Cry Wolf (2 page)

In your face
.

“Whoever you are,” Laura said to the killer. “You knew what you were doing.”

All signs pointed to a hit. An execution. Efficient, economical, bloodless, no overt evidence, except for what ballistics would have to offer and possibly shoe prints if they could see them, and of course threads, hair, skin—whatever they could vacuum up.

She thought he might have been waiting for someone.

Either that, or he was foolish enough to buzz down his window and talk to a stranger who ended up killing him.

Time of death had yet to be established, but Laura thought he was probably killed some time in the night. Sunglasses on the dash. He hadn't been wearing them, which meant it was probably dark at the time he was shot. The bare legs poking out of his hiking shorts were darker than the rest of his body, shading down from flesh color above the knee to brick red and finally to deep purple at the ankles.
Hypostasis
. The heart stopped pumping, and blood sank down to the lowest point. Knees bent, right foot stretched a little closer to the accelerator.

A bee zoomed past. It was getting warm already. An insect bit her ankle.

Two other things soon became apparent: the victim still had his wallet, and if he'd had a cell phone, it was gone now.

In the wallet was a DL and several credit cards. Also the receipt from the car, rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Flagstaff two weeks ago.

Presumably, the renter was Sean Perrin, forty-five, blue and brown, five-foot-nine, no glasses.

This trued up with the man in the car.

Just then Anthony Lake showed up.

“So what's kicking?” Anthony asked, then answered for himself. “Not that guy.”

Cop humor.

He leaned over and peered in. “Efficient.” Straightened, rubbed his shiny bald head. Anthony was in his early forties, a string bean of a guy, tall and pale because he avoided the sun. “Let me guess, a .22?” he asked, cocking his head. “Perfect kill shot. His eyes are closed. Looks to me like a hit.”

Laura pointed out, “His eyes are just shut. Not squeezed shut.”

Anthony nodded to the wallet. “Where's he from?”

“Vegas.”

Anthony stepped back. “Nice wheels, for a rental.” He removed his sunglasses and polished them with a handkerchief he carried for that purpose. “I can see it—he's on the run, big trouble in Sin City, he lights out for the boonies, ditches his own car along the way. Scary stuff going on in Vegas. You remember that shootout by those pimps who were supposed to be rappers a while back? Big collision on the Strip and boom! That was one
hell
of an explosion. Maybe that's the kind of thing we have here. This guy thought he got away, but it always catches up with you.”

“Let's take a look at the rest of his receipts,” Laura said, trying not to smile. Anthony was a good cop, it was just that he saw every homicide through two lenses—what they could piece together to make a case, and how he could use it in one of the screenplays he liked to write in his spare time. Fortunately, the case always came first.

Very carefully, she teased out each receipt from the wallet with tweezers and photographed them one by one, including a receipt from Madera Canyon Cabins.

So Sean Perrin had stayed here in the canyon. He had not driven up here for just the day. That narrowed it down. Otherwise he could have come in from Tucson, or Nogales, or Green Valley, or some other place. That meant that he had interacted with someone here, if only the person who ran the credit card and gave him the key to his cabin.

He could have been planning to meet someone at the trailhead.

Anthony had sketched out a possible scenario, describing it like he was pitching a script.

He even framed the scene with his hands.

“Maybe the guy was parked here—waiting for someone? He fell asleep? And boom! Somebody just shot him point blank. What do you think?”

“You think it was the person he was waiting for?”

“Don't know. Probably. But what if he was waiting for someone and somebody just came by and popped him? For the hell of it? Could be an either/or kind of situation.”

“Both of them make good theories. But why?” Laura reached into her pocket and unscrewed a small can of lip balm, rubbed it on her lips. Arizona was beautiful in the spring, but dry.

Anthony shrugged. “That's the million-dollar question.”

Anthony went up in the DPS helicopter to survey the crime scene. He would be looking for anyone who might be hiding and could be seen from above. Viewing the terrain from a height would give him a perspective they did not have right now. It might shake loose an idea or two.

Probably for his next screenplay.

Laura saw the crime techs out. She oversaw the transfer of the body to the M.E.'s van, and after that, the transport of the car to a flatbed truck headed for Tucson, then followed them down the canyon road. She turned off at Madera Canyon Cabins.

There were a lot of ways to describe the cabins scattered near the road. Quaint. Rustic. Americana. Charming.

Growing up, Laura used to come with her parents to Madera Canyon, but only for the day. She always looked longingly at the cabins, wishing they would stay there just once. It was like a little wonderland, like the houses you might see on the North Pole, especially the one time they'd come out around Christmas. They drove back in the evening and the Christmas lights had come on—all blue.

Set back a little from the road, with wild grass and low fieldstone walls and oaks and bird feeders and walnut trees, the little glade seemed enchanted. Amazing that it had not changed one iota in all these years.

Last October Laura and Matt had stayed here for a couple of days, shutting out the madness of the world. Shutting out the manic quality to the teeming streets and freeways, the strip malls and chain stores and restaurants and traffic they encountered every day in their jobs.

Laura parked on the lane into the property and headed for the sign marked OFFICE, past the colorful dragonfly. A breeze blew through, shuffling the oak leaves like cards.

Seven small cabins and a house belonging to whoever ran the place. The porches were recessed in shadow at this time of morning.

Time to learn more about Sean Perrin.

Laura recognized the woman in the office. Broad muffin face, dark black hair falling into a pageboy, bangs, squarish frame glasses. She wore a T-shirt with the Madera Canyon Cabins logo—a cabin in the woods. She moved in flurries—clearly rattled. She’d been crying.

“Are you with the Sheriff’s?” she said, unable to take her eyes from the shield on Laura's belt.

Laura introduced herself. “Is there a place we can talk?” She nodded at an older couple looking at knick-knacks on the gift shelf.

The woman's eyes grew large. She put her hand to her mouth. “So it's true?” She whisked around, tramped over to a closed door, threw it open, and motioned Laura inside.

What Laura got was gossip, which was useful, but often unreliable. It would take time to unravel. The woman who ran the cabins, Barbara Sheehey, insisted on moving around the small office. The space was cramped—a cheap desk, a couple of cheap chairs. Old double-doored steel cupboard. This was the back room where nobody came. No pine-finished floors or cheery curtains in here. Just a sliding glass door out to a washer/dryer. Sheehey opened boxes containing woodsy knick-knacks for the shelves in the front room and kept from looking at Laura.

Upset, but who wouldn’t be?

They got the basics out of the way. Sean Perrin had been there almost two weeks. He had the middle cabin across the parking area.

“I thought there was something wrong with him,” Sheehey said. “And I’m not alone.”

“Something wrong with him?”

She swiped at her bangs. “He made me nervous, is all.”

“Nervous?”

“I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But I can tell you he was full of sh—excuse me,
full
of it.”

“About what?”

Hands flapping in the air. “Oh, I dunno. Everything? You could tell he thought he was God’s gift. Always boasting about something.”

“Like what?”

“His wife, his two kids. They were
perfect
. His wife was a model with Ford Modeling Agency. Well, why didn’t he bring them on vacation with him? He left them in Vegas.”

“Is that why he was here? On vacation?”

“He said birding, but I never even saw him with binoculars. He just didn’t look or act like a birder. They’re a special breed.”

“How else was he . . . full of it?”

“I didn’t talk to him that much, thank
God
, I’m too busy working, you wouldn’t believe what a drain this place is on one person, but Cody—my son—seems to think he dropped out of Heaven.”

“What did Cody say about him?”

“Oh, God, what
didn’t
he say? All sorts of stories.” She waved them away along with a horsefly that zoomed in through the hole in the window screen. “I can’t remember half the stuff Cody’s been telling me. I have
work
to do. My husband died two years ago and saddled me with this place and yes, it’s a living, but it’s such a
drain!
”

“Can I talk to Cody?”

“Sure. Knock yourself out! It’s summer vacation, so he’s around.” She paused. “I just heard from Terry Barnett, he’s the ranger here with the Forest Service? So maybe Cody knows already.” She paused, touched her mouth again. “It’s gonna hit him like a ton of bricks.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“I just heard my
self
.”

“So they were good friends?”

“He filled Cody’s head with all sorts of stuff. Cody liked him—like hero worship.” Her face crumpled. “This is going to be so hard on him. Especially now, after Jack died.”

As Laura left the cabins office, the helicopter flew overhead. She squinted against the sun and waved.

She’d been up in helicopters looking down on crime scenes dozens of times, but was perfectly happy to let Anthony take over. The way the thing banked always sent a thrill of fear into her belly, and she guessed it always would. Anthony, on the other hand, looked at a helicopter ride the way her flat-coated black retriever, Jake, looked at car rides. He couldn’t get enough of them.

Yellow crime scene tape had already been strung around Perrin’s cabin and blocked off half the parking lot. Additionally, yellow tape had been sealed across the door. A Forest Service ranger named Dolan had parked his truck just outside the tape—she could hear reports on his radio. He was the responding officer, and would block entry to the scene.

Laura talked to him for a minute, told him she wanted to catch people first and get their accounts, and leave Perrin’s cabin for later.

She didn’t have to go far to find Cody. The boy was sitting on the low post and rail fence that fronted the road, throwing pebbles into the gravel parking lot.

His mother said he was eleven years old. He was big for his age, chunky like his mother. He wallowed in an oversize “Zombies Ate My Homework” tee—Xtra Large—and polyester sports shorts—like basketball shorts. Completing the ensemble were new athletic shoes.