Crush - Alan Jacobson [70]
She hung up and waited for Robby to call her. Meantime, she didn’t want to move—she’d already compromised the crime scene by crawling through it. At present, less was more. She kept her feet planted.
Robby’s call came through two minutes later. She told him her location, as best she could estimate, then waited. A short time later, two cars pulled up simultaneously, approaching from opposite directions. As Dixon and Robby exited their vehicles, Vail called out to them. As they started toward her, Brix drove up. The three of them left their headlights burning and stood at the edge of the vineyard, twenty yards from Vail’s Taurus. To their right sat Fuller’s upended vehicle.
“Sorry,” Vail called to them.
“For what?” Robby asked.
“The car. It only had thirty thousand miles on it.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m still groggy and dizzy, but I’ve been worse.” Robby knew firsthand she was telling the truth.
Dixon turned on the black tactical flashlight she was holding and panned it around. She paused on Fuller’s Chrysler. “What happened?”
“Fuller tried to kill me again.”
“Again?” Brix asked.
Vail went through the sequence of events in as much detail as she remembered, including Rooney’s discovery of the sealed record.
Brix and Dixon shared a look of disbelief.
“So that’s what I mean by ‘again.’”
“Until we know for sure,” Brix said, “it’s just a theory.”
Vail let that slide. “Whatever,” she said. “But you may want to notify Stan Owens. I’m sure he’ll want to come down here, ID the body.”
Brix pulled his phone. “Damn straight.”
“Meantime, I’ve gotta find my sidearm without disturbing the area more than I already have.”
“Get Matt Aaron down here,” Brix said to Dixon. “And an ambulance for her.”
“I don’t need an ambulance,” Vail said. “I’ll be okay, I just need some time.”
“You’re getting the ambulance,” Dixon said. “This is no time for tough guy theatrics. Sounds like you were injected with something. Until we get a better handle on what happened to you, we need to do this right.”
Robby took the flashlight from Dixon, then stepped closer to Vail. “I don’t know where the crime scene boundary is, but you think you can catch this?”
“I’m still kind of groggy and unsteady. Just stay there and shine the light on the ground. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
After several minutes of doing a tight-beamed grid search, Vail saw something metallic at the base of a thick vine. “Over there.” She pointed to the spot and Robby moved a step to his right, crouching lower to change the light’s angle. “Got it.” She stepped a few paces to her left, toward the handgun. “I’m gonna put my business card under a rock to mark where we found it.”
Using the bottom, clean portion of her blouse, Vail picked up the Glock and blew on it to dislodge any loose dirt. She pulled the slide back and gave it another good infusion of air. Then she carefully slipped it into her fanny pack. “I’m gonna have to turn it in to the local resident agency. They’ll send it on to the lab for processing.”
“Did Fuller ever touch it?”
She thought a moment before answering. “I think he just knocked it out of my hand. I picked it up after, so I’m pretty sure there aren’t any of his prints on there.” She carefully made her way out of the vineyard, doing her best to avoid destroying any trace evidence or footprints.
When she reached Robby, they embraced.
“Ready to go home yet?” he asked by her ear.
Vail looked up at him, her expression hard, her jaw set. That was the only answer he needed.
“I’ll call the resident agency, if you want. Which one is it?”
Vail stepped away and brushed back her hair. “Santa Rosa.”
Robby strained to get a look at his watch. “Hopefully I’ll catch someone working late.” He pulled out his phone and started dialing.
The flash of a first responder’s light bar flickered in the night sky, accompanied by a siren that pierced the countryside like an air raid warning. As Vail sat down on the bumper, a clean-cut paramedic in his late twenties jumped out and attended to