Chapter 16
THEY FOUND THE bones buried beneath the canopy of an ironwood tree in the grove at the end of Black Jack Road.
The line drawn on Angela Metier’s backpack provided the heading for the search.
It was led by a cadaver dog named Sniffy whose owners volunteered their animal’s services to Ballard and her cold-case team.
After the dog alerted them, his nose was replaced by an electronic nose—a gas probe that detected chemical compounds released in the soil during the decomposition of human remains.
With Ballard and two rangers from the conservancy observing, an excavation proceeded.
Stilwell did most of the careful digging until he uncovered small bones from what looked like a hand and the deteriorated sleeve of a shirt almost four feet down.
At that point, everyone backed out and waited for an excavation team from the medical examiner’s office to be flown out to document and recover the remains.
While he waited, Stilwell paced along the line set by the crime scene tape strung between trees in the grove and quietly seethed.
A primal anger was growing in him over the apparent murder of a woman who had thought she would be safe while hiking on the island.
The medical examiner’s team arrived, and although official confirmation that the remains were what was left of Angela Metier was withheld pending comparison to dental records, Stilwell and Ballard had no doubt. They had been led to the spot by her killer and now the game was on.
It was impossible to keep the coordination of the search-and-recovery efforts radio silent, and they knew the media was onto the story when several news helicopters from the mainland crossed Santa Monica Bay and circled overhead.
Lionel McKey from the Call was the lone reporter on the ground, dutifully standing at the yellow tape that the two rangers, Kent Middleton and Bo Meriam, had used to cordon off the grove and keep reporters and passing hikers back.
The medical examiner’s team had erected a tent over the dig location to protect the diggers from the sun and the site from the cameras on the helicopters.
Stilwell knew it was time to inform the captain of what was going on. Corum wasn’t happy that Stilwell had not told him much earlier in the process of his work on the case and the joint investigation with the LAPD.
“When did you bring the LAPD into this?” Corum asked.
“Just yesterday,” Stilwell said. “When I identified the owner of the backpack in the lost-and-found, I connected it to their investigation. Things moved pretty quickly after that. But it was more like they brought me into it, Captain, not the other way around.”
“Semantics. You should have told me when you reached out to them.”
“Captain, when I called them, I had nothing. Do you really want me checking with you every time I make a call?”
“Of course not. But this is different. Now I’m going to have to run interference to ensure that we don’t get pushed out of a case on our own turf.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen. The detective in charge of the cold-case squad needs all the help she can get. She’s working with a bunch of volunteers.”
“How many cases is this connected to?”
“Three that we know about. Maybe four.”
“You are using the word we. There is no we here. I know her boss, Larry Gandle. I’ll talk to him and make sure we don’t get mushroomed—kept in the dark.”
“Does that mean I can follow this off the island?”
“I was thinking of putting somebody from the squad here on it.”
“Great. I put this together, and somebody else gets to run with it. That makes sense.”
“You forget that you are in charge of a substation out there. You have management duties and you can’t be leaving the island to chase a murder case. It’s as simple as that.”
“It still doesn’t sound right.”
“Well, that’s the way it is. I have no problem with you working the Catalina angle on this, but I don’t want you crossing the bay to follow leads. Let the LAPD handle that. Agreed?”
“You’re the boss. And I have to get back to this.”
“Then we’re done. Let me know where we are on it at the end of the day.”
“Roger that.”
Stilwell pocketed his phone and returned to the excavation.
“Trouble?” Ballard asked.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of the way you were head down and pacing while you spoke to the boss.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not happy I brought LAPD into this, even though I explained that it was sort of the other way around. He’ll probably call your captain. I think he said Candle.”
“Gandle. I always love that, when two guys who don’t work the cases decide how the cases get worked. But don’t worry, Stil, I’ll keep you in the loop. As far as I’m concerned, this is the biggest break in the case we’ve had. And it came through you.”
“I appreciate that.”
Stilwell looked at the dig site. The two techs from the ME’s office were down to using spoons and brushes to reveal the bones.
It was a tedious process. He looked back at the yellow crime scene tape stretched between limbs of the ironwood grove.
Lionel McKey was waiting there patiently.
To his left were two hikers who had stopped to watch.
Middleton, one of the conservancy rangers, beckoned Stilwell over with a wave.
“That one guy there is a reporter for the Call,” he said. “You want me to get rid of him?”
“Uh, no,” Stilwell said. “He’s got every right to be there just as long as he doesn’t try to get closer.”
Stilwell left Middleton and walked over to Ballard.
“I’m going to go talk to the reporter,” Stilwell said.
“How well do you know him?” Ballard asked.
“He’s not a problem. They don’t go to print till tomorrow anyway.”
“Before you go, let’s talk about holdbacks.”
Stilwell stepped closer to her so they could speak without even the rangers hearing them.
“The mark on the backpack?” Stilwell asked.
“Yes, and also the keys,” Ballard said. “Let’s keep that stuff to ourselves.”
“You got it. I’m actually going to try to get more from him than he gets from me. He was here when Angela Metier disappeared. I wasn’t.”
“Okay. Good idea.”
Stilwell walked to the yellow tape at an angle that would pull McKey farther away from the lookie-loo hikers.
“Lionel,” he said. “How’d you hear about this?”
“Hard to keep the arrival of the LAPD and sheriff’s choppers quiet,” McKey said. “Is that Angela Metier you’re digging up?”
“You know I can’t confirm that. They are definitely human remains, and it appears to be female clothing—what’s left of it. You can put two and two together but I can’t confirm until we have an official identification made by the ME’s office.”
“Cause of death?”
“Same answer.”
“I just called her mother to see if she had heard anything. It was news to her. But she’s going to fly down from Spokane.”
“That’s all we need, the media jumping the gun. I hope you’re the one who gets to call her if it turns out not to be her daughter in the ground over there.”
“Come on, who else could it be?”
“You tell me. You’ve been out here your whole life. Tash told me you were all over this story originally.”
“I was and I still am. What led you to this spot?”
“Sniffy did.”
“Is that the cadaver dog?”
“Yes. Maybe you should go interview him.”
“Funny. But what made you bring Sniffy out?”
“Can’t say.”
“What about LAPD? Will they talk to me?”
“I kind of doubt it.”
“Why are they here?”
“Because if it’s Angela Metier, then it’s their case.”
“Come on, Stil. You gotta give me something. This is my story, not the big shots’ from overtown.”
“You don’t even publish till tomorrow. Why don’t you check with me in the morning. Then you can get the freshest update, if there is one.”
“My deadline for tomorrow is today.”
“All right, check with me later. If I can give you more, I will.”
“What do you mean, more? You haven’t given me anything.”
“All right, so when you call me later, ask me about the backpack.”
“The backpack? That’s it?”
“For now, that’s it.”
“It better be good.”
“You wrote the story when she went missing four years ago, right?”
“I did, yeah. A lot of stories. But I thought you weren’t confirming it’s Angela.”
“I’m not. I’m just asking you questions. Do you remember if this grove with the ironwood trees was searched back then?”
“I think it was. But I was mostly up at Black Jack and then Hermit Gulch.”
“Why Hermit Gulch?”
“They got a tip from another hiker, who said he thought he saw Angela on a trail over there. It was unsubstantiated, and obviously it was wrong.” He gestured toward the excavation.
“So, in all your reporting, did you find any confirmed sightings of her?” Stilwell asked.
“No, not really,” McKey said. “It was all based on what she had told her parents and friends—that she was going back to Catalina to hike—and the permit she got online.”
“She had been out here twice before to hike?”
“Yeah, the conservancy had issued two other hiking permits to her, in May and October of the previous year. She was doing the Trans-Catalina Trail in parts. Like the way people do the Appalachian Trail in the East.”
“Any of the park rangers remember checking her for a permit?”
“No, that would have been big. And look at me answering your questions when you should be answering mine.”
“How’s it feel?”
“Not good.”
Stilwell smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Call me later,” he said.
“Right,” McKey said. “And I’m sure you’ll answer.”
“What’s with the sarcasm? I told you I would.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
Stilwell approached the rangers.
“Either of you guys here four years ago?” he asked.
“Not me,” Middleton said. “Got the job about two years ago.”
“Me neither,” Meriam said.
“I’m just wondering what records might be in your office from the search for Angela Metier,” Stilwell said.
“I can certainly look and get back to you,” Middleton said.
“That would be great,” Stilwell said. “Thank you.”
Stilwell looked past Middleton. There was a blanket of pink flowers growing in the shade of one of the ironwood trees. The flowers looked beautiful, but they couldn’t lighten the tragedy of the moment and the dread Stilwell was feeling now.