Hunter's Trail

Jesse nodded and took a few steps back and to the side, giving Waters room to see her assigned area. While he waited, he studied the area behind the tape. The whole scene almost looked like a blast radius, like a bomb had gone off in the cemetery. He’d never seen anything like it. Blood pebbled on the gravestones, saturated the grass in wide swaths, dripped down the sides of shrubbery. The blood splatter experts were going to be here for days.

“Who found the bodies?” he asked Waters.

Her eyes flicked back toward him with benign interest, like she’d forgotten all about him. “Neighbors, sir. They reported strange noises two hours ago.”

Jesse nodded and went back to surveying the crime scene. He realized that it wasn’t actually a blast site, but almost an optical illusion: the center of the taped-off area hadn’t been leveled by an explosion; it was just a wide, flat clearing created by four rows of in-ground placard markers, the kind that everyone said were easier for the cemetery groundskeepers. It had just been hard to see them at first because of all the blood.

The boundary dividing the rows of placards and the skewed rows of gravestones was an enormous monument, a great rectangle that would have reached Jesse’s chest, topped with a stone tiger the size of a beagle. When he looked closely Jesse saw the red blood streaking down the side of the monument, splattering the tiger’s back like so many stripes. His eyes moved down to the bodies just in front of the tiger’s perch, and beyond them to scan the in-ground grave markers more carefully.

Many of them had been cracked in half. Most of them were splattered with blood. There were little numbered evidence cards scattered over the markers and the ground around them. Marking more blood.

What the hell could crack in-ground grave markers?

One of the technicians in coveralls and paper booties hurried over, and Jesse saw that it was Runa, a black camera strap around her neck, her corn silk pigtails backlit by the spotlights. Jesse’s heart ached for a moment. She was so beautiful, even in the stupid coveralls: lithe and poised, stepping with her feet turned out slightly like a dancer. “Jesse, hi,” she said, speaking fast. Tension saturated the air between them for a moment, and Jesse struggled to push through it. Runa solved the problem by reaching across the caution tape to hand him a pair of booties. “Put these on and come with me.” To Waters, she added, “Bine wants him to look at the bodies close up.”

Waters shrugged and nodded, the responsibility of minding Jesse officially handed off to someone else. Jesse had to stand on one foot at a time to put on the booties, wobbling a little but managing to not fall over. Then Runa lifted the tape for him and he ducked under.

“Watch your step,” she ordered. “They put markers near the blood splatters they could find, but they keep finding more. Try not to step on any.” Jesse nodded and concentrated on stepping around the little yellow evidence markers.

“I’m just about done here,” Runa said over her shoulder. “But the ME is already getting his stuff out to take the body. You’ve only got a minute.”

Jesse followed her into the spotlights. There was a small crowd of crime scene technicians still moving around the scene, Glory among them, and the medical examiner’s people were waiting with a stretcher. Jesse nodded to a couple of techs he’d worked with before, feeling his cheeks redden self-consciously. It made no sense for him to be in the middle of such a complicated crime scene. He looked around for the Homicide Special detectives. “Runa, where’s . . .”

His voice trailed off as he noticed a woman in her late thirties approaching them. She was exactly as tall as Jesse’s six feet, a skinny woman with a splatter of freckles across her face and slightly frizzy red hair that she’d grown too long and tied back in a lifeless ponytail that hung down her back like a kicked dog. Despite her gangly limbs, she had no trouble negotiating the evidence markers. She made a beeline straight for Jesse with her right hand extended.

Runa started to introduce them. “Jesse, this is—”

“Sarabeth Bine,” said the red-haired woman. Up close she was a little older than he’d first thought, with plain weathered features. She shook Jesse’s hand vigorously. “And you’re Cruz. I’d introduce my partner, but he went to inform the next of kin. Runa tells me you have an eye for the weird ones. I appreciate you taking a look at this.”

“Not a problem,” Jesse said, trying to sound confident.

Bine looked thoughtfully at Jesse for a second, then pointed a finger at his chest. “You’re the one who wrapped up that La Brea Park thing a few months back, right? The golden pretty boy?”

“I’m not—I wasn’t really,” Jesse stammered, blushing fiercely.

Sarabeth Bine continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “That was weird. Okay, well, sign the register, take a quick look, and update me before you go. I gotta talk to the evidence guys about the search.”

“Search?”

She glanced at Runa. “You didn’t tell him? Good.” Bine smirked. “More fun if it’s a surprise.” To Runa, she added, “You should start packing up, but be ready to step in if they find anything.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Runa promised. Bine rushed off again like a questing bumblebee, and Jesse let out a breath he’d somehow been holding. “I gotta get back to work,” Runa murmured. “You good?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Jesse said, off balance. He automatically reached out a hand to touch Runa’s shoulder, but stopped the gesture halfway there, awkwardly turning it into a professional clap on the back. Runa rolled her eyes and went off to finish her job.