California Girl

Just as Nick was ready to leave the homicide room his phone rang. It was Roger Stoltz, who said he was sorry that Nick had missed today’s four o’clock appointment. He had been looking forward to talking with Nick. Was everything okay?

Nick apologized. Felt like a school kid without his homework. Told himself it’s easy to forget appointments when evidence starts falling into your lap.

Stoltz asked him not to worry, said he was just in from D.C. a few hours ago and ready to go home.

“I’m looking forward to the weekend with Marie,” he said. “Now Nick, look. My secretary here says you wanted to talk about Janelle. Anytime. Anywhere. I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Nick, do you have a suspect?”

“Possibly.”

Silence for a moment. A very deep sigh from the other end.

“I would still like to know about the Newport Beach apartment,” said Nick.

“Anytime and anywhere.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Regards to Max and Monika. And to your brothers. We’ll see David in church Sunday.”

“We’ll be there, too,” said Nick.

By the time they got back to Cory Bo

The blue and white pickup truck was gone. Two deputies stood near the garage, two more in a unit blocking the driveway.

“Good to have the troops,” said Lobdell. “I had my hand in the cookie jar once, the guy comes home. I’m in the kitchen checking the cutlery box for a missing carving knife and he jumps me. Never heard him. Didn’t see him. I got him under control, but he could have shot me or stabbed me easy.”

Superior court judge Wes Dickinson had thrown them a loose one, good for the main house, the pool house, the garage, and both vehicles in the garage. Even the trunks of the cars. It specified not only the bloodstained sheets but “evidence of the subject’s presence at the SunBlesst packinghouse on October 1 or 2 of this year; evidence of the subject as party to or having knowledge of the murder of Janelle Vo

“My kinda judge,” said Lobdell.

The Porsche was locked but the Cadillac wasn’t. Nick used a flashlight and magnifying glass to examine the Coupe Deville’s floorboard carpet and the red leather seats. Plenty of sand, dirt, fiber, bits of paper. Strands of what looked like human hair. Some light like Bo

He popped the trunk. Saw the lid rise in the rearview. Heard Lobdell.

“Hmmm, Nick.”

Nick jumped out, walked back to Lobdell. Looked down into the spacious trunk. A small toolbox. A set of jumpers, some car wax, and rags in a box.

And a sleeping bag. Black plastic bottom outside for moisture. Yellow-and-black-checked fla

Nick pulled it out and set it beside the box. Spread it out a little. Found the head end, began unzipping it. Big enough for two. Stubborn zipper and a musty smell.

Debris inside. Black stuff. Flecked and fragile. Like burned paper, thought Nick. Or soot. Some dark hairs. Easy to see on the yellow fla

A saw blade. Swivel bolt still attached to a shard of wood. Blood all over them, too.

By four-thirty they’d tossed the house, too, but hadn’t come up with much else.

By six-thirty they had a warrant for the arrest of Cory Bo

By seven they’d talked to Don Rae of Laguna PD. Rae’s source had confirmed that afternoon that Cory Bo

Rae said he’d let Nick know the second Bo

“Janelle Vo

Nick thanked him and hung up.

“Ensenada,” said Nick. “A little out of our jurisdiction.”

“There’s a way to bring him back here,” said Lobdell. “You just gotta have the nerve for it.”

29

THAT SUNDAY DAVID SAT in the first row of the Grove Drive-In Church of God to watch Darren Whitbrend deliver his guest sermon.

The young minister looked fuller in his robes. More authoritative. David had noted Whitbrend’s elevator shoes earlier in the vestry where they had enrobed. David could feel the worry coming off Whitbrend. Downcast eyes, tight jaw, few words.

Which was fine with David, who felt his own body on the verge of falling apart.

Barbara held one of his clammy hands. Wendy the other. Rachel lay on Barbara’s lap wrapped in a blanket. Two-year-old Matthew sat beside his mother, frowning his way into a bowel movement.

David watched with envy. He hadn’t had one since talking to Hambly, then Howard, on Thursday. Nothing would stay down long enough. He had drunk half a coffee mug of pink antacid earlier, trying to keep down his breakfast of white sandwich bread. Pretty much the same for di

The pains in David’s stomach were coming faster now, like contractions for birth.

He felt a drop of sweat roll off his nose but couldn’t get a hand free in time to stop it. Watched it plop onto the leg of his Haggar knits.

Whitbrend began slowly and softly. His oratorical voice hardly stronger than his speaking voice. At first it seemed too low, so David found himself having to pay extra attention. Wondered why Whitbrend didn’t just get a little closer to the mike. Then David realized the whole congregation was listening closely.

Whitbrend told about growing up in Oregon. In a godless family. No church, no prayer, no belief. He was a mean-tempered boy. Utterly selfish. When he was seventeen he fell “helplessly” in love with a girl. All he felt in his heart was love for her and for everything around him. Took her to the homecoming dance, the Sadie Hawkins dance, and the junior prom. On the way home from the prom a car ran a stop sign and crashed into them. He had lain trapped in the upturned car, caught in metal and vinyl under her bleeding, unmoving body, praying to the God he never knew to save her life. He told God he would do anything asked of him if He would spare her life.

Whitbrend looked down at the pulpit for a moment. It was so quiet David could hear the cars on faraway Beach Boulevard. Could hear the squirting and sloshing inside his own stomach.

Whitbrend stepped away from the pulpit, then back.

She was dead when the police got there, he said. They lifted her off him and took him to a hospital. He suffered a broken wrist and minor cuts. All that night he stayed in the hospital for observation, and he prayed to the God he never knew that when he awakened this would all be a bad dream. He squeezed his eyes and arched his back and trembled on his heels and he ground his teeth in prayer. Over and over and over. When he awakened his father was standing over the bed with a broken tooth in his hand.