More listening, then his face paled. He looked at me, offered me the cell phone. "For you. Just thought I'd screen it for you first."
I took the call.
"Navarre?" a man's voice said. "Ben Quarles. Firearms."
"Quarles." I forced myself to sound upbeat. "Miss me already?"
His next exhale was a strong wheeze, maybe what passed for riotous laughter down in the ballistics lab.
"I wanted to follow up," Quarles said. "I got the full picture after you left—well, shit.
Listen, that was a tough break about your brother."
"Not your fault."
"Yeah, well. I did a little digging—ran a Drugfire search on the casing. We keep a database of casing images from all over the state, goes back two, three years. It's hit or miss, depending on what individual departments choose to enter into the system, but I ran a check for similar firing pin impressions on spent brass, just to see if I got any hits." "And?"
"And I got one. Maybe. Scored a cold hit on a case from Waco, robberymurder back in 1987. It's an old damn case. Waco PD just put all their unsolved homicides on the network last month. Sheer luck—"
"The case," I interrupted.
"Robbery gone bad. Perp broke in the back door, surprised the occupant, shot this old guy four times. The victim's stuff was rifled through—boxes of papers, a file cabinet overturned, all his IDs and money taken. Perp wasn't too bright.
Dragged the body all the way into the bathroom, dumped it in the tub, ran water over it.
Who knows, maybe he was shaken up, got some stupid idea he could scrub the scene clean, then realized it was no good. Despite that, he got away—no leads, no prints.
The murder weapon was never found, but Waco PD did recover the four casings—all with distinctive BOB markings. Almost an exact match to the one from Jimmy Doebler's murder."
"You're saying Garrett's gun was involved in a crime in 1987?"
"No. That model wasn't even made back then. What I'm saying is that a gun was used in Waco in 1987 that left an almost identical BOB marking to the casing you found in the lake. And the Waco gun was never recovered."
"Hell of a coincidence."
"Don't use the C word with me, Navarre. Another thing I found out, chatting with people up in Waco—police weren't careful with their information. They publicized that they were working an anomaly in the shell casing, put a quote to that effect in the local paper. Either they were desperate for leads, or maybe they wanted to sound like they were making progress. Maybe they just didn't see the case as important enough for tight security. Whatever, it wasn't any secret."
"I still don't—"
"What I'm saying, Navarre—if I were that killer, and I heard the police talking about my gun that way, I could have some fun with that information. I could examine my own casings, then deface another gun's firing pin area. I'm saying I could do this, a master gunsmith, somebody who knew what they were doing. In a couple of minutes, I could make another gun have the same BOB markings as mine—as long as it was a similar calibre and make. Potentially, you could play hell with ballistics—modify somebody's gun, commit a crime with your gun, and then frame the other guy. The BOB markings would be so rare, your frameup victim would seem like a dead ringer. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's sure as hell possible."
I looked at my friendly neighbourhood homicide detective, who was stonefaced, tapping his fingers against his sidearm. "Quarles, you share this information yet?"
"Yeah. And look, Lopez will tell you it's a farfetched idea. He's right. I'm just trying to give you something you could use. You get a good lawyer, maybe he could use this Waco case to cast some doubt on the evidence, point out that ballistics aren't exact.
Shit."
"What?"
"I can't believe I'm giving you advice to help a defence lawyer. God forgive me."
"Waco. What was the victim's name?"
I could hear Quarles shuffling papers. "Lowry."
Out the window of the sleeping cabin, the white barbecue smoke was streaking the tops of the trees. My chest felt like it was turning into something just as insubstantial.
"Ewin Lowry?"
"You know the case?"
I thought about the picture I'd seen in Faye Ingram's garden— the rakish gypsy gambler next to Clara Doebler, both of them smiling. I thought about the letter Clara had received from Waco in 1987, the letter she'd thought was from Ewin Lowry, promising retribution.
"Navarre?" Quarles asked.
"I've got to go, Quarles. Thanks."
I hung up, handed Lopez back his phone.
"Forget it, Navarre," Lopez said. "It's the longest of long shots."
I told Maia about the Waco case. Then I told Lopez who Ewin Lowry was, and about Matthew Pena's parentage.
It's hard to shake up a homicide detective, but Lopez's face completely deconstructed.
For once, he was without a reply.
"The bathtub," said Maia. "Water. Adrienne Selak drowned. Jimmy's truck was half submerged. Clara was shot by the lake. This man—Lowry—intentionally dragged into a bathtub. The girlfriend, the brother, the mother, the father ..."
"And Ruby," I said. "Disappeared off a boat."
Lopez snapped his phone shut, clipped it to his belt. "I like criminal psych profiles as much as anybody, counsellor. But what you're suggesting ..."
He stared at the photos on the nightstand—the smiling pictures of Ruby McBride.
"All right," he relented. "What are you saying—the water has meaning?"
"The killer submerges his victims," Maia said. "At least, he tries to. Water could mean cleansing. Absolution. My guess—he cares for the people he's killing."
"Cares for them," Lopez repeated.
"He's a sick individual. He wants to be close to these people. Maybe he even picks special places—Doebler's lakefront property, for instance. He killed Jimmy just where his mom died."
"Kills his victims and then washes them," Lopez said. "Tries to cover them in water. A purification ritual."
Maia nodded.
"Shit." Lopez scowled. "Now you got me doing it. Okay. So you've got a crazy theory.
Now what?"
"The killer has contacted you," Maia said. "Made himself known to the investigator in charge. Usually, that means one thing. He's preparing for the endgame."
I studied the Lake Travis wall map—the white topographic lines etched into the blue.
"There," I said.
Maia and Lopez turned. I went to the map, counted up the arc of red pins, the submerged property line that Ruby had been mapping. I put my finger on the sixth pin—the one farthest out from the shore.
"A special place," I said. "A submersion. Call your recovery unit. Tell them to dive there."
"In the middle of nowhere," Lopez said. "Upstream from where we found the boat. You want me to call Search and Recovery and tell them that?"
"Tres," Maia said. "Why there—why that pin?"
"Because," I said, "when I broke into this boat, two nights ago, that pin wasn't there."
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Subject: dinosaurs
I was in the backyard. This is my earliest memory.
My friend and I were playing. We'd taken an old card table and covered it with mud, stuck some plastic dinosaurs in it.
I don't remember what my friend looked like back then, which is funny, because he is such a presence for me now. Later images have superimposed themselves on that first memory—years of hating and wishing.
He must've been a cute little guy—talkative, funny, always the one who made up our games. I remember he ran to get something I'd thrown in the bush—another plastic dinosaur, maybe—and I heard car sounds in the alley.
Then there was a woman at the back gate, and she asked me to come with her, quickly.
I wasn't really startled. I was too young to understand that strange women weren't supposed to sneak into your backyard. Her face was tight with emotions I didn't even know the words for.
She asked me again, more desperately, to come with her. This was all happening in a few seconds.
And now, God knows, I wish I'd taken her hand.
But then she looked over my shoulder—at my friend, coming out of the bushes, grinning with a blue triceratops in his hand—and she realized her mistake. She told my friend, "Come on. Come with me." She said a whole bunch of other soothing things.
Her voice was so kind, so loving, that it hurt. I wanted to go.
Her back was to me. My friend gave me one confused grin. And then they were gone together, through the gate, and the car sounds disappeared down the alley.
I don't remember the rest of the afternoon. I think I went back to playing. I must have caught hell when I was finally called for dinner, when I was found alone. I must have been punished.
But here's the strange thing.
I remember the seats of the woman's car, her lavender smell, the kindness in her voice. I can close my eyes and see trees going by, neighbourhoods of tidy houses and blooming honeysuckle fences. I can see the house she took me to, a big swing in an old oak tree, lemonade on the porch. I can close my eyes and be in that place again, a long way from the mud table and the chewed plastic dinosaurs.
There are times I can't remember which child I was.
CHAPTER 34
Lopez cut the engine, let the boat drift into the swell.
Two in the afternoon, and another thunderstorm was threatening. The temperature had risen into the steamy high nineties. Boat traffic was almost nonexistent. There was nobody to admire our fortysixfoot party pontoon, which was probably just as well.
Lopez had impressed Clyde Simms into service, and Clyde had reluctantly agreed to furnish dive gear and a boat. But in passive aggressive revenge, Clyde had given us topoftheline in big, slow, and clunky, insisting that the Flagship of Fun was the only thing in working order. The twolevel pontoon normally rented for $120 an hour, he assured us. Ninety horsepower engine, benchsofa seating for fifty people. We had a barbecue grill, a rest room, a tendisc CD changer, a 150quart cooler, and a water slide that went from the top deck into the lake. I'd pushed for a mirror disco ball, but Maia Lee told me to shut up.
Lopez came out from behind the wheel.
He wore only a swimsuit. With his dark, muscular build, he looked like a Polynesian fire dancer. All he needed were some tiki torches, and I was pretty sure we could find those somewhere aboard the Flagship of Fun.
He picked up a net bag stuffed with yellow polypropylene line, dug out one end and looped it through the eyehook of a small anchor that looked like a lopsided dumbbell.
Despite the scanty clothes, Lopez somehow looked more serious and professional doing this task than he ever had in coat and tie.
