CALICO

ONE

Saturday, February 2, 2019

The walls in Beth McDade’s dark bedroom were bare. Her bed was simply a mattress and box spring. Her nightstands, on either side of her bed, were a steel gun safe and a cardboard moving box topped with mismatched desk lamps.

Beth was shirtless and straddling Chet Rogoff on her bed, her hands working to unbuckle his jeans. She was eager to get to that sweet moment when the flirty banter, the alcohol, and the right touch would combine to free her from her anxieties and her boredom.

That’s when her cell phone vibrated on the gun safe.

She let go of his belt buckle. ‘I’ve got to get that.’

‘Now? Really?’ Chet said, breathing heavily.

‘I’m on call.’

Her shift as a homicide detective at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Barstow station ended at 5 p.m. but she was on call 24/7 for the next two weeks, even on her so-called days off. That’s because the station only had 2½ detectives, two full-timers and one deputy, who rotated in from patrol to take up the slack.

She reached for the phone and checked the screen. It was 2:20 a.m. The caller ID displayed: WATCH COMMANDER.

‘McDade,’ she answered, gently grinding against Chet, keeping some hope alive for them both.

‘Sorry to wake you,’ Sergeant Ripley said, with a tone that indicated he knew she wasn’t asleep. It wasn’t a big secret that she was at Pour Decisions on Main Street until eleven. The majority of the bar’s patrons were Sheriff’s deputies, Barstow cops, or other first responders. The rest were military types from Fort Irwin or the Marine Corps Logistics Base eager to get off the base and wash the sand out of their throats.

‘No problem, Rip,’ Beth said. ‘Who needs to dream when you’re living it in Barstow? What’s up?’

‘I am,’ Chet whispered. She put her free hand over his mouth to shut him up but she kept moving her hips.

Ripley said, ‘Twenty minutes ago, a guy was hit and killed by a motor home outside of Peggy Sue’s.’

She knew the place. It was cheesy roadside diner out in Yermo, a bleak smattering of gas stations and fast-food joints off Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert, thirteen miles east of Barstow. The diner was surrounded by dinosaur statues to draw the attention of motorists or, more likely, their bored and car-sick kids.

‘Who responded to the scene?’ Beth asked. They only had twenty-five officers in total, including the command staff, to cover the 9,200 square miles under their jurisdiction, though most of it was uninhabited desert.

‘A deputy is out there, a kid named Willits, and CHP is handling traffic.’

Meaning Willits was sitting on his ass, she thought. No cars were on the desolate street at 2:20 a.m. and only a trickle during daylight. A tortoise could cross the road at noon without much danger of getting hit before he reached the other side.

‘Is the coroner there yet?’

‘He’s on the way,’ Ripley said.

‘So am I.’ She ended the call, stopped moving, and looked down at Chet. ‘I got a body in Yermo.’

She began to climb off of Chet but he grabbed her firmly by the hips to keep her in place.

‘You got a body right here,’ he said.

‘Very funny.’

‘The guy is DRT.’ Cop talk for Dead Right There. Chet was a California Highway Patrol officer. ‘He’s not going to get any deader if you finish what you started. Besides, why arrive before the coroner does? You’ll just be sitting on your ass. Wouldn’t you rather kill the time here?’

‘Good point.’ She dropped her phone on the bed and got back to work on his buckle. They rushed themselves and climaxed together in less than five minutes.

There was no time for post-coital anything. Beth jumped off of Chet, took a quick rinse in the shower, gargled some mouthwash, ran a brush through her brown hair, and got dressed in the same blouse, blazer, jeans, and shoulder holster she’d worn the previous day.

Beth squatted in front of the gun safe, took out her Glock, holstered it, and then searched for her phone.

Chet held her phone out to her from the bed, where he was still lying, naked and disheveled. He was thirty-two, a couple of years younger than her, and in perfect shape, though she’d noticed some gray hairs on his chest. He was easygoing and good-humored, two qualities that were hard to find in men living or working in Barstow. It wasn’t a place that attracted the best and the brightest, which she knew didn’t say much about her, either.

‘We drank a lot tonight,’ he said.

She’d got off work at five. The drinking started at six, and she’d had her last beer and a chaser around ten. She figured she’d be fine now, as long as she didn’t have to shoot anyone.

‘How’s my breath?’ Beth blew in his face.

‘Redolent of Listerine.’

‘Redolent? Wow.’

‘I’m not just hot, I’m educated.’

‘You went to Barstow Community College.’

‘That counts.’

She gave him a quick kiss and stood up.

‘Stay as long as you want. There’s breakfast in the freezer.’ And lunch and dinner. The only appliance in her kitchen that got a workout was her microwave. ‘Just lock up when you leave.’

‘You don’t want me to keep the bed warm for you?’

‘I won’t be back before my shift starts.’ Her shift started at 7 a.m. It was a good thing she kept a spare blouse and slacks in her locker. Going two shifts in the same clothes didn’t send a great message to the command staff.

‘This was good,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it again sometime.’

‘We’ll see.’ She smiled at him and dashed out.

There was a saying about Barstow that Beth heard when she’d arrived from LA three years ago.

The interstate here only goes in one direction: away. Nobody wants to be in Barstow and those who do, you don’t want to know.

She thought of that, and how true it was, every time she got on the freeway.

Barstow was built on the banks of the Mojave River in the 1800s as a railroad hub for the booming silver and borax mining operations in the desert. In the mid-1900s, the city’s Main Street was a stretch of the legendary Route 66 and was lined with eye-catching motels, hotels, and restaurants that were always packed with travelers. But when the new, much bigger, much faster, eight-lane interstate was built on the outskirts in 1957, Main Street took a bullet in the head and Barstow began its long, rotting decline. Beth felt that living there was like visiting a vast hospice. Or being a patient in one.

The interstate was an asphalt dividing line between the Barstow city center to the north and College Heights suburbs to the south, up in the rocky hills, close to the Community College. Beth lived in a rented tract home in the Heights, just like every other deputy who didn’t commute from Victorville or Apple Valley. It was the only place to live in Barstow without having a meth lab or a gang member as a neighbor, though some wealthier, original gangsters, the ones who shopped at the Ralph Lauren at the Barstow Outlet Stores, and who had kids in school and speedboats in their driveways, liked it up there, too.

She drove her unmarked Ford Explorer, a police interceptor model outfitted for off-road driving, at seventy-five miles per hour, eastbound on the interstate, without lights or sirens. There were only a few vehicles on the road at that hour.

The interstate spilled down onto the Mojave Desert valley, the Calico mountain range to the north, and the Marine Corps Logistics Base to the south. Beyond that, a wide expanse of parched earth, occasionally dotted with homes, inhabited by military families, alfalfa farmers, retirees, turkey ranchers, off-the-grid survivalists, and, in Beth’s mind, way too many in-bred families of meth-tweakers. The three gas stations, one dreary hotel, and four fast-food joints in Yermo were the last real outpost of commerce until Baker, fifty miles east.

Peggy Sue’s was located south of the interstate, across from the MCLB, with open desert on either side. Their nearest neighbor was a Jack-in-the-Box a hundred yards west, by the on and off ramps to the interstate.

A sheriff’s patrol car, its lightbar flashing, blocked off the deeply cracked asphalt street. Beyond the cruiser, a huge, bus-sized motor home was parked on the shoulder. A San Bernardino County coroner’s wagon was parked in front of Peggy Sue’s.

Beth parked beside the coroner’s wagon and approached the young deputy, who was measuring skid marks on the road behind the motor home and taking photos. Willits looked like a kid dressed up in an oversized deputy costume. Further up the road, a coroner dressed from head to toe in white Tyvek, his back to Beth, was crouched over a body, taking photos. The air felt like a hot towel on her face.

‘What’s the story?’ she asked.

‘The driver of the motor home was heading eastbound on the interstate, got off for a cup of coffee, but he got distracted by the lightning storm and then a big blast from the Marine base.’

She hadn’t heard any thunder or anything about a lightning storm. ‘A lightning strike?’

Willits shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But there was smoke and a lot of activity over there. It’s quieted down now.’

Beth glanced at the logistics base. Beyond the cyclone fence were rows and rows of vehicles and equipment, ready to be sent out to a battle somewhere or for use in the desert war games staged at Fort Irwin, on the other side of the Calico Mountains. She thought it was ironic that the Marines kept their toys in the desert, about as far from the ocean as it was possible to be.

Willits was still talking. ‘Anyway, when the blast happened, the driver glanced over there for a second, and when he turned his eyes back to the road, a guy ran right in front of his motor home.’

‘Ran from where?’

The deputy gestured to Peggy Sue’s, the dinosaurs, the freeway beyond. ‘The Peggy Sue’s parking lot. He was screaming.’

‘After he was hit?’

‘Before. He wasn’t making any sound after.’

‘Any idea what he might have been running from?’

‘Nope. There was nobody there, at least according to the driver and his wife.’ Willits gestured to an elderly couple standing beside their RV. ‘They’re on their way to Las Vegas.’

Of course they are, she thought. Anywhere but here.

The elderly couple were both shaped like pears and looked distraught. The man wore suspenders and sneakers with Velcro tabs instead of laces. The woman wore a loudly floral, pull-over house dress. Beth would eat her gun before wearing one of those.

‘Did you give them a breathalyzer?’

He nodded. ‘They’re clean.’

‘How long did it take you to get out here after they called 911?’

‘Only a few minutes. I was getting coffee at Eddie’s.’

It was a truck stop several miles further east with a sixty-five-foot-tall cherry-topped ice-cream sundae for a sign and twenty-six gas pumps. It was fortunate that the deputy happened to be so close by. On a good day, there were two patrol cars out per shift. With so few deputies, and such a vast patrol area, it often took an hour for a deputy to respond to a call.

Beth went over to the body, smelling it before she got a look at it. She smelled shit and blood, but mostly body odor, weeks of sweat in his clothes.

She came up behind the coroner and aimed her flashlight at the body. Her first impression, based on the B.O. and his ratty, dirt-caked clothes, was that he was a transient. He was bearded, long-haired, and deeply tanned. There was blood everywhere. His torso was flattened, but with the exception of some exposed broken bones, everything else in his body remained contained inside of his clothing. His head was mostly intact, except for an indentation on one side.

The coroner stood up and Beth recognized her as Amanda Selby. Even in darkness, lit only by their flashlights, Amanda looked tired and generally disheveled but, Beth thought, who wouldn’t at this hour?

‘I’m not used to seeing you on graveyard,’ Beth said.

‘I’m working some extra shifts. We need the money and I’m not sleeping much lately, anyway.’

Beth pointed her flashlight beam at the body. ‘Cause of death?’

‘Motor home.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘He was hit mid-chest, smacked his head against the windshield, cracking his skull open, then dropped under the vehicle, which rolled over him, crushing his torso, causing massive internal injuries. Hard to say exactly which severe trauma actually killed him. There are so many to choose from. Excuse me.’

Amanda pushed past her and vomited into the desert scrub in the empty lot beside Peggy Sue’s.

Beth stepped up beside her. ‘I thought you’d be used to this by now, given your line of work.’

Amanda spit out the bad taste in her mouth. ‘It’s morning sickness. My third child is due in September.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. We wanted to stop at two. But I learned the hard way that the only birth-control methods you can trust are celibacy, a vasectomy, or getting your tubes tied. One of us is going under the knife after this baby drops or we’re never having sex again. We may not anyway with three kids and only one of us earning a decent living.’ Amanda seemed suddenly self-conscious and glanced at Beth. ‘Sorry for venting, but I spend my days with corpses. Not a lot of opportunity for conversation.’

‘No problem,’ Beth said. ‘The dead man looks like a homeless person.’

‘Smells like one, too.’ Amanda led her back to the body.

‘Did you get his ID?’

‘I was just about to check his pockets when you came over.’

‘How many homeless can there be in the desert?’ Beth aimed her phone at his face, called up the photo app, zoomed in tight to hide the injury, and snapped a photo. She looked up to see Willits ambling over. ‘You know this guy? Maybe seen him around?’

Willits looked down at the dead man as Amanda carefully went through his pockets with her gloved hands.

‘Nope,’ he said.

‘No ID,’ Amanda said. ‘But this is odd.’

She held out her gloved hand and shone her flashlight on her open palm, revealing some old coins.

‘Antique coins?’ Beth said.

‘I’m not a numismatist – say that three times fast – but people find all kinds of interesting stuff out here. Old utensils, dishes, belt buckles, bones,’ Amanda said, putting the coins into a transparent evidence baggie that she pulled from one of her pockets. ‘Back in the 1880s, this was the railhead for the Calico silver-mining camp. The desert floor was full of tents and crudely built huts.’

Beth was familiar with the Calico Ghost Town, a tourist trap up in the mountains, three miles north of the interstate, built by the Knotts Berry Farm guy. It was a re-creation of the original town built atop its ruins and populated by ‘performers’ and shopkeepers wandering around in period costumes.

‘Anything else in his pockets?’

‘Just this.’ Amanda pulled a vintage tin of Eve Chewing Tobacco from his pocket. The text on the tin was in an old-time font. The art depicted a naked woman with a leaf strategically positioned over her crotch standing under an apple tree. The slogan read Chewing Paradise.

Amanda opened the tin. There was a glob of black tar inside. ‘Imagine putting that in your mouth.’

‘No wallet or anything?’

‘Not unless he has it up his ass.’ Amanda closed the tin, put it into an evidence baggie, and stood up.

‘Be sure to look.’

‘No orifice goes unexplored in my business.’ Amanda walked to the empty lot and, with her back to Beth and Willits, dry-heaved over the dirt.

Beth turned to Willits. ‘Is that motor home still roadworthy?’

‘I think so. Just a dented grille and a cracked windshield.’

Beth glanced at the couple, who looked back at her, worried. But she didn’t think there was any need to talk to them. They could have fled instead of calling 911 and probably never would have been caught. But instead, they stuck around. They wanted to do the right thing, and so did she.

‘Then you can send them on their way.’

‘Is it OK if I head out, too?’ Willits said. ‘I’ve taken my measurements and photos. There’s nothing else for me to do here right now. It’s a tragedy, not a crime.’

Beth knew the deputy only came to that conclusion because he was inexperienced, so she decided to make this a teaching opportunity. She pointed at the dead body. ‘What was he screaming about?’

‘He was probably drunk, on drugs, or nuts. What difference does it make?’

‘What if he was running from someone?’

He nodded toward the couple. ‘They said there was nobody out here.’

‘But they were distracted. It’s a big desert and it’s dark. That’s not even counting the lightning storm, the explosion, and running over a guy.’

‘I see your point. Sorry about that.’

‘No worries,’ she said, both surprised and impressed by his apology. ‘It’s late. We’re all tired.’

‘What can I do to help?’

‘Take a picture of him, cropped so it isn’t too gory, and see if anybody around here recognizes his face. Off-roaders, people who work at the gas stations.’

‘I got it.’

She glanced at the restaurant and the dinosaurs. Peggy Sue’s opened at seven, still four hours away. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you’d pull the security camera footage when the restaurant opens up and drop it off at my desk with your report when your shift ends.’

‘Will do.’

‘Thanks.’ This kid might just make it out of Barstow with that attitude, she thought.

Beth turned to her car and spotted someone strolling over from base. She knew who it was from his unmistakable lope. It was Bill Knox, the security chief for the Marine Corps Logistics Base. Fifties, buzz-cut, chest like armor-plating, hands like bricks. She walked over to meet him in the road.

‘What brings you over, Bill?’

‘You. When I saw the coroner’s wagon pull up, I thought there was a chance you might be here. What happened?’

‘Motor home vs man. Motor home won.’

‘Why didn’t the driver see him? It’s an open road.’

‘He was distracted by the lightning storm,’ Beth said. ‘And the explosion on your base.’

Bill gave her a strange look and glanced up at the clear sky. ‘There was a lightning storm?’

‘Isn’t that what caused the blast and got you out of bed so early?’

He put on his poker face. ‘It was just a dumpster fire. No big deal. An idiot tossed a cigarette inside, ignited some soiled rags.’

He must not play much poker, she thought. He was lying. Badly. She wondered why. Now she wanted a look at his security camera footage, too, not that anything on the base was any of her business.

‘Why did you want to see me?’

‘We should get together again some time,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s been too long.’

Three months ago, they had dinner at Oggie’s Sports Brewhouse at the Outlets and then got a room at the Hampton Inn. That qualified as a night on the town in Barstow. She hadn’t heard from him since. She glanced at his wedding ring. His wife lived in the Bay Area, but he was stationed out here in the desert. Sex with him was like combat training and just as bruising, but in a good way.

‘How are things at home?’

‘The same,’ he said. ‘Does it matter?’

Not really. Not to her. There wasn’t much else to do in this hell-hole when she wasn’t on the job. The alternative was being alone with her thoughts, her past, and her mistakes. His marriage was his problem, not hers.

‘You have my number. You don’t have to wait for someone to get killed outside of your gate to see me.’

She turned her back on him and walked into the desert, looking for any clues that might tell her where the dead guy came from.

TWO

Beth didn’t find anything in the desert around the diner and spent the next few hours at the Kampgrounds of America site north of the freeway and at the Calico campgrounds in a canyon below the ghost town. She visited every tent and RV, waking people up and showing them the dead man’s photo. She hoped to either find someone who’d seen him or to stumble upon his abandoned tent or RV. But she had no luck.

Dawn was breaking across the Mojave Desert valley as she drove south on Ghost Town Road, across a dry lake bed, toward the interstate, where the first rays of the sun glistened off the shiny silver trailers of passing big rigs.

Her phone rang. It was Ripley, the watch commander, calling again.

‘We’ve got a burglary in progress at 43700 Tahiti Road, Lake Betty.’

Beth floored the gas, put on her flashers and siren, and sped onto the freeway on-ramp, heading east. The address was about fifteen miles away. It would take her at least twenty minutes to get there.

Lake Betty was one of a two dozen private, shallow, spring-fed, man-made lakes in the valley. Several of the lakes were long and narrow, built specifically for tournament water-skiing. A few were bleak fishing holes at long-abandoned resorts. And the rest were failed ‘lake-front’ tract-home developments. When they broke ground on Lake Betty in 1974, it was supposed to be the first of three lakes, surrounded by three hundred homes and a Tahitian-style country club. It ended up being one lake with eleven homes and the rusted-out ruins of a train caboose.

‘Why are you calling me?’ she asked Ripley.

‘You’re the nearest unit. The closest patrol car is handling a domestic dispute in Lenwood and is thirty minutes out. CHP is sending backup, but they are ten to fifteen behind you.’

‘I meant, why are you calling me on the phone and not through the dispatcher?’ She had her radio unit on at a low hum, subconsciously listening for anything major.

‘This could be the same crew Hatcher has been chasing down,’ Ripley said, referring to Glen Hatcher, the other, full-time detective, ‘and he thinks they may be monitoring our radio calls. And I’ve got the homeowner on the phone. He’s watching it go down on his live video feed. I’ll patch him through. His name is Morty Grenlick.’

‘Where is he?’ Beth asked, knowing that the odds were he was hundreds of miles away. Most of the lake homeowners were out-of-towners who only came out on weekends and holidays.

‘La Jolla.’ There was a click and a hiss of static on the line, then Ripley continued. ‘Mr Grenlick, you’re on with Detective Beth McDade, who is on her way to your residence. I’ll sign off now.’

Beth turned off her siren so she could hear Grenlick and because sound carried a long way in the open desert. No sense announcing her arrival ten minutes before she got there.

‘How many others are rolling?’ Grenlick’s voice was gruff and tempered with frustration.

She said, ‘Just me. Tell me what you’re seeing.’

‘You’ve got to get more people out there.’

‘There are no more people, Mr Grenlick. Tell me what you are seeing.’ Beth peeled off onto the Mineola Road exit, and made a screeching right on to the southbound two-lane road through the middle of sandy nothing.

‘Three men with balaclavas over their faces. They’ve backed an SUV with a toy hauler up to my garage like it’s their own fucking place.’

At the moment, it basically was their place. Her SUV hit the railroad tracks and, for just a moment, was airborne before it hit the asphalt with loud thud. The impact jacked up her adrenaline. It felt good.

‘Are they armed?’

‘What the fuck for? The house is empty. But they are in for a fucking surprise. My neighbor Duke has a sawed-off that’ll cut those assholes in half. He’s probably out there now.’

Her lights were pointless, so she switched them off. There wasn’t a single car on the road for miles. She was still ten minutes away from the lake.

‘Do you have his number? Tell him to stay inside. Tell him not to get involved.’

‘Jesus Fuck, they’re loading my Sea-Doo into their trailer,’ Grenlick said, then he raised his voice, as if speaking to someone else in the room. ‘Hey, fuckwad, I can see you. Get your fucking hands off my shit.’

Beth felt a cramp of anxiety. ‘Are you talking to them? Can they hear you?’

‘Hell yes, when I want them to,’ Grenlick said, then raised his voice again, presumably into the mike on his computer. ‘This is the voice of fucking God. The cops are on the way, asshole. You’re going down.’

Great, she thought, why not tell them exactly when I’m arriving?

‘Don’t do that, Mr Grenlick.’

‘The sonofabitch is flipping me off and grabbing his nuts.’

‘You’re not helping the situation,’ Beth said.

‘Fuck me! Another one of ’em is driving away with my Razer. There goes $18K, into the desert. Where the fuck are you, lady?’

‘Almost there,’ she said, making a hard right onto an unmarked dirt road, but she knew it was over. There was no chance of catching them now.

‘They’re getting away,’ Grenlick yelled, and she heard the whap of his fist on the desk. ‘You need to get a chopper up there.’

‘We don’t have a chopper.’

At least not for this, tracking stolen ATVs across a wide-open desert. Maybe for a serial killer, or a kidnapping, or a Transformer from outer space marching across the valley, firing rockets from its head. The helicopter was based in San Bernardino, a hundred miles south, on the other side of a mountain range. In a pinch, they could call on the CHP or even the military for air support. This wasn’t a pinch.

‘Now the sonofabitch is taking out his dick and pissing on my couch,’ Grenlick said, then yelled into his computer: ‘I will cut that baby dick off and use it for bass bait, you white-trash piece of shit.’

Beth kept the gas pedal floored. ‘How do you know the suspect is white?’

‘I saw his dick,’ he said, ‘which I wish I could unsee.’

Lake Betty was about five miles away. The grove of trees around the lake was impossible to miss in the vast flatlands.

‘They’re getting in their truck. They’re leaving. They are getting away. Where the fuck is Duke?’

‘I need you to call your neighbor and tell him to stand down.’

‘Stand down from what? If Duke was out there, you’d be hearing gunshots. What good is a fucking alarm and enough cameras to film the fucking Super Bowl if anybody can just walk in, take your stuff, and piss on your couch?’

She was closing in on the lake. ‘Can you tell which way they are going?’

‘Away from my fucking house, where do you think?’

‘Which way? Straight out into the desert or on the road?’

‘How the fuck do I know? My cameras are watching my property, not the entire fucking desert.’

She knew they weren’t coming in her direction. They would likely stay away from main roads and freeway, go through the desert and alfalfa fields. They would be long gone before she got there.

She arrived at the twenty-five-acre melanoma-shaped lake. The one-story cinder-block-and-stucco houses around the shore were spaced widely apart and shaded by trees. There were a few low cyclone fences, strictly to keep pets and kids from wandering away. People who came here wanted wide open spaces. The backyards all had docks, some with speedboats, most with paddle boats, rowboats, or battery-powered cocktail-party cruisers.

Grenlick’s house was easy to spot. It was between an open lot and another, almost identical home. The four-car garage door was open, a Jeep Cherokee inside, and an alarm was shrilling from a speaker mounted under the eaves. She pulled up in the far side of the garage, careful not to roll where another vehicle might have been. If nobody had been here for a while, the breezes across the valley would have blown most of the surface smooth.

‘Is there anyone still in the house or on the property?’

‘They’re fucking gone,’ he said, morose. ‘Thanks for nothing.’

‘What about your neighbor?’

‘Fucking gutless, that’s what.’

Beth hung up on him, grabbed her radio mike, and called the dispatcher. ‘This is 8D2, show me at 43700 Tahiti Road, responding to the 4-5-9. It’s all clear.’

‘10-4, 8D2,’ the dispatcher said.

She got out, noting the tire-tread marks in the dirt in front of the garage. They had a distinctive pattern. At least she could get some good casts of tire treads. She faced the camera she saw mounted over the garage.

‘Can you please turn off the alarm?’

The alarm went off. He’d heard her over his camera mike. She waved her thanks to Grenlick, then glanced over at the neighbor’s house.

Why didn’t he come out?

She wandered over to Duke’s house. A few cardboard Amazon packages were yellowing on the cracked concrete stoop and she got a bad feeling.

As Beth got closer to the house, she heard the TV on inside. She walked around back to the lake side of the house. The drapes were slightly parted across a sliding glass door. She leaned close to the glass and saw the decomposing body of a man in a recliner, watching Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, a TV tray in front of him.

It wasn’t the first time she’d had this experience. There were lots of retirees living in isolation in the desert. They could go weeks without seeing or talking to anyone. And it could be even longer before anyone, particularly out-of-town relatives, got worried enough to call the Sheriff’s department to ask for a welfare check.

She tugged on the sliding door. It was unlocked, and even opening it a crack let out a blast of the putrid stench.

Breathing through her mouth, she went in and did a cursory check of the small two-bedroom house to make sure there weren’t any other residents or animals inside, dead or alive. He’d died alone, led into the afterlife by the Garage Sale Mysteries.

She went back to her car, reached inside for the mike, and radioed the dispatcher.

‘This is 8D2, responding to the 4-5-9 at 43700 Tahiti Road. The resident expressed concern about his neighbor at 43702 Tahiti Road. I did a wellness check and have a confirmed 1144.’ That was the radio code for a dead body.

‘10-4. We’ll contact the coroner.’

‘Copy that.’ She replaced the mike and saw a CHP cruiser arriving. It was a welcome and common sight. The first responders looked out for each other out here.

Beth stepped into the road to stop him before he could run over any tread marks and walked up to his driver’s side door. His window was already rolled down. It was a patrol woman named Rita Lopez.

‘I appreciate the backup, Rita, but the show is over.’

‘Figured as much.’

‘Did you happen to see an SUV with a toy hauler go by?’

‘Nope. Wish it was that easy.’

‘Thanks again. I owe you.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Rita smiled, made a U-turn, and drove off.

Beth walked up to Grenlick’s house and waved at the security camera over the garage.

‘Mr Grenlick? Can you please send me a link to the security camera videos?’ she said, then gave him her email address.

‘Where’s fucking Duke?’ His voice boomed out over the desert from the camera’s speaker. It was startling and disembodied. It really did sound like the voice of God.

‘Duke is dead. He has been for a few days now.’

‘Just my luck.’

Mr Warmth, Beth thought. She went back to her car, popped the trunk, and opened up the large gym bag that contained her forensics kit. Out here, CSI was only called for homicides, shootings, and other major, violent crimes. Otherwise, the detectives were on their own when it came to gathering evidence.

She took out a one-pound bag of Shake-N-Cast, which contained a unique plaster powder inside and an ‘easy-break’ capsule of water pre-measured to create just the right amount of slurry to capture the impression of a single shoe- or footprint. It came with a separate plastic cookie cutter-esque thing that unfolded to create a frame around footprints or tire treads in the dirt.

She unfolded the frame, placed it around the tire tread. Then she crushed the bag in her hands, breaking the capsule of water inside, shook and gently kneaded the contents, tore off the perforated top, and poured the contents over the impression.

That done, she went back to her car, took out her phone, and checked her email. Grenlick had sent her a link to the video. She pulled up the footage and watched the burglary go down, pretty much as he’d described the play-by-play, right up to one guy pissing on the couch and flipping off the camera.

She paused the image. The finger he was holding up to the camera was slightly crooked. He was wearing gloves and booties. The man was very careful and was clearly an avid viewer of TV cop shows. But he shouldn’t have peed on the furniture.

Beth went back to the trunk, took out a collection vial, evidence baggie, sealed Q-tip, and a sealed plastic scalpel, and went into Grenlick’s house through the door in the garage. His home had the same floorplan as Duke’s, but had been remodeled with higher-end materials. The furniture was