“Are any of the victims,” Ben said, “this foster mother?”
“No,” Hernandez said. “Long Beach checked that out. She’s been dead for five years.”
“Natural causes?”
“Stabbed in the liver with a kitchen knife.”
“Another foster kid?” Ben said.
“You got it.” Hernandez nodded.
“Man,” Carolina said. “I hate the psychos with painful pasts.”
Marco threw the file on the table. “Ugly memories,” he said, referencing the killer’s song. “No doubt.”
Ben found the pictures of Ricardo as a twelve-year-old, when he was first put into foster care. His face looked swollen, the skin cracked at the edges of his lips. His hair was a strange red color, as though the red had been washed out of it and the stain remained. He tried to smile for the camera, his front teeth too big for his face, one canine stabbing sideways into his lip. No dental care in a basement. His eyes were yawned open, nocturnal, as though they were trying to suck in the light. Ben found the next shot, when he was thirteen and incarcerated at CYA. His jaw clenched so that the muscle showed, inverted triangles for cheekbones, a homemade tattoo scratched into his neck. His eyes hardened and black-looking, as though the pupils had swallowed the irises. The last photo was the adult Ricardo, twenty-one and booked for nearly strangling the prostitute. His face was all angles, his cheekbone knives ready to cut open the surface of the skin. He smirked in the picture, stared straight into the camera and gave it a crooked look of contempt. He was gone, completely gone.
“Last residence?” Marco said.
“Apple Valley,” Hernandez said.
“The desert.” Carolina closed the file.
“A year ago,” Hernandez said. “No address since. Apple Valley’s checking the place this morning. But it’s been rented out for nine months.”
“Make of car?” Ben asked.
“A 1980 Toyota Tercel.”
Ben remembered the car from last night.
“The back taillight cover was smashed out,” he said. “Just the naked bulb.” He flashed on the car that had passed him when he sat outside Wakeland’s apartment, too. A black Toyota Tercel. Shit, the killer had driven right past him.
“Not exactly a bat out of hell,” Marco said.
“Practical.” Carolina shrugged. “Gets good gas mileage.”
“Get a few hours’ rest,” Hernandez said. “Then start hitting the coffee. Everyone’s on tonight.”
Chairs slid across the floor, cups were thrown in the trash, but Ben stayed in his seat, reading the file. Jesus, locked in a basement for six years. Created his own language. Ben couldn’t move; he’d seen terrible things before, but nothing like this.
“Ben,” Hernandez said.
“Lieutenant.”
“Thought I’d lost you for a second.”
“I remember this case,” Ben said. “Kid locked in a basement. Made headlines for a few days, ten or so years ago.”
“Yeah,” Hernandez said. “The house was up in Norwalk, I think. Some old house with a basement.”
“Jesus,” Ben said. “There are monsters in the world.”
“You’re just now coming to that conclusion?”
“How can you do that to a kid?”
“Don’t get sentimental on me. He’s not a kid anymore,” Hernandez said. “Listen, I’ve got a special assignment for you.”
—
NATASHA WAS DRIVING down the Pacific Coast Highway, riding the cliffs of south Laguna, glimpses of turquoise coves between white high-rise hotels and squat bungalows with squares of manicured Bermuda grass. Salt Creek Beach curved below like bleached whalebone, the surfers carving hollowed-out swells, their wakes contrailing the water. The radio buzzed with Night Prowler coverage—a hotline had been set up, an award offered, lock your doors and close your windows, no matter how hot it gets. Ten minutes and the bay at Dana Point unfolded, the rock jetties and cement breakwater sheltering slips of white-hulled boats. Out in the open water, a tall ship, its muslin sails stretched triangular in the wind, leaned out to sea. And beyond the ship nothing but an opaque blue arcing slightly with the curve of the earth. It was beautiful, unbelievably so, but today it felt like a lie, this beauty, like something false and dissembling.
It had taken her only three hours to hunt down the Prestons, that was it. They were unlisted in the white and yellow pages, had severed ties with their former neighbors. She had called down to the Dana Point Police and asked if there were any arrest records—DUIs, outstanding parking tickets—if there were any filed complaints, any police reports. Nothing. She found them then by calling down to the Dana Point assessor’s office: 20019 Bonita Agua Street, purchased June 1979. She simply couldn’t believe Ben didn’t know about them. He must know. He just didn’t want to know.
The house was a split-level with dwarf palms swaying out front. It perched on the cliffs above the bay, the back patio propped on cement stilts stabbed into the crumbling hillside. Natasha could hear a pool-filter system humming from the side yard. It was 4:16, and the late-day sun radiated off the white plaster house.
Mrs. Preston opened the door, a fragile smile creasing her face, her frosted hair sprayed into a feathery nest. “What can I do for you?” she said, her voice frail and quiet.
Behind her, through the hallway and into the family room, a man was on the phone, pacing, his tie askew from an unbuttoned shirt.
Natasha introduced herself, her fingers pressed over the MEDICAL EXAMINER etched on her badge when she flashed it. The woman’s smile collapsed and Natasha immediately doubted herself. Tucker had said something; Tucker had spoken up—three hours ago, she saw strength in that. Now, though, facing this wafer-thin woman, she saw someone on the edge of breaking. The woman, whose right hand had never left the door handle, started to push the door closed.
“Please,” Natasha said. “It’s about a suicide, a boy’s.”
It was stifling inside, all the windows shut, a fan in the corner of the room swirling stale air. The house was immaculate—white walls, white carpets, a smudgeless glass-topped coffee table, pastel-tinted paintings of the sea, and through the hallway that led into the open kitchen the windblown blue of the Pacific. Mr. Preston cursed into the phone. “Dammit, Jim,” he said, leaning on the kitchen counter. “These assholes can’t go under when they owe us fifty thousand.” Mr. Preston held up an index finger to indicate he’d be with her in just a moment. “Don’t talk to me about bankruptcy regs.”
The white sofa in the living room was so perfectly symmetrical it seemed no one had ever sat on it, so Natasha was surprised when Mrs. Preston offered her a seat there. Mrs. Preston sat opposite her on a piano bench and placed a tanned hand on the fallboard of a black grand piano.
“Do you play?” Natasha said, nodding toward the piano.
“When I was young.”