Nick parked the Ford by the railroad tracks. Tustin PD had a couple of units there, and the Sheriff’s had two more.

And Andy’s convertible Corvair Spyder. Custom rims and an ice blue paint job. White top, turbocharged. Press card taped to the inside of the windshield. Andy was a hotshot reporter now for the Journal. Won Orange County Press Club awards left and right. Had a police band radio in his car, another in his house, another on his desk at the Journal building in Costa Mesa. Said he never turned them off, which was probably true. Made half the crime scenes faster than the detectives. Middle of the night on some dismal 187 down in the bad section of Santa Ana there was Andy with his ice blue Corvair and his notebook.

Nick got his case from the trunk. Brand new. Bought his own, the kind with the lock. Organized exactly how he wanted it. Good feeling, to have the tools you need and know how to use them.

He climbed up the rotting old steps of the packinghouse. Smelled the creosote. Felt the boards giving under his feet as he walked across the platform toward the big sliding doors. Heard the metal roof shimmying in the wind. Saw the stains on the roof where the nails had rusted through. He could still see the faint image of the SunBlesst girl and her orange. Faded with age. Her face alone as big as he was.

Inside, the sunlight came through the wall slats in slanting beams. Dust rose in the shafts and a feather zigzagged lazily down. Nick heard the flapping and cooing above him. Didn’t bother to look.

It was pretty much just one huge room. Rafters high up. Big industrial light housings still hanging, dented up from kids heaving rocks at them. Bulbs long shattered. Mullioned windows along all four sides, glass busted out years ago. Some of the safety screen still twisting from the frames. A row of desks, drawers gone, along one wall. Floor covered with crate labels and old newspapers that shifted in the drafts. Little circles of rocks where the bums had lit fires. Probably burned the labels to stay warm, Nick thought.

“Some kids found her,” said one of the Tustin officers. He led Nick and Lobdell toward the far northwest corner of the building. “There was no lock on the door.”

Nick stepped over a fire ring made of concrete blocks. Reached down for a sheet of newspaper. The Santa Ana Register. May 23, 1968. Date kind of blurred on him for a second. Still saw double once in a while. Still had a little trouble with his balance. Nothing big. Damned Vonns. Damn Clay. Damned mean beautiful Clay Becker. Back when Clay died Nick thought his heart was going to explode because he couldn’t do anything about it. Not one goddamned thing.

The wind slammed into the building and the metal roof shimmied again. Paper skidded across the floor. The pigeons flapped and circled and receded back into the dark of the ceiling. Feathers floating in reeds of light.

“Old buildings always smell the same,” said Lobdell. “Always smell like old rat piss. No matter if they got rats in them or not.”

“That’s human piss.”

“You’re a piss expert?”

“I guess.”

Nick wondered if Lobdell was thick or just acted that way. Maybe it was a way to deflect things or to sneak up on them. They’d been partners two days. This was Nick’s first murder as a lead detective in the homicide detail. Lucky Lobdell had already told him that Nicky boy was going to call the shots. He was going to swim hard or sink fast. When he’d said it, Nick had seen nothing but stubborn challenge in Lobdell’s small gray eyes.

The uniforms stood in a wide semicircle. Andy was a part of it. He had his pen in his right hand and his notepad up. A camera around his neck. Stopped writing when Nick and Lobdell got there. Nick had not seen an expression like that on Andy’s face since they’d stood holding hands in the old Becker house five Novembers ago.

They were standing around a bunch of old mattresses. Half a dozen of them strewn about. Stained and flattened. Mixed in with the newspapers and crate labels and some filthy blankets.

The body lay on one of them. On her front. A powder blue turtleneck sweater and underwear. Arms out, legs together. Skin blue-white in the packinghouse gloom. Neck of the sweater empty, collapsed, black-red. Her head lay ten feet away, over on its side like someone had kicked it there. Some blood on the mattresses and floorboards. Purple-black on the old brown wood. Not as much as Nick would have thought.

Nick moved past the officers and Andy got up closer. Knelt down and looked across the dirty floorboards at the head.

“Unholy shit,” he said quietly.

“Goddamn,” said Lobdell. “It’s the beauty queen, isn’t it? The one they took her crown back?”

Nick heard him light a cigarette. Saw the match trail a wisp of smoke down the far periphery of his vision. Saw Andy on the edge of his vision, too. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t take his eyes off the sleepy-eyed, composed, and once beautiful face.

“Janelle Vonn,” Nick whispered. “Unholy shit.”

“Maybe your brother here can write you up some better lines,” said Lobdell.

Nick finally stood. Trembled for just a second. First case and you know her.

I am Janelle Vonn and those are my brothers.

“Deputies, seal off this scene,” he said. “Set up an entry log by the sliding door. Everybody signs in. Everybody signs out. Don’t leave the door unattended. Andy, you gotta stay back and out of the way. Soon as another reporter gets here, you’ll have to leave.”

“Got it.”

NICK SKETCHED the scene into his new clean notebook. He paced off approximate measurements and made a note to get exact ones later. Vonn Crime Scene-10/02/68. He used his compass to get the orientation right. Asked the Identification Bureau deputy to start the photography, black-and-white, then color. Start with Janelle. He watched the deputy coroner place a gloved hand on the bottom of Janelle Vonn’s foot to guess body temp and help estimate time of death.

There was no lock on the door.

He was interrupted by the assistant coroner, an assistant prosecutor, chief and assistant chief of the Tustin PD, a ranking OCSD lieutenant, and a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. A crowd had formed along the tracks. Nick felt like a greeter, then a host, then a bouncer. Andy didn’t have to be told to leave.

He and Lobdell made a pass with flashlights. It was hard to see, the way the sunlight slanted through the wallboards and all the debris.

Nick watched the ID men collect. He missed this part of it, the physical gathering of evidence. Flashlights and tweezers and paper bags. They started about ten yards away from Janelle Vonn and worked closer in a big circle. Came up with an empty matchbook from a local bar called the Epicure. An empty matchbook with a plain white cover. A wadded Juicy Fruit wrapper that didn’t look old. Empty pack of Camels, six feet from the body, cellophane wrap could hold latents. A ballpoint pen that was out of ink.

About fifty inches away from Janelle’s body, underneath a section of newspaper, one of the ID men found a St. Christopher medal on a chain. A circular gold frame with an inset purple enamel bust of the saint. No stains. No rust. Looked new. Knocked off in a struggle?

Lobdell snorted, walking fast and toeing things out of the way around the ID men. Flashlight beam zigging and zagging. Nick watched him for a second. Wondered how you could spot anything moving that fast.

Then Lobdell stopped and stared down. Held his flashlight in both hands like a baseball bat. Took a slo-mo swing. Good hip rotation. Watched the ball sail out of the packinghouse. The pigeons cooed and fluttered. Nick thought if it was up to him he’d put Lobdell in Traffic or behind a desk where he could do a lousy job of less important things than murder.

“Lobdell connects. Hey, Nicky boy, I just homered. Check this.”