‘Sure,’ said Gary, ‘go ahead.’
Cliff hugged Ren.
‘Bye, big guy,’ she said. ‘We shall avenge another day.’
‘Take care, Cliff,’ said Kohler.
Ren stared down at the map. ‘Is this the service road?’
Kohler looked at where she was pointing. ‘Yes.’
‘Would you mind if Gary and I swung by?’ said Ren. ‘That’s right by Pine Gulch Cemetery. They could have gone through there, come out the other side and grabbed a car from that garage.’ She pointed again. ‘If they did that, they could have driven right down Pine Valley Road. They may not have been heading for Bailey after all. Or at the very least, Pine Valley Road was a panic move …’
‘Sure, go ahead,’ said Kohler.
‘Gary?’ said Ren. Earth to Gary.
He nodded. ‘Sure. Great.’
No car had been stolen from the garage by Pine Gulch Cemetery. Gary swung back around and they drove down Pine Valley Road, past where the Sheriff’s Office detectives and crime scene investigators were waiting for a tow truck to take the charred shell of the getaway car back to the lab.
‘That’s the spa lady’s …’ said Ren. ‘She probably came out of there with her little disposable flip-flops … or flaming red upper lip … mascara under her eyes, desperate to get home before she met someone.’
Gary tuned Ren out a lot. But today, the radio wasn’t even on. She stared out the window. The road was quiet, dusty, and bordered by pines, but if you looked through them, you could see where the wildfire had taken many of them away. They drove for fifteen minutes in silence; the type that only Gary could create – a very specific and dense one.
Breathe.
They rounded a bend onto Stoney Pass Road and drove a little further.
‘Hey,’ said Ren.
Gary had no reaction.
You are a very distracted man, lately. ‘Slow down,’ said Ren.
Up ahead, a white Hyundai Accent was parked at the side of the road. The passenger door was closed, the driver’s door, half open.
‘We could be in luck,’ said Ren, sitting forward.
Gary slowed.
‘Rental plates,’ said Ren. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa … what the hell? That’s a body …’
Gary cut the engine. They jumped out of the SUV and drew their weapons. Slowly, they walked toward the car.
‘It’s a woman,’ said Ren.
She had been shot in the head at close range; there was little left of her face. She had also been shot in the chest, her ruined torso half out of the car; one arm dangling down, the ends of her pale brown hair trailing in the dirt.
‘She hasn’t been here long,’ said Ren. She checked her watch. It was 15.48.
‘One to the head, one to the chest,’ said Gary.
‘Looks like whoever shot her was standing in the open passenger door. Look at the spatter.’
Gary nodded.
‘The glove box is open,’ said Ren, ‘maybe she was trying to get something out of there … a weapon … a purse … Or maybe the shooter was.’
‘They tried to wipe it down,’ said Gary. ‘Carjacking?’ he said. ‘Could be connected to the robbery. The bandits ditched their car, flagged her down, maybe … didn’t take the car because they were disturbed? Or panicked?’
‘Would a woman pull over if she was alone?’
‘Unless she wasn’t alone …’
‘Hey,’ said Ren, pointing to the ground. ‘Cell phone.’
She put on gloves and picked it up. When she stood up, she looked into the car again. All at once, she could feel her heart lurch, her legs weaken, her stomach turn.
Oh, no. No. No. No.
She stared up at Gary. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘She’s pregnant.’
Janine Hooks, Jefferson County Cold Case detective, walked into her office for the last time. On her desk was a potted plant, wrapped in tissue, a burst of pink in the dimness of a Seventies-style office in shades of brown, with half-closed vertical blinds that, even if open, would reveal nothing more scenic than the parking lot of the JeffCo government complex.
Janine often sat in the visitor’s chair at her small desk with her back to the door … and from behind, got mistaken for a man. Or worse still, a boy. ‘Son, I’m looking for …’
But it didn’t make her move. She didn’t want to watch the passing parade, she didn’t want to be watched. And now she would be; her boss had told her she had to move down the hallway to an open-plan, fluorescent-bright office with three other investigators. It felt like a step backwards and she was experiencing unpleasant cubicle memory. She wondered was he trying to force her into the world; a world to which she had been an adjunct since 2005, when she’d solved her first cold case in between her regular workload. When the sergeant who appointed her retired, he took her aside a few minutes before his speech.
‘I’m going to tell you something,’ he had said, ‘and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. Years ago, I walked into that tidy little cubicle of yours, and I see all these photos of dogs. I mean, we’d been working together a while at this stage, but it was just this particular day, I walked in and I really looked at everything you had around you, all the things that were dear to you. And there’s this one photo of a dog with a bone. And the light in his eyes was a spectacular thing. He was fierce. He was gripping this bone, no one would take it away from him, and he was so goddamn happy. And I swear to God, I thought – that is Janine Hooks.’
Janine smiled at the memory. Later that night, he had mentioned her again – in front of the entire office, as part of his leaving speech. ‘I came in one day and Janine had her arm stuck right in to the back of the refrigerator,’ he said, ‘and she was pulling something out … I don’t know what the hell it was, but it was slimy, it was green, and it stank. And it was nothing to do with her. It wasn’t her mess to clean up. But she did it. Sure, that innocent little face of hers was looking a little screwed up, but that was it: no bitching, no whining. That is why Janine Hooks gets to wear the cold case crown. And she wears it so well.’
‘That and the fact there were no other suitors,’ Janine had said.
‘You had me at “skeletal remains”.’
They all laughed, and over the laughter, he shouted for everyone’s attention again …
‘Seriously, everyone,’ he said. ‘I am going to miss you all, I am going to be back in here bugging the crap out of you, you all know that. No one should have favorites, but I’m retiring, I can say what the hell I like, and Janny Hooks, I will miss you most. If you asked me the main quality I think a cold case detective needs, I would say “tenacity”. You have it, more than anyone I know. If I had to throw in a few more, I’d say passion, loyalty, thoroughness, persuasiveness. Janine Hooks will make use of every resource she can, she will find resources hiding in the back pockets of politicians or down the sides of sofas, or up people’s fat lazy asses. She will find things. Janine Hooks will find things.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘Cold cases, warm heart.’
Like the magnanimous man he was, he had set her up to succeed. And she would never forget it. And she knew that, toward the end of his speech, he wasn’t