J. Jance - Fatal Error

Gil nodded. “We’ll need to check that out.”

There was a problem with that. The Scotts Flat Reservoir was out in the country. That made for a whole other set of complications.

“Let’s get your statement first,” Gil said. “Then we’ll need you to go back up to the lake so you can show us where all this went down.”

Gil picked up the box and the bag. “I’ll take these inside so we can maintain the chain of evidence,” he said. “Then we need to go to an interview room so I can ask you some questions.”

John nodded.

“I’ll be recording the interview,” he said. “It’s important that you tell the truth. You know it’s against the law to lie to a police officer.”

John looked briefly at his father for guidance and then nodded again. The hopeless slump of his shoulders told Gil that the kid knew he was screwed, that he understood his hope of going to West Point was all over.

“All right,” he said, sounding resigned. “Let’s get this done and over with.”

“Just to be clear,” Gil added, “I have no particular interest in knowing what you and your friends were doing up at the reservoir tonight. You weren’t drinking, were you?”

John Connor’s eyes shot up and met Gil’s questioning gaze. His shoulders straightened. “No, sir,” he said. “I was not.”

It was clearly an honest answer. John Connor had not been drinking, but that didn’t mean the others hadn’t been.

“Who else saw the shoes and the purse at the lake?” Gil asked.

“No one else. I was the only one.”

“All right, then,” Gil said, leading the way back inside. “We’ll do the interview first. That shouldn’t take long, and then we’ll go back out to the lake so you can show me what you found where. Then we’ll get you home to bed. Wouldn’t want you to miss school tomorrow.”

“No school tomorrow, sir,” John Connor said. “Martin Luther King’s birthday.”

John didn’t mean anything by that remark. It was informational only. Still it hit Gil like a blow to the gut. If his own kids were still here, he would have known that tomorrow was a school holiday.

“Come on,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get going.”

During the interview, Gil asked only a few cursory questions about what John and his friends had been doing at the reservoir in the middle of the night. He let the answer “Hanging out” pass without demanding any more details. Gil focused instead on what had happened after John and his unnamed friends came back to town. How John had gone off on his own to open the purse, what he had found there, and his phone call to Camilla Gastellum.

When the interview was over, Gil picked up his phone and called one of the county detectives, Frank Escobar. He and Frank had worked together before on occasion, but they also went back a long way-back to some of those same wild high school keg parties. Gil wouldn’t have to explain the situation with John Connor and his friends to Frank in any great detail.

“I’ve got a problem,” Gil said, once Frank came on the phone. “A kid from Grass Valley was out at the Scotts Flat Reservoir tonight, hanging with a couple of his buddies. They found an abandoned purse and a pair of women’s tennis shoes beside the lake. I’m thinking this could be a suicide, but according to the kid there’s no sign of a body.”

“Wait a minute,” Frank said. “If I’ve got a possible suicide out in the country, what does it have to do with you?”

“It has to do with a homicide I’m working here in Grass Valley,” Gil said. “The perp whacked off a few of the victim’s fingers. Guess what the kid found inside the purse?”

“A finger?”

“Yes, and puked his guts out too.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “So my possible suicide turns out to be your possible prime suspect.”

“That’s it in a nutshell,” Gil agreed. “So if you don’t mind, once I inventory all this stuff, I’ll turn it over to the crime lab for analysis. Later on, if your potential suicide turns into an actual suicide, we’ll trade evidence as needed.”

“Can you tell me where on the Scotts Flat Reservoir?” Frank asked.

“Somewhere close to the dam,” Gil said. “I’m sure the kid can show us, but we’re going to need to give him some cover on this.”

“What kind of cover?”

“You tell me,” Gil said. “Middle of winter, middle of the night, middle of basketball season.”

“Gotcha,” Frank Escobar said. “How about if you bring your confidential informant and I bring my crime scene tech and we all have a middle of the night powwow at the Scotts Flat Reservoir?”

“Sounds good to me,” Gil said. “See you there.”

Not wanting to have someone locked in the back seat of his unmarked vehicle, Gil let John Connor ride out to the lake in the front seat of Gil’s Crown Vic with his father caravanning behind. On the way Gil couldn’t help thinking both those guys were incredibly lucky: John had a great father and Will had a great son. For a change, this was a father and son duo who actually seemed to deserve one another.

At the lake, things were exactly the way John had described them. There was no sign of a struggle-and no sign of a body either. If Brenda Riley had walked into the lake and drowned herself, as cold as the water was this time of year, it could be weeks or even months before she floated back to the surface.

In the meantime, though, Gilbert Morris was hot on the trail of clearing his third case in three days. In the annals of homicide investigations, that had to be some kind of record.

Laguna Beach, California

While the three dogs-two big and one tiny-gamboled on the beach and darted in and out of the water, Ali walked beside Maddy Watkins.

“They make quite a pack, don’t they?” Maddy observed. “I’ve never cared much for little dogs, but I promised Velma that I’ll take Candy back to Washington with me when the time comes, which will probably be sooner than later.”

“Her color’s bad,” Ali said.

“Yes,” Maddy said. “I know.”

As they walked, it had occurred to Ali that she had an odd collection of friends. Sister Anselm, Velma, and Maddy were all decades older than she was, yet she felt at ease with them in a way she couldn’t understand. She remembered Aunt Evie telling her once that she, Ali, was “an old soul.” Maybe being widowed in her early twenties had propelled her into a version of adulthood that usually came to people much later in life.

“Losing a friend is always hard,” Ali said.

Maddy stopped walking abruptly and looked up at her.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not having a friend is what’s hard. When Velma and I hooked up by accident on that round-the-world-cruise, it was a stroke of good fortune for both of us. We were by far the oldest people on the trip. There were some things we physically couldn’t do, but we didn’t do those things together. These past few years our friendship has been a huge blessing. I’ll miss her terribly when she’s gone, but I wouldn’t have missed out on knowing her for the world.”

Candy was the first to give up playing. She was small enough that she had to take three steps to each of the big dogs’ one. She came back to Maddy and asked to be picked up and dried off. Ali did that while Maddy spent the next fifteen minutes expertly hurling a Frisbee for Aggie and Daphne to chase and fetch.

When the dogs finally tired of the game, the group walked sedately back to the condo building. Near the outdoor pool was a shower with a hose attachment. Maddy used that to remove lingering sand from the dogs’ paws, then they made their way into the building through the basement garage.