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TWENTY-SIX

Carmen Reynoso sat back and crossed her arms.

“Why did you make the call? Why didn’t Gibbs call us herself?”

“I’m not quite sure about the answer to that one, Detective. It has something to do with the nature of the betrayal she feels she’s engaged in. Turning her husband in is one thing. Making the actual call is something else.”

“You think it’s psychology, then?”

“Isn’t everything?”

“No. Some things are just criminal.”

The distinction was obviously clearer to her than it was to me.

“Are we done?” I asked. I was tired, and the clock told me my girls were due home any minute. I really didn’t want Detective Reynoso here when they walked in the door.

She stood. “Except for your earlier question. Time of death? Remember? You still interested?”

“I didn’t think you were actually going to answer me.”

The snow was coming down in waves. A curtain of white, thick enough to obscure the entire valley, would blow by over the course of a few minutes, and then suddenly a sparser fall would reveal the dark geometry of the fence posts and dirt tracks in the greenbelt below our house. After a brief interlude of visibility the curtain would shut, the angularity would disappear, and the world would again become white.

A couple inches of snow were already piled on the grasses and in places on the ground that spent the late autumn in shadows.

Carmen Reynoso stared at the winter spectacle, her lips parted. “I’ve only seen snow a few times in my life. I’m an Oakland girl. Didn’t ever get to Lake Tahoe much. It’s mesmerizing.”

The sardonic quality of her Lake Tahoe comment was oddly alluring. I said, “There’s a moment during every storm when I’m overcome by the beauty of it all. And a moment, usually a little later on, when I’m almost-almost-overcome by the aggravation of it all.”

She turned back toward me, puzzlement in her eyes.

I explained. “Driving in it. Shoveling it. Walking through the slush of it. It gets old.”

Her next words surprised me.

She said, “You’re not a romantic, are you? I took you for a romantic. A knight-in-shining-armor-type guy.”

“Wrong conclusion, I think. I am a romantic. I’ll be romantic about this storm all day today and all night. Then tomorrow morning, sometime around fiveA.M.,my neighbor will fire up her little green John Deere and start plowing our lane. That’s when the romance will begin to disintegrate, with the sound of my neighbor singing Christmas carols on her John Deere at five o’clock in the morning.”

“And that’s so bad because…”

“You’d have to know Adrienne. She makes up her own words to the carols, and she can’t sing to save her life.”

Reynoso stepped away from the windows. “At least you get your driveway plowed.”

“You have a little Pollyanna in you, don’t you, Detective?”

“Very little, Doctor. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Maybe your neighbor will take the Lord’s day off.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “That would be nice.” I didn’t bother to clarify that if Adrienne was anything religiously, she was Jewish, and that affiliation would make her Sabbath Saturday, not Sunday.

“The time of Louise Lake’s death has never been made public.” Reynoso’s change of direction was abrupt. Sam did the same thing to me sometimes. I was beginning to suspect that cops in general have an underappreciation of the value of segue in conversation. “The press has always reported it was Wednesday, and we’ve never contradicted them in any of our public statements. Gibbs’s contention that it was Tuesday, not Wednesday, is what hooked us-hooked me, anyway-that her story might be… real. Because the coroner says it was indeed late afternoon, early evening on Tuesday, and not late Wednesday, that Louise Lake was murdered.”

I tried to keep my face impassive.

“But what really hooked me was something Gibbs didn’t say, that she only implied. We’ve left the public with the impression that Louise was murdered on the beach and her body was pulled out into the water. Numerous reports from neighbors indicated that she walked the cove and the tide pools at least twice a day when she was staying in town, often at dawn or dusk. The public version of the crime is that someone followed her to the beach, or waited and accosted her there, and killed her. Maybe a crime of opportunity, maybe not.”

“But she didn’t die on the beach?”

“No. She died on the rocks. Her body had premorbid wounds from the rocks. And the broken window in her back door? It’s not public information, either. Therefore Sterling knew something he shouldn’t know.”

“Why was the window broken? Is there is evidence of a struggle in the house?”

“No comment.”

“You haven’t talked with Sterling yet?”

“No. He’s in Florida. Something tells me he’s going to lawyer up anyway. I’m proceeding as though we’re not going to have an opportunity to interview him.”

“Do you have enough to arrest him?”

“If we did, he’d be in custody.”

I tried a segue-free transition of my own. “Why a tide pool? The killer must have known the body would be discovered soon enough.”

“Louise Lake’s body was not placed in the tide pool. It was dumped into the Pacific, we think it got caught on something, and was in the water for almost thirty-six hours before it floated free and back into the tide pool during high tide.”

We walked to the entryway, and I helped her with her coat.

“You can’t repeat any of this,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. I was already wondering why she had told me what she’d told me. I wasn’t considering the possibility that her volubility on the subject of Louise’s murder was evidence of indiscretion. Rather, I assumed that Reynoso had another motive for talking with me. What? I wasn’t smart enough to know.

She went on. “I heard from a couple of local cops that over the years you’ve demonstrated some wisdom about forensic things-you know, from a psychological perspective-so let me ask you something. From what you know about him-I’m talking Sterling Storey, obviously-could he have done it? Could he have killed Louise Lake?”

I considered the flattery-the spoonful of sugar-and the question-the bitter pill-that she wanted me to swallow. I said, “I’m sorry, but answering that would take me places that I’m not permitted to go, confidentialitywise. I wish I could respond, although I’m not sure of the value of what I might have to offer. Opinions are opinions, you know.”

That little crease reappeared above her nose. She said, “I think I’ll just take that as a yes.”

Changing the subject seemed like a good idea. “Are you okay driving in this? In snow?”

“How would I know?”

“If you don’t know, then you’re not okay.”

“Any tips for a virgin?”

“Take it slow. Don’t be afraid to use second gear. Ignore the assholes plowing by you in four-wheel-drive pickups and SUVs.”

“And if I skid on the ice?”

“Don’t. It’s better if you don’t skid.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.”


TWENTY-FIVE | Blinded | TWENTY-SEVEN