Thrill Kill (Matt Sinclair #2) - Brian Thiem Page 0,5
it was a soggy nude-colored bra and lace panties. He crouched down to see if there was anything under the clothes.
Talbert walked up the path. “Find something?”
“The witness said his dog had grabbed some item of clothes around here. Probably this stuff.”
“I’ll photo everything and collect it.”
“Appreciate it.”
“You okay, Sarge?”
Sinclair straightened up. He hadn’t slept well in weeks, and his nerves felt ragged. Stuff that used to roll off his back was now weighing him down. “I wish she would’ve stayed in Minnesota and had a normal life.”
“You can’t save them all,” Talbert said.
“It just seems like we hardly save any of them anymore.”
Back at the parking lot, a heavyset man was loading camera equipment into the hatchback of a Honda CRV. Sinclair recognized him as a stringer who often showed up at fires, accidents, and crime scenes. He sold his photos and video to whichever news organization would pay.
The man slammed the trunk. “Sergeant Sinclair, what can you tell me about this one?”
“Nothing much,” Sinclair said. “Woman found dead in the park.”
“Cause of death?”
“That will have to wait until the autopsy.”
“Hanging by her neck from a tree. I can guess she didn’t die from drowning.”
“But if you guess wrong . . .” Sinclair let him ponder the repercussions to his reputation. “Did you get any good shots?”
“Got some good stills of her silhouette hanging there. Can’t tell she’s naked, especially in black and white, so the papers could use it. The video didn’t turn out as well, but who knows, maybe it’ll be a slow news day. Is she anyone famous?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She’s a hooker, right?”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s Oakland, man. In this town, the odds are a man gunned down in a drive-by is a drug dealer and woman stripped of her clothes and hung from a tree is a hooker. Looks like it’s just another number in Oakland and nobody cares.”
“I do,” Sinclair said as he turned and walked to his car.
The rain had stopped, and Sinclair threw his hat in the back seat. He remembered the words from his first homicide partner, Phil Roberts, when they stood over the body of a young drug dealer killed in a drive-by, one of Sinclair’s first murder cases: You and I are the only two people in the world who care about avenging the death of this young man. Phil said it was their job to speak for the dead, but to Sinclair, investigating the death of a human being had an even higher purpose—to bring the killer to justice. If people were allowed to kill with impunity, the fragile sense of civilization that existed in urban communities like Oakland would collapse. It was his duty to prevent that from occurring.
*
It took less than twenty minutes to drive to the address on Tennyson Road in Hayward where the DMV showed Dawn Gustafson living as of two years ago. The rain had started again, speckling the surface of the apartment-complex swimming pool like hundreds of tiny bullets being fired from the sky. Sinclair and Braddock walked through the courtyard and up the stairs to apartment 238. A twenty-something Hispanic woman wearing jeans and a sweatshirt opened the door. Sinclair swept his open raincoat aside to show the badge clipped to his belt. “We’re with Oakland police. Does Dawn Gustafson live here?”
“I think that’s the name of a previous tenant,” she said. “My husband and I have lived here for over a year, but we still get mail for her.”
“What kind of mail?”
“Bills, junk mail.”
“Any idea where she went?”
“The rental office is open at noon today. Maybe they can tell you, but I heard she was asked to leave.”
“Any idea why?”
“I don’t pay attention to rumors, but Rachel in two-thirty-two might be able to tell you. I think they were friends.”
Rachel answered her door wearing a tank top and yoga pants, wiping sleep from her eyes. Sinclair introduced himself and said, “Can we talk to you about Dawn Gustafson?”
Rachel was in her midthirties, with a jet-black pixie cut and tattoos of Chinese characters on both pale shoulders. “I haven’t seen her since she moved out two summers ago.”
“May we come in?” Braddock asked.
She opened the door and walked into the living room. “I just woke up. I’ll be a minute.” She disappeared into a bedroom, and Sinclair and Braddock took off their raincoats and draped them over a chair in the dining nook. A minute later, the toilet flushed and Rachel reappeared wearing a cobalt-blue velour robe. “I’ll be