withheld that,” I admitted.
“That’s what they tell me.” Increasingly nervous, Max shifted on the couch and cleared his throat. His voice went soft and gentle to calm me. I hate it when people do that. It’s never a good sign. “Then, Brigid, when the techs told George Manriquez, the ME—”
“I know the medical examiner.”
“—about the journals he got the facts of the case and put them together with his examination of the body found in the truck. Despite the mummification he had detected a crushed hyoid bone, slashed Achilles tendon, missing right ear. It was all there, the whole MO.”
“The mummy on the truck,” I said.
Max nodded. “Just like the Route 66 victims.”
Unable to come up with any other explanation, I finally asked the question, my heart pounding in anticipation of the answer. “Is it her? Is the mummy on the truck her, Max?”
His answer was both relief and disappointment. “No. It’s not Jessica Robertson’s body. At least according to Lynch.”
“Oh,” I breathed, a very small, empty nothing of an oh. So close to finding her after all this time, and yet she wasn’t there. I fumbled my way to the recliner that faced the couch, and folded into it when my knees gave way.
And then he added more hurriedly than before, “But he says he can take us to her.”
Even with this information I didn’t trust what I was hearing. “Just like that, he confessed?”
“They had him boxed in and offered life.”
“The fucker made a deal.” The violin string I hadn’t felt in a long time vibrated in my chest, and I felt my ire rise. “Where is she?” I was ready to grab my bag.
“Allegedly, in an abandoned car. Off the old back road to Mount Lemmon.”
“Has anyone informed her father yet?”
Who knows how they all thought I’d react? His mission accomplished and observing my failure to freak, Max relaxed his spine and let himself get sucked a little into the overstuffed couch. “Don’t worry. We’re waiting for verification before we do that, but it was time to let you know. Your involvement in the case, I mean. I spoke with the special agent on the case, you know Laura Coleman?”
“I met her while I was doing time in the Tucson office. I thought she worked fraud.”
“She switched to homicide after you left. She thought we should tell you and bring David Weiss in.”
“David Weiss knows already?”
My tone must have gotten its edge back then, and Max struggled to extract himself from the back cushions, sit up a little straighter, and return to his soothing voice. “Yes. Since he was the profiler on the case he’s flying in tonight to do a competency test so we can make sure we’ve got all the ends tied up for life without parole.”
“I want to come to the dump site,” I said.
But before Max could respond, I heard the garage door go up and the Pugs both whisked off the couch to greet their master. Carlo’s deep voice of all things normal preceded him into the kitchen area. “Honey, the Tanqueray was ten dollars more than at Sam’s Club so I just got a few other things, Breath Busters for the dogs and a salami.” He stopped at the sight of Max and me staring back at him as if we’d been caught trying to hide something, which in a way we were.
“Walgreens sells salamis?” I asked.
“Hello, Max,” Carlo said.
“Hey, Carlo.”
“Is something wrong?” Carlo asked.
Max opened his mouth to speak but I got there first, shifted to normal for Carlo’s sake. It was a knee-jerk reaction.
“Everything’s fine, honey. Max was just saying he needs a poker and philosophy session.”
Three
The death toll on the day I talked to Max was officially six, if you didn’t count the new mummy found on the truck. There were five murders before Jessica, all girls from the ages of eighteen to twenty-three, their naked bodies left in degrading positions along or off State Road 40, what used to be called Route 66. A lot of travelers wanted to get their kicks hitchhiking the famous route from Chicago to LA, kind of like the Appalachian Trail, only paved. The girls who were killed over the course of five years never won their bragging rights.
The killer operated between Amarillo, Texas, and Flagstaff, Arizona, and only killed one girl every summer. It was how he spent his summer vacation.
You could tell the same guy murdered all five girls because his MO was very distinctive. Slash their Achilles tendon to