Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [66]
Another blackout was coming, and I couldn’t fight it. Instead of escape, I dozed in the chair, wondering if offenders shut down in the midst of crimes; if the Mission Impossible Bandit, at the peak of excitement, having made it through the roof and on his way, had not also been overwhelmed by a contradictory torpor; if he had not lain down and slept a while on the warm, waxed linoleum floor of the employee lounge, while the ticking minutes unlocked the vault.
The phone on my desk jerked me awake. It was Dr. Arnie from the forensic lab.
“You told me to put the pedal to the metal on the rape so we cross-referenced the chemicals in the paint flake with particles of soil found on Juliana Meyer-Murphy’s clothing. Might have something for you.”
I reached for a pad.
“She was probably taken to a post–World War Two house in a loamy area of the coast.”
“What do you mean, loamy area?”
“Well, loam is soil that’s generally a mix of sand, clay, silt and organic matter.”
“I know what loam is, it’s the area I would like more clearly defined.”
“You mean, where the house was that he took her?”
“Yes. Where the house was that he took her!”
“That would be an older residential section, not too far inland, most likely on the Pacific coast, judging from the plant material, which is mainly—”
“Arnie.” Struggling. “The Pacific coast of the United States is almost a thousand miles long.”
“You might like this better. About the shoe print on her back. Turns out to be an outsole lug pattern on a combat-style boot manufactured in New Hampshire, sometime in the past two years, sold under the name Climbers. Total order seventy-five thousand pairs. I know what you’re gonna say: Hold it, Dr. Arnie! This is what you give me? One boot in seventy-five thousand pairs that walked in an area approximately one thousand miles long, sometime in the last two years? This is what I say to you: I can reduce the possible number of boots that could have made that particular impression to six-point-two-five pairs!”
Hearing nothing in reply, Dr. Arnie continued talking to himself:
“Out of seventy-five thousand pairs, they made ten thousand in size ten, for which four hand-engraved molds were needed. That would be twenty-five hundred left and twenty-five hundred right outsoles from each size-ten mold. The possible left or right outsoles sharing class characteristics of the molded outsole would therefore be twenty-five hundred …”
The numbers came at me like enemy fire. They drilled holes in my head.
Where was Andrew? Had he made it to a hospital? Had he told them? Was he dead? Was that possible? Him, inert? I know what dead is. Could I have done that? What a colossal mistake, pulling that gun. What a horrible, tragic, unbearable bungle. Stupid. I messed up, all right. What did I think? He was Ray Brennan coming at me? What was I aiming for? Ray Brennan’s face on the bathroom door?
“The same pair of left and right outsoles, bearing the same crime scene impressions, will occur six hundred and twenty-five times out of ten thousand …”
I wanted to stand up and scream. An unseen hand reached around from behind and clamped itself over my mouth.
By evening of that day in hell, I had still heard nothing. No grave message from the Santa Monica Police Department. No burly pair of homicide detectives showed up for a private talk.
As an investigator, I’d had to learn patience. It was a skill I worked hard to achieve, since I have the metabolism of a hummingbird—dart here, dart there, get the gist and be gone. Now I forced myself to slow down and ask, What do I really know?
Andrew had been wounded but had gotten into his car and driven away. Our trainers tell us if you are seriously injured and you know it within fifteen seconds, you are likely