“You’re an ass, you know that?”
Stu looks out the passenger window. “Yep.”
They arrive at Gerry Fischer’s land, and Harper pulls in behind a patrol car with the lights running. A forensics team is already on the scene, their van in front of the black-and-white. They’ve set up lights on stands in the field to the left.
Stu and Harper climb out. The passenger-side door of the patrol car is open. One of the police officers is sitting with his legs planted on the ground, head down, looking sorry for himself. His partner waves them down and approaches with his hands on his belt, as if he’s an old-time lawman in a long-gone frontier town. “Mornin’.”
“This is Stu Raley. I’m Jane Harper.” They both show their ID badges. Harper nods in the direction of the man perched on the passenger seat. “What’s up with him?”
“He don’t handle the stiffs too well.”
Stu shares a look with her. “Uh-huh.”
The officer shakes hands with them. “I’m Weinberg. That there is Tasker.”
“Tasker, huh?” Stu asks, looking away as he mumbles something inaudible under his breath.
Weinberg leans in close. “On the job eight months. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“I see,” Harper says. “Tell me about the body.”
“Gerry Fischer works this land. All this is soybean,” Weinberg explains, indicating the rows of vegetation around them. “He got a call in the night. Something about a car parked out here.”
“Right,” Harper says, looking back to where CSU has set up the lights. “Then what?”
“Got here, found the body. Female, probably late teens, early twenties,” Weinberg says.
Stu scratches his forehead. “Coroner here yet?”
“ME’s on his way.”
Harper pats Officer Weinberg on the arm. “Alright, we’re gonna go have a look. You boys had better stick around.”
“Sure, Detective. We’ve got orders to remain here until the crime scene is secured.”
“Good.”
As they pass Tasker, the young officer looks decidedly green around the gills. Harper leads Stu Raley into the field where CSU is working. Under the intense illumination they have erected around the body, the girl looks like the centerpiece of a dramatic theater production. The soybean stalks cast spidery shadows over the girl, and, as with Alma Buford, she looks as if she is sleeping. But the bruises on her neck say otherwise; the purple handprints are so clear, Harper can make out the actual shape of fingers in the dead girl’s flesh. The crown sits lopsided on her head, as if it slipped after the killer set it there.
Stu looks visibly disturbed by the blood that has run from the girl’s privates and onto her clothes. The killer managed to close her eyes, but there was nothing he could do about her mouth—it remains agape, open in an expression of frozen terror. “Fuck.”
Harper squats down next to the girl, careful not to get near the mud. She looks at her, then up at Stu.
“We have to stop this.”
6
By the time Stu Raley catches a ride with CSU back to Hope’s Peak PD, the sun has risen and Harper wishes she could have San Francisco’s climate back—cool in the day, even cooler at night. In some way, Harper misses the fog rolling in off the bay. She misses eating out in Chinatown. But there are bad memories, too. Things she’d rather forget.
The car bounces along the dirt road leading to Gerry Fischer’s farmhouse. It’s an impressive spread of buildings against a never-ending backdrop of crops. Far as the eye can see, rows and rows of short green soybeans.
A text comes through on her cell.
Just heading to the station now—SR
Harper smiles, despite the situation. Another dead girl. There’s no stopping the killer now. Whatever it was that held him at bay in recent years is gone. He has the taste, the thirst, and needs to quench it.
Serial killers are like any other addict—they have to kill again. It’s a need.
Harper gets out and walks toward the farmhouse. Gerry Fischer opens the door and shakes her hand.
“Mister Fischer? I’m Detective Jane Harper with Hope’s Peak PD.”
“Mornin’, Detective. You can call me Gerry,” he tells her.
“Okay.”
“You want coffee or somethin’?”
As it is, Harper still feels the hum of a hangover. She didn’t get enough sleep, she drank too much the night before, the dead girl is very much on her mind, and the heat is weighing down on her. It sticks to you, makes you feel dirty and sweaty in no time at all.
“I’d like that,” she tells him. Gerry shows her inside. To Harper’s relief, he has his air-conditioning on and the house is cool. He leads her into the dining room and instructs her to take a seat at the big table in there.
“Cream and sugar?”
Harper nods her head. “Yes, please.”
“Won’t be a minute. Then I guess you’ll have some questions for me, won’t ya?”
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
Gerry leaves her alone while he goes to the kitchen. Harper scans the room. There are pictures of Gerry and his wife—some include their kids, some solo shots of the children as they got older. She guesses that they’ve all left home and moved away by now. Gerry Fischer has to be in his late fifties.
He returns carrying two mugs of freshly brewed coffee and sets them down. “There ya are. Hope that’s to yer likin’.”
“Thanks.”
He sits. “So . . .”
Harper places her recorder on the table between them, opens her notepad, and removes the cap from her pen. “I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible, Mister Fischer. There might be further questions later on, as you can imagine.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened last night.”
Gerry slurps his coffee, then explains the course of events; to Harper, it is pretty straightforward. He discovered the young woman out there in the field and called it right in.
“And how long have you worked this land?” she asks him, taking notes.
“Twenty years. I have a dozen or so men helpin’ me out. My wife handles the financials, ya know. I’ve always been more the, uh, outdoors type I guess you’d say,” Gerry explains. His voice warbles in his throat and as he looks away, Harper is sure she can see tears in his eyes. “Ain’t never had nothin’ like this happen before, I can tell ya. Fucking awful thing to happen to such a young girl.”
“Can you provide me with a list of your crew?” Harper asks him.
Gerry shrugs. “Can do. I’ve got nothin’ to hide, and I know they ain’t either. They’re all good, reliable men. And anyway, if they were gonna rape and kill some young woman . . . they wouldn’t leave her where they work, would they?”
“I seriously doubt it,” Harper says. “But regardless of that, I do need to know all the facts. It’s just part of the job.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“Good,” Harper says. She pushes the notepad to one side for the moment and lifts her coffee cup. “This won’t harm your business in any way, will it?”