she was grabbed?’
‘No, where she was strangled. Although she does have grab marks on her upper arms.’
Leighton peered at the porcelain skin of the cadaver’s neck. Although the overhead fluorescent lighting had robbed the tattoo of any warmth, the three interlocking curves of flame were clearly visible.
‘Nina, do you see many victims with tattoos?’
‘Yeah, most of them – if the victim is under the age of fifty. And not all of them look like the artist had any training.’
‘How many times have you seen a victim with this tattoo?’
Nina peered at it for a moment then glanced back at him.
‘None that I can remember. Why?’
‘A local prostitute may have spoken with a girl who vanished on Friday evening. I thought it may have been the victim, shortly before she was murdered. The prostitute said the girl she met had a flame tattoo on her neck.’
‘Sounds possible. Where was she speaking to her?’
‘Outside a café down at the harbour.’
‘Well, this victim here had stomach contents amounting to fries and beer. If you can find out what the girl in the café ordered that night, I’d say you’ve got a pretty clear match. If you want to be really thorough, you could order the same meal from the café and bring it over here for me to compare the chemistry. But to be honest, the tattoo is unique.’
‘Has anyone identified the body yet?’ Leighton asked.
‘No,’ Nina said as she slid the tray back in, ‘but she had no belongings on her, so it could take a few days.’
‘Thanks, Nina, I appreciate you humouring me.’
‘Any time, officer.’
‘If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you at the next Christmas lunch.’
‘Good plan, I’ll meet you at the usual place, just as the speeches start.’
‘Amen to that.’ Leighton said, and left.
Chapter Nineteen
Leighton was sitting on the small wall outside the station. He had finished his shift half an hour earlier, and was now enjoying the sensation of the warm sun on his face. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself, which was a unique experience for him. The information he had gathered on the case was good, and, if it led to an arrest, it might even get the captain off his back for a couple of weeks. The captain, who had been brought in to Oceanside PD to replace a warm and wise man, had never been particularly fond of Leighton, but perhaps that was becau
se Leighton had never cared much for the captain. Gretsch represented the new breed of career police officers, who could use academic qualifications and initiatives to leapfrog their way to the top. This was exemplified by Gretsch’s two degrees, which allowed people like him to avoid real police work, whilst sending others out on the streets.
Leighton stood up as Ryan Slater came out of the building. He was a tall, lean detective who looked like a coiled spring. Leighton had always felt that Slater had missed his true calling, in the United States Marine Corps.
‘You got a minute?’ Leighton asked.
‘Sure,’ Slater nodded, but kept walking briskly. ‘What do you want?’
Leighton hurried alongside the younger man. ‘This case involving the Jane Doe out on Carpenter Road, are you involved in the investigation?’
‘Maybe, what about it?’ Slater asked.
‘I spoke to a witness who thinks your victim was abducted.’
‘What witness?’ Slater stopped walking and looked at Leighton with narrowed eyes.
‘A working girl,’ Leighton replied with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. ‘She was down at the harbour last Friday night.’
‘A hooker? That’s your witness? Jeez, Jonesy, I didn’t realise you wanted to be a detective that badly,’ Slater laughed in a humourless way.
‘To be honest, Slater, I really don’t want to spend my days dealing with death, but I met the witness during an alleged assault. She got me involved in this.’
‘Was the assault on her?’
‘By her, she was accused of attacking some used car salesman.’
‘Okay, let me get this straight,’ Slater said, holding out his spade hands as if estimating the size of an imaginary fish. ‘When the cops show up to charge this violent hooker, she coincidentally puts herself forward as the star witness in murder case? Yeah, good luck taking that one to the DA.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Leighton said flatly. ‘She knows what she saw. She said the girl she spoke to had a flame tattoo on her neck, just like the victim’s. That’s more than a coincidence.’
‘How the hell do you know about any tattoo on the victim?’
‘I spoke to Nina Shindel.’
‘Wow. You’re crossing some serious boundaries, you do realise that?’
‘Look, I may be a royal pain in the ass, but that doesn’t change the facts – your victim was outside the Beach House Café.’
‘Based on a hooker’s claims and two people in California having the same tattoo?’
‘There’s a security tape with footage that corroborates her story.’
Slater stopped walking and ran a hand through his hair.
‘Okay,’ he said with a sigh, ‘where exactly did you get this tape?’
‘The gas station opposite the café where the girl was taken from.’
‘So, where is this tape now?’ Slater asked.
‘It got destroyed.’
‘Destroyed?’ Slater rolled his eyes. ‘Wow, a hooker in trouble makes up a story and the evidence gets destroyed – that’s pretty convenient.’
‘Look, don’t be a dick, Slater. I got the tape, it was cheap and it mangled in the machine before I got a chance to log it as evidence. But I have a set of tyre impressions that match the car that was probably used in the abduction and disposal of the body.’
‘Where did you get tyre moulds from?’
‘I made them myself out on Carpenter Road.’
‘So, you’ve tampered with an active crime scene?’ Slater’s eyes widened.
‘I took a drive out yesterday, after you guys had finished up there. The scene had been cleared by the technicians.’
As Leighton spoke, the detective looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and pity.
‘Come on,’ Leighton sighed. ‘Why would I make this up?’
‘I honestly don’t know, but thankfully your oddball theories and missing evidence are all pretty academic now anyway.’
‘Why is that?’
‘We got a match on the DNA found on the victim. It belongs to some guy who works in the meatpacker over on Via De Monte – fifty yards from the scene. A car is going down to pick him up as we speak.’
‘Well, maybe if you can tie him to the car, it would help make your case.’
‘We’ve got DN-fucking-A – we don’t need a couple of shitty tyre prints and a mangled video tape.’
‘So what, the investigation is just over? You’ve got some DNA so the case is closed, is it?’
‘Not for me, but it is for you,’ Slater said firmly, and walked away. ‘When the Captain hears about this, you’re in a whole swamp of shit.’
‘What’s new?’ Leighton whispered, and walked to his car. Given Slater’s attitude, he was content to let the pieces of this investigation to fall whatever way they might. He had tried to pass on the details, which meant – regardless of how they were received – it was no longer his problem.
Chapter Twenty
In the fifty years he had been sailing, Paul Milne was usually lucky when it came to fishing. Most mornings, before dawn, he would spend a couple of hours drifting along on the calm lake, and return with at least four steelheads. In the past three decades, his wife had been rarely impressed by his catch. The only fish she was interested in eating came out of the icebox and had a crispy crumb coating. But her lack of enthusiasm made little difference to Paul, who was happy enough with the daily ritual, regardless of the catch. Today, however, was different.
He had been sitting in his small boat, on the mirror stillness of Lake Tanner, since 4.30am without so much as a bite. Usually there would be two or three tugs on the line within the first hour, but it had been eerily quiet. To make matters worse, Paul’s stainless-steel coffee flask was down to the last few bitter sips. However, it didn’t really matter in the end; drifting in his small boat was where Paul found his peace and his rest. As a retired maths teacher, he had spent thirty hectic years being surrounded by thousands of young people with varying degrees of competency in numeracy. They would crush into his classroom and cram around his desk. By the time he retired, he’d felt like he was drowning in a sea of paperwork and marking, and had a level of stress that prevented him from sleeping.
The teacher’s lounge had offered little in the way of relaxation to Paul. He had therefore made the wise decision to retire at the age of fifty-eight. Yet the level of stress had not diminished, and Paul found himself plagued with months of restless anxiety. Eventually, having visited his physician, with twitching muscles and chronic insomnia, he was advised to spend more time amongst nature. He had never been much of a hiker, and it seemed logical that he should engage with nature in the most familiar way, so Paul decided to spend every morning out on the water, far away from civilisation.
Paul was considering turning the boat around and heading back to shore when he first noticed the rock. Sometimes, if it had been a particularly dry year, the water level would fall and larger boulders would gradually break the surface around the shore line. To Paul, these newly exposed rocks resembled prehistoric eggs from an adventure movie. He could easily imagine one of them slowly cracking open as a pterodactyl broke its way out of its spherical home. But the rock that had appeared today was not at the shoreline: it was not even close to the edge. Instead, it was in the centre of the lake. It just didn’t seem right.
Gripping the starter toggle for the small outboard motor, Paul pulled and the engine roared to life. He crouched at the rear of the boat, guiding the neat, little craft as it scored the surface of the lake. Within a few seconds he had arrived close to the rock. He cut the engine and let the boat drift toward it. The sudden shift in sound – from growling engine to absolute silence – was disconcerting: as if the natural world was holding its breath.
Finally, Paul arrived alongside the rock; it was then he discovered that it wasn’t a rock. What Paul had initially mistaken for a sand coloured boulder, was in fact the sloped back of a naked body. It was floating, face down, in the lake, arms dr
ifting outwards. The hair of the corpse spread out in the lapping water and moved with a lifelike motion, as if it were merely floating.
Paul, who had never seen death up close before – other than the occasional final gasps of a fish – felt his body shudder uncontrollably. His hands began to shake so dramatically that, even when he locked his hands together, his forearms trembled, as if he were operating invisible machinery. The sensation lasted for several minutes, and when it had eventually subsided, he reached for the motor and started it again. He sped the small boat toward to the shore, glad to be moving away from his grim discovery.
Chapter Twenty-One
At 10.33am, Leighton and Danny were sharing speed enforcement. Leighton was standing by their Explorer, at the side of the freeway, taking speed readings from the groaning traffic. In his right hand, he held a radar speed gun, which he frequently held up and pointed at passing vehicles. Most of the drivers would see the police officer and slow down. The more defiant ones would speed up, flicking a finger at the underpaid officer.
It was a particularly hot day so Leighton and Danny were taking it in turns to sit in the car and listen out for any higher priorities – such as collisions.
When Danny approached Leighton, he was frowning.
‘What’s up, partner?’ Leighton asked.
‘I just heard a bunch of stuff about a body that was recovered out on Lake Tanner.’
‘That’s a fairly tricky place to get to. What are they calling it? Suicide?’
‘Only if the victim strangled herself first, and then threw herself off Hudson point. They found one of her shoes and some drag marks up there next to the vantage point. I just thought it was maybe something linked to your jacket girl. Second female found in a week.’
‘Well, it’s not my concern anymore.’ Leighton shrugged.
‘Did you go and speak to Homicide, with what you’ve got on the case?’
