At that point, Wayne had looked in the direction of the morgue and refused to say more. The agents left Wayne Spicer in his cell, his big body pressed against the wall in a flat embrace.
As they emerged from the police station, Scott checked his cell phone and saw he had two voicemail messages. He listened to them as he followed Eric over to the Suburban. The first one was from Steelie and didn’t require a return call. The second was from Cliff Lockwood, the Maricopa County medical investigator. He had asked Scott to return his call as a matter of urgency, even if it was after-hours, and had left a cell phone number.
Lockwood sounded somewhat less gravelly now that it was evening. Scott suspected a liqueur had lubricated his throat.
‘I’ve got the parents of your girl flying out here from California ASAP tomorrow. They got a lot of questions I can’t answer yet. But I figured maybe you could. Can you make it over here at eleven hundred hours?’
Scott thought for a moment and looked over at Eric, who was driving them to the Mission Hotel where they would stay the night, due to get on the road for Los Angeles at 7 o’clock the next morning. If he stayed to meet the Alstons, his partner would need to go ahead of him to coordinate the search for Tripper, an endeavor that would be headquartered in their office in LA.
Scott stalled for time by asking a question he already knew the answer to, thanks to Steelie’s message. ‘What kind of questions are we talking about?’
Lockwood sighed. ‘Seems they want to know how their daughter ended up out here in AZ in the hands of some perp. I’ll be telling them about the freezer before they view the body but that’s about the extent of my knowledge.’
Scott briefly considered just instructing Lockwood to tell the Alstons about the LAPD uniform costume. He could hear a television sitcom and canned laughter in the background on Lockwood’s end of the phone. Scott realized he wasn’t even sure about the MI’s bedside manner. It was his duty, not Lockwood’s.
‘I’ll be there.’ He hung up and relayed the details to Eric, then told him about Steelie’s message, which recommended someone inform the Alstons about the circumstances of their daughter’s abduction.
Eric nodded as he pulled the car into the parking space at the hotel. ‘By the way, have you called Jayne since we were at her place and you basically shouted at her?’
Scott opened his door, paused, and then got out. ‘No.’
Eric exhaled as he cut the engine. ‘Don’t let the other guy get her, Scott.’
Scott frowned at him. ‘What other guy?’
‘I don’t know, but there will be another guy eventually. You shouldn’t give up unless you’re ready to see that . . . and go to their wedding.’
‘Who said I was giving up?’ Scott said as he closed the door.
DAY NINE
Wednesday
NINETEEN
Southwest Airlines Flight 597 from Phoenix to Los Angeles had arrived on time and Eric was walking into his office on Wilshire Boulevard by mid-morning. The first call he made was to the Information Technology investigators on the third floor to get an update on the request they’d phoned in from Phoenix to have the ITI monitor www.offthegrid.net for activity by the screen name ‘Tripper’. They reported no activity yet, but they were pulling caches of old posts by that screen name. So, no leads yet on Tripper’s identity.
Eric glanced behind him at the computer that was dedicated to NCIC traffic. He was waiting for a beep on it that would indicate a hit. There was no guarantee it would be a hit on their All Points Bulletin for Wayne’s car because the system would beep for any report filed by the Los Angeles office on any case since the database had been in use. But he was still waiting for that beep.
The phone rang and he picked up. It was the Phoenix Crime Laboratory. They had a preliminary report on the examination of Wayne Spicer’s/Tripper’s van: numerous particles of biological trace evidence had been located inside the vehicle. Although the van’s interior appeared to have been cleaned thoroughly, the criminalists had collected traces of blood, saliva, and epithelial from its faults, joins, and other surfaces. It was too early for the lab to tell if all the biological material came from a single source or from multiple sources, or whether any of it could ultimately link Tripper to the vehicle. They told Eric they would need reference material from people known to be in the van; for example, the man behind the screen name.
Eric looked back at the computer. Nothing.
Scott’s first thought when Cliff Lockwood opened his office door was that he could have been Kris Kristofferson’s stunt double. His barrel-like chest blocked the doorway for a moment before he invited Scott in, indicating a seat to the left that was turned to face two people who were rising from their chairs.
The room wasn’t large and with everyone standing up, Scott felt like he had walked into a closet that was already too full. But it opened up the moment Lockwood sat down behind his desk. He introduced Ben and Linda Alston, describing Scott as the law enforcement officer who had found their daughter.
Linda Alston had brown hair caught in a loose bun. Her eyes were a clear blue and she was looking at Scott with undisguised relief. Ben Alston had a close-cropped brown beard. He extended his hand to Scott, then folded his other hand over the handshake. Neither man spoke. Linda smiled at Scott but didn’t shake his hand. She was holding a sizeable piece of cardboard to her chest.
‘Please take a seat, Mr and Mrs Alston,’ Lockwood began. ‘Agent Houston is here to answer any questions for you that he can. As I mentioned before, he may be limited by the needs of the ongoing investigation into your daughter’s case but those limits will be lifted as soon as possible.’
Ben and Linda nodded.
Linda turned to Scott, still holding the cardboard tight. ‘We wanted, first of all, to thank you for finding Kate.’
Scott nodded gravely.
She continued with more difficulty. ‘We’ve seen her now and—’ She broke off, her mouth twisting, and her husband put his long arms about her shoulders. She drew herself up. ‘And we wanted you to know what a beautiful girl she really was.’
She turned the piece of cardboard around and Scott was looking at a large portrait of a smiling version of the woman he’d found in Wayne Spicer’s freezer. He felt as though the color ink had flowed through her like blood, bringing her to life. And then he took in her smile. He would recognize those teeth anywhere.
Ben was saying, ‘Kate was very bright. A bright, beautiful . . . good girl.’
Lockwood said, ‘All of that is very clear to us, Mr Alston. I hope you understand that.’
Linda had more to say. ‘Mr Houston, how did she end up out here?’
Scott knew from Steelie’s phone message that if he said nothing else to the Alstons, he had to answer this question. He had been going over it with Eric the night before at the hotel, each trying to put the known facts into more palatable terms, and failing. Eric had finally said, ‘It won’t be the words you use, it’ll be the way you say them.’
Scott glanced at Lockwood, who was looking back at him while reclined in his chair, his mouth obscured by his fingers, which were interlocked in a steeple. As Scott turned to the Alstons he played in his mind the visit to Spicer in the holding cell the evening before.