The One That Got Away (9 page)

Greening watched Martinez stride out of the investigation unit and thought, nice going. He might have burned a bridge there. He’d upset one fellow officer. Now it was time to see if he could upset another. He went through his messages and dug out the note from Deputy Greg Solis. Solis was the investigating officer in Zoë’s abduction case from Mono County. Following up on Greening’s request to the duty officer the night before, Solis had faxed over his complete report with a call back number.

He picked up his desk phone and punched in Solis’s number.

“Deputy Greg Solis, Mono.”

“Hi, this is Inspector Ryan Greening, San Francisco Police Department. I wanted to talk about one of your cases.” He recited the case number. “Zoë Sutton and Holli Buckner.”

“I know the case. Do you have something for me?”

“To be honest, I don’t know what I have. Zoë Sutton claims her case is connected to a homicide we had in the city last night.”

“Really?” Solis didn’t sound that impressed. “Anything to it?”

“That’s what I’m hoping you can confirm. If possible, I wanted to request a copy of the case file.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, but before I go wasting my time, what do you have?”

From his tone, it seemed that Solis either didn’t have a high opinion of the SFPD or of Zoë Sutton. “Last night we had a murder of an unidentified woman in her twenties. She was discovered at a construction site, naked, suspended by her wrists. She’d been flogged repeatedly before being stabbed in the heart.”

“Flogged?”

Greening heard surprise and interest in Solis’s voice. Now he moved to totally hook him. “Yes. Our victim also had the Roman numerals
VI
carved into her left hip. We think he’s numbering his victims.”

Silence. That said plenty.

“I have Ms. Sutton’s account, but could you give me your take, Deputy?”

“We responded to a trucker’s 911 call that he’d found a woman unconscious on the shoulder after spinning out in her car. We found Ms. Sutton naked and semiconscious. At first glance, we thought we were dealing with a DUI. A blood test revealed she was under the limit, but the drug panel revealed Flunitrazepam. This tied into her assertion that she and her friend, Ms. Buckner, had been abducted and held captive.”

Greening didn’t like the way Solis gave his account. He sounded like he was giving evidence in court, not talking cop to cop. Something was off here.

“What did you learn about the abduction?”

Greening heard Solis exhale down the line.

“Not much. Ms. Sutton could provide very few details. She couldn’t give us her whereabouts leading up to the abduction or after. Nor could she provide more than a very generic description of the man who kidnapped her. No one could corroborate her account. Essentially, the case ran out of steam.”

Greening understood Solis’s frustration. There was nothing worse than landing a case with no leads. It was like trying to capture a cloud in a jar. What Greening still didn’t understand was the dismissive tone he was hearing.

“Did you ever get anything from Ms. Sutton’s car?”

“We found fibers and hair belonging to Ms. Sutton, Ms. Buckner, and an unknown male.”

Trace evidence was one thing Greening didn’t have. It showed the guy had gotten careful since Zoë, but if he proved to be careless, a comparison match would nail this guy for both crimes. “If we get anything on our end, I’ll share results with you. Did you ever get a line on this workshop location this guy took them to?”

“We canvassed the area looking for buildings matching the descriptions of the building she mentioned, but we never found a match. That’s if she remembered it right in the first place.”

That was the problem with Zoë. Her account was Rohypnol distorted. A workshop could be an office building or a church basement, for all she knew. “What about Holli Buckner? Did you look into her?”

“Yes. It appeared that Ms. Buckner had reserved a room with Ms. Sutton in Vegas, but we couldn’t confirm or deny whether she was with Ms. Sutton. Proving the validity of her claims was difficult. We couldn’t find any eyewitnesses to prove Ms. Buckner had traveled with her, despite appearances that she had.”

Appeared
and
validity
were interesting choices of words. They fell into the same category as
alleged
. They implied disbelief.

“Holli Buckner hasn’t been seen since this incident.”

“I know.” The words came tight and clipped.

“What do you think happened that night?”

“I don’t know,” Solis said with less tension in his voice. “Ms. Sutton was an unreliable witness. She provided us with a confusing account that made it impossible to pursue a case of any kind.”

Considering Zoë had been roofied, her imprecision wasn’t surprising.

“What’s the case’s status?”

“Open.”

Not a surprising classification under the circumstances, but Greening knew these guys hadn’t done enough on the case. He could rub Solis’s nose in it, but he threw the man a bone instead.

“Just between us, what are your instincts telling you?”

“It could have gone down just as Ms. Sutton says.”

“I hear a
but
in there.”

Solis gave Greening a grunt of appreciation. “This could be a tale to cover a catfight gone bad or a cover for Holli Buckner to disappear.”

Zoë as perpetrator. It was an interesting theory. Solis was as suspicious as Ogawa. “But her wounds?”

“Easily self-inflicted.”

“And the Flunitrazepam?”

“Possibly self-administered.”

“That’s pretty convoluted.”

“It’s just a theory. With so little evidence, everything is in play.”

No love lost here
, Greening thought. Zoë must have made a real impression on these guys, as he didn’t feel they were giving her the benefit of the doubt. He could see Solis’s predicament and possible resentment. He had a case built on vapors. There was nothing solid for him to hang his investigation on. He didn’t have a crime scene, and he didn’t have a victim, per se, because everything hinged off a single, unreliable witness. Holli Buckner’s disappearance said something had happened that night, but without some other piece of evidence, the case had stalled.

“In light of a potential new victim, what’s your read now?”

“Nothing’s changed—yet.”

Greening smiled. “If I drove out there, do you think you could show me around?”

“Not sure that I can show you anything that would help your case, but you’re welcome to visit.”

Ogawa walked into the office, carrying a newspaper and a pissed-off expression. Greening thanked Solis and told him he’d be in touch.

Ogawa parked himself on the corner of the desk. “I’ve got good news and shit news.”

Greening leaned back in his seat. “Give me the good.”

“We have an ID on the Jane Doe—Laurie Hernandez. She made it easy for us. She has a rap sheet. Check her out for me.”

“And the shit news?”

Ogawa tossed the newspaper on Greening’s desk. “Someone talked, because the press has given him a name.”

Greening found the name easily in the story. Because he numbered his victims, they were calling him the Tally Man.

CHAPTER EIGHT

At Urban Paws, Marshall Beck was catching up with the morning news in his office. He scanned the headlines for updates on Laurie Hernandez. He didn’t expect the police to show their hand, but he did expect them to reveal a few case details to quell any public tension. As yet, the police hadn’t revealed Laurie Hernandez’s identity or that of his little runaway, Zoë Sutton. He found it interesting that the cops hadn’t revealed her name or said much about her. None of the network affiliate websites or SFGate.com had reported any updates on her breaking through the police cordon last night, and none of the police statements mentioned her. He took their radio silence as a sign they believed her. She’d persuaded them that she was of value. A tingle of fear passed through him, but he knew he had nothing to worry about. She couldn’t tell them anything. If she’d been able, the police would have tracked him down long ago.

SFGate.com might not have mentioned Zoë, but they did mention him—by nickname. Inspired by the numbers he’d carved into the women, the press was now calling him the Tally Man.

Talentless hacks
, he thought. They’d boiled down what he did to a catchy moniker to sell more newspapers.
With unimaginative thinking like that, no wonder journalism is in the state it is
.

He reined in his contempt. As much as the dumb label irritated him, the revelation that someone had worked out his marking system irritated him more. The Tally Man name was a journalistic invention, but he had his doubts they’d figured out his numerals. That was a police discovery, which meant the SFPD had leaked the numbering of the punished to the press. He didn’t think that was smart of them. Now he knew they were on to him and his point of view. No matter, though; it wouldn’t change anything. He would keep on numbering the punished. Now that it had been revealed, maybe the public would understand what he was doing.

He smelled Kristi Thomas’s perfume a second before she leaned over his shoulder. He hated it when she did that. He didn’t like people invading his space. It was a minor irritation, not serious enough to earn her a
number
. The woman had dedicated her life to saving animals, after all.

“Isn’t it terrible what happened to that woman?” Kristi said.

“Yes, terrible.”

“They say she was flogged and branded.”

They
. What trash. The unnamed sources always knew more than anyone. He hadn’t branded anyone.

“Have the cops worked out who she was?” Kristi asked.

“No, not yet. Can I help you with something?”

“It’s that time of the month—payroll,” she said with a smile. “Is it ready for me to sign off on?”

“Not yet. By lunchtime.”

“Lunchtime.” She nudged him with her elbow, which he didn’t like. “You’re slipping.”

A cacophony of barking exploded throughout the center. It was angry and hostile. Kristi raced out of the room. Beck chased after her.

Dogs in the viewing areas barked in their pens, but that wasn’t the epicenter of the commotion. That was coming from the Assessment Annex. It sounded as if a war had broken out in there. Beck’s thoughts turned to Brando. Had he been provoked?

Kristi pounded on the door. “Is everything OK in there?”

She was smart. If one of the fighting dogs had gotten free, the last thing she could afford to do was let it loose in the visitors’ area.

“Yes,” Tom Fisher yelled back.

Kristi opened the door and went in. Beck followed and closed it behind them.

Tom and Judy King were valiantly attempting to get Nero back into his pen. He was growling and lashing out at them, trying to clamp his teeth down on anything that got near him. They were using an animal-control pole and brute force to try to get the dog back behind bars.

Beck was surprised to see this particular animal at the center of the trouble. He’d always seen it as one of the more docile ones. Then again, it was a fighting dog. That’s what it was trained to do.

In a corner, Bonnie Moebeck had Lilith, another of the pit bulls, pinned in a corner with a second animal-control pole. Kristi rushed over to offer her assistance.

The other fighting dogs barked and snarled in their pens, all except for Brando. By the way he circled his tight confines, he was clearly agitated, but he seemed to recognize that nothing he could do would change his situation. Beck took pride in Brando’s intelligence.

Tom and Judy finally wrestled Nero into his pen and locked the door. They then helped Kristi and Bonnie get the other dog confined.

“What the hell happened?” Kristi demanded.

“We had Nero out for his socialization test, and he did OK,” Tom Fisher said. “We brought Lilith out for hers, and as we were bringing him back, he went for her.”

“Goddamn it,” Kristi said. “You know you can’t take any chances with these dogs until they’re fully assessed. One dog out at a time. That’s the rule.”

The animal-behavior trainers looked suitably chastised, with bowed heads.

“That means Nero just failed his assessment,” Kristi pounded the wall with her fist. “Goddamn it.”

Beck knew what a failed assessment meant for Nero and probably Lilith—euthanasia. A sad end for doomed lives.

“OK, let this be a wakeup call. Carry on with our good works,” Kristi said sarcastically.

Beck got it. She was frustrated by how futile it all was.

Kristi headed back to the door. He stepped in front of her.

“How’s it looking for these guys?”

“Not good.” She cast a look back over her charges. “I don’t think many of them will get a stay of execution.”

“How about Brando?”

She flashed him a quizzical look. “I don’t know at this point—why?”

He flushed under the weight of her stare. “I like him. He seems like he has potential.”

“How would you know?” she asked, genuinely interested.

“I’ve been checking in, seeing how they’ve been getting on. He’s different from the others. Proud. Regal, even.”

Kristi smiled. “Are you interested in adopting him?”

He flushed again and didn’t understand why. “Well, yes.”

“Are we turning you into an animal lover?” she asked.

He recalled their conversation during his interview when Kristi had asked him how he felt about animals. He remarked that he had little interest, but respected the center’s work, and that his primary goal was in doing a good job on their behalf.

“I don’t know about that, but I am sure about Brando,” he said.

“Let’s go into my office.”

Beck flashed Brando a look before following Kristi.

She sat at her desk. He chose to stand.

“Marshall, have you owned many dogs?”

“A few when I was growing up,” he lied. There’d been no boy-and-his-dog moments in his life. There’d been no pets allowed at Jessica’s Palomino Ranch foster home.

“Brando isn’t just an ordinary dog. He’s a fighting dog. He’ll be a challenge for an experienced owner, let alone a novice. That’s even if he’s allowed to be adopted.”