Black Water Read online

  "How?" Merci asked.

  Dobbs ignored her and spoke only to Zamorra.

  "Unusual facial structures."

  "What do you mean?" Zamorra asked.

  "You know, like when you're down in Laguna on the boardwalk and you can spot the tourists from other countries? Just the faces, you know, the way they formulate. I read in a magazine it's from the facial muscles used to pronounce different languages. You know, like a French face looks different from an American one because their face muscles help make different sounds."

  "So, they were French?" asked Zamorra, with a small smile.

  Dobbs chuckled. "I couldn't say, sir."

  "Take a guess," said Merci.

  "I wouldn't guess with so little information," Dobbs said, finally looking at her. "That would be pointless."

  Merci felt the blast of anger go through her. After thirty-seven years of trying to stop it she still couldn't, but she'd learned to put her anger into thoughts that could contain it. And sometimes amuse her. What she thought about Dobbs and his condescending arrogance was give him the guillotine.

  "Since you're big on points, Dobbs, what was the point of parking your car in the driveway of a homicide scene and letting everybody else do the same?"

  Merci felt ashamed at harping on this but she had to say something and that was what came out. It was her nature to grab and not let go. If Dobbs disliked her for what she'd done, that was even more reason for him to suck it up, get along, do the job. In her opinion, anyway.

  "Look, Sergeant Rayborn," said Crowder. "I'll take the blame for that. I thought about the concrete and figured this was another report that would come down to firecrackers or an engine backfire. I should have said something. I just let him park where he wanted. By the time we found what we found, the backup and medics were here. We were in the bathroom."

  "I understand that," she said.

  She walked around the quaint little breakfast table and stood in front of Dobbs, got up close and looked straight into his eyes. She saw the uncertainty there and enjoyed it.

  "I might have parked there, too," she said. "I don't care about the driveway. The driveway is history. What I care about is you treating your fellow cops with respect, instead of something stuck to the bottom of your boot. It's still us and them, Deputy. If you don't like me, fine. If you don't like what I did, fine. But keep it to yourself and we'll be able to do our jobs better. You saw Gwen and Archie. I think we've got bigger things to worry about than our own opinions of each other. What do you think, Deputy?"

  "Right, Sergeant," said Dobbs.

  Merci heard a somewhat reduced hostility in the man. It was the best she could expect. In the year since her actions had publicly torn apart the department she loved, Merci had basically shut up. She'd taken the oath and told the truth. After that she had little left to say, and no one in particular to say it to. And she'd found that silence confuses the enemy.

  But when it came to this, a subordinate officer trying to belittle her in front of fellow professionals, well, this was stomping time. It had happened before. In the last year she'd learned that confrontations were like haircuts—there were good ones and bad ones but none of them changed the essential truth. And the essential truth was that there were many people on the force who would never approve of what she' done, never forget and never forgive.

  So if the man piped down even just a little, it was good enough

  "Thank you," she said.

  "I'm pissed off about this, Sergeant. Archie wasn't a close friend of mine but I liked him. He was a good guy."

  "Then let's work together and get the creep who did this a nice stiff death sentence."

  "Yes."

  "Okay. Now—French, German, Latvian, Croat, Russian, Finn or Dane? I'm confident that any Orange County sheriff deputy could tell the difference in two seconds at five in the morning under a weak streetlamp."

  Dobbs smiled but still colored. Merci stepped away with a very minor grin.

  "Deputies," she said. "Call Dispatch and get us an all-county stop-and-question on that car. Sheriff's Department only. Tell them to use the computers and not the radios, because Sergeant Rayborn doesn't want any gawkers involved. We're one hour cold but it's worth a try. If they're tourists, maybe they got stuck in our famous traffic."

  "Yes," said Dobbs.

  "Then, go round up the caller. If he won't come over, tell him I'll be knocking on his door real soon and real loud. On the way back, one of you should count your steps between his place and this one."

  In her small blue notebook—blue because the man who had taught her to be a homicide detective used blue, and because she had loved him—she scribbled the name and address of the caller who'd reported hearing gunshots, tore off the small sheet and gave it to Dobbs.

  "Go ahead, and hear him out on your way back here."

  She saw that Dobbs understood her vote of confidence, her encouraging him to informally question the witness. She winced inwardly at what the muscular but not stupendously bright Dobbs might come up with on his informal interview. But in her experience two versions from the same witness were always better than one because contradictions stood out like billboards.

  Dobbs nodded and they walked away. At the front door they parted and stood back for District Attorney Clay Brenkus and one of his prosecutors, Ryan Dawes. Merci swallowed hard, tried to keep her blood pressure from going berserk. Dawes was the DA's most aggressive and best homicide prosecutor and he had a conviction rate of ninety-six percent. He was mid-thirties and looked good in what Merci considered a men's magazine kind of way. An "extreme" athlete, whatever that was, rock surfing or sky skiing or some such thing. His nickname was Jaws and he liked it. He was the only person in the district attorney's office who'd spoken out when Merci was going through her own public and private he less than a year ago. Jaws had told the Orange County Journal that what Merci was doing was "a self-serving disgrace."

  Rayborn and Zamorra watched the crime scene investigators shoot video and stills of Gwen Wildcraft and everything around her. The coroner's team removed the thermometer and fastened clear plastic bags around her hands, feet and head. Then the CSI turn again, to measure the distances between body and wall, body and door, body and tub, etc. Then, grunting and slipping in blood, four of them pushed and pulled her into a plastic bag. Rayborn saw two small, round wounds—one at the hairline, just above the left temple; one under, and toward the inside of, her left breast.

  Rayborn felt great disgust and pity for the human race. She imagined a pink casita on a white beach in Mexico. She had never been to such a place but liked to picture it sometimes. She could see it now. She pictured her son, whom she had seen less than one hour ago, splashing happily in the ocean by the pink house. She watched the engagement ring on Gwen's finger, a small diamond caked in dark red, disappear as a tech worked her arm inside the bag ahead of the advancing zipper.

  "Rectal temp ninety-seven degrees, Sergeant Rayborn," said the deputy coroner.

  "Then she's been dead for less than an hour."

  "Maybe longer, if her BT ran high."

  A CSI Merci had never worked with handed her two small clear evidence bags. Each contained an empty cartridge case—a nine millimeter by the look of them. One was labeled "1" and the other "2," The CSI stared at the bags as he gave them over. The writing on the cartridge bottoms confirmed her guess: S&W 9mm.

  "I marked the floor tile with circled black numbers, and arrows to show the direction of the openings. Had to get them out of there before they got kicked around and lost. Both were to her right. One in the corner and one next to her knee. I've got a sketch with the relate positions and time. I made sure the video guys got close-ups."

  Rayborn glanced at the glass shower door to see if the casings, ejected by an automatic pistol, could have bounced off and left a pit or nick. But the lights glared off the glass and she could see no marks at all. Just the faint outline of herself: square shoulders, strong body, an almost pretty face.

>   The CSI had placed a small wad of toilet paper in the mouth of each bag to keep it open, keep the moisture from building up and maybe wrecking a print.

  "What's your name?"

  "Don Leitzel."

  "I'm Merci Rayborn. Thank you and good work."

  She looked at the dresser in the Wildcraft bedroom, noting the sapphire earrings in a still-open box.

  They stood in the rock room. Scores of stones, most of them dark in color, all of them elegant in some way that Merci Rayborn couldn't describe. Some small as golf balls, others a couple of feet long. Many of them rested in form-fitting stands. Some of the stands were wood. Others were plaster or clay, some even brushed steel.

  "What are these things for?" she asked.

  "I don't know," said Zamorra.

  "They look Japanese," said Merci. "Maybe Bob would know."

  "I'll get him."

  She waited in the quiet room. Her gaze went from a rock that looked like a mountain with rivers running down it, to a rock that looked like an island with coves, to a rock that looked like nothing at all. Collections bothered Rayborn because she'd once interviewed a man who kept a collection of hollow, decorated birds' eggs. In a nearby apartment, he kept a collection of hollow, decorated human beings. But as she considered the rock that looked like nothing she thought it was the most graceful nothing she'd ever seen.

  Bob Fukiyama and Zamorra stood on either side of her.

  "Suiseki," said the assistant pathologist. "Viewing stones."

  "What do you do with them?" asked Merci.

  "You view them. Appreciate. Meditate."

  "Then what?"

  "Sergeant?"

  "Then what do you do?"

  "I think that's all."

  Rayborn looked incredulously at the assistant pathologist. She had never meditated. Thought about things, sure, like a tough case she was working, but everyone did that. Appreciated, yes, occasionally. She appreciated her son and looked at him a lot, but Tim Jr. wasn't a rock.

  "Collecting and displaying suiseki is an ancient Japanese pastime, Fukiyama said. "My grandfather collected stones. There are societies, shows and displays. Some suiseki can be very valuable. Some look like islands. Some look like mountains with snow and streams. Some are more abstract. People in crowded cities keep the stones in their homes, ponder the shapes and what they suggest. The stones take them away from the city and into nature."

  "Do they have any left?" she asked absently. She was staring at one that looked like a water buffalo, curled up with its head on its flank, resting.

  "Left, Sergeant?" asked Fukiyama.

  "In Japan, Bob. If it's an ancient hobby and a small island, have they found all the good ones?"

  "I don't think so, Sergeant. And they're collected all over the world."

  "I like the buffalo."

  Fukiyama stepped forward and looked at it. "You know, that's really good stone," he said. "If I remember right, water buffaloes are an entire category in themselves. Hard to find. Grandfather's was good one, but not as good or as big as that. Or as jadelike."

  "See?" Zamorra asked her. "You understand suiseki, you just don know you do."

  "I know a good rock when I see one," she said, still looking at the buffalo stone.

  The men laughed quietly but Rayborn didn't. She could still smell Gwen Wildcraft's blood every time she took a breath. Across the hall was a music room. Merci looked at the keyboards and speakers and mixing board, then at the twisting river of cables, jacks, plugs and cords running beneath them.

  There were two CD towers full of discs. Merci looked to see who the artists were, but didn't recognize them.

  "How old was she?"

  "Twenty-six," said Zamorra. "Yesterday was her birthday."

  Merci figured that a musically inclined person ten years her junior would listen to an entirely different kind of music than she did.

  "What about Archie?"

  "Thirty."

  On the walls were bright oil paintings of beaches and hills. They looked like the work of one artist and Merci checked the bottom right corners on three of them: GK. She made a note to confirm Gwen's maiden name.

  There were several photographs of Archie and Gwen. Archie had a strong neck, a broad, genial face and big dimples. Straight short hair. Good teeth. Gwen's face was compact and beautifully proportioned beneath a high forehead. Strong eyes. Intelligent and sexual. Eight of the photographs were professional portraits with brass date plates at the bottoms of the frames, going back to 1994. The '94 portrait was from their wedding.

  Merci looked at the dates and the photographs and watched the Wildcrafts age over eight years. First they looked like a couple on the high school homecoming court. Last they looked like a couple you'd see in a celebrity magazine. In between, six years of gradually evolving handsomeness and beauty.

  Dead in her bathroom on the night of her birthday. Shot in the head in his own backyard.

  One of us.

  Merci stood behind the synthesizer looking down at the keys and controls, then over at the knobs and slide controls of the mixer. She noted the microphone, which was on a stand beside the keyboard. The black paint on the mesh had been worn away by Gwen Wildcraft's lips, and the metal was touched by a red substance that Merci realized was lipstick.

  "I'm firing up this tape deck," said Zamorra.

  The speakers crackled and Merci watched him turn down the volume. A tentative four-chord intro, then another one, tighter, like the player was figuring it out as she played. The woman's voice was high pitched and clear. Not strong, but breathy and light:

  We went out and got it all

  Gold and diamonds wall to wall

  And I got you and you got me

  We 're who everybody wants to be

  Turn it up loud turn it up high

  Do what you have to

  But don't say good-bye

  Don't even joke about saying good-bye

  Rayborn pulled out her blue notebook and wrote, Dep. 2 30 a $40K base/Wife 26 paints and plays/house a mil plus/pool, furn pricey/CK$.

  Zamorra clicked off the music mid-chord.

  Merci stood in the terrible silence for a moment, then turned as green uniform full of muscles came into the room. "The wit's waiting outside," it said. "One hundred and fifty-five steps from where he hear the shots to the front door of this house."

  "Good work, Dobbs."

  CHAPTER THREE

  .

  It was a large-caliber handgun," said the witness.

  His name was William Jones and he was sixty-eight years old, a retired schoolteacher. Merci thought he looked like Dean Martin, and acted like him too, but the drunk part wasn't an act. She could smell it on his breath. He was wearing brown plaid shorts, a blue plaid shirt and a pair of Ugg boots. His legs were luminescent white and skinny. It was now 7:34 A.M. and they were standing on the street opposite the Wildcraft driveway. Some neighbors had congregated outside the tape.

  "How do you know?" she asked.

  "I shot a million rounds when I was young. Twenty-two. Thirty-eight. Forty-five. I was in the service, nineteen fifty-one to fifty-three. I know my firearms. And the sound carries up here in the hills."

  Jones said he lived in the garage of his son's house here in Hunter Ranch. He said he was welcome in the house, but preferred the garage because a man needs his own place to call home. Actually, he didn't get along with his daughter-in-law, but that was another story, wasn't it?

  He had been awake at five o'clock because he was a light sleeper and his stomach was bothering him. When he heard the shot it was exactly 5:06 and he knew exactly what it was. He went into his son's house, found the Sheriff's Department number in the front of the phone book and called.

  Merci remembered that Crowder had marked the Dispatch call a five-ten. Good enough, she thought.

  William Jones went on: "After I called I went to the bathroom relieved myself, washed my hands. Then I went back into the kitchen—that's where I'd made the call from—and w
atched out the window for the cops to come."

  Merci noted all this then looked up at Jones. He was lighting a cigarette, peering cagily through the smoke at her.

  "Everybody okay?" he asked.

  "Archie was shot but he's alive. His wife died."

  "Gwen? Oh, damnit all, you couldn't have found a nicer couple of kids. Oh, damnit" Jones froze a beat, then kicked the air and nearly fell over, his cigarette trailing sparks. The boot almost came off and Jones balanced on one thin leg while he worked his foot back in. He steadied himself sighed and looked up toward the Wildcraft house, then back to his garage, then at Merci.

  "Shit," he said. "You don't mind, I hope."

  He pulled a flat dark bottle from the rear pocket of his shorts, tool a drink and put it back. Canadian Mist, Merci noted.

  "What did you see?" she asked.

  "Nothing at first. Then, after I went to the bathroom and came back I saw a black Cadillac STS heading away from Archie and Gwen's place. I know my cars, too. It was five-eleven."

  Merci looked hard at Jones because she wanted him to be as good a witness as she thought he was. So he's drinking whiskey at seven in the morning, she thought: that doesn't mean he can't see straight.

  "California plates, and I got the first two letters," said Jones, peering at her again. "They were OM."

  "Did you see the driver?" asked Zamorra.

  "No. Couldn't see anyone at all. Much too dark."

  "How fast was it moving?" he asked.

  "Twenty, maybe. But accelerating."

  "Like it was just pulling away from the house?" Zamorra asked looking at Merci. "Precisely. And no, it didn't come from the driveway—I'd have noticed it. It could have been parked on the street across from Archie's, but the magnolia tree right there blocks that angle. It was heading down the hill, right in front of Archie's place, when I first saw it. I looked out the window and there it was."