Page 70 of Nightshade

“And I appreciate the position you’re in,” Stilwell said. “I want you to know, on this thing, I’m all about the woman in the water. That’s it. I’m not interested in tangling with Ahearn about that old case. I want to closethiscase.”

“Good to know.”

Stilwell didn’t mean all of what he had said, but he guessed that Sampedro would eventually summarize the conversation to Ahearn. That was what partners did. It would hopefully put Ahearn at ease so that the Leigh-Anne Moss investigation could proceed unfettered by the friction between them.

The homicide unit was in the old Hall of Justice building across Temple Street from the Criminal Courts Building. Stilwell knewit well from his previous assignment there. Sampedro parked in the county garage and called Ahearn to say that they were on their way up. Ahearn was waiting in one of the conference rooms. He had already wheeled in a whiteboard withLeigh-Anne Mosswritten in red at the top. There were a few dates and other notations beneath it and then a line drawn down the center of the board separating the headingsCatalinaandCounty. Ahearn clearly understood that there was work to do on both sides of the bay.

Ahearn said nothing when Stilwell and Sampedro entered. He was sitting at the oval table at the center of the room in the chair closest to the whiteboard—a signal that he was in charge of deciding what went on it. Stilwell noticed a stack of documents at the seat farthest from the board and understood that this was his spot. The stack appeared to be copies of documents produced by the Ahearn-Sampedro team during the first five days of the investigation, with the preliminary autopsy report on top. Stilwell took that as a good start to the fraught partnership and sat down in his designated chair.

“That’s all the documentation on the case so far,” Ahearn confirmed. “What I’d like to do with this meeting is establish clear lines of responsibility for all three of us and map out our next moves.”

Stilwell could have easily said that this was already the directive from Captain Corum but he decided not to poke Ahearn. He nodded instead.

“Stilwell, you seem to have the inside track on this—at least according to the captain,” Ahearn said. “So why don’t you start. What should Frank and I be doing? What are you going to do?”

Stilwell noted that it might have been the first time in years that Ahearn had addressed him by his correct name. Another sign of cooperation.

“Well, since you have it divided between here and there, Ithink there are a few things over here that we need to do right off the bat,” he began. “The boat I mentioned on the call with the captain is called theEmerald Sea. It’s a forty-foot ketch that is currently docked at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey. I’ve talked to the owner, Mason Colbrink, and he agreed to stay off it until we can get a forensics team in there to process it.”

Ahearn got up and wrote the boat’s name down in theCountycolumn. He stayed standing.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

Stilwell knew he had to protect Monty West at the coroner’s office.

“I haven’t seen the autopsy,” he said. “Was the victim cut? Any indication of blood loss?”

“Frank took the autopsy,” Ahearn said.

“Cause of death is blunt-force trauma,” Sampedro said. “She was bludgeoned with an unknown object prior to death. Head wounds are usually bleeders. Of course, with the body being in the water for several days, we lost all trace of that.”

“There’s a guy on Catalina who crews on theEmerald Sea,” Stilwell said. “I talked to him this morning and he said that when he cleaned the boat after bringing it back to the marina on Monday, he found that somebody had taken the spare anchor and a sail bag. He also said a mop head was missing.”

Ahearn turned to the board and wrotecrime sceneunder the name of the boat.

“We’ll get forensics out there,” he said.

“But he cleaned the boat?” Sampedro asked.

“He did,” Stilwell said. “Which means it was cleaned twice—once by whoever used the mop, then by him.”

“We still have to let forensics do their thing,” Ahearn said. “If there’s blood, they’ll find it.”

“The crew guy also said he found an empty bottle of a boatcleaner called Three-Oh-Three,” Stilwell said. “But he threw it away. It was probably handled during the first cleaning.”

“Dumpster-diving,” Ahearn said. “That’s Frank’s area of expertise.”

“Yeah, fuck that,” Sampedro said.

“My guy said he put it and stuff from the boat’s cooler into a trash can at the end of the dock,” Stilwell said.

Ahearn wrote303on the board and then turned back to Stilwell.

“So, Stilwell, what’s your kill theory?” he asked.

“You really want to hear it?” Stilwell asked.

“Of course we do,” Ahearn said. “We’re a team, remember?”

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