He had not gone far, though, before the sensation of being followed came to him again.

30

Sheriff’s Department Headquarters

Monterey Park, California

Wednesday, May 21, 4:05 P.M.

“Describe him again,” Alex said.

The deputy shifted his weight. He thought it was awfully crowded in this little office, with Brandon, Morton, that guy from the FBI, and even Captain Nelson, for God’s sake. He wondered if he was about to lose his job for trying to be helpful. It wasn’t as if he had accused Brandon of carrying one of those damned reporter’s purses. Maybe he ought to make that clear. “I didn’t think you’d carry a bag like that…” he began.

“Describe him again, please,” Alex said, with no apparent loss of patience.

The deputy sighed. “White male, about six three, mid-twenties, dark hair, gray eyes. Built about like you. Maybe a little bigger in the shoulders.”

“Thanks.”

“Anything else?”

“You didn’t actually see him touch the phone?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Thanks, that’s all.”

Alex waited until he had left, and started to put on a pair of latex gloves.

“Brandon,” the captain said, “maybe we ought to have the lab take a look at it.”

“Or the bomb squad,” Hamilton said.

Alex paused and looked over at him. “It went through security, right?”

“To end up on that side of the checkpoint, it must have,” Ciara said. She had been in a good mood all day, Alex thought, and immediately looked at Hamilton. They were getting along, which, for Ciara, might as well have been the sign of a mad crush on the guy. If there was some budding relationship in progress, though, they were hiding it-or at least weren’t putting on a soap opera episode in front of the captain. He wondered if Hamilton was playing her to get information from the department.

“The new lab’s not that far away,” Nelson said with some emphasis.

“Think it’s a love letter from an admirer?” Hamilton asked.

That struck a little too close to his thoughts, so Alex set aside an almost unbearable amount of curiosity and agreed they should take it over to Scientific Services.

Alex filled out evidence forms, wishing it was the captain’s task, a punishment for suggesting the safer course of action. He halted, pen over paper, and wondered what was making him so irritable. He had managed to get more sleep last night on the couch than he had on any other night since they found Adrianos.

He looked over at Ciara, tête-à-tête with Hamilton.

As the envelope was being irradiated to destroy any biotoxins, Alex grew nostalgic for a time when a man could simply open his mail.

The lab ran a quick check for latent prints on the exterior of the package. There was one set-which they assumed to be the deputy’s-that would be checked. No others were revealed. The lab tech cut open the bottom end of the envelope, preserving the sealed end so that it too could be checked later for fingerprints. He tilted the envelope over a large sheet of paper that would catch any fibers or other trace evidence.

The first thing that fell out was an eye. Next came a leg, an arm, a horse, and a sheep. All were tiny, made of brass on silver.

“What the hell?” Hamilton said.

“Milagros,” Alex said, and wondered what message they were meant to convey. Working in an area with a large Hispanic population, he had seen them many times but was puzzled by this particular combination of them.

“Okay. What are milagros?” Hamilton asked.

He explained what they were while, wearing gloves, he began to look through the wallet that had tumbled out after them.

“My God,” Captain Nelson said as Alex carefully removed a license. “Eric Grady.”

There were four other licenses as well, and credit cards to match. Alex studied them for a moment, then said, “This one, I think. He looks the most like the employee photo from Crimesolvers USA.”

“‘Frederick Whitfield IV,’” Ciara said. “Well, la-dee-da.”

“Let’s run checks on all of them,” the captain said.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “But look at the address for the Fourth, here. He comes from Malibu. Where Eric Grady’s remains were found.”

Alex continued to look through the wallet and found a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “What do you know-an Albuquerque phone number. Maybe your office could follow up on this one, Hamilton.”

When there was no response, Alex looked up at the FBI agent, who seemed lost in thought.

Ciara noticed it, too. “David?”

So it was David now. Well, Alex thought, so what? They had gone out to dinner together. She could call him David.

Hamilton blushed.

Well, God damn, Alex thought, suddenly feeling protective of his partner. If this guy had anything less than the best intentions…and a guy with the best intentions would wait until these cases were solved.

“Sorry,” Hamilton said. “I was kind of distracted by these little charms. Milagros, right? Do you think the person who sent the wallet is Hispanic?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “But if Frederick Whitfield IV turns out to be our man, then our tipster definitely brought me luck.”

He called the phone number and got a woman’s answering machine. The outgoing message didn’t mention a name, just repeated the number. Not wanting to tip off any member of this group of killers, Alex didn’t leave a message. Hamilton was going to follow through with the FBI office in Albuquerque to learn the woman’s identity.

The Malibu Station tried the residence listed on Whitfield’s license, but a caretaker said that Mr. Whitfield had been living in France for more than two years.

Hamilton got in touch with his office, to see what could be done to contact Whitfield in France. Ciara checked Whitfield’s vehicle registrations and learned that Mr. Whitfield IV had unpaid parking tickets dated as recently as three weeks ago. Alex looked at the driver’s licenses again but still felt sure that Whitfield was the one.

The sheriff’s department put out a bulletin saying Whitfield was wanted for questioning and sent information about him to the Albuquerque police and all FBI field offices. He had no adult arrest record, though, and the captain had started to question the possibility of crimes of this nature being committed by someone who didn’t have anything worse than a parking ticket on his record.

“We’ve got a lot to learn about him yet,” Alex said.

Alex drove Ciara and Hamilton back to the homicide bureau-they had car-pooled together to the press conference. The rush hour traffic was bumper to bumper, but for once Ciara was not providing running commentary on all the other drivers’ lack of intelligence. Instead, she talked excitedly about the recent breaks in the case and the prospect of using DNA from the New Mexico samples and the blood from the rope to prove that Whitfield was involved.

Alex stayed quiet, observing that her conversation and questions were directed entirely at Hamilton, and that apparently she hadn’t noticed that Hamilton was mostly returning noncommittal answers and seemed subdued.

“And so what about France?” she said. “A guy that wealthy probably takes the Concorde all the time.”

“That doesn’t seem likely,” Hamilton replied.

“Okay, so he has his own jet. I’m just saying that travel between here and France would not be a problem for this guy.”

When they reached the homicide bureau parking lot, Hamilton pointed out his car-a black Jaguar XJ8.

“Nice ride,” Alex said as he pulled up next to it. “That’s a rental?”

“Yes, Hertz at LAX,” Hamilton said and held up a key with a rental tag on it.

“My tax dollars at work, or did you trade in frequent flyer miles for the upgrade?” Alex asked, but Hamilton got out of the car without replying.