FOLLOW THE LEADER - Chapter 46

Chapter 46


It was dark as I pulled into The Oasis’ parking lot, tired and hungry. I was returning with a used matchbook that probably would lead to nothing. What a joke.

I knocked on the door to Rollins’ room. He opened it immediately.

“Hey,” he said. “How’d she do?”

It took me a second or two to realize that she was his Suburu.

“Fine,” I said. “Only once did I wish I was driving a Jeep.”

 I plopped down on a perfectly upholstered easy chair. I glanced down at my feet. “I should have taken off my shoes when I came in,” I said.

His look said What’s stopping you?

I kicked them off.

“Have any luck?” I asked.

He gave me the one-thumb-down.

“Sally didn’t remember anything else,” he said. “I talked to the bartender to see if he was working the day of the big storm. but…”

He wasn’t, I guessed, judging by his gloomy expression.

Rollins said, “He’s new, so he hadn’t heard about the storm. But he said I should talk to Alfredo, since he’s worked here longest. He’s coming on at eight. I’m not holding my breath.” 

“You?”

“I found a used matchbook.”

I saw immediately that his recently formed high opinion of me had just taken a nosedive. 

“A matchbook,” he repeated dumbly.

“Maybe two or three years’ old. It was taken from a famous eatery in Petaluma.”

“So what?”

He thinks I’m an imbecile!

Take another tack.

“The coroner thought the sediment on the body probably came from Western forest soil.”

“Which forest? There are beaucoup trees along the coast, all the way to fucking Washington! Come on, man, you’re supposed to be good at this!”

“But what’s the closest forest?  Besides Mount Tam and John Muir, which are both open to the public and always crowded. Think northernly.”

He thought it over.

“You’d still be in the Coastal Range, I guess.”

“Across from what big city?” I asked. 

“Santa Rosa?”

“Right. And just north of there?”

“Petaluma,” he sighed. “But I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“They found the beheaded girl’s body in that area, just off 101.”

“Let’s say you’re right about that…”

“I know I’m right. I drove up to the crime scene with Terry. Here’s the thing about these killers:  Besides branding the bodies they leave, they also like to chop off heads.”

I could sense he was visualizing the crime scene amidst the corn fields. He had only my description to go on.

“Just for kicks and giggles imagine yourself in Sheriff Calder’s shoes. He finds the decapitated girl in a bunch of bushes on farmland. Why is he there?”

“Someone called him?”

“Someone, namely the farmer, heard something. Then he called the sheriff the next morning.”

So?”

“So the sheriff and later, the coroner, estimate that the body was not even a full day old.  Sure, the killer could have driven a long way with the girl still alive. Tied up, say. Maybe on a bed of dry ice. But the more pit stops or restaurants or highway cops they encounter, the greater the risk. At this same site an F.B.I. agent found two sets of human bones, one set older than the other. It is definitely a killing place. It makes sense that the killer does not live a great distance away. Why not inside a trailer in or near the forest but not too far from Petaluma or Santa Rosa?”

My jaw was tired from talking. Screw it, I thought. It’s his turn.

Rollins waited. After a few seconds he said, “It’s all guesswork. Speculation.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t try.