Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

Neither of the officers could see anything revealing.

O’Neil offered, ‘Maybe our unsub just didn’t want any attention drawn to Solitude Creek.’

Dance nodded. ‘It got him noted by the feds.’

Both the CBI and MCSO had received calls from Homeland Security, since the incident was linked to potential terrorism, though agents reviewed the matter and decided it wasn’t terrorist-related — wasn’t even a federal crime.

‘That could be.’ She examined the body again, seeing the face, clear under the bright lamp. The look of horror, eyes wide. She supposed it would have taken him four or five minutes to die. The unsub’d used this means of death for the quiet, she guessed.

An officer appeared in the doorway. He nodded to those inside and said, ‘Detective O’Neil?’

‘Yes?’

‘We did a canvass of the neighborhood, following the route your unsub escaped down. And found this.’ He held up a plastic evidence bag containing a Nokia phone. ‘Guy walking a dog said he saw it fall out of the perp’s pocket when he was running to the Chevy, the getaway vehicle.’

Dance and O’Neil shared a look. Guardedly optimistic. The phone was clearly a prepaid burner — they were invariably cheap, like this model. So it was unlikely they could trace it back to the man. But it might have helpful information inside.

‘Can we get the prints from the man who found it?’

The uniform smiled. ‘He never touched it. He used a plastic bag. He watches all the crime-scene shows, he said.’

Dance took the phone and, through the plastic, tried the keys. ‘Passcode protected. Well, one way or the other, we’ll get inside.’ She said to the Orange County detective, ‘I’ll want to take his computer and the unsub’s phone into custody. You all right with that?’

‘Sure.’

O’Neil couldn’t have done this, not without Orange County’s okay, since the crime had occurred there and Monterey had no jurisdiction. The CBI, however, trumped county public-safety departments and she could take the evidence. Her intention, however, was not to deliver the phone and victim’s computer to the CBI’s small forensic department — they actually farmed out physical-evidence work to the Monterey lab most of the time — but to have Jon Boling analyze them. The former wonder boy in Silicon Valley, occasionally consulted for the CBI, FBI and other law-enforcement groups that needed IT or computer assistance. Computer forensic science is an art and he was good at it.

A woman officer with Crime Scene handed the computer over to Dance, who signed a chain-of-custody card for it and the phone. She stepped outside and slipped the plastic bags into her suitcase.

They arranged with the lead detective for the reports from there and the theme park to be sent to Monterey. In silence they walked to the rental car and headed for the airport. After a day like that, the idea of flying commercial, with the many hassles, had no appeal whatsoever; Dance reminded herself to do something nice for Charles Overby, thanking him for the pricey state jet.

Maybe she’d bake him a cake.

Dance and O’Neil’s flight from John Wayne Airport in Orange County to Monterey landed at six. A young uniformed officer with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office greeted them.

Dance knew him well. Gabriel Rivera was a young deputy who worked frequently with O’Neil. The round, cheerful man, with a well-tended mustache that rivaled Steve Foster’s, wanted to be a detective, like his mentor, and was known for putting in long hours.

‘Detective, Agent Dance.’

She shook his hand.

‘I’ve got the preliminary from the scene in Santa Cruz. Otto Grant.’

Dance recalled O’Neil had received the phone call about the discovery of a body in the Bay.

Worse ways to die than going to sleep in the Bay...

He handed O’Neil a manila envelope and the detective extracted the contents, copies of handwritten notes and some photos.

Dance glanced at the crime-scene photos. Hard to make an ID from them alone: he’d been in the water for some time and, though the chill would otherwise preserve flesh, critters had been dining. Much of the remains had been reduced to bone.

‘I haven’t contacted the family yet,’ Rivera said. ‘We’ve got a DNA sample from them and the lab’s running it now. Should be about twenty-four hours.’ A nod at a close-up of the corpse’s hands. ‘No fingerprints, of course.’

O’Neil squinted at one image. ‘Not Grant.’

‘It’s—’

‘Not him. Grant had had a knee replacement. Two of ’em. That man’s got both knees intact. Maybe homeless, maybe a drifter, fell asleep on the beach and got washed out to sea. Anyway, it’s not him.’

‘Okay, Detective. I’ll let everybody know.’

‘Oh, Gabriel?’

‘Yessir?’

‘Saves time to learn everything you can about whoever you’re searching for.’

‘I’ll remember that, sir.’ The deputy took the envelope back and returned to his squad car.

Dance and O’Neil walked to short-term parking and collected his vehicle. The fog was back, and the evening promised chill.

‘Solitude Creek... Bay View... What on earth is he up to?’ Dance mused.

O’Neil remained silent. A mood seemed to be on him. Understandable, of course: a deputy had been shot, a witness killed and their suspect had escaped. Yet she sensed there was something else on O’Neil’s mind.

His window was down and cold air streamed into the car. She thought about asking him to roll it up but chose not to, for some reason. She turned the heater up higher.

Well, if he wanted to talk, fine; it wasn’t her role to pry anything out of him, unlike with her daughter. She pulled out her phone to call Boling but somehow the idea of having a cheerful conversation with him didn’t appeal; it also seemed a bit passiveaggressive — payback for O’Neil’s mood. She texted, instead, saying she’d be home soon.

Almost immediately her phone dinged with a reply. Miss you. WDYWFD?

She answered back that leftovers were good, and asked about the kids.

He sent another, saying Maggie was Skyping with Bethany and Carrie ( Secrets Club teleconference ), Wes was out with Donnie, biking ( back @ 7, promised ).

She typed: C U soon. XO

Dance did make a voice call — to Charles Overby. ‘You’re on speaker with me and Michael,’ she told him.

Her boss called, ‘Michael, hello.’

‘Charles.’

She had, of course, called in from time to time to let him know how the incident in Orange County was proceeding. She now said, ‘No indication that Prescott was anything more than an oddball — a redneck, if they have rednecks in Orange County — stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. Our office down there’ll canvass his friends and family, coworkers but I’m sure that the profile’ll be just that. We’ve got custody of his computer and a phone the unsub dropped. I’d like to have Jon Boling crack the passcodes and take a peek.’

‘That’s good. Sure. And, if I recall, he’s not very expensive.’

Dance let that go.

Overby added, ‘Any thoughts about why our boy would travel all that way to kill him?’

O’Neil explained the theory that Prescott had brought unwanted federal scrutiny to the incident with the ‘terrorist’ comments. ‘That’s all we can think of.’

They arranged a meeting tomorrow in Overby’s office, to review the crime-scene reports from the sheriff’s office in Orange County.

Dance clicked the phone off. Then made another call.

‘Hey, boss. You back from La-La Land?’

‘Just landed,’ she told TJ Scanlon. ‘Eleven tomorrow in Overby’s office. On Solitude Creek and Bay View.’