“I’ve already asked for assistance from the Talbot’s Mills and Cedar patrol commanders,” Iverson said. “They’ll cooperate.”
Rho glanced at Iverson, a big, dark bear of a man, and noted the pronounced puffiness under his eyes. Harve had had a mild heart attack last year, and she hoped the pressures of the current situation wouldn’t provoke a second.
Grossman nodded, riffling the pages in front of him. “Okay, in addition to policing the area adequately, we may have trouble with the press. The Santa Carla TV people were filming here this morning and found out about the Lindsay death and Scurlock disappearance. Calls’ve come in here, and I’ve referred them to Santa Carla, but I doubt we can keep a lid on the Scurlock death for long. And given that it happened in that canyon... well, you know what that means.”
Widespread interest, national publicity, and chaos, Rho thought.
“Let’s take each case in order,” Grossman said. “First, Ackerman. The autopsy results are in, and you have copies of them, but I’ll summarize. Cause of death was manual strangulation. The bruises on her neck indicate a strong person with large hands. Bruises on her thighs are consistent with rape, but there was no semen in her vagina, no proof either way. Time of death isn’t easy to pin down, as her stomach was empty, but she’d only been in the water a few hours before she was spotted. As Swift has pointed out to me, the prevailing currents and tides indicate she may have gone in as far north as Deer Harbor, but more likely closer to where she was found.”
Rho said, “Her killer may have picked her up at Point Deception and kept her alive for over twenty-four hours, then.”
“Right. And that brings us to what your journalist friend found in the Blakeley house. Your turn, Swift.”
She explained about Guy’s discovery of the hairs. “They’re on the way to the lab to be compared with Ackerman’s.”
“Okay,” Grossman went on, “we had a possible witness to her abduction, an abalone poacher who was picked up in that DFG raid. Unfortunately, as you know, he was strangled in jail, and his cellmates aren’t cooperating. If it turns out that the hairs found in the canyon house are a match for Ackerman’s, I’d be inclined to say that while the witness saw something, his fellow poachers weren’t involved. These guys come up here, take the abs, and leave. I doubt any of them even know about the canyon.”
“Ackerman was strangled too,” Shepherd said. “Isn’t that a gook method of killing?”
Grossman gave his partner a withering look. “Take a tour of San Quentin, Denny. In addition to Asians, it’s full of Caucasian, black, and Hispanic stranglers.”
Shepherd shrugged.
“Now,” Grossman said, “Swift and I have been in touch with Clark County, Nevada, where Ackerman lived. They still haven’t gotten back to us with the results of their search of her apartment. Maybe they’re inefficient, maybe their court order didn’t come through. If we get nothing satisfactory from them in, say, twenty-four hours, I want you, Swift, to go down there.”
Wayne grunted softly and shifted in his chair, while Shepherd looked annoyed. Grossman was undercutting their seniority.
“I’ve talked with a dozen people who spotted Ackerman on Friday,” he continued, “and we’ll be talking with more of them. The Scurlock woman’s death — when we release news of it — will prompt a new rash of tips. No matter how far-fetched they may seem, take each seriously. I can’t stress that enough. Gilardi, tomorrow I want you to backtrack along the route Ackerman would’ve taken to get here. Since she’s not from the area, she probably didn’t take one of the ridge roads, so start with Highway One. Check every restaurant, bar, motel, and shop south of here till you come up with a lead. Pretty girl in an expensive car must’ve made an impression on someone. Santa Carla will have photographs of her for you by nine hundred hours.”
Rho glanced at Wayne. His face had reddened and he pressed his lips together for a moment before he said, “How far south on Highway One? San Francisco? The Mexican border?”
Grossman shook his head as if Wayne were a child who had disappointed him. “Do what you have to, Gilardi.”
Wayne flushed more deeply but didn’t respond.
“All right,” the detective said, “let’s go on to Samantha Lindsay. Autopsy showed death was caused by massive internal injuries, all consistent with our reconstruction of the accident. Probably she swerved to avoid an animal on the highway. No evidence any other car was involved, and there were no drugs or alcohol in her system. Case should be closed, but there’s still the problem of her being robbed. We’ve circularized, but so far we’ve received no reports of credit card use or attempts to dispose of the jewelry. Patrol officers throughout the county will keep on that, and Detective Shepherd will coordinate.”
Shepherd didn’t look any more pleased with his assignment than Wayne, but he held his tongue.
“Now,” Grossman said, “we come to Virginia Scurlock. Last seen by her husband twenty-some hours before Swift found the body. We won’t have the autopsy results till tomorrow or possibly the day after, but the preliminary examination indicates death from a broken neck, which may or may not be consistent with the fall she took. There is some question about why she went to the canyon.”
Rho said, “I’d like to point out one thing.”
“Yes, Swift?”
“Last night when I interviewed the Scurlocks’ tenant, Clay Lawrence, he said Virge had once asked him to go with her to the canyon so she could confront her fears. He refused, but she may have decided to go on her own. She’d been drinking heavily, possibly to steel herself to do it.”
Grossman considered. “Anybody have any idea what set off this drinking?”
Wayne and Commander Iverson shook their heads.
Rho said, “The Ackerman murder, most likely.”
“Then there’s something for you to do, Swift: Talk to the bartender at the hotel, the other patrons, anybody who saw or spoke with her on Sunday. Go over every minute of, say, the previous forty-eight hours with her husband.” He paused, looking around the table. “Okay, we’ve all got our assignments. We’ll reassemble here at eighteen hundred hours tomorrow.”
Rho stood and shrugged into her sweater. When she looked down for her purse she saw a rawhide chew bone lying under the chair. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Cody!”
Grossman looked up from gathering his papers. “Who’s Cody?”
“My dog. He was—” Then she thought of Valerie, pictured her reddened eyes and trembling lips as she spoke of her old friend Virge being out there somewhere, alone and afraid. By now Valerie knew Virge was dead and had probably cried herself to sleep, the Lab close by her side. Rho was thankful that she’d inadvertently provided the clerk some comfort on what had to be a painful night.
“Dog’s missing?” the detective asked, looking concerned.
“No, he’s fine. I left him here earlier, and our clerk’s taken him home.”
Grossman smiled knowingly. “Sometimes I think people in law enforcement shouldn’t be allowed to have pets. I’ve got a dog myself — big old mutt named Everett. On Sunday I rushed out of my place so fast that I forgot to feed him. Had to call a neighbor, ask him to go over there, and he, the neighbor, was real apprehensive. Everett gets rambunctious when he isn’t well provisioned.”