I got a bite to eat and made it back to the crime scene around three. The crime-scene techs were already there and had roped off roughly a fifty-by-fifty-foot square with yellow crime-scene tape. I watched from the asphalt path at the bottom of the hill with a group of onlookers behind a line of four uniformed cops.
Moira stood up the hill just outside the tape, filming the crime scene techs who were filming on their own. Two uniformed cops stood off to her side to make sure she didn’t try to enter the crime scene. The lab-coated techs had just extracted the golf club from the cactus and the bush when I arrived. The shaft of the sand wedge was almost all rust, and the grip had eroded to a few small patches of rubber. The techs tagged the wedge and stuffed it into a long paper bag. I didn’t get a good look at the heavy head of the wedge which, although the shortest club, made it the heaviest.
And deadliest.
Detective Denton, the cop who had taken my stolen-gun report, stood outside the crime-scene tape on the opposite side of the square from Moira. A tall, bald detective whom I didn’t know stood inside the tape near the techs taking notes. No sign of Chief Moretti. The second best highlight of the day only behind finding the golf club.
I showed my PI license to the patrolman nearest me and asked if I could join the other PI up the hill. He led me a few feet down the path and caught Detective Denton’s attention up on the hillside. The patrolman pointed at me then waved the OK sign with one hand and held his other up, palm open. Denton nodded and the patrolman let me walk up the path to the taped-off crime scene.
I caught Detective Denton out of the corner of my eye while I walked up the hill. She watched me with cop eyes. Unfriendly cop eyes.
Another fan from the Brick House. I’d have to start a club.
By the time I made it up to Moira, a crime-scene tech had already secured the golf club in the CST van. Two more techs examined the area around the cactus, and a third continued to film.
“I can take over and you can go home,” I said to Moira.
“You kidding? I’m on the clock.” She kept the video camera on the techs. “Gotta pay the rent and show the Cowboy Lawyer that I’m valuable.”
“I think he already knows that.”
“Hey, what did you do to the lady homicide dick?” She nodded her head at Detective Denton while holding the camera steady.
“Nothing.” Except for lying to her on a police report. “Why?”
“She asked where you were when she arrived, and I got the feeling she wasn’t a fan. Then she glared at you when you walked up here.” She gave a slight nod. “Still is.”
I looked over at Detective Denton. Moira was right. She lasered her eyes on mine, and even at twenty yards, I could see the hatred. I gave her a flat stare back with nothing in it. No anger, no amusement, no fear. Just a sponge to absorb her hate. The intensity of it surprised me. If she’d been a dog, she would have had bared teeth and drool hanging off a snarl. I would have expected that kind of hate from Chief Moretti. I’d earned it from him. Given it time to build, deepen, and fester.
I hadn’t known Detective Denton long enough for such enmity. Sure, I’d lied to her when we both knew I was lying. That was cause for dislike, but such upfront animosity? Maybe I’d gotten her into a beef with Moretti. There had to be something more.
I broke my eye wrestle with Detective Denton and watched the techs.
“Mr. Cahill.” Denton’s voice. A command. She might as well have said, “Stop. Police.”
I obeyed the command and looked back at her. She curled a finger at me to come. I looked at Moira, who gave me bug eyes.
“Tell Buckley to give my last check to you if Denton shoots me.”
“Done.”
I walked around the yellow tape over to Denton. “Detective. What can I do for you?”
“Do you know what that kid did to his family, Mr. Cahill?” She invaded my personal space. Bagel and cream cheese breath blew up at me.
“I know what someone did to that family. You don’t have to convince me of its savagery. I’m just not sure ‘that kid’ did it.”
“LJPD, twelve jurors, and the State of California were sure.” The gold flecks in Denton’s eyes burned the reflection of the sun. “What the hell do you know that they didn’t?”
“I’m just following the evidence, Detective. If LJPD had such a locked-down case, you have nothing to worry about.”
“You’re following a made-up story about a hearsay confession, and wasting the State of California’s time and money.”
Buckley must have had to give LJPD just enough information to get them to examine the scene.
“Wasting taxpayers’ money? That would make me a politician, Detective.” I smiled at Denton. “I take great offense.”
“This isn’t a joke. You’re trying to set a vicious killer free.” Her nostrils flared like she smelled something disgusting, and it was me. “I don’t find any humor in that.”
“If Randall Eddington is truly the killer, then the DNA on the golf club should only prove that. Why is everyone at LJPD so nervous, Detective? What am I going to find if I keep digging?”
“You’re going to find yourself in a deep hole without a way to get out.” She turned and walked along the tape in the direction of another detective.
Was that a threat? I’d already been threatened by Moretti, but he had something to lose if Randall’s conviction was overturned. He had worked the murder and was now chief of police. With the constant threat of a voter initiative to dissolve LJPD and farm out policing to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, any bad press could put Moretti’s job in jeopardy. He’d be forced to retire as a scapegoat to save the department.
What did Detective Denton stand to lose if Randall was set free? Her job, like all the other cops, if LJPD was dissolved. But that was a long shot. This seemed more personal to her. Why? She hadn’t worked the original Eddington investigation. There’d been one female detective mentioned in the police report and that had been Detective West. Detective Denton had been Bob Reitzmeyer’s partner, and he hadn’t worked the case. If Denton had, Bob would have too.
Denton might be right about me being in a hole if I kept digging. But I had the feeling that I’d uncover a lot of LJPD secrets before I hit bottom.