Free Blind Spot by Nancy Bush Page B

asked.
    Tanninger laughed.
    “Can you give me the info on the guy who found them? The trucker?”
    “I’ll get you the file. We checked the license plate of the vehicle that was left on the scene. Stolen truck. It’s in the file, too.”
    “And the murder weapon, the knife, was found at the crime scene…? Anything there?”
    “No prints that count. Covered in blood and wiped on the grass. Tossed into the nearby bushes.”
    “He or she didn’t want to be caught with it.”
    Tanninger shrugged. “Maybe. But the doer had to be hit by the blood. There was a lot of it.”
    “They weren’t thinking straight.”
    “Not that kind of crime,” he agreed.
    Lang nodded. “Okay.”
    “Tomorrow I’m heading out to interview the other victim. The woman. If you want to join on, your timing’s perfect. Barb was going to head to Halo Valley Security this afternoon, but she’s out sick, so I’m teed up. Jane Doe hasn’t talked, hasn’t even comprehended what’s happened, as far as anyone can tell. It’s wait and see, but we try to keep a finger on the pulse…so?”
    Lang absorbed the news about an imminent trip to Halo Valley with mixed feelings. He could feel his pulse speed up. “Is Barb the one who got shot, or…?”
    Tanninger nodded. “She didn’t want to go home today. She’s hard to hold down, no matter what.”
    “No one’s got in touch about Jane Doe? Or the guy in the morgue?”
    “Not yet. Channel Seven’s doing a follow-up.”
    “Pauline Kirby?” Lang managed to keep from making a face. Just.
    “You don’t like her?”
    “Love her.”
    Tanninger laughed. “So, do you want to go to Halo Valley?”
    Did he really want to take a trip to that hospital? See that monstrous institution and know that Heyward Marsdon was in there, albeit behind the double-locked doors to the restricted half? Have a chance to maybe interview Dr. Claire Norris?
    He saw her in his mind’s eye. Quiet. Serious. Slim. Brunette. Maybe a ballbuster.
    Exhaling slowly, he nodded.
    Tanninger stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the team.”
     
    Claire took the three concrete steps that led to her back door, balancing two bags of groceries. She’d made a quick stop at the market, buying salad fixings and boneless chicken breasts. Once upon a time she’d prided herself on her original meals. But that was when she’d been married. Happily married. Or at least believed she was happily married. A long time ago.
    She dropped the bags onto her chipped Formica countertop. The rented bungalow was cute but tired. Its major selling feature was its view of the Pacific Ocean. Not a spectacular view; the homes dotting this hillside above the small hamlet of Deception Bay were built in the forties and fifties, anything but lavish, but they had charm.
    Her kitchen window faced north and she could see slices of the jetty past the laurel and camellia bushes that had nearly taken over this side of the house. She could also see Dinah’s cabin, smaller than hers, more of a Craftsman style, though its paint was peeling badly and the roof patches looked like acne, dotted across the whole of it.
    She put the chicken breasts in a pan with a spray of olive oil, covered them, and waited for them to finish cooking. Then she tossed together the greens, added garbanzos, chopped walnuts, goat cheese, and blueberries, and pulled a favorite bottle of honey mustard dressing from the cupboard. She’d learned shortcuts since her ill-fated marriage. She’d learned she didn’t have to be a perfect wife in order to matter.
    Seeing a flash of color outside the window, she looked out. It was just getting dark and wisps of fog were floating by like a magician’s screens—now you see it, now you don’t—further obscured by fitful rain. The color splash was dullish red and came from her neighbor and friend’s, Dinah’s, tunic. Dinah was walking from the direction of the beach, which, though across the road and down the hill, was part of Dinah’s favorite