“Zo?, please. You know you can’t be involved. You’re a witness.”
And a suspect, she thought. More than a couple of the deputies had given her sideways looks. After all, these were the guys who’d first blown her off as a wasted party girl, then someone who’d offed her friend.
“Look, I don’t get to decide. It’s their jurisdiction. Their crime scene. I’m just an observer.”
“But you’re staying.”
“Just because there’s crossover between our cases. That’s all. They’re probably going to kick me out of here in a little while. If you’re going to stick around tonight, I’ll catch up with you in a couple of hours, and I’ll update you with what I can.”
She wouldn’t stay. She had a long drive ahead of her, but if she left now, she’d be home before midnight. Besides, Greening was putting up the big blue wall that kept noncops out.
“I think I’ll go home. Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
“Procedure. They’re going to button the scene down tonight and start picking this place apart tomorrow. They’re bringing in some special equipment to help examine the area.”
“For what?”
Greening’s expression turned guarded. She knew what they’d be looking for. She looked over at the deputies working the scene.
“Do you think she’s buried out there? That maybe they’re all buried out there?”
“I don’t know. They’ll search the area with ground-penetrating radar and bring out the dogs.”
She appreciated his omission of the term cadaver dogs. “I hope you find them.”
Greening said nothing for a long moment. “I do too. I’ll get you that ride.”
He climbed out of the car and rustled up a uniform to drive her back to Mammoth Lakes. When he approached with the officer in tow, she got out to meet them.
“Deputy Beatty here will drive you back to the motel. I’ll be in touch tomorrow. The Mono Sheriff’s may need another statement from you, but they’ll probably have you give it back in San Francisco.”
She listened to the blah-blah-blah and pat-on-the-head talk. Greening must have picked up on her mood, because he took her hand.
“Zo?, don’t feel you’re being excluded. You helped today. We’re one step closer to finding this guy because of you.”
Interdepartmental help went as far as a “thanks, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out” for Greening. Now he knew how Zo? felt when he’d brushed her off. If he removed his stung emotions from the equation, it wasn’t that bad. The Mono sheriff and Deputy Solis were cordial and grateful, but they planned to stick to the jurisdictional rule book. They were keeping him in the loop, even if they wouldn’t let him play in the sandbox. All niceties aside, he did detect a little irritation from them for discovering the crime scene. No one likes having their professional abilities shown up by someone else.
He couldn’t complain too much. They’d be the ones working the scene all night, while he got to write up his report at a reasonable hour. Shown the door, he drove back to Mammoth Lakes. Zo? Sutton’s car was gone from the motel lot when he arrived. It was a shame she’d left. He would have liked to have smoothed things over with her. She was the key to this case.
He let himself into his room with his cop-on-the-go dinner: burger, fries, and a Coke from Carl’s Jr. He could have gone out for a sit-down meal with his per diem, but he never liked eating alone.
He dumped the food on the room’s desk, slipped off his jacket, and kicked off his shoes. He took a bite out of the burger. It tasted pretty damn good. He couldn’t decide if it was because of the altitude or the fact he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
He waited until he was halfway through his meal before calling Ogawa to fill him in. Ogawa wasn’t impressed that he’d spent the entire day with Zo?, but he’d told him to get close to her, so he couldn’t really complain. Keeping her close was the way to go. Her history said she was volatile, and she was no good to the investigation if she was in a combative mood.
“She found the site.” He held off saying the kill site. At this point, there were no bodies.
“After all this time, she suddenly remembered where it happened?” Ogawa said.
His skepticism was hard to miss. Zo? still had a ways to go before winning him over.
“It was more the process of elimination. We hit every road until we came across this one. I didn’t need her to tell me this was the place. It matched the one from her statement from last year.”
“I don’t like that she was out there.”
“She wants answers.”
“Or she’s covering her ass.”
Greening returned to his food and picked up a fry. “So, you don’t trust her.”
“There are too many unanswered questions. She’s far from being cleared from our investigation.”
Greening smiled. He liked working with Ogawa for this reason—he didn’t trust a single soul. “So what’s your assessment of her?”