Predator

27

The gate leads to the front yard, where Scarpetta pays attention to thick hibiscus barricading the property from the sidewalk that dead-ends at the waterway.

There are no broken twigs or branches, nothing to indicate that anyone has entered the property by pushing his way through the hedge. Reaching inside the black nylon shoulder bag she routinely carries to scenes, she pulls out a pair of white cotton examination gloves as she looks at the car on the cracked concrete driveway, an old, gray station wagon parked haphazardly, one tire partially on the lawn, where it has gouged the grass. She works her hands into the gloves and wonders why Ev or Kristin parked the car like that, assuming one or the other was driving.

She looks through the car windows at gray vinyl bench seats and the SunPass transponder neatly affixed to the inside of the windshield. She makes more notes. Already a pattern is becoming apparent. The backyard and pool are meticulous. The screened-in patio and lawn furniture are meticulous. She sees no trash or clutter inside the car, nothing but a black umbrella on the mat in back. Yet the car is parked sloppily, carelessly, as if someone couldn’t see well or was in a hurry. She bends down to take a closer look at dirt and bits of dead vegetation caked in the tire tread. She looks at thick dust that has turned the undercarriage the grayish tan of old bones.

“It appears this was driven off-road somewhere,” Scarpetta says, getting up as she continues to study the dirty tires, walking from one to the other.

Reba follows her around the car, looking, a curious expression on her lined, tan face.

“The dirt in the tread makes me think the ground was damp or wet when the car was driven over it,” Scarpetta says. “Is the church parking lot paved?”

“Well, it dug up the grass here,” Reba says, looking at the gouged yard beneath a back tire.

“That wouldn’t explain it. All four tires are caked with dirt.”

“The strip mall where the church is has a big parking lot. Nothing unpaved in the area that I noticed.”

“Was the car here when the lady from the church showed up looking for Kristin and Ev?”

Reba walks around, interested in the dirty tires. “They said so, and I can tell you for sure it was here when I arrived that afternoon.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check the SunPass, see what tollbooths it’s gone through and when. Have you opened the doors?”

“Yes. They were unlocked. I didn’t see anything significant.”

“So it’s never been processed.”

“I can’t ask the crime-scene techs to process something when there’s no evidence a crime’s been committed.”

“I understand the problem.”

Reba’s dark, tanned face watches her peer through the windows again. They are covered with a fine film of dust. Scarpetta steps back and walks around the station wagon, taking in every inch.

“Who owns it?” Scarpetta says.

“The church.”

“Who owns the house?”

“Same thing.”

“I was told the church leases the house.”

“No, the church definitely owns the house.”

“Do you know someone named Simister?” Scarpetta says as she begins to get a strange feeling, the sort that starts in her stomach and works its way up her throat, the same feeling she got when Reba mentioned the name Christian Christian to Marino.

“Who?” Reba frowns as a muffled explosion sounds from the other side of the waterway.

She and Scarpetta stop talking. They step closer to the gate, looking at the houses on the other side of the water. There is no one in sight.

“Car backfire,” Reba decides. “People drive a lot of junkers around here. Most of them shouldn’t be driving at all. Old as the Grim Reaper and blind as bats.”

Scarpetta repeats the name Simister.

“Never heard of her,” Reba says.

“She said she’s talked to you several times. I believe she said three times, to be exact.”

“I never heard of her, and she’s never talked to me. I guess she’s the one who bad-mouthed me, said I didn’t care about the case.”

“Excuse me,” Scarpetta then says, and she tries Marino on his cell phone and gets his voicemail.

She tells him to call her immediately.

“When you find out who this Mrs. Simister is,” Reba says, “I’d like to know about it. There’s something weird about all this. Maybe we should at least dust the inside of the car for prints. If nothing else, for exclusionary purposes.”

“Unfortunately, you probably won’t get the boys’ prints from inside the car,” Scarpetta says. “Not after four days. You probably won’t get them from inside the house, either. Certainly not the young boy’s prints, the seven-year-old boy’s prints.”

“I don’t get why you would say that.”

“The prints of prepubescent children don’t survive long. Hours, maybe a few days at most. We’re not entirely sure why, but it probably has to do with the oils people secrete when they reach puberty.Davidis twelve? You might get his prints. I emphasizemight.”

“Well, that sure is news to me.”

“I suggest you get this station wagon into the lab, process it for trace evidence and fume the inside of it ASAP with superglue for possible fingerprints. We can do it at the Academy, if you want. We have a bay for processing vehicles and can take care of it.”

“Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” Reba says.

“We should find Ev’s and Kristin’s prints inside the house. And DNA, including the boys’ DNA. Their toothbrushes, hairbrushes, shoes, clothing,” and then she tells Reba about the anonymous caller who mentioned Kristin Christian’s name.

Mrs. Simisterlives alone in a small white rancher built of stucco that bySouth Floridastandards is a tear-down.

She has an aluminum carport that is empty, which doesn’t mean she isn’t home, since she no longer owns a car or has a valid driver’s license. Marino also notices that the curtains are drawn in the windows to the right of the front door and there are no newspapers on the sidewalk. She has daily delivery ofThe Miami Herald, implying she can see well enough to read as long as she is wearing her glasses.

Her phone has been busy for the past half-hour. Marino cuts the engine of his motorcycle and climbs off as a white Chevy Blazer with tinted windows drives past on the street. It is a quiet street. Probably a lot of the people who live in this neighborhood are elderly and have been here a long time and can no longer afford the property taxes. It angers him to think of living in the same place for twenty or thirty years, to have your house finally paid for, only to discover you can’t pay the taxes because of rich people who want places on the water. Mrs. Simister’s tear-down house is assessed at almost three quarters of a million dollars, and she will have to sell it, probably soon, if she doesn’t end up in an assisted-living facility first. She has only three thousand dollars in savings.

Marino learned quite a lot about Dagmara Schudrich Simister. After talking to who he now suspects was someone claiming to be her, on speakerphone in Scarpetta’s office, he ran a search in HIT. Mrs. Simister goes by the name Daggie and is eighty-seven years old. She is Jewish and a member of a local synagogue that she hasn’t attended in years. She has never been a member of the same church as the missing people across the waterway, so what she said on the phone isn’t true, assuming it was Daggie Simister on the phone, and Marino doesn’t believe it was.

She was born inLublin,Poland, and survived the Holocaust, remaining inPolanduntil she was almost thirty, explaining the strong accent Marino heard when he tried to call her a few minutes ago. The woman he talked to on speakerphone had no accent he could discern. She simply sounded old. Mrs. Simister’s only child, a son, lives inFort Lauderdaleand has been charged with two DUIs and three moving violations over the past ten years. Ironically, he is a contractor and developer, one of the very sorts of people responsible for causing his mother’s mounting property taxes.

Mrs. Simister is under the care of four physicians for arthritis, cardiac and foot problems, and her eyesight. She doesn’t travel, at least not on commercial airlines. It appears she stays home most of the time and possibly is aware of what goes on around her. Often in neighborhoods like this one, many homebound people are snoops and he hopes she is one them. He hopes she has noticed whatever has gone on across the waterway in the pale orange house. He hopes she might have some idea who called Scarpetta’s office claiming to be her, assuming that is what happened.

He rings the bell, his wallet ready to display his badge, which isn’t exactly honest because he is retired from policing, was never a cop in Florida and was supposed to turn in his credentials and pistol when he left the last police department he worked for, a modest-sized one in Richmond, Virginia, where he always felt the outsider, unappreciated and underestimated. He rings the bell again and tries again to reach Mrs. Simister by phone.

It’s still busy.

“Police! Anybody home?” he calls out loudly as he knocks on the door.