The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (78 page)

The margins between the road and the cliff had grown too wild in places for a man to get through, but the dog was keen to explore today, and Peter watched as he forced himself into thickets of bramble. He walked on, following the headland around to the west. He watched the dog bound ahead, cutting a line through the sumac and salt hay that was as straight as an arrow. Peter lived on the other side of the bay, in Richmond, and he had always had a keen interest in the local flora and fauna. He found the rough natural world interesting, which was reason enough, but it was also professionally useful to have some knowledge of the area that you were working in. As he followed Jethro through the salt hay that morning, he found himself thinking that this part of the world would not have changed much in hundreds of years. Once you were down the slope a ways and the city was out of sight, the view would have been unchanged for millennia.

He stepped carefully through the bracken, navigating the thick clumps of poison ivy before breaking into the open and tramping down the suddenly steep slope to the water’s edge. All along the beach were stacks of tombstones brought over from Tiburon. They had been piled into makeshift jetties to help combat the constant erosion, and the salty bite of the tide had caused them to crumble and crack.

The dog paused for a moment, frozen still, his nose twitching, and then as Peter watched with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation, he sprinted towards the deep fringe of the undergrowth. He got six feet in and stopped, digging furiously with his forepaws. Peter struggled across the soft, wet sand as the dog started to bark. When he got there, the dog had excavated the sand so that a flap of canvas sacking had been exposed. He called for Jethro to stay, but he was young and excited and knew he was onto something, so he kept digging, wet sand spraying out from between his hind legs.

By the time the ranger had fastened the lead to the dog’s collar, he had unearthed a skull, a collarbone and the start of a ribcage.

MEG GABERT had always wanted to act. She was a born performer, that was what she would tell anyone who cared to ask her about her ambitions, and as far as she was concerned, she was going to make it. She hadn’t decided exactly what her talents best suited—acting or singing, she could do both—but there was no question about it in her mind: she was going to be famous. It wasn’t in doubt.

When she was in seventh grade, she had taken to the stage in her school’s production of
Bugsy Malone
. She had hoped to play Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, but that role had been assigned to a rival. She ended up playing Blousey Brown, a sassy dame who had designs on Hollywood, and once she had gotten over her disappointment, she decided that this was the better role, one that was more suited to her. She had a great voice, and everyone said that she was brilliant on opening night. The local paper exclaimed that she stole the show. It was something she would never forget: the excitement she felt while she was standing there in the single spotlight, belting out the numbers to a roomful of parents and friends. If she had needed any confirmation about the course she had chosen for herself, this was it. From that point forwards, performing would be the only thing she was interested in doing.

Getting to the stage where she could make enough money to support herself through her acting was going to take some time, and until that happened, she had paid her way with a little hooking. It had started with webcams, but then she had realised there was more to be made by going a little further. She had posted an ad on the Fresno/Adult Services page of Craigslist a year after she graduated from high school. She had a killer photo from a session she did for her acting portfolio, and the replies had been instantaneous.

She was hanging out with a guy in those days, this dude called Clay, nothing serious, just messing around, and she had persuaded him to come along and keep an eye on her. He drove her from job to job. They worked out a routine to keep her safe: he called her cell ten minutes after she went inside, and if there was no answer, then he would know that she was in trouble. If she answered, everything was fine. She charged a hundred bucks an hour and gave him twenty.

It was going okay, but she was always a little nervous that she’d bump into a john again when she was off the clock. She knew, too, that there was better money to be made in a bigger city. She thought of Los Angeles, but the idea of being closer to Hollywood and her dream frightened her; she wasn’t ready for that yet. San Francisco seemed like a good compromise.

The difference in the city was stark. It was full of johns, and they were of a much higher class than the bums and stiffs she was used to in Fresno. There were plenty of out-of-towners away from home and bored and looking for a little fun. She would take her laptop to a hotel room, post an ad, and wait for the calls. She could get through four or five appointments and clear a thousand bucks every night, easy. The men were a real mixture: some were old and wanted to daddy her; others were young and trim and good-looking. The money was amazing. She took rooms in the nicest hotels with views of the Golden Gate and ate in the best restaurants. She never had any problems with what she was doing. It was another performance, in a way. The johns were prepared to pay to spend time with her. She could play any number of parts for them: schoolgirl, vamp, prim secretary. Their adulation was instant and obvious. For as long as she was with them she was desired: full of potential, the centre of attention, loved, rich. And what was wrong with that?

SHE HEARD THE CADILLAC before she saw it. It backfired loudly from a couple of blocks away, the noise carrying down the street and around the corner to where she was waiting at 6
^th
and Irving. The engine sounded throaty and unhealthy, as if it was about to expire, and she had been nonplussed as it pulled over to stop at the edge of the sidewalk opposite her. The man she had spoken to on the phone had said that he was an executive from a company that dealt in cattle all the way across the south-west. He certainly had the accent for it, a mild Southern burr that lent his voice a musical quality. She hadn’t expected him to be driving a beat-up car like this, but as she crossed the sidewalk to the open window, she chided herself for jumping to conclusions.

A bum begging for change next to the entrance to J.C. Penney watched as the door was opened for her. He watched as she carefully slid into the car, her hands pressing down her skirt as she lowered herself into the seat. The man didn’t think twice about it, and she hardly registered; he was hungry and more interested in adding to the couple of bucks in change that had been tossed into the cap on the sidewalk before his folded legs. If he had paid attention, perhaps he would have noticed the look of confusion on the girl’s face as she looked, for the first time, at the man who had picked her up. He might have remembered more if he had known that he would be the last person to see the girl alive.

MILTON LEANT BACK and traced his fingers against the rough vinyl surface of the table. It had been marked by years of graffiti: gang tags, racial epithets and unflattering remarks about the police, some of them quite imaginative. There was a dirty glass of water, an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied for days and, set against the wall, a tape recorder. He crossed his arms and looked up at the police officers who were sitting opposite him. The first was a middle-aged man with several days of growth on his chin, an aquiline face and a lazy left eye. The second was a little older, a little more senior, and from the way the two of them had behaved so far, Milton could see that he was going to keep quiet while his partner conducted the interview.

The young one pressed a button on the tape recorder, and it began to spool.

“Just to go through things like we mentioned to you, we’re gonna do a taped interview with you.”

“That’s fine,” Milton said.

“There’s my ID. And there’s my partner’s.”

“Okay.”

“So I’m Inspector Richard Cotton. My colleague is Chief of Detectives Stewart Webster.”

“I can see that.”

“Now, first of all, can you please state your name for me?”

“John Smith.”

“And that’s S-M-I-T-H.”

“Correct.”

“Your date of birth, sir?”

“Thirty-first of October, 1973.”

“That makes you forty, right?”

“It does.”

“And your address at home?”

“259 Sixth Street.”

“What’s that?”

“A hotel.”

“An SRO?”

“That’s right.”

“Which one?”

“The El Capitan.”

“How are you finding that? Bit of a dive, right?”

“It’s all right.”

“You say so. Phone number?”

He gave them the number of his cellphone.

“Are you all right for water?”

“Yes.”

He tossed a packet of cigarettes on the table. “Feel free to light up. We know this can be stressful.”

Milton had to stifle a long sigh of impatience. “It would be stressful if I had something to hide. But I don’t, so I’ll pass, but thanks anyway. Now, please—can we get started? There’s already been too much waiting around. Ask me whatever you like. I want to help.”

Cotton squinted one eye, a little spooky. “All right, then. John Smith—that’s your real name, right?”

“It is.”

“And you’re English, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been to England. Holiday. Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, all that history—one hell of a place.”

Milton rolled his eyes. Was he serious? “Just ask me about Madison.”

“In a minute, John,” the man said with exaggerated patience. “We just want to know a little bit about you first. So how come you ended up here?”

“I’ve been travelling. I was in South America for six months, and then I came north.”

“Through Mexico?”

“That’s right.”

“How long you been here?”

“Nine months. I was here once before, years ago. I liked it. I thought I’d come back and stay a while.”

“How have you been getting by?”

“I’ve been working.”

Cotton’s good eye twitched. “You got a visa for that?”

“Dual citizenship.”

“How’s that?”

“My mother was American.” It was a lie, but it was what his passport said. Dual citizenship saved unnecessary nonsense that would have made it more difficult for him to work. Being able to claim some connection to the United States had also proven to be useful as he worked his way north up the continent.

“All right, John. Let’s change the subject—you want to talk about Madison, let’s talk about Madison. You know we’ve dug up two bodies now, right?”

“I’ve seen the news.”

“And you know none of them are her?”

That was news to him. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“That’s right—none of them. See, Madison had a metal pin in her hip. Fell off her bike when she was a girl, messed it up pretty good. They had to put one in to fix it all together. The remains in the morgue are all whole, more or less, and none of them have anything like that.”

Milton felt a moment of relief but immediately tempered it; it was still surely just a matter of time.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t find her,” Cotton went on. “If you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know that we’re still searching the beach, and we’re very concerned that we’re gonna find more. So, with all that being said, let’s get down to meat and potatoes, shall we?”

“Please.”

“Why’d you do it, John?”

Milton wasn’t surprised. “Seriously?”

“What did you do with her body?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not kidding, John.”

“No, you’ve got to be. It’s nothing to do with me.”

“Answer the question, please.”

He looked dead straight at the cop. “I just answered it. I didn’t do it. I have absolutely no idea where she is.”

“So you say. But on your own account you were the last person to see her alive.”

He clenched his fists in sudden frustration. “No—that’s not what I said.”

“You got a temper, John?”

“I don’t know that she’s dead. I hope she isn’t. I said that I was one of the last people to see her before she disappeared. That’s different.”

“We know the two girls we’ve got in the morgue were all hookers. Madison was hooking when she disappeared. It’s not hard to join the dots, is it?”

“No, it isn’t. But it has nothing to do with me.”

“All right, then. Let’s change tack.” He took a cigarette from the packet and lit it, taking his time about it. He looked down at his notes. “Okay. The night after she disappeared—this is the Friday—we’ve got a statement from Victor Leonard that says you went back to Pine Shore. He said he saw you coming out of the garden of the house where the party was the night before. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“We checked the security camera, Mr. Smith. There’s one on the gate. We looked, and there you are, climbing over the wall. Why’d you do something like that?”

Milton gritted his teeth. The camera must have run off rechargeable batteries that would cut in when the power went out. “The gate was locked,” he said.

“Why didn’t you buzz to get in?”

“Because someone had changed the code to the gate after Madison disappeared. Rather than wasting your time with me, I’d be asking why that was. A girl goes missing, and the next day the code to the gate is changed? Why would they want to keep people out? Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”

“We’ll be sure to bear that in mind. What were you looking around for?”

“Anything that might give me an idea what caused Madison to be so upset that she’d run away.”

“You spoke to Mr. Leonard?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Madison went to his house. I wanted to know what she said to him.”

“He say anything useful?”

He thought of Brady. “Not really.”

“And you don’t think all this is something that the police ought to do?”

“Yes, I do, but Madison’s boyfriend had already reported her missing, and he got the cold shoulder. Most crimes are solved in the first few hours after they happen. I didn’t think this could wait.”