“That’s a bad thing.”
“Depends on how icy the roads get. Hang on.” He spun onto a side road, kicking up snow and rock salt as he raced toward State Route 18.
There was a bend in the road just ahead. They barreled around it.
Flashing lights. A police car up ahead.
They skidded to a stop, narrowly missing the police car parked in front of a blue-and-white barricade. Two uniformed officers approached them with guns drawn.
“Show us your hands!” one of the officers yelled.
Kendra and Lynch immediately complied.
“There’s been a murder,” Lynch said. “We’re pursuing a suspect.”
“Hands where we can see them,” the officer repeated.
“He’s telling the truth,” Kendra said. “A man is dead.”
“So we’ve been told,” the other officer said. “But right now, the only suspects are you.”
“Shit,” Kendra whispered. “She called the police.”
Lynch nodded. “Check and mate.”
*
IT TOOK OVER NINETY MINUTES of explanations, confirmations, and follow-up calls at the local police station before Kendra and Lynch were able to convince the police who they were and their exact interest in the case. They were finally allowed to drive back to the murder scene, which was by then taped off and lit in every direction by several work lights. It looked like a stadium as they approached.
A young detective bent under the police tape and approached them. “Dr. Michaels, Mr. Lynch?”
Kendra extended her hand toward him. “Yes. Detective…?”
“Sergeant Mark Brantley. I heard my buddies put you through the ringer tonight. They were just doing their jobs, you know.”
There was a trace of defensiveness in his tone even as he flashed an appealing, lopsided smile. Brantley projected a more nerdy vibe than most cops that Kendra had met with his prep-school haircut and wire-rimmed glasses. But even through his long winter coat, she could see that he was in phenomenal physical shape with well-defined chest muscles and abs.
Lynch shrugged. “They did an amazingly fast job of getting out there and laying down the roadblock. Too bad they got the wrong people.”
“It would have been a different story if you had called the police. Then they would have caught the right person.”
Kendra looked away. “We already got this lecture from the detectives at your station.”
Brantley shrugged. “A lesson for next time, then.”
Lynch put a warning hand on her arm as if to hold her back. He knew that Brantley was annoying the hell out of her, and she was literally biting her tongue to keep from retaliating.
Brantley turned to Lynch. “Did they let you hear the 911 recording?”
“Yes. It was a woman’s voice, and she was obviously on her motorcycle when she called. She most likely had a headset in her helmet.”
“And you think she might have murdered this guy?”
Kendra cut in curtly, “No, I don’t think that at all.”
“Then why the hot pursuit?”
“We wanted to know why she was here,” she said. “We could see from her footprints that she’d scoped the place out before she found him.”
Lynch gestured toward the cottage. “From the footprints we saw here, it’s obvious she looked in those windows before discovering the body. She brushed away just enough snow to get a read on who it was. It’s not the behavior of someone who had murdered him two days before.”
“We’re inclined to agree,” Brantley said. “But it’s my understanding you’re investigating another case. The disappearance of another man?”
“Yes,” she said. “Charles Waldridge. He’s from England, just as this man probably was. They knew each other.” Kendra told him about the surveillance video at the airport and the rental car.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes,” Lynch said. “But it’s probably not the correct one. He rented the car under the name of Peter Hollister, but the driver’s license was a phony.”
“That’s the same name he used to rent this house. We’ve already been in touch with the property-management company that handles it. They’ve sent someone over with a key.”
“You haven’t been inside yet?”
“No, we haven’t been here all that long ourselves. I’m guessing you’d like to join the fun?”
“We would,” Kendra said.
Brantley nodded. “Since the FBI and half the police departments in Southern California have instructed us to extend you every courtesy, I guess we can make that happen.” He looked back at the corpse. “We’ll get prints and DNA off the body, and your FBI buddies have already promised to try a facial-recognition match with passport entries. But it would make everybody’s job easier if there was something in that house that could ID him.”
“Something like a passport?” Kendra asked.