Crush - Alan Jacobson [6]
Overall, it was inconvenient—and no fun admitting you had such an irrational weakness. But she was now afflicted with the malady and she did her best to control it. Control? Not exactly. It controlled her. Manage it was more accurate. Take her mind off it, talk herself through it until she could move into roomier quarters.
Sometimes, though, she thought she might actually claw through walls to get out. Getting squeezed into an elevator was the worst. For some reason, people didn’t mind cramming against you if the alternative meant waiting another minute or two for the next car.
Vail slung her purse over her shoulder so it rested on her back, then moved the weak light around, taking care not to tread on anything that might constitute evidence.
“Maybe we should call it in,” Robby said. “Let the locals handle it.”
“The locals? This isn’t exactly Los Angeles, Robby. I seriously doubt they have a whole lot of murders out here. If the vic’s been cut like Miguel says, the local cops’ll be out of their league. They’re going to look at the crime scene but won’t know what they’re seeing.”
“Beyond the obvious, you mean.”
“The obvious to me and the obvious to a homicide detective are not the same things, Robby. You know that. When you encounter something unusual—no matter what profession you’re talking about—would you rather hire someone who’s seen that unusual thing a thousand times, or someone who’s only seen it once or twice?”
“If we do find something, we won’t have a choice. We’ve got no jurisdiction here.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
They turned left down another tunnel, which opened into a large storage room of approximately a thousand square feet. Hundreds of French oak barrels sat on their sides, stacked one atop the other, three rows high and what must’ve been fifty rows long. A few candelabras with low-output lightbulbs hung from above, providing dim illumination. The walls and ceiling were constructed of roughened multicolored brick, with multiple arched ceilings that rose and plunged and joined one another to form columns every fifteen feet, giving the feel of a room filled with majestic gazebos.
A forklift sat dormant on the left, pointing at an opening along the right wall, where, amidst a break in the barrels, was another room. They moved toward it, Vail shining the flashlight in a systematic manner from left to right as they walked. They stepped carefully, foot by foot, to avoid errant hoses and other objects like . . . a mutilated woman’s body.
They entered the anteroom and saw a lump in the darkness on the ground.
Robby said, “That bridge you just mentioned? I think we just came to it.”
“Shit,” Vail said.
“You didn’t think Miguel was pulling our leg, did you? He looked pretty freaked out.”
“No, I figured he saw something. I was just hoping it was a sack of potatoes, and in some kind of wine-induced stupor, he thought it was a dead woman.”
“With her breasts cut off?”
“Hey, I’m an optimist, okay?”
Robby looked at her. “You’re an optimist?”
As they stood there, Vail couldn’t take her eyes off the body. She’d come to Napa to relax, to get away from work. Yet lying on the cold ground a little over twenty feet away was an all-too-obvious reminder of what she’d come here to escape.
Then she mentally slapped herself. She was pissed at having her vacation ruined. The woman in front of her had her life ruined.
Vail took a deep breath. “You have cell service? We need to call this in.”
Robby flipped open his phone. “No bars.”
“No bars in Napa? Some other time and place, that would be funny.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Humor is the best defense mechanism. Honestly, this sucks, Karen. You needed