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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

6:00 a.m.

Dawn light fell in strips through the blinds across a portrait of Christopher Paley that hung behind Chief Karl's desk. Already in uniform, the Chief of Police stuck out his lower lip, nodding. Detective Lee sat in a straight-back chair at the side of the desk smoking his pipe. Like Joe, he needed sleep. Lee spun a pencil like a Ferris wheel in his other hand and said:

"Are you suggesting this department had something to do with her death?"

"I'm asking," Joe replied, "who the officer was who picked her up at the café. Far as I know, he was the last to see her."

Lee nodded. "We're investigating."

"Who found her body?"

"We're investigating."

"You don't know. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. What time did the call come in?"

"What call?"

"The one that told you where to find her body."

Lee glanced at the Chief. "One-thirty."

"Male?"

"Fifty-fifty chance."

"Clever. I'll take that as a yes. Know about a guy named Reggie Thomas?"

"Know what about him?"

"Jackie came to Paley with him. They had a thing going before she called her mother and said she was coming home. I don't know anything else. Heard he was in the paper. Something about stealing the mayor's body. You let him go. Was Jackie with him when you did?"

The Chief asked: "Where can we find Thomas?"

"I'm investigating," Joe replied cordially. "We're getting no where, aren't we? The girl's dead. Her mother doesn't even know yet. And we're investigating."

Lee looked down at his pipe, tamped it with his thumb. "You have your interest, Mr. Cox, and we have our responsibility."

"Thing is, Detective," Joe said, his eyes jumping back and forth between the detective and the Chief, "my interest and your responsibility is to the same mother."

Lee nodded, yawning.

"How many murders have you investigated, detective?" Joe asked.

"Two, twenty-two, two hundred and two. I don't remember exactly."

"None. Okay. Any drownings?"

Lee blew smoke up into the air. "What's your point?"

"No pictures were taken. You looked around, threw her like freight into the back of an ambulance and–"

"Hold on there," the Chief said.

"You're passing the buck to the medical examiner."

"Got every right to your opinion," Lee said.

"Certainly do." Joe's exhaustion settled over his eyes. A headache throbbed at his temples. Sleep was the only cure. Coffee would help. "Could I get a cup of coffee?"

"We're out."

"This is a police station," Joe said sarcastically. He figured they thought if they didn't give him a jolt of java he might go away. Take more than a caffeine fit to keep him from finding out how Jackie died. And he wasn't about to leave it up to Andy and Barney of Mayberry. "Is the lake stocked?" he asked, sounding like he changed the subject.

Lee replied: "With fish?" Joe nodded. "Yeah."

"What kind?"

Lee shrugged. "I don't know." He turned to the Chief.

The Chief said: "Trout, bass."

"Any nibbles?"

"I told you," Lee said, getting up. "I don't fish."

Joe squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Did you find any nibbles on her soft tissue?"

Lee checked with the Chief. The Chief nodded. "Little, yeah."

That didn't make sense to Joe. "How deep is the water?"

"Three, four feet."

"No," Joe said, "farther out."

"I don't know," Lee said, turning to the Chief again.

The Chief answered in his soft hoarse voice: "Few yards out from where she was found it drops off to eight, ten feet. Center of the cove it's...I'd guess twenty feet."

"It was hot today," Joe commented. "Hot tonight. Water was warm."

Lee shrugged, but appeared interested. He was definitely not a fisherman.

"Trout take to cold water. Bass like the bottom."

"What's your point?" the Chief wheezed.

"If fish nibbled on her, she'd have been on the bottom. Or in deeper water."

"Say she floated up," Lee suggested half-heartedly. "Drifted to shore." Joe saw in Lee's face that he had started to doubt his own theory.

The Chief folded his hands and said: "We'll have to wait for the autopsy."

"That's right, leave it up to the M.E. and–"

"Mr. Cox, we've been very cooperative, but you're–"

"I'm trying to find out how a seventeen year old can get picked up by one of your officers and end up dead in your friggin’ lake. Something doesn't fit here, see. Your lake probably doesn't have any strong currents. Once her body sunk–"

"You're speculating," Lee interjected.

"The warmer the water, the faster the gases build up, and the faster the body floats to the top. Your lake water doesn't move much. And there hasn't been much wind." He paused. "How'd she end up in three feet of water with evidence of fish bites?"

"Maybe she didn't drown. Maybe she was dropped in there afterwards and the fish came up top. It's not unlikely."

"I'd like to view the corpse."

Lee didn't answer at first. "You worked a drowning before?"

"Several," Joe lied.

"What do you think you're going to find?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask to see her."

Lee glanced at the Chief. The Chief eyed Leah, who sat on a leather love seat against the wall under a gun rack.

"Okay," the Chief said.

Joe said to Leah: "Coming?"

Leah shook her head. "Pass."

* * *

The steam from the coffee smelled strong and wonderful to Reggie, and he sniffed it in before taking his first careful sip. Bear Adams sat across from him at the glass-top kitchen table, set off in its own morning room with a view through a picture window of the valley. Bear slugged down a gulp of coffee.

"Miss the rain," he said, glancing out the window. "Haven't had rain like the other night in months."

Reggie didn't comment. His thoughts were on Jackie. Jackie wouldn't leave him alone. Not that he wanted to forget. It was just that he couldn't remember her alive. Eerie flashes blanked his brain, leaving fading images of her hand dipping into the still waters of The Plunge. Bites in her flesh. Shriveled fingers. A blue-black mark ringed her wrist. Could have been left by her watch. Had she worn a watch? He couldn't remember. But then, wouldn't it have been white?

"Waited all day for you," Adams said.

With his next sip, Reggie discovered the nutty bite to the coffee. "Thought you went back to the hangar."

Adams shook his head. "Lucilva said you needed a ride back. Waited like a good gopher."

Reggie tried to grin. "You don't look like the gopher type."

Adams nodded, looked out the window again, thinking. "You know, there're people in town who'd love to know what we're up to out there." He turned back to Reggie. "People who'd like nothing better to bust us good. Pack us off to prison, and...." He didn't finish. He shrugged his mouth.

"Like who?"

"City Council for one. Good way to take back Paley."

"Chris?"

"No, the town."

Reggie remembered what Quinn said to Wallace yesterday at the rock. He wanted Paley to become a community. Reggie stared into Adams' eyes, piercing their bland-blue, emotionless glaze.

"Why'd Chris want to cook meth? Wasn't his style of business, you know. He liked toys: films, cars, women."

"And you were his personal Santa Claus, I hear."

"So why meth?"

Adams didn't look away. He grinned slightly, scratched his chin. "You're asking a gopher a queen bee question."

"If I don't get some answers, me and I.Q are out of here. Won't be any meth. All that money? Won't be made. I suppose you got a cut coming?"

Adams said: "You aren't needed. You don't cook. I.Q. has that cornered. You're assisting him. Any one of us can do it. That's what I hear."

"Who's talking that shit?" Reggie said heatedly. The truth of what he said injected adrenaline through him. "I.Q. does what I tell him. We're not just partners. We're friends. If I say we go–we go."

"You won't," Adams said calmly. He glanced into his coffee cup, then back at Reggie. "You need this deal more than most of us."

"What makes you think that?"

"I.Q. makes me think that. You want out of the crime biz and into the movie biz. That's what he tells me."

"Yeah, well, he's got a big mouth, but if I don't like the way things are going, if I think I'm getting burned on this deal, we're gone. So far, I can't get a straight answer from anybody." He hesitated, calmed his voice so he would be believed. "I know a shit-load more than most of you think I know."

Adams put down his coffee, leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. "Why all the questions then?"

Reggie waited a full quarter minute before answering. He didn't know he was going to tell the truth until he said it.

"Jackie's dead."

* * *

Lee drove Joe through the big iron gates of Tenderness Cemetery, followed the driveway to a small brick building near the entrance. He parked beside an old Cadillac. A single light was on over a sign that read: Mortuary.

The door flew open. A haggard old desert-coot wearing a week's stubble and a mangled hat with a rattlesnake-skin band emerged. When he saw the detective, he looked surprised but flashed a big wide smile as he waved and got into an old blue Ford pick-up.

"Don't tell me that's the M.E.," Joe said.

Lee gave him a look. "Sorry to disappoint you, no. He used to own the place–for years."

"The mortuary?"

"Mortuary, cemetery, the whole ball o' wax. Sold out to Chris a while back and does what he does best: drink."

"Paleys own the mortuary, too?"

"Paleys own about everything."

Inside, behind a desk positioned in the middle of the room with a giant round rug under it, sat a cowboy. Easily six-foot-five when he stood up and shook Joe's hand. "Howdy," he said, laying his magazine down on a cribbage board.

"Came to see the girl, Sam."

Sam sucked his teeth. "You bet. Doc be here soon."

Lee hesitated, checked his watch. "I haven't called him yet. How'd he know?"

"Wallace did. We was playing Cribbage when they brought her in, so–"

"What's Wallace doing here this early in the morning?"

"Once Winkle's closes, he's got nowhere to go. The both of us need company. Comes by sometimes, we play a little Cribbage, shoot the shit." Lee's expression made Sam defensively add: "He's still the licensed funeral director, you know. Chris never hired nobody else, so he's got every right to be here. Wallace and I been playin' Cribbage for years. Long before Chris bought it from him. I like his company. Especially now since that son-of-a-bitch you let go killed my dog."

"Sorry about your dog," Joe said, trying on his folksy manners.

The caretaker nodded. "What're you doing about that cold-blooded killer, Lee?"

Lee hesitated, glanced at Joe. "We're investigating."

"What's to investigate, Tom? Son-of-a-bitch killed my dog. I seen him do it."

Lee patted him on the shoulder. "I know you did. D.A.'s looking at the charges. It'll come around, just be patient."

The caretaker sucked his teeth. Joe could see he didn't like Tom Lee and he didn't believe a word he said.

Sam pointed through a white-painted iron door with angel candle holders hung on either side like sentries. "She's in there."

He plunked down in his swivel-seat, picked up the Guns & Ammo magazine and returned to his reading.

Lee swung open the heavy door and revealed a room with three shallow bathtub-like porcelain tables set on a tilt. A drain was constructed at the lower end of each one. Beneath the tables, a thick rubber hose sloped down and connected with a stainless steel pipe that led into the wall. Joe expected a foul odor; there wasn't one.

Lee went to a Gurney parked beside a tall glass cabinet filled with oddly-designed stainless steel tools used to rip apart bones and muscle. He unzipped the opaque body bag, folded it back, exposing Jackie's nude corpse. The stench swarmed the room. Joe breathed through his nose. A yellow tag hung from her large toe. Her hands were encased in plastic bags tied off with rubber bands. At first, Joe thought something from the lake had stuck to her baby toe. He looked closer. It was a black gouge. Something took a good bite out of her. He inspected her body closely, trying not to take deep breaths, thinking about the phone call he would make in a couple of hours. She was pretty, even with the slight bloating around the face and limbs. Her small breasts lay on her chest like stale biscuits.

"Fish got some of her," Lee commented from the other end of the Gurney. "Couple fingers chewed up, three toes. Look here." He pointed to Jackie's left eyelid. "Went for her eyes. They usually do, you know."

Yes, Andy, Joe thought. He didn't respond, but he looked. He found a box of Latex gloves beside the sink, put them on and picked up her stiff arm. Joe wondered if she could have been in the water deep enough to have sustained the fish bites, then floated to the top in the short time she'd been dead. It was certainly possible. "She's been dead at least 24 hours."

Lee loaded his pipe. "Doc'll have to give us the scoop."

"Who's the Doc?"

"Doc Rendquist. Coroner's office in Barstow contracts the autopsy to local doctors. Rendquist worked at Riverside Coroner's office in the mid-seventies. Only doctor we got anyway. Old friend of Chris's."

Joe turned over the arm he held. He checked for marks on her biceps, the joint of her elbow, her forearm, but nothing. Then he removed the plastic bag from her left hand and discovered a half-inch wide band of darkened skin around her wrist. At the point where her wrist and her palm made a crease, there was a jagged laceration. Lee didn't see it until Joe turned her wrist over and held her hand up for him.

"Didn't see that before," he admitted. He removed the other bag and inspected the right wrist. Nothing.

"She was wearing something around her wrist," Joe pointed out. "Tight." He peered closer. "Nothing sharp made this. Not clean enough. The skin around it looks...shredded."

Lee groaned in agreement, scrutinizing the wound. "Doesn't look like it bled."

"She wasn't alive. Skin tore apart when the wrist swelled. So where's the thing that caused it to tear?"

"Let's not try doing Rendquist's job," Lee said, backing away. "This could mean all sorts of things. We aren't pathologists."

Joe touched the wound, forcing the wrist to turn. "Doesn't go all the way around. There's a gap on the side."

"What do you think?"

"I think whatever did this wasn't on all the way around. At some point, there was enough room for her wrist to move slightly."

"How can you tell?"

"Look, if something was wrapped tightly around her wrist, the mark would circle all the way around. There's no black mark on the outside of her wrist."

"A bracelet?"

"Could a bracelet rip open her skin like this?" Joe said, pointing to the wound. And then it hit him. He breathed deep. Should he say what he thought? If he was right, he could be saying it to the wrong person. But his face gave him away.

Lee said: "Ideas?" Joe wrestled with a swallow. Lee's eyebrows came up.

Joe held out his hands. "Handcuff me."

* * *

Dressed only in jeans, Adams got up from the kitchen table, scratched his belly and shook his head. He dumped the dribble of coffee in his cup down the sink.

"Wasn't too bright," he said. "Should've left her in the tub and called the police."

"Yeah, right."

"Hey, we don't want them snoopin' around anymore than you do, but if they figure this out and it gets back to you...it'll look worse. And they'll come snoopin' around anyway."

"You got I.Q. What do you need me for?"

"It's hard enough keepin' S.O. from finding us. A couple fuckin' Mexican nationals were cookin' just over the Cadys last month. Got busted. We don't need them checking everybody you know, everybody you've been hangin' with. And there's folks in Paley who know you had dealings with the mayor."

"I did what I did. It's done."

"Lucilva's got to know."

"What if she has something to do with it?"

A light growl erupted through Bear's nose. His version of a laugh. "Shit. Why'd she want to kill Jackie?"

"Does she know a Tammy Jones?" Bear shrugged. "What about Bob Epperson." Bear shook his head. "Jackie left Doone's about two with a Paley cop. That was Friday. Saturday she's taken out of the lake, dumped in my tub. Someone followed me to the cabins and there's this dippy chick named Tammy Jones who gave me a ride. She and her brother were the only ones who knew I was there. After I found Jackie in the tub I caught them outside my cabin."

Bear nodded, scratching his belly again. He let loose with a roaring fart and asked Reggie if they drove a red Jetta.

"No. What's with the red Jetta?"

"Seen it parked down at the bottom of the driveway on the road yesterday. A kid. How old's Bob?"

"Thirties. Tammy drives a Mustang. White."

Adams sighed deeply and sniffed. "Lucilva's got to know this. And you got to get this shit made–quick. Before something else goes down."

"What about what I found in there?" he bluffed, nodding towards the office.

Bear grinned. "You don't even know what you found, do you?"

Reggie admitted he didn't.

"Maybe it's best you don't," Bear suggested as he left the kitchen. From the hall he called out: "Flight leaves in an hour."

* * *

"Fast work," a voice said from the doorway.

Lee and Joe turned to find a short, slender man wearing black-rimmed glasses holding a briefcase by both hands in front of him like he was waiting for a train.

"Morning, Doc, come on in," Lee said gaily. He introduced the doctor to Joe. Joe thought he had a most peculiar face. The evil eyebrows of Jack Nicholson and the flabbiness of a bloodhound.

Joe put out his handcuffed hands to shake the doctor's hand, hesitated, then said: "We're experimenting."

"Really," the doctor said, briskly walking across the room without giving the corpse a second look, and setting his briefcase down on the counter under an x-ray illumination board on the wall. He ran his hand over his bald head and turned to them. "I suggest you don't." He snapped on a pair of Latex gloves and rolled the Gurney under better light. "Where's the report?"

Haltingly, Lee explained that he hadn't expected to see him until later and that the report was still being prepared.

"You know the precise location and position of the body when it was recovered?" the doctor said, unsuccessfully trying to pry open her mouth with his fingers.

"Yes."

Rendquist looked up. "Well?"

"Oh, now?"

"No, Tom, let's first go have an omelette, shoot the breeze, talk about the weather–"

"Okay, I get the point." He proceeded to describe the location in the shallow water of The Plunge.

"Got pictures?" Rendquist asked.

Lee looked at the ceiling. Joe looked at Lee. "No," Lee said.

"Why not?"

"Didn't think of it."

"At least you're honest, Tom. She was nude?"

"Yes."

"What was the water temperature?"

"I, uh–"

"Didn't think of it," the doctor finished. "You have a history?"

"Doc," Lee said, restraining his frustration and embarrassment, "we found her less than three hours ago. Hardly enough time to compile a history. I've interviewed Mr. Cox, who's a private investigator from L.A. He was hired by her mother to find her. Far as we know, she wasn't suicidal, but we're, uh, still investigating."

"Famous last words," the doctor snickered, as he inspected the wound around the left wrist. "Here's some interesting trauma."

Joe said: "Subject of our experiment." The doctor nodded, inspecting it closer.

Lee said: "I say it was done before she drowned." The doctor nodded. "Then I'm right." He lit his pipe, giving Joe the eye.

"No," the doctor said. "This is post-submersion trauma."

Joe had figured right. The source of the wound came after she was in the water–maybe after she was dead.

"So why'd you nod your head?" Lee asked flatly.

The doctor put the wrist down and looked at Lee. "I was agreeing with myself that you were wrong again."

* * *

Flight leaves in an hour. The words stayed with him a moment. And he forgot about the illusive discovery in the office. His attention turned to thoughts of colliding with the ground. Colliding with the ground. Collision. The word rang into memory one thing that seemed out of place in Paley's office. The particle collider at Stanford University. That's it. They were looking for...another site. And Paley...The City of Paley fit. Reggie's grin came and went. It went with his fear of flying.