37

O VER THE PHONE, Decker said, “Yes, I still want DNA, but right now we need his fingerprints.”

Over the phone, Oliver replied, “I got to find a surface then. Any suggestions?”

“He’s a contractor. He works with grease and mud. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is getting him to touch something. He has a recycling bin for scrap metal, a recycling bin for wood, and a final bin for broken glass. I’d love to take something, but it’s clear that Ray has no intention of throwing the stuff away. I can’t take a sliver from the ground without asking him. And once I ask, there’s a chance that he’ll get suspicious.”

“No, don’t do that.”

“We can just wait for the DNA,” Oliver said. “I have his discarded coffee cup bagged.”

“Trouble is we don’t have Belize’s DNA on file, just his prints. Surely there’s some kind of garbage over there that you can pocket that might pick up something.”

“Nothing with a clear print, Loo, and that’s a sad fact.”

“What’s he doing now, Scott?”

“I don’t know. I left the house about twenty minutes ago.”

“No, I mean what specific work is he doing on the house?”

“Oh…I think they’re tiling…” Oliver hit his forehead. “I’m an idiot. I’ll go back and ask him for a sample of the kitchen tile to show to my wife.”

“See how easy that was?” Decker said. “Is the tile surface polished or rough?”

“It’s polished. We couldn’t ask for a better surface for latents, except maybe mirror. I wonder if I can ask him if I can bring back a sample of the mirror or do you think that might tweak his antenna?”

“Let’s start with the tile. Like you said, it’s a great surface. When are you coming back to L.A.?”

“I’ll be in the station house between five or six, depending on traffic. What about you?”

“I should be back by then. Right now I’m working with the D.A.’s office, trying to shave some time off the old man’s sentence if he testifies against his son.”

“That’s going to make you real popular with the locals.”

“The old man is going to be released in a couple of years regardless of what anyone does. It’s worth it for me to let Martin go a couple of years early if I can put Beth Devargas’s killer behind bars.” Decker adjusted the headset on his phone. In New Mexico, it was illegal to drive and talk unless it was hands-free. With a seventy-five-mile-per-hour speed limit on some of the interstates, the law made sense. “I’m on my way to the courthouse to talk to some of the people. What’s Marge doing?”

“Trying to figure out where Raymond Holmes lived before coming to San Jose. We got an eight-year gap to fill in.”

“Once we get a fingerprint match, we won’t have any trouble pulling warrants for his paper trail. Hopefully, that’ll bust this case wide, wide open.”

IT WAS AFTER six by the time Decker pulled in to the station house’s parking lot. He was tired and would be famished as soon as his stomach settled down from the roller-coaster air ride over the Rockies. There were a few souls still doing paperwork in the squad room, but Marge and Oliver were nowhere in sight. He inserted the key into the lock on his office door, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Lieutenant?”

Since Decker was hungry and grumpy and made no attempt to hide it, he figured the brave soul approaching him must have had some breaking news. Anything less would incur his wrath. He turned around and managed a tight smile. “Detective Bontemps. I take it you need to talk to me?”

“I do, sir, and it’s important. I really think you’ll want to hear this.”

“Not a problem at all.” Opening the door, Decker took the key out and turned on the lights. On his desk were a brown bag, a huge plate of chocolate-chip cookies, and a note from Rina.

Dear Peter,

The cookies are from Hannah and they’re pareve.

Much love from your long-suffering but culinary-conscious wife, Rina.

He peered inside the bag-a roast-beef sandwich with coleslaw and an apple. He brightened considerably as soon as he unwrapped the sandwich. “Sorry to eat in front of you, but I’m starved.”

“Oh, go right ahead, sir.”

“Have a cookie. My daughter baked them.”

“I’ll eat anything home baked. Can I get you some coffee? I’m getting one for myself. Gotta have coffee with cookies.”

“Actually, coffee would be great.” He’d finished half the sandwich when she came back. “Thank you, Wanda, have a seat. What’s up?”

Bontemps’s face was flushed with the excitement that came from discovery. Her hair had been recently cut, exposing a full face softened by natural-looking makeup. Her skin was mocha cream, her lips accentuated by pink lip gloss. She wore a blue blouse, a glen-plaid jacket over chocolate slacks, and oxfords covered her feet. “Lee Wang and I must have canvassed that condo complex three different times. Today the good old Lord was with us. We found someone-someone we interviewed before-but we asked our questions a little different and we got different answers.”

Decker’s head had been so immersed in the Hernandez boys that he had to think a moment about the assignment. Condo-complex canvassing: the Roseanne Dresden case. They had been looking and looking for any witnesses who might have seen Roseanne coming in or going out on the morning of the plane crash. He put his sandwich down and took out his notepad. “Good. Go on.”

Wanda checked her own notes. Her hands were shaking. “The woman’s name is Hermione Cutlass and she’s a nurse. This time we phrased the question differently. We asked, ‘Do you remember where you were the morning of the crash?’ instead of ‘Do you remember seeing Roseanne the morning of the crash?’ We figured if anyone had seen Roseanne that morning, we would have heard about it by now.”

“Okay.”

“So this is what we got.” Wanda cleared her throat. “On the morning of the crash, Hermione Cutlass was scheduled to work the seven A.M.-to-three-P.M. shift at St. Luke’s in Simi Valley, but she was running late. Her daughter was home sick with the flu, and Hermione had to wait until a babysitter came so she could go off to work. By the time the sitter came, she was real late.”

“What time was that?”

“She thinks it was around seven, when she shoulda been at work already. She remembered running to her car, running through the parking area, not really paying too much attention to what was going on other than getting to her car, when all of a sudden a black Beemer pulled out in front of her and almost crashed into her. She said she had to jump back to avoid getting hit. She was screaming nasty words at the driver, but she was talking to the air. The car just bolted the hell out of the lot. She was so angry that she wrote down the license plate…”

“She has the license number?”

“She said she planned to report it to the condo board when she got back home.”

Decker’s heart started whacking in his chest. “So tell me it was Roseanne’s BMW.”

“Yes, it was, but she didn’t know it at the time.”

“Good Lord!” He smiled genuinely. “And she’s just remembering the car now?”

“Y’see, the first time we asked her questions, we asked if she saw Roseanne that morning. The answer to that question was no. This time we asked her what she did that morning.”

“Recalling her morning of the crash jogged her memory about the car.”

“Yes, but she didn’t know it was Roseanne’s car. She just wrote down the license number, worked a long day, and then forgot about the whole thing, especially once she heard about the airplane crash. That kinda took the wind out of her sails to be mad at anyone. All she could think about was poor Roseanne.”

“Okay, okay, give me a minute to digest this.” He closed his eyes and opened them. “Does she remember what time the Beemer almost crashed into her?”

“Sometime after seven but before eight.”