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“Did anyone see her the night she died?” asked Devine. “Dr. Guillaume mentioned a time window.”
“Pat Kingman saw her walk out of the inn around seven thirty,” said Fuss. “She didn’t see which way she went.”
“How far from there was she found?”
“Three point two miles. I clocked it in the car,” answered Fuss.
“Weather that night?”
“Raining like cats and dogs,” answered Fuss.
Devine shifted his focus to Guillaume. “Anything else I should know? Signs of a struggle? Defensive wounds? Skin of an assailant under her nails? Any other forensic evidence at all?”
“No,” said Guillaume. “Just the casing.”
“Are you still looking for the round?”
Fuss said, “It was heading toward the ocean after it left Jenny’s body. Long gone by now, don’t you think?”
Devine glanced at her and noted the condescending expression. He had seen that look sometimes on superior officers of his, the ones who had been several degrees removed from the actual conditions on the ground, but thought they knew better. He hadn’t liked it then and he didn’t like it now.
“Any luck on tracking down the person she was with?”
“Whoa now, who said she waswithanyone?” exclaimed Harper.
“I doubt she walked over three miles in the pouring rain to where she was killed. And she obviously didn’t drive herself.”
A wide-eyed Harper said, “Hell, you think she drove over there with someone?”
“Well, it’s our job to find that out, right? So let’s go to the crime scene.”
When Devine looked at Guillaume, she was giving him a tiny smile. He returned it.
I’ll take any support I can get right now, thought Devine.
It was like he was back in Afghanistan looking for a friendly face.
And I never found many. Let’s hope I do better on American soil.
CHAPTER
9
ALIGHT DRIZZLE WAS FALLING ASDevine followed the pair in the muddy cruiser with a bent front ram bar. Devine knew they would learn little at the crime scene in the darkness. But he needed to get a feel for its structures, its parameters and possibilities.
He had been right in telling Campbell that he was not a trained investigator, but the old general had also been correct in informing Devine not to sell himself short in that regard. He had solved the mystery in New York. But he’d had help, and he’d also allowed himself to get shot. With his own gun! That still hurt his pride.
In the Middle East he had done countless battlefield assessments. The Army documented everything. Battle assessment methodologies, collateral damage assessment, munitions effectiveness, reattack recommendation methodologies, post–campaign operations actions. In this regard they were looking for the smallest clues and telltale signs as to why a combat operation had not gone according to plan or why damage was above expectations. Or how an IED had been able to get close enough to kill its intended target. So his mind was trained to see certain things.
Sometimes things went sideways just due to shitty luck, Devine knew. When many people were gathered in close quarters trying their best to kill one another, there wasn’t a report or methodology in the world that could cover all the possible contingencies or outcomes. Humans under threat of death were just too unpredictable; some turned into cowards, and others into heroes, and still others into both.
Devine had, on numerous occasions, successfully interrogated people he thought were allies and those he knew to be enemies, and found out vital information in most of those cases. He had not done it with brute force, though on occasion he had wanted to as he stared into smug expressions projecting unearned superiority. They were the hardened countenances of people who would do absolutely nothing to help you and absolutely anything to do the opposite to you. He hoped whatever talent he possessed for this sort of work was enough for this case. Campbell seemed to have faith in him, justified or not.
He looked over, and there stood Jocelyn Point like a lighthouse on the coast, only with very little light to offer. Offshore a collection of blackened clouds was gathering and perhaps pondering whether to come onto land and pummel the puny scattering of humans who dwelled there.
A few minutes later the cruiser pulled off to the side of the road, rubber gripping mud, and stopped. Devine slipped his Tahoe in behind and got out.
So she died not that far from her old homestead.
