—
I went back online, began looking for hospital-related victim dumps in other states, found plenty.
Seattle, Vegas, Albuquerque, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Chicago, New York. According to Marty Kehoe, Paul O’Brien had hailed from somewhere in the East. But all the cases on record were gang-related or domestics and each had occurred while O’Brien lived in L.A.
It was nearly four p.m. when I pushed away from my screen. Time to go out to Robin’s studio, learn her work plans and her dinner preferences.
I’d just stepped out of the office when the buzz of my phone on the desktop brought me back.
On the screen:Big Guy.
I said, “What’s up?”
Milo said, “Just learned of another .308 sniping, four months before Parmenter. We’ve been sticking to L.A. County, this one was in Ventura and it’s a definite, the bullet matches. The cop who caught the case heard about O’Brien, brought it down here personally to the lab and pushed to have it tested. They haven’t gotten around to telling me but she just did.”
“Who got shot?”
“Woman in a rowboat,” he said. “Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, right? You up to view the scene tomorrow? At the least it’ll be pretty.”
Chapter
16
Pretty, as promised.
Milo and I set out at eight a.m., hit mild Saturday traffic on the 101 North, made it to the Ventura city limits an hour later. The next twenty minutes were spent coursing along an easterly road called La Calle Vista as it climbed and contorted through foothills shaded by native sycamores and California oaks.
The lowest reaches bordering the drive remained undeveloped. A couple of miles in, modest houses began to appear, followed by ranches on lots that expanded with rising altitude. Horses, goats, duck ponds, chickens pecking with abandon. Citrus groves were supplemented by avocado. The aroma of dung mingled with sage, orange blossoms, and yerba buena.
Our destination was a gated dead end flanked by signs.
Private Road. No Trespassing. Lookout Point, A Private Community.
The gate was an electrically operated rectangle of chicken wire in a wooden frame. Fine for stopping vehicles but a pedestrian intruder could easily pass through the gap between barrier and post. No blockage at all today; the gate had been left wide open.
We continued up a tarred road so dusty it could’ve been mistakenfor dirt. Tall, dense trees curtained both sides. Eucalyptus mixed with Italian cypress, Aleppo, and Canary Island pines, all imports from decades past.
Beyond that was a scatter of houses, single-story and moderately sized with plenty of acreage between them. Tree-shrouded residences arranged in a horseshoe on the north side of blue-green water. Wooden bollards planted in the ground a hundred feet from the shore blocked further car travel but, again, foot entry was easy, the view expansive and welcoming.
A single sign was staked to the left.Caution: Lookout Lake’s Waters Can Rise Above Banks.
Not this morning; the level was a good yard below shore.
Milo parked in front of the bollards and looked at his Timex. “She should be here soon, let’s take a look.”
We trod firm, dry ground to the water’s edge. The south side of the lake was forest. The houses facing that green-black wall were furnished with canopied docks, some empty, others housing canoes, kayaks, and rowboats.
No motorcraft explained a quiet that went beyond the absence of noise. This was an active aural calm, as if a room had been hushed. Nothing, then a few birdcalls. Then the occasional kiss of breeze on foliage.
As if the air molecules themselves had been altered.
I said, “Not exactly Hollywood grit.”
Milo said, “But apparently no safer.”
Moments later, engine noise made an entry and the birds went mute.
—
