Plastic trash cans and recycling bins sat along the wall at the far end of the garage. I wrinkled my nose and went to them.
A criminal's garbage can be a treasure trove of evidence. Egg-coated, stinking evidence in most cases, but evidence nonetheless.
I pulled the lid off the first can and peered down into it. The only lightbulb in the garage was on the wall beside the kitchen door. The wattage wasn't enough to be of any real help to me. I wished I had brought my flashlight from the car, but there wasn't time to go get it.
I dug through the trash, having to get much too close to see what I was looking at. Junk mail, boxes and microwave trays from frozen dinners, egg cartons, egg shells, egg goo, Chinese take-out cartons, pizza boxes. The same garbage anyone might have. No credit card receipts, no to-do list that included murder and kidnapping.
I found a note that listed names of horses, a date, a departure time from Palm Beach, an arrival time in New York, flight number and times for a flight to Brussels. The horses he was shipping to Europe. I slipped the note into my jeans pocket. If Van Zandt was shipping horses out of the country, he could ship himself out of the country with them. He could fly with the horses and be gone from Landry's jurisdiction like a thief in the night.
Then I pulled the lid off the second trash container, and adrenaline rushed through my system like a drug.
The only item in the can was a shirt. The shirt that hadn't been run through the wash with the pants and socks and underwear-clothes taken off in haste and thrown in the machine together.
I had to lean down into the container to pick the shirt off the bottom. The smell of the can assaulted me, made my eyes water, turned my stomach. But I came back up with the shirt in hand and took it over by the light for a closer inspection.
Fine Egyptian cotton in a warm French blue. I held the shirt up to the light, looking for a monogram, wanting some positive ID the shirt belonged to Van Zandt. I found none, but there was something on the left side of the collar that might just as positively identify the owner: dark stains that looked like blood. The left front panel of the shirt had a large tear in it about halfway down with more blood.
My heart was racing.
Van Zandt might have cut himself shaving, a defense attorney would argue. And did he stab himself shaving too, a prosecutor would ask. The evidence suggested he might have been injured in a struggle, the prosecution would say.
I could easily picture Jill Morone fighting her attacker, arms flailing, fingers curled into claws, raking at him. She might have caught him on the neck, scratched him, he bled on the shirt. If the autopsy revealed skin beneath her fingernails… If Van Zandt had corresponding wounds on his neck… I hadn't noticed any, but he could have hidden them with his ever-present ascot. I thought of the stall in Jade's barn, of what I had thought might be blood on the pine bedding. Maybe from the second injury. She might have struck him with something, cut him with something. Maybe it wasn't liquor that accounted for Van Zandt's pallor that morning after all.
My heart was pounding so hard, my hands were shaking. I'd hit the jackpot. In the old days, I would have bought a round for the house after a find like this. Now I couldn't even claim the victory, and I wouldn't be welcome in the cop bars even if I could have. I stood there in the dim light of the garage, trying to temper my excitement, forcing myself to think through the next crucial steps I had to take.
Landry needed to find the shirt. As much as I would have enjoyed throwing it in his face, I knew that if I took it to him, it would never make it into a trial. As a private citizen, I didn't need a warrant to search someone's house. The Fourth Amendment protects us from agents of the government, not from each other. But neither could I be in that house illegally. If Van Zandt had invited me over, and during the course of my visit I had found the shirt, that would have been a different story. And still there might have been complications. Because I had once been a law enforcement agent, and because I had had contact with the Sheriff's Office about this case, a good defense attorney would argue that I should be considered a de facto agent of the Sheriff's Office, thereby blowing my status as an innocent citizen and rendering the evidence I had found inadmissable.
No. This had to be done by the book. Chain of custody had to be established. The SO needed to come into the garage with a warrant. An anonymous tip, along with Van Zandt's history and his connection to Jill Morone, might be enough to get it.
Still, I didn't want to put the shirt back into the trash container. I couldn't trust that something wouldn't go wrong; that Van Zandt wouldn't spook after his chat with Landry, come back here and get rid of the evidence. I needed to hide it somewhere Van Zandt wouldn't find it.
No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than came the sound of a car pulling into the drive, and the garage door opener started to growl.
The door was already a third of the way up as I turned and ran for the kitchen door, the car's headlights illuminating the wall like spotlights on a prisoner escape.
The car horn blasted.
I bolted into the kitchen, slammed the door, and locked the dead bolt, buying a few precious seconds. Frantically, I looked around the room for place to hide the shirt.
No time. No time. Ditch it and run.
I stuffed the shirt into the back of a lower kitchen cupboard, shut the door, and ran on as the key turned in the dead bolt.
Jesus Christ. If Van Zandt recognized me…
Running through the dining area, I caught a chair with my hip, tripped, stumbled, struggled to stay on my feet, my eyes on the sliding door to the screened patio.
Behind me I heard a dog barking.
I hit the patio door, yanked the handle. The door was locked.
A voice-a woman? "Get him, Cricket!"
The dog: growling. I could see him coming out of the corner of my eye: a small, dark missile with teeth.
My thumb fumbled at the lock, flipped it up. I yanked the door back on its track and went through the opening as the dog hit my calf with its teeth.
I jerked my leg forward and the dog yelped as I tried to slam the door on his head.
I dove across the small patio for the screen door, fell against it, then through it as it swung open. I was in the backyard.
Lorinda Carlton's town house was the last on its row. A tall hedge bordered the development. I needed to be on the other side of that hedge. On the other side of the hedge was an open, undeveloped space owned by the village of Wellington, and at the far end of that property, the Town Square shopping center.
I ran for the hedge. The dog was still coming behind me, barking and snarling. I took a hard right and sprinted along the hedge, looking for an opening to the other side. The dog was snapping at my heels. I pulled my jacket off as I ran, wrapped one sleeve of the windbreaker tight around my right hand, and let the rest of it trail the ground.
The dog lunged for and caught the jacket between his jaws. I grabbed hold of the one sleeve with both hands, planted one foot, and pivoted around, swinging the dog around on the end of the jacket. Around once, twice, like a hammer thrower in the Olympics. I let go.
I didn't know how far the dog's weight and momentum would carry him, but it was far enough to buy me a few seconds. I heard a crash and a yelp just as I caught sight of a way over the hedge.
A pickup sat parked beside another of the end unit town houses. I scrambled up onto the hood, onto the roof, and over the hedge.
I landed like a skydiver-bent knees, drop and roll. The pain that went through my body was sharp and shattering, starting in my feet and rocketing through all of me to the top of my head. For a moment I didn't try to move, I simply lay in a heap in the dirt. But I didn't know if anyone had seen me go over the hedge. I didn't know that horrid little mongrel wasn't going to come tearing, teeth bared, through the foliage like the shrunken head of Cujo.