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From a few yards away, Novack watched the scene with a smirk on his face.
“Now,” she insisted.
Leach curled his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What’s going on?” Elliot asked. He’d turned back, probably noticing Kay was no longer hiking with them.
“Your left pocket,” Kay replied, unfazed. She didn’t want to have to call Logan over this or to shove her own hand into the man’s pocket.
Elliot looked at Leach with eyes widened in surprise. The deputy lowered his gaze and reached inside his pocket, then extracted a partially smoked joint nested in the palm of his hand.
“You might’ve compromised the evidence,” Kay said, her voice riddled with frustration. “You know better; what the hell?” She held open an evidence pouch, and Leach dropped the joint in. “If we can’t get DNA from it, there will—”
“It’s mine,” Leach replied, looking at her with cold eyes brimming with hatred. “I sometimes come up here and smoke. That’s my roach; I know where I sit when I come up here and where I flick ’em. But I swear I didn’t touch that girl.”
“You’re going to get a formal writeup for this,” Novack announced, finally taking sides. Kay held her hand up in the air to silence him.
“Then why pocket the roach?” she asked Leach.
He scoffed and looked at her with pure contempt as if she were too dense to figure it out for herself. “You find my DNA up here, you tell me I wouldn’t land on the suspect list?”
He had a point. Kay couldn’t say she condoned what he’d done, but she could understand where he was coming from. His motivation was a good one unless he was hiding something else.
She pressed her lips together for a moment, then asked, “Where were you last night, between six in the afternoon and midnight?”
Irked as hell and turning red in the face, Leach slapped his hands together once, the sound echoing against the stone versants. “See? What did I tell you? Now I’m a suspect. I was at home, where the hell else would I be? I downed a couple at the Hilltop, then I went home. I had a long day.”
“All right, you’re done here,” Elliot said. “Take the lift down if it’s still running, then report back at the station. And stay there until we get back.”
“Son of a bitch,” Leach muttered, departing quickly.
Kay watched him heading downhill for a moment, then continued to climb up the ridge. Only fifty or sixty yards were left, the most treacherous ones, on a narrow path made of sharp boulders covered in moss.
Spartan’s bark tore through the peaceful silence of the mountain. In the distance, Kay could see the K-9 sitting, his tail wagging furiously.
They had found the primary crime scene.
THIRTEEN
PRIMARY SCENE
The ridge widened in that spot and flattened into a small plateau covered in moss. Scattered, crippled old firs—forever bent eastward under the prolonged effects of gusting westerly winds blowing from the Pacific—provided shade for the summer hikers who wanted to spend time up there, taking in the wondrous landscape.
Wildfire Ridge was the second-highest mountain peak, its majestic rock face overlooking the western plains rolling gently toward the ocean. A fallen tree trunk was the preferred seating for hikers who climbed to watch the sunset or take photos of the scenery. On a clear summer day, one could see the gentle Pacific waves glinting in the sunshine.
Not today.
Clouds were gathering quickly, threatening rain, maybe a thunderstorm to go with it. In the distance, lightning flickered at times, the clouds tinted orange and red by the setting sun.
Kay reached Spartan and his handler. The dog still barked at intervals, signaling his find. Under an old fir with low, heavy branches, she found torn black leggings and panties stained with blood.
Putting on a fresh pair of gloves, she collected the clothing as soon as Novack finished photographing it with a yellow marker bearing the number seven on it.
A couple of feet away, she found the place where Jenna had been pinned down and sexually assaulted. White fabric fibers clung to a tree stump. Sharp-edged rocks still bore the stains of her blood. A few drops of blood had fallen on a rock, and a smeared dab of something white was visible next to them. She shone a small black light at the spot, and it luminesced in the dark twilight.
Semen.
The unsub was disorganized and sloppy; he’d left a generous trail of evidence she was happy to follow. Crouching next to the stains with a satisfied grin, Kay took multiple samples. She was still close to the ground when she noticed something colorful under the fir. Two torn condom wrappers found their way into evidence bags, same brand, same color. She searched for the used condoms, but couldn’t find them. Maybe Spartan would if the perp hadn’t thrown them over the edge into the abyss.
