Comes a Horseman (6 page)

It took him another five seconds to comprehend the object of her attention. He let out a nervous but good-natured laugh, which startled her into raising her eyes to his.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” he said through a strained smile, any hint of lecherousness gone. In the reflected dimness of his flashlight, she detected a rosy blush rising into his face. “If I was staring.”

“You were.” Though she remained firm, she felt her anger melting. This kid could not be older than twenty-one, the minimum age for most deputy sheriffs, and an age when most men were still knee-deep in the ocean of adolescence. Add to that the cockiness that often came with a gun and badge, and Deputy—she looked at his name tag—Britt was bound to have some womanizing tendencies needing exorcism. By twenty-six, he'd be over it . . . or grounded in it for life. She blinked to break her glare and smiled a halfhearted acceptance of his apology.

Deputy Britt tossed away his cigarette and asked for her ID. She set down the case in her hand, bent to deposit the heavier one on the ground, and fished her FBI credentials out of a hip pocket. After studying her picture, he directed his flashlight beam into her face.

“Nice to see it done right for a change,” she said, squinting.

The man produced a clipboard and began transcribing the information. She sighed and craned her neck to see the house. The nearest pines appeared to be jumping forward and falling back as the strobe lights caught and released them. Behind those, more battalions stood in her way. Finally, she picked out a hulking shape, blacker than the dark landscape around it, about a hundred yards away. She saw no lights burning in the windows. That was a good sign.

He finished and handed her the clipboard and pen. “Agent Wagner, ma'am, would you please sign in the space next to your name?”

The form appeared to be more than a mere visitor's log. Text too small to read in the glare filled the top third of the paper. Hers would be the eleventh signature.

“What is this, exactly?”

“It says that you agree to provide any requested exemplars, such as hair, blood, shoe prints, fingerprints—”

“I know what
exemplar
means, Deputy.”

“We also ask that you provide a report explaining your involvement in the investigation and your actions while at the scene.”

She lowered her head to conceal a smile and signed the paper. Agreeing to provide fingerprints and samples of hair and blood was a given. If the lab techs found unidentified DNA at the scene, they would need to rule out the people authorized to be there. Likewise, if some fool messed up the crime scene or lost evidence, everyone there was expected to explain themselves and what they witnessed. Calling that obligation a “report” and demanding signatures was an attempt to scare away people who had the authority but not the necessity to be there—department heads, assistant district attorneys, politicians if the case was high-profile.

“Just up the drive, ma'am. They're expecting you.”

She lifted her case, pulled the valise's strap onto her shoulder, and started toward the house. Remaining at his station, the cop kept the ground before her illuminated until she rounded a small bend; by then she was comfortable that the drive was free of potholes and ruts. She walked farther, then stopped to adjust the strap pressing into her shoulder. For a moment, she was astounded by the stillness of the area: no hum of distant traffic, no whisper of wind through the trees, no animal or insect noises at all. There was only silence. The air was crisp and smelled of pine and moss and dirt. She could almost believe she was standing in the remotest place on earth, a place unspoiled by man. Then she noticed how the moonlight coming through the trees landed on the ground in a classic blood-spatter pattern. She shook her head and got her feet moving.

A few seconds later, she was startled to see the flare of a cigarette as someone drew on it; she cursed the crunching gravel for making it impossible to hear anything else. She discerned a dozen shapes on a concrete pad in front of a garage door. The garage lights were extinguished and the area was out of the direct gaze of the moon, so the people appeared as slivers of gray where reflected moonlight brushed a profile here, a bald pate there. Several dots of undulating orange indicated more than one smoker among the group. Their smoke rose and caught the moonlight streaming over the peaked roof.

One of the men jerked his head around, spit something to the ground, and rushed toward her.

“Agent Wagner?” His voice was more gravelly than the driveway, the calling card of a lifelong two-pack-a-day habit.

“Yes. Agent Nelson?” He appeared to be just south of sixty, heavyset, with a full head of silver hair, lightly streaked with stubborn black strands. He wore a dark suit that had likely come off the rack at Sears, rumpled, but nothing like Columbo's overcoat; a thin, colorless tie; and shoes that must have last held a shine when Clinton was president. He was assigned to the Colorado Springs resident agency, which reported to the Bureau's field office in Denver. Maybe it was because of the smaller-city pace or the relative lack of political or competitive pressures, but she tended to get along better with RA agents than with their FO counterparts. It seemed to her that an agent's aggressiveness and aloofness increased with his proximity to Washington or the size of the office to which he was assigned. Her own office of record was the FBI Academy in Quantico. Case closed.

“Jack,” he said. “We spoke on the phone. Let me help.” He reached for the strap, and she let the heavy bag slide off her shoulder. It swung into his leg, knocking him off balance.
“Man!”
he said.

“Laser printer,” she explained. “Supposedly portable.”

He gestured at the other case. “Going bowling?”

She smiled and hoisted the case, which did resemble a bowling ball bag on steroids. “This is why I'm here. The future of crime scene processing.”

He gave it another look, his eyebrows crinkling in wonder.

“Hmm. Okay,” he said. He brought his hand up to his mouth and popped in several sunflower seeds. Behind closed lips, his teeth started working to de-shell them.

She lowered her voice. “Thank you for being so on top of this.”

“Doin' my job.”

“Getting locals to wait for us is above and beyond.”

She surveyed the people standing in the shadows. They seemed to be watching them but were not particularly interested in their conversation. “How do they feel about our involvement?”

Nelson switched the bag to his other shoulder and leaned closer. “The point is, we're not involved. The County Sheriff 's office has a crack investigative unit. One of the highest clearance rates in Colorado—every one of their homicides last year. Fortunately, the Bureau has a great rapport with them, mostly because we know when to stay out of their business. You're here because you asked for a chance to check out your new gadgets, and someone in your department had already done the groundwork at the capitol for lending investigative support on any Pelletier killings in the state. I'm not saying you're not welcome, just that you gotta tread lightly.”

She nodded. “That's what I needed to know. Which one's in charge?”

He leaned to one side and spit out the sunflower seed shells. Half a shell flipped over his lip and stuck to his chin. “Detective Dave Lindsey,” he said. “My height, balding, mustache.”

“Thanks.” She stepped around him and waded into the group of detectives, deputies, and technicians. She nodded at their stares as she marched up to a man who was leaning one shoulder against the pillar that separated the garage doors. He had managed to work his expression into one of bored curiosity. “Detective Lindsey, thank you for waiting for me. I'm Special Agent Alicia Wagner.” She stuck out her hand.

He paused before taking it. “This better be good,” he said, coming off the pillar. “I got half a division twiddling their thumbs and a murder scene I can't process because you have friends in high places.”

“Be nice, Dave,” Nelson croaked from behind her.

Alicia knew at least a measure of Lindsey's agitation was a show. It told her and his people that he was boss, despite having deigned to grant an outside agency's request to assist. It also helped cover his butt if the delay in processing the scene led to problems. The blame was squarely on her now, and he had witnesses. She wasn't worried about that. The information flow had been uncommonly fast. Because of an advisory she had put out about the possibility of the Pelletier murderer striking again in Colorado very soon, the patrolman who'd investigated the 911 call knew what he'd stumbled onto. Even before dispatching an investigative team, the sheriff 's Law Enforcement Bureau chief had called Nelson. Alicia's drive from her hotel room in south Denver had taken forty minutes. Nelson had told her the sheriff 's offices were in south Colorado Springs—at least twenty-five minutes from Monument. The delay could not have bee-longer than fifteen minutes.

But there was something else about the way Lindsey was getting in her face. She guessed that Nelson had not told him the agent coming from Denver was a woman.

“I understand your concern, Detective,” she said. “You know the corruption of crime scene evidence is the leading cause of botched investigations and mistrials. Even the suggestion that evidence was mishandled can ruin a prosecutor's case. Think O. J. Usually, it's not the investigation team's fault—the very act of analyzing a crime scene can irreparably taint it.”

“Locard's Exchange Principle,” the detective interjected, nodding.

“Exactly.” She pushed her hair back behind her ear. It was a casual, girlish gesture that she was fully aware made her seem less intimidating. “The best way to preserve the viability of a crime scene is through documentation. What was the exact condition of the premises at the moment the perpetrator left? Were the lights on or off? The doors and windows opened or closed? The carpet pile up or down? You know the drill. So we send in the troops: people to dust, people to photograph, people to sketch and look and bag evidence, people to examine the body.”

Lindsey jumped in again. “And all those people leave traces of themselves, of their having been there.”

She smiled. “That's where this comes in.” She nudged one of her cases with her foot. “This baby will give you lots of documentation—without lots of people.” She paused, then said, “If this is a Pelletier killing, there are four other investigations already under way. I've got the equipment that will help your department be the one to bring this guy down.”

She stopped there, convinced he'd think about the other investigations. The apprehension of a dangerous felon was always everyone's top priority, regardless of who did the catching or who got the credit. Still, she'd never met a law officer who didn't want to be the one who got the bad guy. Right now, Detective Lindsey was wondering if her equipment really could give him an edge.

He pretended to be looking at the spherical case and the bigger valise Nelson had set beside it, but she knew he was really mulling over her involvement. He could play the jerk and make her time here difficult for everyone, or he could cut her some slack, let her call enough shots to ensure optimal conditions for whatever it was she wanted to do, and maybe she'd leave him with something he could use to get a big feather in his cap. He surveyed his troops, and she saw what he saw: curiosity, enthusiasm, a tentative willingness to harness their horses with hers.

“All right,” he said loudly, “whaddaya got?”

6

T
he interior of the old VW minibus was ripe enough to melt plastic. Perspiration, greasy food wrappers, boxes of putrefying Chinese takeout joined with the lingering ghosts of mystery spills and things burned on the now-broken gas stove to exude an atmosphere of olfactory hell. But because it was a new aroma, all Olaf could smell was blood. It would be that way until the dogs licked themselves clean. He cranked the window open a hand's width and savored the rush of cool night air. He was chugging west on State Highway 24, a meandering roller coaster of asphalt that cut into the heart of the Colorado Rockies. He'd already coaxed the van over Wilkerson Pass, and except for the relatively minor Trout Creek Pass, it was pretty much downhill to Johnson Village, where he'd ride 285 and then 50 into Cañon City. Now that he was in the valley between the two passes, he kept an eye out for a wooded turnoff that would provide a place to clean his weapons and let the animals out.

In the back, one of the dogs growled and snapped, and another yelped. Olaf guessed that the chastened animal had tried to swipe a taste of gore from the other's snout.

“Go
stelpa!”
he yelled in the language that had been native to his family for thirty generations. Immediately, a furry body scrambled atop the maps and trash that littered the floor next to the driver's seat. It spun in a quick circle where the passenger seat had been before Olaf heaved it onto the side of the road. The dog was Freya, an exceptionally beautiful creature, but the smallest of the three and too timid around the others.