time missing: 41 hours, 00 minutes

After I spoke with the Abbotts, I phoned the other families to let them know that the police would be calling, and why. Between Master Sergeant Stivic and the families, I was on the phone for almost three hours.

Starkey rang my bell at eight forty-five. When I opened the door, John Chen was waiting behind her in his van.

I said, "I spoke with the families this morning. None of them had anything to do with this or know anyone who would. You get any hits on the other names I gave you?"

Starkey squinted at me. Her eyes were puffy, and her morning voice was thick with smoke.

She said, "Are you drunk?"

"I've been up all night. I spoke with the families. I listened to that damned tape a dozen times. Did you get any hits or not?"

"I told you last night, Cole. We ran the names and got nothing. You don't remember I said that?"

I felt irritated with myself for forgetting. She had told me when I was with them at the Hollywood station. I grabbed my keys and stepped outside past her.

"C'mon. I'll show you what we found. Maybe John can match the prints."

"Lay off the coffee. You look like a meth freak about to implode."

"You're no beauty yourself."

"Fuck yourself, Cole. That might be because Gittamon and I got our asses reamed at six this morning by the Bureau commander, wanting to know why we're letting you fuck up our evidence."

"Did Richard complain?"

"Rich assholes always complain. Here's the order of the day: You're gonna take us over to whatever this is you've found, then you're gonna stay out of our business. Never mind that you seem to be the only guy around here besides me who knows how to detect. You're out."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you just paid me a compliment."

"Don't let it go to your head. It turns out Richard was right, you being a material witness. It just feels like kicking a guy when he's down, is all, shutting you out like this, and I don't like it."

I felt bad for snapping at her.

She said, "I guess you didn't suddenly recognize the voice on the tape or remember something that would help?"

I wanted to tell her my take on what the caller had said, but I figured that it would sound self-justifying.

"No. I've never heard his voice in my life. I played it over the phone to the families, and they didn't recognize it, either."

Starkey cocked her head as if she were surprised.

"That was a good idea, Cole, playing the tape for them like that. I hope none of them lied to you."

"Why'd you have Hurwitz bring me the tape last night instead of doing it yourself?"

Starkey went to her car without answering.

"Drive yourself. You'll need to get back on your own."

I locked the house, then led them across the canyon to the shoulder where Pike and I had parked the day before. It took about twelve minutes. Starkey changed into her running shoes while Chen unloaded his evidence kit. The shoulder had been empty yesterday, but now a line of small trucks and cars spilled around the curve from the nearby construction site. Starkey and Chen followed me across the hump and down through the brush. We passed the twin pines, then followed the erosion cut toward the lone scrub oak. As we got closer to the prints, I felt both anxious and afraid. Being here was like being closer to Ben, but not if the shoe prints didn't match. If they didn't match, we had nothing.

We reached the first print, a clean clear sole pressed into the dust between shale plates.

"This one's pretty clear. We'll see more below."

Chen got down on his hands and knees for a closer look. I stood so close that I was almost on top of him.

Starkey said, "Stop crowding him, Cole. Get back."

Chen glanced up and grinned.

"It's the same shoe, Starkey. I can see it even without the cast. Size eleven Rockports showing the same pebbled sole and traction lines."

My heart thudded hard in my chest, and the dark ghost moved past me again. Starkey punched my arm.

"You fuck."

Starkey could sweet-talk with the best of them.

Chen flagged eight more prints, and then we reached the tree. The heartier weeds had sprung up with the morning dew, but the depression behind the tree was still clear.

"That's it, just this side of the oak at its base. See where the grass is crushed?"

Starkey touched my arm.

"You wait here."

Starkey moved closer. She stooped to look at my house from under the oak's limbs, then considered the surrounding hillside.

"All right, Cole. You made a good call. I don't know how you found this place, but this is okay. You figured this bastard good. John, I want a full area map."

"I'll need help. We've got a lot more physicals than yesterday."

Starkey squatted at the edge of the crushed grass, then bent to look close at something in the dirt.

She said, "John, gimme the tweezers."

Chen handed her a Ziploc bag and tweezers from his evidence kit. Starkey picked up a small brown ball with the tweezers, eyeballed it, then put it into the bag. She looked up into the tree, then at the ground again.

I said, "What is it?"

"They look like mouse turds, but they're not. They're all over the place."

Starkey picked one from a broad leaf of grass and put it onto her palm. Chen looked horrified.

"Don't touch it with your bare skin!"

I moved closer to see, and this time she didn't tell me to step back. A dozen dark brown wads the size of a BB stood out clearly on the hardpack. More brown flecks clung to the grass. I knew what they were as soon as I saw them because I had seen things like this when I was in the Army.

"It's tobacco."

Chen said, "How do you know?"

"A smoker on patrol chews tobacco to get his fix. You chew, there's no smoke to give you away. That's what this guy did. He chewed, then spit out the bits of the tobacco when they were used up."

Starkey glanced at me, and I knew what she was thinking. Another connection to Vietnam. She handed the bag to Chen. She dry-swallowed another white pill, then studied me for a moment with a deep vertical line between her eyebrows.

"I want to try out something on you."

"What?"

"Over by your house, this guy doesn't leave anything, one measly little partial that we could barely see. Here, he leaves crap all over the place."

"He felt safe here."

"Yeah. He had a good spot down here where no one could see him, so he didn't give a shit. I'm thinking that if he got careless down here, maybe he got careless up at the street, too. There aren't many houses on this stretch, and we got that construction site right here around the curve. I've gotta call Gittamon and have patrol pull the door-to-door to this side of the canyon, but there aren't that many people to talk to. By the time Gittamon and the uniforms get out here, you and I could have it done."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to be involved."

"I didn't ask for a lot of conversation. You want to do it or you want to waste time?"

"Of course I want to do it."

Starkey glanced at Chen.

"You tell anyone, I'll kick your ass."

We left Chen calling SID for another criminalist, and walked back along the curve to the construction site. A single-story contemporary had been ripped apart to expand the ground floor and add a second story. A long blue Dumpster sat in the street in front of the house, already half-filled with trimmed lumber and other debris. A framing crew was roughing in the second floor while electricians pulled wire through the first-floor conduit. Here it was late fall, but the workmen were shirtless and in shorts.

An older man with baggy pants was bent over a set of plans in the garage, explaining something to a sleepy young guy wearing electrician's tools. The drywall inside the garage and the house had been pulled down, leaving the studs exposed like human ribs.