Page 7 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

Being in the ever-dangerous job of law enforcement, where one strives for anonymity, Carmen never understood the appeal of selfies, especially if taken near the edge of a thirty-foot drop onto sharp rocks.

Which made the Honeymoon Killer’s setup for the murder a little suspicious from the beginning, in her mind.

Natural selection was a rule of the universe, but people were not, in general, complete fools.

Could Anthony Brock have gone for the photo on the precipice?

Maybe. Was it likely? No. Responding officers probably should have been a bit more suspicious.

She, Heron and Frank Tandy were at the opulent Hollywood Crest Inn, which dated to the era of old Hollywood—a time she knew mostly from artifacts like Chinatown , Humphrey Bogart movies and the gritty fiction of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler.

She was peering over the guardrail where the groom, Anthony Brock, had been pushed to his death.

Tandy told them about his conversation with the responding emergency medical techs.

“One of them had said, ‘What was he thinking?’

“‘Thinking?’ a seasoned cop had replied without missing a beat. ‘The better question is, What was he drinking ?’”

Clever, and typical of the dark humor of those for whom death and violence were a daily fact of life.

Now they knew the truth, of course. It wasn’t a drunken misstep.

Or, as Declan would have it, 96.5 percent truth.

The upper patio, where Brock and his bride had sneaked away after the reception, was roped off with yellow tape.

The LAPD had worked fast, she was pleased to see.

This was half of the homicide scene. The other was the pond below.

She noted that the patio had been closed by the hotel—sandwich board signs proclaimed Under Construction —presumably so guests would not be troubled by the fluttering tape.

She got a text and read it aloud. “Tox shows no drugs. BAC is .12.”

“The ME didn’t conduct an autopsy,” Tandy said. “But I found out she did a basic screen on the victim and asked for the results to be sent to Agent Sanchez. Now we know HK didn’t use poison or narcotics.”

Carmen considered the rest of the message. “And with a blood alcohol content of .12, Brock would be legally intoxicated, but that wouldn’t be enough to qualify him for an extreme DUI charge if he’d been driving.”

Tandy summarized: “In other words, he was drunk but not shit-faced.”

Looking at the water below, at the huge, slow-moving fish, brown, white, yellow, Carmen explained that alcohol had still contributed to Brock’s death.

Not because he’d made a poor decision taking a selfie near a cliff—which he didn’t—but because his level of inebriation would mean the blow to the back of his head would render him even more helpless than if he’d been sober.

She thought a moment, then added, “We’ve been thinking HK targets weddings because of the newlywed thing, but maybe it’s because people are drinking, and he needs them in that state.”

Tandy turned to Heron. “Let’s put it on the murder board.”

He pulled his tablet from his backpack and added the notation. It uploaded automatically.

As if mocking them, sprinklers suddenly came on, drenching the scene. Water can contaminate and obliterate evidence nearly as efficiently as fire.

Carmen’s cell vibrated with another text, this time from the head of HSI’s Long Beach crime scene unit.

Su Ling had sent a team to search the pond for a squarish rock, which had to be the murder weapon because the indentation in the groom’s skull matched the corner of a paving stone from the garden rather than the smooth, rounded river rocks in the shallow water.

As Carmen read the message, a humorless laugh escaped her.

“And get this,” she said sardonically to Heron and Tandy.

“The fish ate off all the organic material from the rock. Which would include the killer’s DNA and any skin cells or hair—provided, of course, they’d made their way onto it in the first place.

If this shows up in a Discovery Channel true crime special, bet we see an uptick in murders around fishponds. ”

Tandy chuckled as he cut a glance her way.

The situation sparked another idea. “What if this is somebody acting like a serial doer, to kill him for another reason—and not some phantom Russian spy. Insurance?”

Tandy said, “I like it. Should have thought about that before. The most common reasons for murder are sex and money. And we can rule out the first motive.”

Heron said, “I’m on it.” He did some rapid thumb-typing on his tablet.

A moment later, he looked down. “Declan. It says, ‘Regarding your inquiry about Anthony Brock’s insurance policies. He is covered by Federal Employee Health Benefits, GEICO automotive and the federal employee plan for his home. USAA is not an option as he is not presently nor was he ever enlisted in the military. There are no records of any life insurance.’ ”

“Thank you, Declan,” Carmen said.

Amusing her, Heron lifted an eyebrow her way. She knew he lived and breathed computers, and to a certain extent he slept computers.

He did not, however, thank them.

Their large language model assistant was not quite finished, it seemed.

Heron read another missive. “It’s got something else.

‘In addition, I was unable to locate any filings of real or personal property in the names of revocable trusts with Anthony Brock as grantor/trustee, or wills in the name of Anthony Brock. This does not preclude that such documents exist, but as of 2.5 seconds ago, none were on file in the courthouses of any of the fifty states, and US protectorates, Canada or Mexico.’ ”

“Wills,” she muttered, frustrated at herself for the oversight, though traveling to Italy to murder just to cover up a financial crime was a bit far-fetched. “Good catch.”

Heron looked away from them and his eyes swept the garden and the stucco rear of the inn. “This place is ninety percent blind spots. No wonder the security vids were pretty useless.”

HK had been careful to avoid being seen.

But Heron, who’d reviewed tapes on the way here, had managed to isolate a few frames of an indistinct figure that appeared to be a White female with an average build and long, dark hair in the upper-level garden near Brock and his bride not long before he died.

But if so, then why hadn’t she come forward? Although it wasn’t thought to be a crime until just now, on Saturday night officers had sought out anyone who might have knowledge of the incident.

Carmen explained that the subject in the picture was now officially a person of interest and offered a couple of possible reasons she hadn’t spoken with officers. Maybe she’d left before the death, or before the police started questioning those present.

Or maybe she was connected with the killer somehow.

“Somebody to keep watch?” Tandy mused. “Strange. But so is everything about this. Two people killing newlyweds? Natural Born Killers ... I’d vote no, but let’s keep it in mind.”

Heron added another note to the virtual murder board.

They had sent the picture to the hotel with instructions to show it to the staff, in hopes it might trigger a recollection. There had been no response yet.

Heron glanced at his tablet as a message came in.

“Declan again. About the image of Ms. Person of Interest. ‘In an effort to provide a forensically useful image, enhancing the definition of pixels—as is often an overly convenient and unconvincing trope in popular crime fiction—will not produce meaningful results in this instance, due to excessive noise.’ ”

Large language models, despite access to all the world’s data, were not miracle workers.

Carmen frowned as she gazed around, the sprinklers, the grass trampled by mowing and weed-whacking workers. A mute crime scene.

She said, “Nothing for us here. Let’s go talk to the widow.”