“They took X-rays. Dental work and two pins in the left arm from surgery to repair a break. Based on the hardware, the pins were set within the past ten years.”
Stilwell was heartened. Both could lead to identification if the victim’s medical records could be located.
“What else?” he asked. “Sampedro ordered a rape kit, I hope.”
“Let’s see...” West said. “It does say the victim was fully clothed. But, yes, here it is. No indications of sexual assault, but foreign DNA was collected for analysis. They did a rape kit.”
“Collected from where?”
“The vagina.”
Stilwell thought about what that could mean. If she was fully clothed when she was put into the water and there were no bruises or other injuries from a sexual assault, it was possible she had had consensual sex prior to her death.
“What about TOD?”
“Factoring in decomp and water temp, time of death is a range of days, not hours. Six to eight days.”
“That’s from today or from day of recovery?”
“Six to eight days before recovery of the body.”
“Okay.”
Stilwell did the math and put the day Leigh-Anne Moss was fired from the BMC at the front of that range.
“Anything else flagged in the report?” he asked.
“Nope,” West said. “That’s it.”
“Okay, thanks, Monty. I owe you one.”
“That’s what you said last time. So you actually owe me two. Question is, when you going to pay up?”
“Soon, Monty. Soon.”
Stilwell disconnected and considered things for a few moments. His sub-rosa investigation was leading to a kill theory — that is, an emerging picture of what happened and why. He knew he was very short on details, but his instincts told him that Leigh-Anne Moss was the woman in the water and that she had been killed by a blow to the head with the sculpture of the leaping black marlin. Her body had then been secreted aboard the Emerald Sea and taken out of the harbor and into the bay to be weighted and submerged.
Stilwell knew that not one part of his kill theory was provable at the moment, not even the identification. But he was undaunted. He would continue his efforts, if only to show up Ahearn and make Corum realize he had transferred the wrong man out of homicide. He would push the boundaries, even though he knew that the next moves he needed to make would take him off the island and back to the mainland, where he would be unprotected and anything could happen.
15
Stilwell called Tash from the ferry dock, where he had secured passage on the next boat to the Port of Los Angeles.
“I won’t be home tonight,” he said. “I’m heading across to do a couple interviews and should be back sometime tomorrow.”
There was a hesitancy in her voice when she asked, “Where are you going to stay?”
“Not sure yet,” Stilwell said. “I’ll try Gary Saunders, see if he can put me up, or I’ll just get a motel.”
“What interviews?”
“I think I have a line on the victim, and her overtown address is in Belmont Shore. I have to knock on that door, see if there’s anybody there. Then I want to talk to the guy you gave me, Mason Colbrink, up in Malibu.”
“You can’t do those by phone?”
“Uh, no, always better to talk to a possible witness face-to-face. Why, is there a problem with me going? I’m about to get on the Express.”
“No, I just... you know, I don’t like you going across. Only bad things happen over there.”
It was a line Tash had heard her parents repeat while she was growing up on the island. They had used it to quell her adolescent curiosity and keep her close. Now she used it to keep Stilwell close.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “And bad things happen on both sides of the bay, Tash. You know that.”
“I guess,” she said. “Just be careful over there.”
“Always.”
He disconnected and thought about the brief conversation. He wondered if Tash’s concern was really about something else — namely, that his ex-wife lived in Belmont Shore in the condo that was for sale.
He had his go-bag, which he always kept at the substation, a small duffel bag containing a change of clothes. The last passenger to board the Express, he headed up the steps to the pilothouse, where he knocked on the door and let the captain know he was on board. Deputies, in uniform or not, were allowed to ride the ferries for free as long as they didn’t take a seat on a sold-out vessel.
Stilwell then moved to the stern, where he’d see the sun setting over the island and the dolphins that seemed to always follow in the wake of the ferries crossing the bay. The ferry was only half full, so he took a seat in one of the rows that was sheltered from the wind and sea spray. As the boat left the pier, he sent a text to Gary Saunders offering to trade pickled eggs and pool at Joe Jost’s for the use of the guest room at his house in Long Beach. More than securing a place to stay, he wanted to spend time with Saunders so he could ask about the woman his crew had pulled up from the bottom of the harbor.
The trip across was slightly longer than an hour, and during that time the sky darkened and the temperature dropped. Stilwell pulled a windbreaker out of his duffel and put it on as he disembarked. He walked to the long-term parking lot, where many residents of Catalina kept cars for their visits to the mainland. His 1974 Bronco was caked in smog dust and grime. It had been at least two weeks since he’d come across and used it, but the old engine cranked to life with one turn of the key. He headed to the address in Belmont Shore that was on Leigh-Anne Moss’s driver’s license and her Black Marlin Club employment application. He could have gone to the sheriff’s station in Compton to check out a plain-wrap from the carpool, but he wanted to fly under the radar on this trip and not risk word getting to Ahearn and Sampedro that he was on the mainland and working.
Leigh-Anne Moss’s apartment was in a small, six-unit building at the corner of Roycroft and Division. It had no security gate, which allowed Stilwell direct access to the door of apartment 2. He knocked once, and the door was soon opened by a man with deeply tanned skin and sun-bleached hair. Stilwell was already holding up his ID card.
“Sheriff’s department,” Stilwell said. “I’m looking for the home of Leigh-Anne Moss. Does she live here?”
“Uh, no, not really,” the man said. “I mean, this was her place, but we’re not together anymore. I let her crash here sometimes, but she mostly stays over on Catalina. What’s this about?”
“I need to find her and she’s not on Catalina. I just came from there.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, dude.”
“Your name is...”
“Peter Galloway.”
“This is the address Leigh-Anne Moss put on her driver’s license. Is she in there?”
“No, man, she’s not. I haven’t seen her in a couple months.”
“Mind if I come in and ask you a few questions, Peter?”
“Uh, I guess.”
Galloway stepped back; Stilwell entered and looked around as if searching for Leigh-Anne Moss even though he knew in his gut that she was dead. The apartment was sparsely furnished but messy with the detritus of bachelorhood. Empty beer bottles and pizza boxes, a pink glass bong that Galloway picked up off a coffee table and hid with his body as he walked it to a cabinet in the kitchen. The bong wasn’t illegal, nor was what he probably smoked with it. Concealing it was likely a force-of-habit reaction. It told Stilwell that the man tended to hide things from authority figures — parents, bosses, cops.
“Um, so, yeah, what’s this about?” Galloway said. “What do you want to ask?”
“It’s a criminal investigation involving Ms. Moss,” Stilwell said.