Guilt by Association (33 page)

“Don’t think so. At least, I don’t smell any booze,” he replied.

I nodded and ran to catch up with Bailey, who was closing in on the wreckage. A group of detectives who’d been huddled around
the car made way for her deferentially. It was Bailey’s case; they were just there to look on and help. When I reached the
opening where the driver’s door had been, I could see that there was surprisingly little blood, likely courtesy of the branch
that had stopped his heart and all bodily functions before his wounds could bleed out.

Bailey was snapping on latex gloves. “Got any extras?” I asked.

She patted her pockets as she looked into the car. “Nope. But I can’t move anything until the crime scene tech gets here anyway.”

I nodded and peered in over Bailey’s shoulder.

“See that?” I said, pointing to what looked like an old-fashioned motel key on the passenger floorboard.

Bailey leaned in closer and read off the name. “Surf Motel,” she said.

The Surf Motel. I knew the place. The unoriginal name was its best feature. It was a ramshackle series of ten connected units
that hugged the bluff on Pacific Coast Highway and afforded a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean. It had seen the days that
would qualify as its better ones about forty years ago. Now it was an eyesore that inexplicably occupied prime real estate
in one of the priciest neighborhoods in the country. I’d wondered whether it was still in operation. I had my answer.

We resumed our examination of the car. The backseats had been unhooked and latched to the sides to create a large cargo space.
I peered in for a closer look and saw a few cans of Red Bull and other smaller items, but the tinted windows were too dark
to let me see what they were.

I was craning my neck when a photographer and three crime scene techs wearing elbow-length gloves and hairnets approached.

“Uh, if you wouldn’t mind stepping back, ma’am,” said a young Hispanic woman whose net sagged under the weight of an impressive
head of black hair.

I did mind but stepped back anyway and continued to watch from a few feet away as Bailey negotiated with the oldest of the
group, a paunchy red-faced man with a tiny nose and squinty blue eyes, about proceeding to the Surf Motel with us.

The two younger techs stood back and waited as the photographer took pictures of the outside of the car from all angles. I
followed
him around. When we got to the rear passenger-side bumper, I leaned in and said, “Do you see that?” I was pointing to what
looked like a dent in its center.

The photographer, a thirtysomething with freckles, firecracker bangs that shot straight out from his scalp, and horn-rimmed
glasses that made his brown eyes look huge, seemed annoyed at first. Then he took a closer look and said, “Yeah,” and snapped
several shots of the bumper.

“ ’Course, we don’t know when it got there,” he said. “Damage looks kinda old to me.”

“You can’t have too many pictures, though, right?” I smiled winningly.

He shook his head, sighed, and snapped more photos. I could tell he was really enjoying my company.

Bailey had finished with the older crime scene tech, and I told her what I’d seen. She went around to look at the bumper.
“That’s old. Probably unrelated.” She turned to the photographer. “On the other hand, a few extra pictures never hurt.”

I enjoyed a brief moment of triumph.

“I miss Dorian,” I remarked.

Bailey nodded. “But Ben’s okay,” she said, indicating the older man with the paunch. “He gets a little tired, but he’s careful
and he doesn’t miss much.”

The subject of our discussion had just opened the rear hatch of the Escalade. I moved closer to get a better look. It was
cleaner than I’d expected: a few McDonald’s hamburger wrappers, a can of Red Bull, a half-smoked pack of Camel cigarettes,
a lighter, a pack of Quench Gum, and a box of condoms.

I turned to Bailey. “Condoms.”

The rape kit had revealed lubricant of the sort commonly found on condoms.

She nodded. “So far, so good.”

The photographer moved into position and began snapping pictures of the inside of the vehicle.

“Want to take a look up on top, see where he went flying?” I asked.

We climbed the hill, which was no easy thing. Between the steepness and the loose rocks and dirt, there was no traction. We
moved slowly, grabbing on to bushes for leverage.

The cops had cordoned off a wide section where the tire tracks showed the car had gone off the road and over the cliff.

“Anything to talk about?” Bailey said to one of the crime scene techs.

“Some interesting marks in the dirt over there,” he said, pointing to a spot just off the road.

“Interesting how? Brake marks?” she asked.

“No. Like weird little holes, just a couple of ’em,” the tech said. Then he shrugged. “It might not be anything either. Dirt’s
real loose up here, doesn’t give a good impression.”

Bailey and I looked at the spot. I didn’t know what to make of the small indentations. I glanced at Bailey, who shook her
head. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s hit the Surf.”

I didn’t see anything else to do here, and I was dying to get into Stayner’s motel room.

She nodded and turned to the crime scene tech. “Get Ben up here,” she said.

The clouds that’d been
hanging over downtown L.A. were nowhere in sight out here, and the descent down the Malibu side of the mountain offered a
spectacularly clear and sparkling view of the Pacific Ocean. For a few moments, I lost myself in the glorious panorama but
got dragged back to earth when the Surf Motel, in all its dilapidated glory, came into view.

All ten units in the low-slung building had windows that faced the ocean, and doors that faced the Pacific Coast Highway.
Convenient parking was provided on the unpaved stretch of dirt that separated the motel from the road. I noticed that an old
VW Bug was parked in front of the door at the far end, and a Harley-Davidson chopper was parked to the right of the car. I
did and didn’t want to meet the owners of those vehicles.

Bailey and the cruiser behind us stopped in front of a sign that said
OFFICE
, and we all got out and walked up to the weathered door. Salt air is hard on paint, but it didn’t look like anyone had put
in even a nominal effort to fight the damage. The original wood of the door showed through in big patches, and what little
paint still clung to it was in the process of peeling. Bailey tried the knob. The door was open.

The office was really just a tiny vestibule that’d been added on to
the end of the single row of rooms. If the motel had been downtown, it would’ve been the kind of place that rented rooms by
the hour—a lot like the one where Kit and Jake had been found. This seemed to be my new theme. We walked up to the small desk,
and Bailey tapped the old-fashioned bell. Instead of a ring, it gave off a dull buzz. A shirtless, barefoot guy in his twenties,
with board shorts and wild hair, came out yawning and scratching his stomach. He too gave off a dull buzz.

Bailey pulled out her badge. “We’re investigating a rape, and we have reason to believe that the suspect was staying here.”

The young man looked singularly unimpressed with either Bailey or the uniforms behind her. “Aren’t you guys supposed to get,
like, a warrant or somethin’? I mean, like, what if the dude sues us?”

“We just scooped what was left of him off the side of the canyon,” Bailey said. “I don’t think he’ll be suing anyone.”

He nodded to himself, then squinted at Bailey again. “What room?” he asked.

“Got one rented to someone named Carl Stayner?”

He opened a soggy-looking book with lined pages and ran a dirty nail down the entries. “Nope.”

That figured. “Drove a black Escalade,” I said.

“Looked like this,” Bailey added, holding out Stayner’s mug shot.

He ran a hand through the mop on his head as he peered at the photo. “Oh yeah, number ten,” he said. The young man pulled
out his master key. “ ’Kay, but don’t, like, mess it up too bad. I’ll catch hell with the owner.”

Bailey took the key, promised nothing of the kind, and moved down the concrete walkway that led to number ten.

The number hung crookedly on the door, rusted and dirty, held by one screw. I would’ve been disappointed if it hadn’t. I appreciate
consistency.
Pulled-back dirty, torn curtains offered a glimpse into a room that was disgustingly filthy. I figured he hadn’t been there
long enough to give it the full treatment. Bailey opened the door, and the smell of sweat, pot, and dirty clothes rolled out
in oily waves to greet us.

She stepped aside to let the photographer in first. He put on bootees to cover his shoes and moved slowly, snapping away from
all angles to capture the scene before anything was moved. Then he got everything on video. When he finished and moved on
to the bathroom, we put on bootees and gloves and followed.

A sagging, unmade bed, its worn, ugly gray chenille spread pushed to one side, was littered with clothes, an empty pizza box,
and stray cigarettes. I didn’t see a corresponding pack anywhere, so I couldn’t tell the brand. I called out to the photographer.
“You get those cigarettes on the bed?”

The camera clicks coming from the bathroom stopped. I heard an audible sigh. “Yeah, I got ’em,” the photographer answered
in a bored, tired voice.

I looked around the room. The window at the far wall offered the possibility of an ocean view out to Catalina Island, but
the grime that had been allowed to accumulate over the years showed only a dim suggestion of that vista.

I looked back toward the door and saw a bulging canvas suitcase near the closet.

“Looks like Stayner was on his way out,” I said to Bailey.

She nodded and motioned me over to the nightstand. I noticed an odd bulge in the carpet next to the wall between the nightstand
and the bed.

Bailey and I exchanged a look.

She called the photographer over and pointed to the area. “Get this.”

I noticed he didn’t dare look annoyed at Bailey. He moved in and snapped several pictures.

“Ben, we need you over here,” she ordered.

Ben quickly examined the spot, then got his kit, changed gloves, and knelt on the filth-encrusted carpet. I watched as he
felt around for a loose edge, and for the second time that day I was glad I’d put myself through law school.

The carpet came up easily, and I leaned in to look. The lump was a gun and a stash of money. One immediate thought came to
mind.

“Can you tell the make on that gun?” I asked.

Ben inserted a pencil through the trigger guard and lifted it for a closer look. Getting prints off a gun was always a long
shot, but it’d be foolish to ruin any chance by being careless. “Colt, probably thirty-eight caliber,” he replied.

I looked at Bailey. “An alarming coincidence?”

“After you bag and log the gun, Ben, give it to me,” she said.

It was likely the same make and caliber of the weapon fired at us the day we’d visited the school. I wanted it to be
the
gun, but Colt .38s aren’t exactly rare. And even if it was the right gun, that didn’t mean Stayner was the one who’d fired
it. It could have been someone in league with Stayner.

Bailey turned her attention to the suitcase. She said to Ben, “Let’s check that out first. You can go over the rest of the
floor later. I’m betting that’s all we’re going to find under the carpet.”

Again, the photographer went first, then Ben began to go through the bag, piece by piece. I watched, getting increasingly
grossed out and bored by looking at this jerk’s Skivvies, when Ben opened the zippered pocket on the back of the suitcase.
And pulled out a man’s blond wig.

Bailey and I exchanged
a long look.

“Dorian hasn’t matched those blond synthetic hairs in Susan’s headboard to any of her dolls yet, has she?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“I bet she’ll find a match now,” I remarked.

“Yep,” Bailey replied.

“I get from this that the wig is significant?” Ben asked.

“Yes,” we both said in unison.

Ben nodded. We watched as he carefully bagged the wig and filled out an evidence tag for it.

I called Dorian and told her we had a wig for her to look at.

“Well, make sure you get it bagged right. Knowing you two, you’re probably playing Frisbee with it,” she growled.

“Frisbee? With a wig? That would be silly, Dorian. It wouldn’t fly right.” I paused for her reaction. Dead air. “We’ve got
it bagged, no worries,” I said.

Dorian hung up without comment. I turned to Bailey.

“Assuming he wasn’t hiding that wig for the rapist—”

She picked up my train of thought. “Which is unlikely—”

“And assuming we get a match on the wig—”

“Which is likely—”

“We may now deduce that Stayner’s our rapist.”

“Yep,” Bailey agreed.

“I’ll make the calls.” I dialed her buddy Fukai at the crime lab and asked him to get a sample as soon as possible from the
morgue and compare Stayner’s DNA to the rape kit, then got the number of the Firearms Unit.

I gave the Firearms supervisor the heads-up that we were sending a gun in for testing on the unsolved shooting near Marsden
High School. Since Bailey never reported that we were the targets, I saw no reason to mention that detail now.

I noticed that the photographer had left, and Ben had moved to the bathroom. “Where are the print techs?” I asked.

“On their way,” Bailey replied.

I nodded and fell silent, thinking about what we had now.

We were rolling in evidence on the rape, but we still had a bunch of unanswered questions. Not to mention a suspiciously timed
dead body.

“We still don’t know why this guy targeted Susan,” I said. I looked around the room for a moment. “And I don’t like the way
he turns up dead just when we start showing his picture around.”

“Yeah, smells to me too,” Bailey agreed.

The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. “So let’s assume that Stayner’s accident was no accident—”