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I reached her and grabbed her hand.
“Cindy, I can’t …”
“Lindsay, this is freaking me out.”
“Me, too.
“I keep thinking about Evan Burke. He confessed to killing Lorrie and Tara, right? We did get the right guy?”
“Ofcoursewe did,” I said to Cindy.
Cindy was the undisputed expert on Burke, but her confidence was shaken. I worried that she was grappling with the effects of her Burke-induced PTSD.
She said, “I can put out photos with a request for information in about ten minutes.”
“It’s too soon, Cin. They may have been reported missing.”
The police line parted and the ME’s van drove through, taking the service entrance to the beach.
“Cindy. I gotta go.”
Brady signaled to me, and together we headed down to the scene.
CHAPTER 20
BRADY, CONKLIN, ALVAREZ, and I stood on the beach watching the CSIs do their work. The area had been scoured for anything that could be related to the victims, and nothing had been found. And then, as he’d done when the victim on Baker Beach had been Burke’s granddaughter and he was the new chief of SFPD, Charles Clapper stepped into the undulating surf.
This time Gene Hallows, who replaced Clapper as head of forensics, joined him.
They worked as a unit, Clapper getting a grip under the dead woman’s arms, while Hallows grasped her ankles. Together, they lifted the mother, the baby still strapped to her, and carried them up to dry land.
I was close by and saw that even waterlogged and wave-tossed, the woman had been beautiful. Now, water sluiced from her clothes. Her coat was open, exposing her red and white sweater, her dark gray pants. Without anyone to support her arms, they fell from her sides and hung below hertorso. Seawater dripped from her fingers and her long dark hair. One of her boots had come off and her bare foot looked swollen and all too human.
But it was the baby’s face that just killedme. I couldn’t look away. She was just about a year old and I had a clear image in mind of Julie at that age. Impish. Feisty. Giggly. In those ways, Julie hadn’t changed, but she had grown. Now, she was nearly five, could do new things every day, things that this little girl …
I watched as Clapper and Hallows placed the bodies on a sheet-lined gurney and with Claire and her team slid the gurney inside the van. With Claire’s okay, I gowned and gloved up and I climbed through the rear doors and stood aside as a tech wrapped the bodies.
CSI had taken their photos on the beach. Claire would take photos in the morgue and both sets would be sent to Brady. Before the day was over, we would have a file on the unknown victims and our work would begin.
Claire said, “Linds. We have to go.”
“Sure. I’ll see you later.”
“Give me the rest of the day to do the external exams.”
We reached out to each other and even in that cramped space managed to hug. Then I climbed back out of the van.
Brady called to me. I discarded my wardrobe covering and got into the squad car beside him. On the road again, he conspicuously turned off the radio, but I had nothing to say.
He said, “Lindsay. Listen to me. I know how you feel and that’s as it should be. But I want you to get mad. Can you do that? For that woman. For her baby? For me? I’ve known you since I came out here. You’ve closed more cases than me. Youhold the record. I’m not saying get crazy mad. Get smart mad. The victims need you and this case is yours.”
“Brady. Claire hasn’t pronounced them homicides.”
“Let me rephrase. If someone killed this woman and her child, we must get him. And I’ll say it again. It’s your case.”
Got it.
Back in the squad room, I followed Brady to his office. When he snapped his head around and saw me, I saw that he was in pain. I expected him to bark, “What?”
