California State Park Service headquarters. Last night, they faxed a response.” He took stapled papers from the folder and handed them to Vining.
She silently skimmed them, stopping to reread this line: “In response to your inquiry, the woman in your drawing might be California Park Ranger Marilu Feathers.”
Vining repeated the name. Marilu Feathers. It glowed for her. It was as if she’d found a long-lost sister. She continued reading.
“Ranger Feathers was stationed at Montaña de Oro State Park. While patrolling the sandspit on Christmas Eve eight years ago, she exchanged gunfire with an unknown suspect and was shot to death. Her murder is unsolved. After an exhaustive investigation by the California Park Service and the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, the case went cold. We would be happy to share our information with you in the hope of bringing the perpetrator to justice, and delivering closure to Ranger Feathers’s family and to her fellow rangers.”
Closure, Vining thought. Feel-good bull.
With the letter was a copy of Feathers’s official Park Service photograph, in uniform. In the background were the U.S. flag and the California state flag with the now-extinct California grizzly on a white background. Feathers’s thin lips were closed, the edges barely upturned. Her features were plain and square. Her lank, dark hair, cut in a blunt, utilitarian style that reached her large jaw, looked plastered to her head. Her appearance was severe, yet there was something open, honest, and kind about her face.
Vining silently asked her: What did you do to attract his attention?
Kissick said, “I’ve had a telephone conversation with the assistant director. He says a park ranger, named Zeke Denver, who was stationed at Montaña de Oro at the time of Feathers’s murder and who participated in the investigation, is still there. I’m driving up to meet him as soon as we’re finished here.”
Vining wondered why Early said that it would take Kissick a week to work the new leads. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two at most. He’d found Marilu Feathers. Good for him. She desperately wanted to go to Montaña de Oro. Kissick was a great investigator, but this case was different. She knew the right rocks to turn over. She knew the right questions to ask, such as: Had Feathers been involved in an incident on duty that had propelled her into the limelight? Had she subsequently been given a pearl necklace with a gemstone pendant that foretold the month of her murder?
Of course, Kissick could ask these same questions if she turned over all the information she’d gathered. She’d have to someday. Maybethat day was here. Her dilemma was how to do it while omitting the companion piece to the tale, that she had lied, cheated, and stolen to get the evidence. Still, only she could bring her unique perspective to the investigation. Only she and T. B. Mann had breathed the same air, charged with violence and sex.
She set the fax on her lap, on top of the drawings, not daring to hand the materials back to Kissick lest he see her trembling hands. She folded her hands on top of the papers.
Kissick continued. “Since I got a hit on my hunch about Morro Rock, Sarge and I decided to examine the last two drawings for clues about who the women might be.”
He held out his hand for the papers that Vining held.
She quickly passed them on, again clasping her hands in her lap as the trembling hadn’t completely subsided.
He found the drawing of the woman hanging by her ankles and held it up. “Sarge remembered a murder like this.”
Early spoke up. “After we’d dismissed Nitro as a nutcase, I didn’t give those drawings another thought and hadn’t looked at them too closely to begin with. Our star investigator here, with his tremendous instincts, felt there was more than what met the eye. He wouldn’t let it go and thank goodness, because we finally have some new leads.”
Vining knew that Kissick
She silently skimmed them, stopping to reread this line: “In response to your inquiry, the woman in your drawing might be California Park Ranger Marilu Feathers.”
Vining repeated the name. Marilu Feathers. It glowed for her. It was as if she’d found a long-lost sister. She continued reading.
“Ranger Feathers was stationed at Montaña de Oro State Park. While patrolling the sandspit on Christmas Eve eight years ago, she exchanged gunfire with an unknown suspect and was shot to death. Her murder is unsolved. After an exhaustive investigation by the California Park Service and the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, the case went cold. We would be happy to share our information with you in the hope of bringing the perpetrator to justice, and delivering closure to Ranger Feathers’s family and to her fellow rangers.”
Closure, Vining thought. Feel-good bull.
With the letter was a copy of Feathers’s official Park Service photograph, in uniform. In the background were the U.S. flag and the California state flag with the now-extinct California grizzly on a white background. Feathers’s thin lips were closed, the edges barely upturned. Her features were plain and square. Her lank, dark hair, cut in a blunt, utilitarian style that reached her large jaw, looked plastered to her head. Her appearance was severe, yet there was something open, honest, and kind about her face.
Vining silently asked her: What did you do to attract his attention?
Kissick said, “I’ve had a telephone conversation with the assistant director. He says a park ranger, named Zeke Denver, who was stationed at Montaña de Oro at the time of Feathers’s murder and who participated in the investigation, is still there. I’m driving up to meet him as soon as we’re finished here.”
Vining wondered why Early said that it would take Kissick a week to work the new leads. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two at most. He’d found Marilu Feathers. Good for him. She desperately wanted to go to Montaña de Oro. Kissick was a great investigator, but this case was different. She knew the right rocks to turn over. She knew the right questions to ask, such as: Had Feathers been involved in an incident on duty that had propelled her into the limelight? Had she subsequently been given a pearl necklace with a gemstone pendant that foretold the month of her murder?
Of course, Kissick could ask these same questions if she turned over all the information she’d gathered. She’d have to someday. Maybethat day was here. Her dilemma was how to do it while omitting the companion piece to the tale, that she had lied, cheated, and stolen to get the evidence. Still, only she could bring her unique perspective to the investigation. Only she and T. B. Mann had breathed the same air, charged with violence and sex.
She set the fax on her lap, on top of the drawings, not daring to hand the materials back to Kissick lest he see her trembling hands. She folded her hands on top of the papers.
Kissick continued. “Since I got a hit on my hunch about Morro Rock, Sarge and I decided to examine the last two drawings for clues about who the women might be.”
He held out his hand for the papers that Vining held.
She quickly passed them on, again clasping her hands in her lap as the trembling hadn’t completely subsided.
He found the drawing of the woman hanging by her ankles and held it up. “Sarge remembered a murder like this.”
Early spoke up. “After we’d dismissed Nitro as a nutcase, I didn’t give those drawings another thought and hadn’t looked at them too closely to begin with. Our star investigator here, with his tremendous instincts, felt there was more than what met the eye. He wouldn’t let it go and thank goodness, because we finally have some new leads.”
Vining knew that Kissick
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