Maybe Sam couldn’t handle Yuki’s death on top of everything else.
Panicked, she tried the phone one more time to call the one person she knew would answer. “Lee, I think Sam is in trouble.”
Chapter Fifty-seven
WHEN NOLAN GOT BACK TO THE office carrying two fresh coffees, she found Crawford hunched in front of his computer, wearing a scowl that reminded her of a scary Halloween mask. “What a face, Al.”
“Just talked to the mother. She doesn’t know where he is. She didn’t even know the wife was dead. Traeger and Easton have both been off the grid for four hours, that’s deviant behavior in this day and age. I told you he was guilty, and Traeger’s in deep shit for aiding and abetting.”
Nolan could have correctly pointed out that even in this era of digital obsession, four hours without using your phone or credit cards wasn’t proof of guilt. But there was nothing to be gained from arguing. Crawford had made up his mind about Sam Easton, and she was still convinced he wasn’t a killer. Dialectics about prima facie evidence weren’t going to accomplish anything.
“The poor bastard could be sitting in a church grieving for his wife. We’ve got a car on his house, his phone and cards are flagged, and the BOLO is live. There’s nothing else we can do on that end, so stop fixating on it, it’s just pissing away time. We’ve got this morning’s Caltrans traffic footage from Yukiko Easton’s neighborhood to look at, lab results, and half a dozen more follow-up interviews.”
“You really don’t think he’s guilty, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. Same goes for you.” Her eyes picked out Remy as he entered the homicide pen with two other task force detectives. He looked even worse than he had in the parking ramp; but his smile was nice when he noticed her, and as humiliating as it was, her heart quickened when he changed course to head toward her desk.
He gave Crawford a brotherly pat on the shoulder and sank into the metal folding chair situated directly across from her. “So you two caught a double, what’s the short version and where does the black Jeep fit in?”
“Abusive boyfriend and unfaithful wife are dead and the chummy significant others disappeared before we could bring them in for questioning,” Crawford opined. “Supposedly, there was a black Jeep hanging around both their places.”
“Turner took another look, we got nothing for you, sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Runners always get caught, don’t look so depressed, Al.” Remy cocked a quizzical brow at her. “You two aren’t on the same page?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’ve got a deadpan gaze, Maggie, but your cheeks are pink, like you’re pissed about something. I’m guessing you think Al’s got it all wrong.”
Nolan cursed her fair coloring and felt her cheeks flame hotter. Apparently, her body wasn’t quite finished betraying her. Thank God Remy had read it wrong. “I’m not pissed, and what Al said is exactly right. We just disagree about the culpability of the significant others. That’s a longer story.”
“Cases wouldn’t get solved without a little lively discourse.”
“Forget about us. What’s the news on the bodies at the Rehbein Building?”
“There wasn’t enough soft tissue left on the decomposed corpse, so the coroner can’t say definitively that it was the work of the Monster, but the victim was female and the damage to her bones is consistent with the knife he uses. Same with Froggy’s injuries.”
“Do you think it’s him?”
“Nothing about it synchs with the Monster’s three confirmed kills. It makes more sense that it was the crazy hanging around the Rehbein, flashing a knife at prostitutes.”
“What does your gut say?”
“It’s him, even if it doesn’t make sense.”
“What next?”
“We got hits on a few prints from the trace there. No surprise and not earth-shattering—that place is a landing zone for felons—but we’re chasing down the leads. Stupid to hope, but I keep thinking one of these days we’ll track some prints to a guy who has a bloody KA-BAR sitting on his coffee table.”
“That’s what he uses?” Crawford asked.
“That’s what the coroner says. Big, heavy knife, serrated. You both saw the damage.”
“A military combat knife?” Crawford suggested pointedly.
Nolan shot him a cross look. “Or a hunting knife. Common as dirt, I have one myself, picked it up at a military surplus place downtown.”
Remy pushed himself reluctantly out of his chair. “So do I, got it as a kid. Good for skinning things down on the bayou.”
Nolan narrowed her eyes at him. “You grew up in the French Quarter.”
“That doesn’t preclude trips to the swamp on occasion.”
She kept her expression stony and played along. “I suppose it doesn’t, that was prejudicial of me to say. So what sorts of things did you skin down there in the swamp?”
He gave her a rakish smile. “Whatever got in my way. I know what they say, but gator doesn’t taste like chicken at all.”
Crawford snorted; Nolan rolled her eyes.
“Good luck, you two.”
“Likewise.”
After Remy left, Nolan buried herself in work, collating reports and cueing up the most recent traffic cam footage. Crawford was uncharacteristically silent and it disturbed her. She’d been prepared for a passionate indictment of Sam Easton, not only a wife and boyfriend killer but now the Monster of Miracle Mile.
After ten minutes, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “I know what’s percolating in your mind about Sam Easton.”
“I’m not thinking about Easton, I’m thinking about whether or not you’re really pissed at me.”
“Why would you care?”
“I don’t care, I’m just curious. Remy’s the one who called it, you were blushing. Everybody knows your face gets red when you’re on a warpath. And it’s okay, you’ve got a temper and you don’t sit on it. It’s a fine quality.”
“I’m not pissed.”
“That’s what I thought.” He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, a smug smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “One of you will have to transfer, you know. You can’t have a relationship with somebody in the same shop.”
He’d aced her, and now she was pissed off—at herself, for walking into an obvious trap. She wanted to tip over her desk, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. A reaction was exactly what he wanted. “I don’t have a relationship with Remy.”
“Not yet.”
“I don’t date cops.”
He gave her an uncharacteristically cheerful smile. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”
“No, I don’t, so mind your own business and stop being a shit.” She returned her attention to the traffic cam footage, trying to block out Crawford and the juvenile taunts coming from a grown man, married twenty years. How did Corinne deal with his remedial, playground mentality?
The obvious answer, at least from the Freudian perspective of the id, the ego, and the superego, was that she didn’t have to deal with it at all. Men in domestic situations were as docile as bunnies; but take them out of that vacuum, give them strength in numbers like they had at the precinct, and they all reverted to their puerile baseline. Their id. Short for idiot? Maybe.