THE GROVE BEHIND THE HOUSE exhaled a sharp methane of rotting oranges. Ben was in the backyard, kneeling over a footprint, shielding his eyes from the spotlight set on a tripod on the edge of the patio, while Jacob Pass, the forensics investigator, sprinkled talcum powder across the tread.
“Not a big guy, is he?” Jacob said, pouring out the dental cement now, the footprint turning white in the harsh light.
“Five foot five,” Ben said, nodding his head in agreement. “Five six.” A kid? A woman?
A flash burst through the sliding glass door and Ben glanced up to see Natasha snapping pictures, her knees on the edge of the carpet, where they had found the body lying next to the couch. Strangled. Broken hyoid bone. Crazy lyric scratched into the living room wall. Definitely the serial. April Howard, a widow. Alone, as usual. Natasha was whispering as she worked, her face close to the woman’s stunned eyes. Ben could see her lips move—even from here, bent in the wet soil of the flower bed—talking to the woman as though easing the transition into another world.
A light flashed behind Ben.
“Detective,” someone called.
Ben spun around.
“Detective, is it the serial?” A reporter and his cameraman were standing on the edge of the backyard fence, the orange grove looming dark behind them.
“Jesus Christ,” Ben said, pointing to two uniforms standing watch on the edge of the patio. “Get these jerks out of here.”
“Is it the Night Prowler?” the reporter said again, as the uniforms hopped the fence and pushed him backward into the grove. “Has he hit in Santa Elena?”
Yeah, Ben said to himself. Welcome to the world.
“Give it thirty,” Jacob said, slapping his hands free of cement dust. “It’s not a deep print. It’s like he barely touched the ground. Can’t guarantee it won’t crack.”
“It’s the same as the others,” Ben said. “Just need to make it official.”
The whole house was lit up like a movie set—the backyard white with spotlight, every bulb in the house flipped on as if it were a party. It stank out here, the air humid with rot, the early fruit falling and browning months before the pickers came in. Maybe he was tired, but the stink of it tonight was too much, like the whole world was decomposing. He had some Vicks in his coat pocket, left over from the morgue, and he slicked the skin beneath his nose.
Inside, the house was broiling, all the windows shut to keep the wind from blowing dust across the scene. Two cops dusted the handles of the sliding glass door, but they weren’t going to find his prints, Ben knew. Latex gloves. Lieutenant Hernandez was directing traffic: “You, print that door. You two, start gridding the place.” Marco was in his cruiser, on the horn with the lead investigators of other crime scenes, running checks on the Stooges song, trying to piece together some message that would tip them off to the killer’s next move. Natasha was on the floor, the camera pressed to her eye, snapping shots of the woman’s fingernails.
“You made him bleed,” she whispered to the body. “You hurt him.”
Flash.
“Officers,” Hernandez said. “Get out there and push back the perimeter.” Hernandez was rarely on scene, but he was taking over this one, barking orders, seeming to enjoy being in charge, enjoying the show of it. Ben wondered what spin he’d put on this to keep the politicians happy. “Get these media people at least three houses down.”
“We need a perimeter into the grove,” Ben said.
“Walters and Beck”—Hernandez pointed—“go pick some oranges.”
The light from the television crews cast an oblong reflection of the bay window against the far wall.
Hernandez ran a handkerchief across his wet forehead, sweating it out in the stifling heat.
“Come with me, Ben,” he said. “We got a number of possible witnesses out at the van.”
Then they were outside into the blinding glare of television-crew spots, forensics lanterns, black-and-white light-bar circulars. It was so bright that the cars and crime-scene vans, the people milling around, cast shadows across the pavement. Hernandez was out in front of him, striding between cruisers. The lieutenant got to the witnesses first, pulling two women aside before Ben realized who was in front of him: the high school swim coach, Lewis Wakeland.
“They said you might have seen something?” Ben said, his voice coiled in his throat.
Wakeland swallowed, his blue eyes darting back and forth.
“They said you might have seen something,” Ben said again, his voice getting away from him. He glanced at Hernandez, who was taking the testimony of one of the women. Keep it cool, Ben thought. Keep it cool.
“Is she dead?” Wakeland said, scratching the meat of his left thumb with the nails of his right hand. “Is April dead?”
“She’s dead.”
Wakeland blinked. “She was a good neighbor,” he said. “Kept to herself, never bothered anyone.”
“Did you see something or not?”
Wakeland blinked again, water in his eyes as he stared at Ben. Ben thought he probably hadn’t seen a damn thing.
“I live two doors down,” Wakeland said.
Ben knew that. A rose-colored stucco. A Bayliner Bowrider sitting on a tow in the driveway. Wakeland was married, two kids: the good life.
“I was in the kitchen,” Wakeland said. “And I saw something run along the fence line…”
Ben was scribbling on his legal pad, but he didn’t know what he was writing. The lights were so bright, blinding almost, and he had the strange feeling that the wavelengths passed through his body, making his skin transparent.
“…he was bent over, dressed in black…”
Ben’s hand scratched across the page, his words a strange hieroglyphics he couldn’t make out. The light was hot on his face, the stupid reporters and their spots.
“It’s nice to see you,” Wakeland said.
“Did I ask you a goddamned question?” Ben said, startled by his own outburst.
Wakeland flinched and backed up against the police van.
“Did I?”
Hernandez turned away from his witness, eyed Ben.
“No,” Wakeland said quietly.
Suddenly Hernandez was by his side. “Coach.” He nodded at Wakeland. To Ben: “Detective, maybe you can check on forensics inside.”
Then Ben was striding back to the house, the lights casting his shadow in front of him, Hernandez blabbering apologies behind his back, spewing some bullshit about professionalism and the stress of investigations.
—
“THIS GUY HIT the wrong house,” Ben said.
He was balanced on his haunches in front of the body. He should have gone out back to get some air, to get his head back, to cool off, but something pulled him here to the center of things. Natasha’s hand was under the woman’s neck, lifting it an inch to get a picture of the red marks striated there. She pulled the camera viewfinder away from her eye and studied him.