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“She’s with me.” He collected the IDs and headed past the man.
“I’ll let him know you’re here.”
They were stopped a couple of more times and repeated the identification process, but eventually were waved through. “Watch yourselves,” a highway patrolman warned them. “One of the officers lost his footing. He required medical care.”
“You could stay up here,” Hayes said in an undertone. He did enough rock walls at the gym to feel confident about the descent. But he was unsure about Reese. “I’ll give you a full briefing when I get back.”
“Not a chance.”
He shot her a look, lingering on her hat. “A Padres fan, huh? I guess someone has to be.”
“Probably not a great idea to get snotty when we’re going to be clinging to the side of a cliff together,” she responded pointedly as they made their way to its edge. “It’d be a shame if you…slipped.”
That surprised a grin from him, one that vanished when they peered over the edge. The path the officer had indicated was no more than that, more large rocks than a trail. He swallowed a retort and saved his breath for the climb.
Ten minutes later, Enrico Mendes detached himself from a small group of people on the beach and headed toward them. He was short and swarthy, with a heavy mustache that obscured his upper lip. He speared a look at Reese. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“Reese will stay clear of the activity,” Hayes responded, as much for her benefit as the deputy’s.
“I don’t want to see this splashed on the front page of theGazettetomorrow morning.”
“She’s on leave from work.” He walked past the deputy and he reluctantly followed.
Hayes stopped when Mendes did, watching crime scene techs in white Tyvek suits, bonnets, and shoe covers sticking evidence markers in the ground. Others photographed the spots.
His gaze traveled beyond them to the blackened pit dug in the sand. A few charred pieces of driftwood jutted from it, but his attention was on the shape curled in the center. Hayes had seen more than a few fire victims. The heat drew the limbs inward, so the remains appeared to be in a fetal position.
There was a path cleared in the sand leading toward the hole. The body had likely been dragged. Which meant that the victim had been dead or incapacitated prior to being burned. Hayes traced the trail to its origin. Seeing the direction of his look, Mendes said, “We found some blood spatter over there. It was likely the scene of the initial attack. There’s not much left of the victim. The figure was face up, so the flames ruined any chance of facial identification. Greg Pollack, that guy you messaged me about, parked his car above. That’s what caught the CHP’s notice. The patrolman ran the plate and saw the outstanding warrants. Looked for the owner and noticed this. Called it in around nine a.m.”
“He didn’t observe anyone else in the area?”
“The place is usually deserted, although you’ll get a few people pulling over up above and taking pictures of the view. The ones who do come down here at night are usually doing something they shouldn’t.” He pointed an index finger at a blackened metal frame several feet past the body. “Looks like the victim went in with a lawn chair, or it was tossed on top. We’re waiting for the medical examiner’s office to show up. The pit is shallow. The sand at the bottom would probably have been damp. That could have prevented the flames from thoroughly consuming the body.”
Hayes nodded. He’d seen fire victims unrecognizable from the front, only to move the corpse and find the skin on the back largely intact. They wouldn’t know until the ME had the victim in the morgue.
“Did you notice anything distinctive about Pollack yesterday that might help ID? If he turns out to be the BBQ guest over there?”
He pulled out his cell and brought up the photos he’d taken of the man yesterday. “This is what he was wearing in the afternoon. He had some kind of black rope bracelet on his left wrist, which likely wouldn’t have survived the flames.” He used his thumb and forefinger to enlarge the image. “But see the metal tabs on the front and back of it? If the victim is Pollack, you might find one of them in the ashes after the body’s removed.”
Mendes pulled out his phone, snapped a couple of photos of the image, and texted them to someone. “We’ll watch for them. The Fusion is locked. We might find the keys on the vic, too, although that wouldn’t be—” The deputy’s phone dinged, and he stared at an image on the screen.
He looked up to squint at a tall Black woman in plain clothes standing near the remains. She gave him a thumbs-up. Shoving his cell toward Hayes, he said, “Looks like as good of an ID as we’re likely to get.”
Staring more closely at the image, he noted evidence marker three stood close to an item partially obscured in the sand, near the start of the smooth flat path where the body had been dragged. Adrenaline kick-started in his chest.
He recognized the thin black string dangling from a metal piece. It looked like a match to the bracelet he’d seen on Pollack yesterday.
Hayes rejoinedReese where she stood close to the rocky incline and shared what he’d learned from Mendes. When he reachedthe part about the victim’s bracelet, her arms came up to hug her waist, as if suddenly blasted with arctic air. “We have nothing tying Thorne to this.”
“Except that they knew each other.”
He hesitated, his gaze sweeping the area for the deputy. Mendes had flagged Pollack’s records, which had yielded him a courtesy call when the Fusion had been discovered. Hayes spotted him fifty yards away, talking to the detective.
“The deputy had some of the task force members drill down on the information I forwarded to him last night. They verified that Thorne and Pollack were in the same holding cell seven years ago when they were brought in for separate incidents.”
Reese tried a smile. Didn’t quite manage it. “Where all great friendships begin.”
As the TK, he’d chosen strangers as his victims. People he happened upon. A few he’d stalked for a short time, like the professors in Alabama. All had had the misfortune of catching the attention of a madman.