CHAPTER 4

Matt went on home after helping Michael drop off the computer and other evidence at the lab. Catey was still slightly grumpy and he took her down to the barn to visit Cricket. After their usual ride, the baby seemed to be in a little better spirits, but it was obvious that her gums were hurting. Matt took her back up to the house, gave her a bath and some of the acetaminophen drops, and sat down with her in the rocking chair that had been a present from his Uncle Roy. The baby snuggled into his chest and stayed there as he gently rocked her. CJ watched the pair.

"Do you want me to take her for a while?" She watched as Catey held onto her dad's fingers while he rocked her.

"No, we're good. I don't think I spend enough time with her."

CJ was surprised to hear that. "You spend a good bit of time with her."

"I know, it's just…" He kept thinking about what Bruce Marcus had said that afternoon about the relationship of a father and daughter.

"The case." CJ could read her husband like a book – at least most of the time. He nodded. "Matt, you're a great dad. You feed her, change her…take her horseback riding." They both smiled. "You even give her a bath…there are a lot of dad's out there who won't do that." He nodded again. Getting up and walking over to the two of them she leaned over and gave both of them a kiss. "You're a better dad than most men, Matt. And even when she's older and we have disagreements – and we will – she'll always know what a good dad you are and how much you love her."

"I hope so." He watched as the baby started to doze off.

"I know so." She gave him another kiss on the cheek and went into the kitchen.

The next morning, Matt headed on in to Michael's office in hopes that the ME's report would give them a direction to head in. Before he reached the station, however, his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID before answering. "Good morning."

"No, it isn't." Michael Hoyt was standing near the body of another young woman.

"Don't tell me there's another one."

"I'm afraid so. It looks like you were right; he went west. I'm on the eastern side of Stone Canyon Reservoir. She was spotted by a radio station traffic helicopter about thirty minutes ago. I got here using one of the department's boats."

"Hang on a second." Matt pulled into the parking lot of a department store and pulled out the laptop he had in the truck, going to Goggle maps and pulling up the area. "Okay, what landmarks are near you?"

"I can see a house up the hill – but it's a pretty good distance away."

"What does it look like?" Matt zoomed in on the area.

"Uhhhh…it's got kind of a slanted roof and there's an elevated deck on the back of it. Why?" Michael wasn't sure what the PI had up his sleeve.

"Okay, the place where you're standing: is it kind of open and on a point?" Matt zoomed in a little more.

"Yeah…"

"Okay. I'm going to come in on that side. I've got a feeling I know how he got her down there. Be there in a few minutes." He hung up and looked at the map again for a minute, deciding that Willoughby had probably gone in via Selkirk Lane. The paved road ended at a house very near the one that Michael was seeing, but there was a dirt road that went further into the canyon. Matt was willing to bet that their suspect had used his truck to get in there and decided to go that way as well.

Ten minutes later, the PI passed the house that he had seen on the map and followed the dirt road, being careful not to drive over the tire tracks that were already there. He parked at the end of the road, and carefully followed the footprints down toward the water – where he saw a puzzled Lt. Michael Hoyt looking at him as if he was an alien. "He used the truck again – I saw the tracks from the Rattlesnakes. You need to send someone from the lab up there – and tell them to park at the end of the pavement. As they head in, the tracks on the right are mine. The other set is the one they're after." He walked on down and knelt by the body of another young woman of about twenty. She had long very black hair, white makeup on her face, and black eye shadow and eyeliner along with shockingly red lipstick. Matt looked up when he heard the sound of a boat motor. "Looks like Cheryl is here."

"Uh huh – and that's one of the coroner's assistants with her."

Very carefully, Matt walked down to the water's edge and helped the CSI tech off of the boat along with some of her equipment. "Fancy meeting you here." She gave him a smile.

"We've gotta quit meeting like this Cheryl – CJ's gonna suspect something." He gave her a goofy grin and helped her up the hill.

"How many does this make now – three?" She knelt down next to her case and removed the camera and some paper rulers that they used to show scale.

"Actually, Michael and I think it's more like five." He turned back toward the area that he had come from as Hoyt hung up from talking to another CSI tech who was finding his way to the dirt road that Matt had taken. The PI pointed out the trail where the victim and the suspect had come down to the water's edge and explained how he had gotten there and what he had found.

"Wonderful." Cheryl's sarcastic remark was accompanied by a scowl. She quickly got to work documenting the scene with photos: the marks on the girl's neck, the position in which her body lay, and the area surrounding her.

"Hey, look over here." Matt had walked toward the other side of the body. "There's a square depression in the grass, just like the last scene. And look." The PI pointed out a piece of blue plastic that looked like a very small strip from a tarp. "That's how he's keeping the blood from getting on the ground around the bodies, Michael. It's from a tarp."

"Damn!" The cop knelt down and held the ruler for Cheryl.

"No, not damn…that may be how we can nail this bastard. If he's using the same tarp every time…"

"It might have blood from all of the victims on it." Cheryl finished his thought and he nodded.

"That might be just what we need." Matt and Hoyt exchanged a grim smile. "What about the ME's report?"

"I didn't make it to the office yet – I got the call on my way in. But we'll look for it as soon as we're done here."

"Lieutenant, she's got ID on her." The young man held up a small billfold that had been in the girl's back pocket.

"Adrianne Vasquez. Lives on Sepulveda. Twenty years old." Hoyt held the ID so that Matt could see as he copied it down, then handed it back to the Coroner's assistant and wrote it down himself.

Matt surveyed the area before turning back to Michael. "I believe we need to go look at the ME's report. Want a ride back to your car? The boat's gonna be kind of crowded." The cop nodded and the two headed out up the hill and Matt showed him the tracks back up to the area where the killer had parked, and the tire tracks heading into the area as he left. "He's started getting sloppy. That piece of tarp could be the best break we've had so far. And I was thinking: if this punk really thinks he's a vampire then he might have left some DNA on the victims' necks."

"That's what I'm hoping for…" Michael looked out the window. "Let's stop and see if anybody here heard or saw anything last night."

"Alright." Matt pulled into the driveway of the house nearest the end of the road. An elderly man came out looking mad.

"I told you last night not to come back up here again. Now I've got the police on the way." He stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the driveway.

Michael and Matt exchanged a look as they approached the man. "Sir, I'm Lt. Michael Hoyt…" He showed his badge. "LAPD. This is Matt Houston, a consultant to the department."

"Oh…guess you're not the guy from last night. I better go let the cops know…but I guess you could do that quicker than me?" He looked at Hoyt, somewhat sheepishly, then at Matt. "Sorry about that."

"That's okay. We wanted to know if you saw or heard anything up here last night – and from the sound of it you did." Matt shook hands with the man.

"I sure did. Millard Glenfield." He pointed toward the house. "Why don't you boys come on in and have a seat?" The two detectives followed Glenfield into the living room of the home that looked out over the lake.

"So can you tell us what happened last night?" Matt had a seat on the couch as did Michael.

"Sure can. I have an ongoing battle with the teenagers coming up here thinking that it's Lover's Lane, you know?"

Matt gave a small chuckle and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Well, this guy comes tearing up the road last night. And I knew the truck – I should; I've called and complained about him enough times." He looked at Hoyt. "I know you folks at the police department have your hands full, but it gets ridiculous up here with all these young Romeos tearing up the road out here to go park. I've asked the city to put up a barricade but I guess they've got better things to spend our money on. Anyway, this guy comes up here quite a bit – at least twice a week. So last night I was taking Major out – my dog." He pointed to an old dog lying in the sun out on the deck. "Real vicious type, guess you can tell." The two detectives both chuckled. "Well anyway, the punk comes flying up the road and I yelled at him. The idiot didn't even have his lights on. He stopped in the street and stuck his hand out the window and gave me the high sign and told me to go back in before he decided to put me and my dog out of his misery." Glenfield shook his head. "Kids these days. I came in and called the cops for all the good it did. No offense, Lieutenant. But honestly – I moved up here to get away from so much of the rat race."

"It's perfectly understandable, Mr. Glenfield. So after you two had your altercation he went on up the road? Could you see if anyone else was in the truck?"

"I didn't see her, but I heard what sounded like a girl kinda crying. That's another reason I called it in. But nobody ever came up here – or if they did they didn't stop to talk to me." He looked at the two detectives. "I saw all the commotion down there. What happened?" Hoyt filled him in on what they had found. "Son of a gun! I had no idea. That poor girl!"

"So you say he comes up here a couple of times a week, Mr. Glenfield?" Matt was taking notes.

"He sure does. But I wonder if he will since you two found that girl?" Glenfield had just said what both Matt and Michael had been thinking to themselves.

"What about the truck? Have you seen it good before?" The private eye had a feeling that Mr. Glenfield didn't miss much that went on around him on the cul-de-sac.

"Sure as hell have! It's a good sized one – like that one of yours, and it's black sort of. Guess that sounds stupid. It's a darker color blue than yours – kind of like a real dark navy color."

"What about the make?"

"It's a Ford, like yours but taller. Got some of those big tires on it."

"If I showed you a picture, do you think you could identify the body style?" Houston had a good feeling about Glenfield.

"I'll sure as hell try."

"Be right back." Matt headed back out to the truck for his laptop.

"So how does a fella that young get to be a consultant to the department?" Glenfield gave Michael a questioning look. "He looks kind of familiar."

"He's a private investigator – been helping the department out for several years now. And he probably looks familiar because he was on TV fairly recently: he helped the Coast Guard end a hostage situation on an oil platform in the Gulf."

"Son of a gun, that's him? Wow, he sure gets around." He looked at Matt with a new-found respect when he came back in and opened up the laptop.

"Here you go." He turned the machine so that the elderly man could see the pictures of trucks that he had pulled up.

After moving his glasses around a bit the older man looked up at Matt. "I don't see so good anymore."

"Here – try it now." Matt blew up the pictures.

"Now that's pretty handy. Let's see…" Glenfield searched through the pictures. "The front of it was about like this here – lotta chrome right here on the front where yours has the winch. And the windows are all black, kind of like this one here."

"Good. Looks like about a 2005 model, Michael. Can you think of anything else about it that would help us?"

"Yeah, he had something on the back window – like a big decal. It was white…kinda looked like a mouth with fangs."

Matt and Michael nodded. "Mr. Glenfield we sure appreciate your help." Matt pulled one of his business cards out of his pocket. "If you should happen to think of anything else or see this fella again, please give us a call." He handed the card over as Michael pulled out one of his own. "Don't call it in to 911 or anything – we'll take care of it, okay?"

"Sure thing. And again, I'm sorry about earlier. If I hadn't been so dang fired up I would have noticed that wasn't the right truck."

Houston grinned as he closed the laptop. "Not a problem, sir. Thanks again." He and Michael headed on out to the truck. "I don't see much point in talking to anyone else do you?" Matt slid behind the wheel and put the laptop into the backseat.

"No, I believe Mr. Glenfield is about as good as twenty witnesses…I just hope he gets to testify in court."