The Shasta County Crime Lab and Property Room on Breslauer Way in Redding, California, is like every other evidence building or property room I’ve seen: too much property from too many cases with too few investigators to work the cases and too few leads. It’s always a case of funding, or lack thereof. It’s the same reason DNA from a stranger-rape takes more than a year to analyze in some states; meanwhile the suspect may be out committing additional offenses instead of sitting behind bars where he belongs.
“Some of the case vehicles we keep outside,” Sheriff Gant says, pulling the Expedition into a no-parking zone by the front door and pointing to a number of cars parked behind a chain-link fence to the left of the building. “Only major-case vehicles stay inside. We just don’t have room.” He leads the way through an alarm-equipped door and into a large open-bay warehouse.
Alison Lister’s Honda Accord is in the corner.
Even now, after four months, the car is nearly spotless inside and out, but as I slip my glasses off I see him at once—brilliant amaranth and rust. I walk around the car and check for more shine before returning to the driver’s-side rear window.
“Can you give us a minute, Walt?” I say. The sheriff nods and walks across the warehouse to a small office, where he pours himself a cup of coffee.
“What is it?” Jimmy says.
“I think he pressed the side of his face to the window here.” I circle an area with my finger, being careful not to touch the vehicle. “I couldn’t make it out at first, but I’m pretty sure I see his jaw and his nose.”
“Like he was looking inside?”
“No, that’s the thing; the side of his face is completely flat on the window.” I shrug. “It’s almost like he’s using it as a pillow, resting his head on the glass.”
Jimmy’s face is grim. “He’s imagining her, getting close to her through her car, building up his courage … or excitement.”
I know he’s right. As soon as he says it I know it, and it sends a shiver through me. I tease Jimmy about his psychology degree, but I’ve seen him dissect the minds of too many sociopaths, identifying their motives, their traumas, their fetishes, for me to doubt him. He reads people, particularly bad people, like I read shine. He should be at the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, but instead he’s stuck with me.
“That’s not all,” I say. “Before he pressed his face to the glass, it looks like he drew something with his finger. I can barely make out a circle with … I don’t know … maybe some dots and lines on the inside. The facial imprint is fuzzy at the edges; these lines are sharper, but they’re being blocked by the larger print.”
“You don’t have any idea what it is?”
“No,” I reply, “but it’s important to him. It means something.”
It means something.
CHAPTER SEVEN
June 21, early afternoon
Diane calls at 1:32 P.M. and by 1:49 we’re in the air heading for Carson City, Nevada; more specifically, we’re heading for Washoe Lake State Park, just north of Carson City.
Brilliant amaranth and rust: now we’ll see how good my memory is.
Landing at Carson Airport, we leave Les and Marty to figure out where to park the plane and make our way to the terminal looking for our local contact. He’s already there, a big grin on his face, his eyes hidden behind dark aviator glasses.
“You boys look like hell!” he bellows, pumping my arm and slapping Jimmy on the back. Detective Bobby Decker of the Nevada Highway Patrol looks impeccable in his suit and tie; his obsidian hair is perfectly and precisely in place and I detect a Goldilocks portion of Stetson aftershave—not too much, not too little, but just the right amount.
Bobby’s nickname around the office is GQ and he earns both letters. Buried under the pretty exterior, however, is a smart, ambitious cop with a head for details and a memory like a titanium lockbox. Bobby was with us two years ago for the Natalie Shoemaker homicide; it only seemed fair to give him a heads up.
Besides, we need a ride.
“Diane told me what you’re up to,” Bobby says as we get into his unmarked Dodge Charger. “She didn’t tell me why, but then I remembered that she’s really good at playing dumb when it suits her.”
“Yes, she is,” Jimmy and I say in unison.
“So, are you gonna fill me in?”
“It’s this case we’re working in Redding,” Jimmy says. “Steps thinks it’s connected to the Shoemaker homicide.”
“Really? How?”
“It’s just a hunch,” I lie, letting the words settle where they fall as I stare out the window. Bobby takes the hint and doesn’t push the issue. We make our way to Interstate 580 and then head north. I let my mind wander, grounded only by the slow count of the mile markers as they flash by in green and white.
The more I think about the Lake Washoe case, the more I’m convinced the shine is the same. We’ve handled maybe two hundred cases since then, but I remember shine—I have to—and if Redding isn’t a match, it’s uncannily close. Plus, there was something odd about the Lake Washoe case, something I can’t yet remember, something that didn’t mean anything at the time, but that’s now nibbling at the ragged edge of my mind … like a rat let loose in a pantry.
I need to return to Lake Washoe.
The signs along the freeway tell me we’re close, and then I see sunlight dancing on water: Washoe Lake. It’s a bit of a misnomer, as the lake is actually a marriage of Big Washoe Lake, Little Washoe Lake, and the marshy Scripps Wildlife Management Area that connects the two. The lakes are shallow—no more than twelve feet deep—and during severe droughts they’ve been known to dry up completely. Almost daily winds beat and flay the shallow waters into a turbid broth.
Washoe Lake State Park, established in 1977, extends to the south and east of the lake and sprawls across more than eight thousand acres, offering miles of trails and abundant wildlife: mule deer, coyotes, hawks, eagles, even pelicans.
We turn onto Eastlake Boulevard and travel the short distance to the park entrance. It’s hot when we get out of the car; the stygian-black asphalt of the parking lot soaks up the sun in scorching gulps and belches it back in waves of shimmering heat.