Being up here, Stride thought, was like being on top of the world, staring down. Jagged, barren mountaintops of red-orange rock were set against a blue sky that seemed as tall as heaven. Streaks of erosion on the cliffs looked like grooves that had been carved into the hills with a knife. It was stark, surpassing beauty, ringing the valley.
The late afternoon weather was warm but not hot, although he could feel even in the waning glow of the sun how easily it could turn ferocious. He remembered the summer and how he had baked then, barely able to take a breath, feeling superheated grit clog his lungs. There were none of the lake breezes or storms from Minnesota, no electrical shows of thunder and lightning, no cool dampness. Just an oven, set on broil and left to cook for three months.
He took a last look at the whitewashed stucco of Helen’s palatial home.
“So how do you think she is in bed?” he asked, glancing at Serena with a smile.
“I think she’s more than you could handle,” Serena replied.
“You got that right.”
His cell phone rang. Sara Evans again. Restless.
“This is Sawhill.” Stride imagined him with his stress ball in hand, squeezing rhythmically.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” Stride replied.
Serena drew a finger across her throat and mouthed, He’s going to cut us off.
“Cordy tells me you think there may be a connection between MJ’s murder and the death of Peter Hale,” Sawhill said.
“It looks that way.” He explained how they had discovered the link between Helen Truax and Walker Lane, and what Helen had told them about Amira Luz.
“I thought I told you that line of inquiry was dead,” Sawhill said.
Stride chose his words carefully. “You did, sir. And it was. This was professional curiosity, nothing more. It was simply luck that Serena recognized the boy’s grandmother in a photo that ran in LV. In Rex Terrell’s article.”
“Professional curiosity,” Sawhill said, repeating the phrase as if he were tasting a sour wine. “Tell me, Detective, do you expect me to believe that story?”
“Not for a moment,” Stride replied.
Sawhill actually laughed. “All right. I fire cops who think I’m an idiot. I respect a cop who follows his instincts, even if it lands him in hot water. Which this still may, Stride.”
“I realize that,” Stride acknowledged.
“What about the murder in Reno?”
“Serena talked to Jay Walling. So far, it doesn’t look like the woman who was killed, Alice Ford, or her family had any connection to the Sheherezade or Amira, but he’s going to keep digging.”
As he talked to Sawhill on the street, Stride heard Serena’s cell phone ring, too. He watched her take the call and cup her ear, moving several steps away.
Sawhill kept talking. “For the time being, we keep this out of the press. Got it?”
“Agreed.”
“My restriction still stands. Don’t talk to Walker Lane again without clearing it through me.”
“Fair enough,” Stride said. He didn’t mention that Walker Lane was already back on his list, along with another name that would drive Sawhill crazy: Boni Fisso. This investigation had all the makings of a political tornado, sucking people into the updraft.
“What’s your next move?” Sawhill asked.
“I want to talk to Nick Humphrey,” Stride said. “The detective who handled the original investigation of Amira’s death.”
“All right, I’ll get you his address,” Sawhill replied. “He still lives in the city.”
Stride heard the clicking of computer keys, and then Sawhill rattled off an address in North Las Vegas. Stride jotted it down in his notebook.
“Step carefully, Detective. I’m willing to let you run because it looks like your instincts were right. But keep your professional curiosity on a short leash.”
Sawhill hung up the phone. A few feet away, Serena did the same.
“A reprieve,” he told Serena. “Sawhill thinks the connection is tenuous, but he’s not shutting us down. Yet.”
Serena was smiling. “He’s a lying bastard.”
“What?”
“That was Cordy,” Serena said. “There’s nothing tenuous about the connection. We ran the Aztek for fingerprints, and there was a beautiful print left for us on the inside of the front windshield. It matches the print you guys found on the slot machine at the Oasis. It was the same guy.”
“Son of a bitch,” Stride said. “Sawhill knew?”
“Cordy just left his office.”
“And to think I was actually polite to him.” Stride laughed.
They climbed into the Bronco and headed down the long stretch of Bonanza back to the city. The elegant estates disappeared behind them as they descended into the valley, replaced by drab middle-class housing behind gray walls. Stride pulled up to a stoplight, then turned and stared thoughtfully at Serena. They were working the same case again. Like the murder of Rachel Deese that summer, when they first met. It gave him a jolt of adrenaline.
“So we have the same killer,” Serena said. “And the guy is leaving his calling card behind at each crime scene.”
“Did Jay Walling run a match for prints at the scene in Reno?”
Serena nodded. “No match.”
“So maybe there’s no connection,” Stride said.
“Or we haven’t found it yet. It’s possible the perp didn’t think about leaving a print behind until the hit-and-run. Then he decided he wanted to lead us on a merry chase. So he left the receipt as a clue to tie in the murder of Alice Ford at her ranch.”
“Except Helen and Walker Lane are both mentioned in Rex Terrell’s article in LV. They have a connection to Amira Luz. The Fords don’t, as far as we can tell.”
“You think the article by Rex is the connection?” Serena asked. “That’s what got this started?”
“Maybe,” Stride replied. “No one cared about Amira for years before he started nosing around. Rex may have got someone’s attention.”