Mendez went on in search of Dixon. In an hour the main investigative team would meet and they would be briefed as to what had been found so far during the search.
He walked down the field of cars, the dew-damp grass soaking his shoes and wetting the hem of his pants. A crowd had gathered at the end of the first rows. Deputies, people in street clothes, forty or fifty volunteers in search and rescue windbreakers, all milled around, waiting for something to happen.
Photographers and camera crews from half a dozen television stations recorded the event while on-air reporters stood in front of blinding portable lights relating the latest to viewers of the early morning news programs in LA and Santa Barbara and who-knew-where.
Jane Thomas and Steve Morgan stood in the flood of harsh light with Petal the pit bull sitting at Jane’s feet. Dixon stood behind the camera crew with his arms crossed over his chest. Mendez stepped up beside him.
“… as you can see,” Jane Thomas was saying to the blonde with the microphone, “a ground search has been organized and will be getting under way shortly. I encourage any of your viewers who might be able to join the search. Karly Vickers has been missing now for an entire week. It’s imperative that we do all we can to find her.”
“And I understand your center has posted a reward,” the blonde said.
“Yes, the Thomas Centers for Women have established a reward of ten thousand dollars for information leading to Karly’s recovery and to the conviction of the person who took her.”
“A tip line has been set up…”
“How’s she holding up?” Mendez asked quietly.
“She feels better doing something,” Dixon said. “She’s got the women at the center helping with the hotline, running off posters, helping organize food and beverages for the searchers.”
The reporter introduced Steve Morgan. He spoke about the importance of the Thomas Center to the community, and about the professionals-like himself-who donated their time and services to the center.
“I hope to God they don’t find a body out there,” Dixon said.
“The odds of finding this girl alive are getting longer by the day,” Mendez said.
“It’s not impossible. Maybe Sells-if Sells is our man-decided he had to lay low for a while and he’s got her stashed. Maybe he was enjoying this girl more than the other. Maybe he decided to keep her.”
None of that seemed very likely to Mendez but he kept that to himself for now.
“Sells hasn’t said anything yet?” Dixon asked.
“He told me to go fuck myself, but that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
“What a nightmare,” Dixon said. “I moved up here to get away from this kind of craziness.”
“Bad is everywhere, boss.”
The sky was brightening enough to see beyond the lights. The field beyond the cars was tinted green from rain they had had the week before, and studded with the big spreading oak trees the area was known for. It was a pretty place, a place where people might want to have a picnic, not to search for a corpse.
“Did you talk to Farman?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“How did that go?”
“About how you’d think,” Dixon said. “I assigned him to desk duty. He’s not a happy camper. But I didn’t have a choice. I can’t have any hint of impropriety in this investigation. When these cases go to trial, I’m not going to have some defense attorney get up and point out that we had a potential suspect working the investigation.”
“Are we supposed to consider him a suspect?”
“No, of course not.”
“His wife has a connection to the Thomas Center.”
Dixon looked at him. “How?”
“She’s a secretary at Quinn, Morgan.”
Dixon frowned darkly. “I asked him about the ticket he wrote Karly Vickers. He says he didn’t remember her, which is why he didn’t say anything about it.”
“He didn’t remember stopping a woman that we’re now looking for?” Mendez said. “We’ve all been looking at her picture for two days. We’re looking for a ten-year-old gold Chevy Nova. He stopped that car with that woman in it, and he didn’t remember?”
Dixon sighed and rubbed his temples. “I know. It’s lame. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have mentioned it, though. Frank writes half a dozen citations every day. That’s part of his job.”
“What did he stop her for?”
“He stopped her for doing twenty-nine in a twenty-five zone.”
“What an ass,” Mendez said. But that was just like Farman-by the book, no mercy. “What time did he write the ticket?”
“Fifteen thirty-eight.”
“Before her dental appointment. That’s good.”
On their time line, Farman wouldn’t be listed as the last person to have seen the woman. Not that it should have mattered. Farman had a clean record. There was no reason for anyone to look at him as a suspect. The fact that his son had been in possession of Lisa Warwick’s finger was the complicating factor.
Any defense attorney worth his salt would use that to plant the seeds of reasonable doubt. What if the kid didn’t pick up the finger at the scene? What if he found it at home hidden among his father’s things?
Defense attorneys loved nothing better than trying to make cops look dirty. They would find someone who had overheard Frank make a derogatory remark about women-not that difficult to do, him being the chauvinist he was. They would look at every traffic citation he had ever written and manufacture a pattern of harassment against women. They would drag in Anne Navarre and get her to say she believed Frank beat his kid, that he had a volatile temper.
Mendez could see Frank spanking his son for skipping school-and who was to say that was so wrong? Mendez had suffered a couple of good strappings as a boy bent on mischief, and he had straightened up because of it. And Farman could certainly come across as a bully, but brutally murder a woman? Mr. Law Enforcement? No.
Dixon sighed and shook his head. “Maybe Sells will confess today.”
And maybe pigs will fly, Mendez thought, as he walked back to his car, passing the hog lot.
An hour later the team of six detectives and Vince Leone met in the conference room that had now been fully converted into their war room. Photographs had been moved from the smaller bulletin board and tacked up on a freestanding corkboard at one end of the room. A time line had been drawn out on the big white board.
Mendez took a marker and added to the line for the day Karly Vickers disappeared: 15:38 traffic ticket issued by F. Farman.
He added to the line for Thursday: L. Warwick index finger in possession of D. Farman.
Leone came over, tapped a finger on the line about the traffic citation, and raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Mendez said. He looked his mentor over. “You look good today. You’ve got some color.”
Vince grinned. “I had a lovely evening, thanks for asking.”
“I didn’t ask,” Mendez said, cranky. “Spare me the details, please.”
“The food was excellent. Miss Navarre was a lovely dinner companion. We talked about her students. I walked her to her car, then I took a walk back down the alley behind the dentist’s office.”
Mendez chose to skip past the date part and jump right back into the case. “Yeah? What did you find?”
“The vacant building next door has a big roll-up garage door, like you could back a truck through. Could be a good place to stash a victim say from five until dark.”
“I don’t see the dentist as a suspect,” Mendez said. “The only thing we have on him is that he saw Vickers late in the day. Anybody could have grabbed the girl in the alley. And Sells had the cars.”