Chapter Ten #2
The coroner was waiting patiently. That she was already here meant the body had been discovered at least two hours ago. The coroner’s office was in Ukiah, so she’d driven at least ninety minutes to get here.
Gary Simpson, the detective who’d originally been sent to the scene, gave Ronan a grim nod. “Hey, Ronan.” Gary’s voice was muffled by the respirator mask he wore. Lucky bastard.
Garfield’s body was bloated and there was evidence of rodents having chewed on his exposed skin, but there was enough left of the young man’s face to be sure it was him.
“Hey, Gary.” Ronan pulled the neck gaiter a little higher. It didn’t help. “What do we know?”
“Not a whole lot. I got called in by the deputies who were first on the scene. They were responding to an anonymous 911 call by someone walking their dog. The dog walker smelled something and reported it. No name. Call to 911 came in at seven this morning.”
“Anonymous, huh?” That happened sometimes, but it always raised red flags. “This house is way off the beaten path. Weird that someone was walking their dog back here.”
Steve Garfield lived in a heavily wooded area, his nearest neighbor about a quarter mile away. The house wouldn’t be visible from any of the homes around him.
“I thought the same thing,” Gary said. “The caller used a burner.”
Ronan was angry. Angry that this man was dead and furious that Elle Randolph was connected. The fury with Elle was unfair. He knew that. But she was still hiding things from him. He’d seen it in her eyes before she’d shuttered it away.
He was also angry with himself for not more thoroughly investigating the mysterious disappearance of Steve Garfield so soon after he’d spoken with Elle.
He’d observed the conversation on the pharmacy surveillance footage.
He should have tried harder to find the young man, but the fact that he’d run from potential drug charges had seemed feasible at the time.
“Cause of death?” he asked tersely.
“He was stabbed, but not here. Not enough blood. This isn’t your fault, Ronan. Based on Eunice Greene’s statement, we had every right to think he’d run to keep from being arrested for drug theft.”
“He could have been killed over the drugs he stole,” Ronan said, grateful for Gary’s words but not really believing them. This was connected to Elle Randolph’s search for Reece Miller.
He was certain of it.
“Quite possibly,” Gary agreed, but he didn’t sound like he believed that, either.
Ronan took in the four heaters, still blowing hot air. This room wasn’t good for much more than storage.
Or a grow house. There were multiple electrical outlets in the walls, a sure sign that someone had used this room for growing illegal weed. The dirt floor was another sign. He wondered if they’d find a cement floor beneath a few inches of dirt.
He’d ask CSU to check.
That Garfield had graduated from growing marijuana to stealing pills from a pharmacy made a kind of sense. There would be more money in the pills with a faster turnaround time. Growers had to wait for the harvest.
“Time of death?” he asked.
Gary nodded toward the coroner. “She says the heaters have compromised the body temp and they’ll have to tell us after they get him on their table.”
“Someone wanted to obfuscate the time of death,” he murmured. “You searched the house after we issued the BOLO. The basement, too?”
“I searched this room myself.”
“So we can put time of death sometime after Wednesday, two weeks ago.”
“Exactly,” Gary said. “When I got here today, I found a suitcase laid out on his bed, half his belongings packed already. That wasn’t there two weeks ago.
That tells me that he was laying low, came back after we searched, started to pack a bag, then left for some reason.
He got killed and brought back here to slow roast.”
Ronan grimaced. “Gross, Gary. Any sign of a struggle in the bedroom?”
“No. Or anywhere else along the perimeter of the house. No sign of forced entry, either.”
“Where’s his SUV?” Ronan had included Garfield’s two-year-old white Ford Explorer in the BOLO.
“Gone,” Gary said. “Garage is empty, except for some tools and cleaning supplies. I put out another BOLO on the Explorer.”
“Good. Cell phone?”
“If it’s in his pocket, the coroner will find it,” Gary said with a grimace. “I already requested his cell phone records. I’ll have them forwarded to you when they come in.”
“Thanks.”
“You think the bounty hunters are involved?”
Just about everyone in the sheriff’s office knew Ronan was on the bounty hunter babysitting detail, so Gary’s question wasn’t unexpected.
“Hard not to, not with Dianne also being a victim.”
“Are they suspects? The bounty hunters, I mean.”
“No.” But they had hidden things from him. And from Elle’s guilty expression when he’d told her about Garfield’s death, she’d known more about the pharmacy tech than she’d let on.
She had so many nights to tell me. All those conversations on the bluff and, whatever it was, she kept it to herself. Her connection to Steve Garfield and her connection to the murder victim in San Francisco.
“Is there any security footage?” he asked.
Gary shook his head. “Not a camera in sight. If they were here at some point, they’ve been removed. I didn’t find a laptop, so his killer might have taken that. Latent should be here any moment to take prints.”
“And CSU was pulling up in the van when I got here. You can go. Consider the case transferred to me.”
“Thanks, Ronan. See you later.”
Ronan took a step back as the CSU team came down the stairs, all wearing coveralls and protective gear, just as his cell phone buzzed with a text.
He sucked in another breath, regretting the action when his mouth filled with the taste of death, but both the sender and her message had taken him off guard.
It was from Elle.
Wendy Miller showed up at the pharmacy. Am in pursuit on 20 east. She’s driving a late model Ford Taurus, California plates. She ended the text with the license plate number.
Ronan looked at the stairs, seeing that Gary was already halfway up them. “Gary, I just got a text from one of the bounty hunters. The woman we’ve been watching for has reappeared.”
Gary slowly descended the stairs. “She told you?”