4th of July Read online

  The stop-and-go rush hour traffic was typical for a weekday, so I pointed the Explorer in a southerly direction and used the time to replay my last brief talk with Chief Tracchio.

  “If it were me, I’d get the hell out of here, Boxer,” he’d told me. “You’re on restricted duty, so call it vacation time and get some rest.”

  I understood what he wasn’t saying. While my case was pending, I was an embarrassment to the department.

  Get lost?

  Yes, sir, Chief. No problem, sir.

  Agitated thoughts bounced around inside my skull about the preliminary hearing and my fears concerning the upcoming trial.

  Then I thought about my sister, Cat, putting out the welcome mat and how lucky that was for me.

  Within twenty minutes I was heading southbound on Highway 1, the open road cutting through thirty-foot-tall boulders. The waves of the Pacific pounded the rocky incline to my right, and great green mountains rose high on my left.

  “Hey, Boo,” I said, calling my dog by her pet name. “This is what’s called a vacation. Can you say va-ca-tion?”

  Martha turned her sweet face and gave me a loving brown-eyed look, then put her nose back into the wind and resumed her joyous surveillance of the coastal route. She’d gotten with the program, and now I had to do the same.

  I’d brought along a few things to help me do just that: about a half dozen books I’d been wanting to read; my screwball-comedy videos; and my guitar, an old Seagull acoustic that I’d strummed sporadically for twenty years.

  As sunshine brightened the road, I found my mood lightening. It was a stunning day and it was all mine. I turned on the radio and fiddled with the dial until I found a station in the thick of a rock and roll revival.

  The disk jockey was practically reading my mind, spinning hits of the seventies and eighties, sending me back to my childhood and to my college days and memories of a hundred nights with my all-girl band jamming in bars and coffeehouses.

  It was June once again, and school was out—maybe for good.

  I turned up the volume.

  The music took me over, and my lungs filled as I sang LA dude rock and other hits of the times. I crooned “Hotel California” and “You Make Loving Fun,” and when Springsteen bellowed “Born to Run,” I was pounding the steering wheel, feeling the body and soul of the song out to the ends of my hair.

  I even egged Martha on, getting her to howl along with Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty.”

  And that’s when it dawned on me.

  I really was running on empty. The little blinking gas light was frantically signaling that my tank was dry.

  Chapter 24

  I COASTED INTO A filling station right inside the limits of Half Moon Bay. It was an indie that had somehow avoided takeover by the oil conglomerates, a rustic place with a galvanized-steel canopy over the tanks and a hand-lettered sign over the office door: Man in the Moon Garage.

  A sandy-haired guy looking to be in his late twenties wiped his hands on a rag and approached as I got out of the car to work a cramp out of my bum leg.

  We had a brief exchange about octane, then I headed toward the soda machine in front of the office. I looked around the side yard, a lot full of sticker weeds, teetering towers of worn-out tires, and a few beached old junkers.

  I’d just lifted a cold can of Diet Coke to my lips when I noticed a car in the shadows of the garage that made my heart do a little dance.

  It was a bronze-colored ’81 Pontiac Bonneville, the twin of the car my uncle Dougie had owned when I was in high school. I wandered over and peered into the passenger compartment, then I looked under the open hood. The battery was encrusted, and mice had eaten the spark plug wires, but to my eyes the innards looked clean.

  I had an idea.

  As I handed my credit card to the gas station attendant, I pointed a thumb back over my shoulder and asked, “Is that old Bonneville for sale?”

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” He grinned at me from under the bill of his cap. He balanced a clipboard against a denim thigh, ran the slider over my card, then turned the sales slip around for me to sign.

  “My uncle bought a car like that the year it came out.”

  “No kidding? It’s a classic, all right.”

  “Does it run?”

  “It will. I’m working on it now. The tranny’s in good shape. Needs a new starter motor, alternator, a little this and a little that.”

  “Actually, I’d like to fool around with the engine myself. Kind of a project, you know?”

  The gas station guy grinned again and seemed pleased by the idea. He told me to make him an offer, and I put up four fingers. He said, “You wish. That car’s worth a thousand if it’s worth a nickel.”

  I held up the flat of my hand, five fingers waggling in the breeze.

  “Five hundred bucks is my limit for a pig in a poke.”

  The kid thought about it for a long moment, making me realize how much I wanted that car. I was about to up the ante when he said, “Okay, but it’s ‘as is,’ you understand. No guarantees.”

  “You’ve got the manual?”

  “It’s in the glove box. And I’ll throw in a socket wrench and a couple of screwdrivers.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  We high-fived, low-fived, bopped our fists, and shook on it.

  “I’m Keith Howard, by the way.”

  “And I’m Lindsay Boxer.”

  “So, where am I delivering this heap, Lindsay?”

  It was my turn to grin. Caveat emptor, indeed. I gave Keith my sister’s address and directions on how to get there.

  “Go up the hill, then turn onto Miramontes and then onto Sea View. It’s a blue house on the right, second one in from the end of the road.”

  Keith nodded. “I’ll drop it by day after tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  “Excellent,” I said, climbing back into the Explorer. Keith cocked his head and flashed me a flirtatious look.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere, Lindsay?”

  “No,” I said, laughing. “But nice try.” The gas station guy was coming on to me! I was old enough to be his . . . big sister.

  The kid laughed along with me.

  “Well, anyway, Lindsay. Call me anytime if you need me to bring over an engine hoist or whatever.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” I said, meaning just the opposite. But I was still smiling as I honked the horn good-bye.

  Chapter 25

  SEA VIEW AVENUE WAS a link in a looping chain of cul-de-sacs, separated from the curving arms of the bay by a quarter-mile stretch of dune grass. I opened the car door, and as Martha bounded out, I was almost blown away by the heady scent of rockroses and the fresh ocean breeze.

  I stood for a minute, taking in Cat’s cheery house, with its dormers and porches and sunflowers growing against the fence in the front yard, before taking the keys from the niche above the lintel and opening the door into my sister’s life.

  Inside, Cat’s home was a comfy hodgepodge of overstuffed furniture, crammed bookshelves, and gorgeous views of the bay from every room. I felt my entire body relax, and the idea of retiring from the force rose up in me again.

  I could live in a place like this.

  I could get used to waking up in the morning thinking about life instead of death.

  Couldn’t I?

  I opened the sliders to the back deck and saw a playhouse out in the yard. It was painted dusky blue like the house itself and was fenced all around with white pickets. I made my way down the back steps right behind Martha, who was running with her head down low.

  I suspected that I was about to meet Penelope.

  Chapter 26

  PENELOPE WAS A LARGE Vietnamese potbellied pig, all black and whiskery. She waddled over to me, huffing and snoodling, so I leaned over the fence and patted her head.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” I said.

  Hi, Lindsay.

  There was a note tacked to Penelope’s little bungalow, so I entere
d the pen to get a better look at “The Pig House Rules,” as “written” by Penelope.

  Dear Lindsay,

  This note is all about me.

  1) I’d like a cup of pig chow twice a day and a clean bowl of water.

  2) I also like cherry tomatoes, Saltines with peanut butter, and peaches.

  3) Please come out and talk to me every day. I like riddles and the theme song to SpongeBob SquarePants.

  4) In case of emergency, my vet is Dr. Monghil in town and my pig-sitters are Carolee and Allison Brown. Allison is one of my best friends. Their numbers are by the kitchen phone.

  5) Don’t let me into the house, okay? I’ve been warned.

  6) If you scratch me under the chin, you can have three wishes. Anything you want in the whole wide world.

  The note was signed with big Xs and a pointy little hoofprint. The Pig House Rules, indeed! Cat, you funny girl.

  I catered to Penelope’s immediate needs, then changed into clean jeans and a lavender sweatshirt and took Martha and the Seagull out to the front porch. As I ran through some chords, the fragrance of roses and the salty ocean tang sent my mind drifting back to the first time I’d come to Half Moon Bay.

  It had been just about this time of year. The same beachy smell had been in the air, and I was working my first homicide case. The victim was a young man we’d found savagely murdered in his room in the back of a sleazy transient hotel in the Tenderloin.

  He had been wearing only a T-shirt and one white tube sock. His red hair was combed, his blue eyes were wide open, and his throat had been slashed in a gaping grin stretching from ear to ear, nearly decapitating him. When we turned him over, I saw that the skin on his buttocks had been flayed to ribbons with some kind of lash.

  We’d tagged him John Doe #24, and at the time I fully believed that I’d find his killer. John Doe’s T-shirt had come from the Distillery, a tourist restaurant situated in Moss Beach, just north of Half Moon Bay.

  It was our only real clue—and although I’d combed this little town and the neighboring communities, the lead had gone nowhere.

  Ten years later, John Doe #24 was still unidentified, unclaimed, unavenged by the justice system, but he would never be just another cold-case file to me. It was like a wound that ached when it rained.

  Chapter 27

  I WAS ABOUT TO drive into town for dinner when the late-evening newspaper landed with a whomp on the lawn.

  I picked it up, shook out the folds, and felt the headline reach out and hook me: POLICE RELEASE PRIME SUSPECT IN CRESCENT HEIGHTS SLAYINGS.

  I read the article all the way through.

  When Jake and Alice Daltry were found slain in their house in Crescent Heights on May 5, police chief Peter Stark announced that Antonio Ruiz had confessed to the crime. According to the chief today, the confession didn’t jibe with the facts. “Mr. Ruiz has been cleared of the charges against him,” said Stark.

  Witnesses say Ruiz, 34, a maintenance worker for California Electric and Gas, couldn’t have been in the Daltrys’ house on the day of the murders because he was working his shift in the plant in full view of his coworkers.

  Mr. and Mrs. Daltry had their throats slashed. Police will not confirm that the husband and wife were tortured before they were killed.

  The article went on to say that Ruiz, who’d done some handiwork for the Daltrys, claimed that his confession had been coerced. And Chief Stark was quoted again, stating that the police were “investigating other leads and suspects.”

  I felt a reflexive, visceral pull. “Investigating other leads and suspects” was code for “We’ve got squat,” and the cop in me wanted to know everything: the how, the why, and especially the who. I already knew the where.

  Crescent Heights was one of the communities along Highway 1. It was on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay—only five or six miles from where I was standing.

  Chapter 28

  GET IN AND OUT in under five minutes. Absolutely no more than five.

  The Watcher noted the exact time as he stepped out of his gray panel van onto Ocean Colony Road. He was dressed as a meter man this morning: dun-colored coveralls with a red-and-white patch over the right breast pocket. He pulled down the bill of his cap. Patted his pockets, feeling his folding knife in one, his camera in the other. Picked up his clipboard and a tube of caulk, tucked them under his arm.

  His breathing quickened as he took the narrow footpath alongside the O’Malleys’ house. Then he stooped at one of the basement window wells, stretched latex gloves over his hands, and used a glass cutter and a suction cup to remove a twenty-four-by-twenty-inch pane of glass.

  He froze, waiting out the yipping of a neighbor’s dog, then slipped feet first down into the basement.

  He was in. Not a problem.

  The basement stairs led up to an unlocked door to a kitchen filled with deluxe appliances and a ridiculous excess of gadgets. The Watcher noted the alarm code posted by the phone. Committed it to memory.

  Thanks, Doc. You dummy.

  He took out his small, excellent camera, preset to shoot in bursts of three consecutive shots, and pointed it around all sides of the room. Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt. Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt.

  The Watcher bounded up the stairs and found a bedroom door wide open. He stood for a moment in the doorway, taking in all the girly things: the four-poster bed, ruffles in lavender blue and creamy pink. Posters of Creed and endangered wildlife.

  Caitlin, Caitlin . . . what a sweet girl you are.

  He pointed the camera at her vanity table, zzzt-zzzt-zzzt, capturing images of lipsticks and perfume bottles, the open box of tampons. He sniffed the girly scents, ran his thumb across her hairbrush, pocketed a long strand of red gold hair from the bristles.

  Leaving the girl’s room, the Watcher entered the adjacent master bedroom. It was draped in rich colors, redolent with the smell of potpourri.

  There was a supersize plasma screen TV at the foot of the bed. The Watcher pulled open the night table, rifled through it, and found a half dozen packets of photographs wrapped in rubber bands.

  He undid one of the packets and fanned the photos out like a deck of cards. Then he returned the packet and closed the drawer. He took a slow pan around the room with his camera whirring.

  That’s when he noticed the little glass eye, smaller than a shirt button, glittering from the closet door.

  He felt a thrill of fear. Was he being taped?

  He pulled open the closet door and found the video recorder on a shelf at the back wall. The on-off button was in the off position.

  The machine wasn’t recording.

  The Watcher’s fear lifted. He was elated now. He panned his camera, capturing each room on the second floor, every niche and surface, before heading down to his basement exit. He’d been inside for four minutes and a few seconds.

  Now, outside the house, he ran a line of caulking along the window glass and pressed it back into place. The caulk would hold until he was ready to enter the house again—and torture and kill them.

  Chapter 29

  I OPENED CAT’S FRONT door, and Martha yanked on her lead, pulling me into shocking sunshine. The beach was a short walk away, and we were headed toward it when a black dog zoomed out of my peripheral vision and lunged at Martha—who pulled free of my grasp and bolted.

  My scream was cut short when something rammed me hard from behind. I fell, and something, someone, piled on top of me. What the hell?

  I tore free of the tangle of flesh and metal and stood up, ready to swing.

  Damn! Some idiot had run me over with his bicycle. The guy struggled to his feet. He was twenty-something, with thinning hair and pink-framed glasses hanging from one ear.

  “So-phieee,” he yelled in the direction of the two dogs now barreling toward the water’s edge. “Sophie, NO!”

  The black dog braked and looked back at the cyclist, who adjusted his glasses and turned a worried look toward me.

  “I’m so s-s-sorry. You okay?” he asked. I felt him grappl
ing with his stutter.

  “I’ll let you know in a minute,” I said, fuming. I limped down the street toward Martha, who was trotting toward me, ears back, looking whipped, poor thing.

  I ran my hands over her, checking for bites, hardly listening as the cyclist explained that Sophie was just a puppy and didn’t mean any harm.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ll g-g-get my car and drive you to the hospital.”

  “What? No, I’m okay.” And Martha was fine, too. But I was still pissed. I wanted to blast the guy, but, hey, accidents happen, right?

  “What about your leg?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “If you’re sure . . . ?”

  The bike guy leashed Sophie and introduced himself. “Bob Hinton,” he said. “If you need a good lawyer, here’s my card. And I’m really sorry.”

  “Lindsay Boxer,” I said, taking his card. “And I do need a good lawyer. Some guy with a baby rottie ran over me with his Cannondale.”

  The guy smiled nervously. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

  “My sister, Catherine, lives there.” I pointed to the pretty blue house. Then, since we were headed the same way, we all trooped off together along the sandy footpath that bisected the dune grass.

  I told Hinton that I was staying at my sister’s house while taking a few weeks off from my job with the SFPD.

  “A cop, huh? You’ve come to the right place. All those murders that have happened around here.”

  I went hot and cold at the same time. My cheeks flamed, but my insides turned to ice. I didn’t want to think about murders around here. I wanted to detox. Take my R&R. And I certainly didn’t want to talk anymore with this blindsiding lawyer, although he seemed nice enough.