“It just came over the radio,” Farman said. “The air search located the two cars: Lisa Warwick’s and Karly Vickers’s. Dixon wants us on the scene.”

Chapter 32

32

The cars were parked in a field with a hundred others. Hiding in plain sight. The field belonged to a scrap dealer named Gordon Sells.

Mendez got out of his car and walked into a circus. The sheriff’s office helicopter had landed, but three other helicopters adorned with logos of LA television stations hovered overhead, blades beating the air. News vans clogged the sides of the country road, and cameramen and reporters were swarming the area like mosquitoes frantic to land on something juicy.

Frank Farman shouted instructions at half a dozen deputies trying to cordon off the scene with yellow tape. Dixon stood near Karly Vickers’s gold Chevy Nova, instructing his photographer and videographer as they captured every possible angle of the car, the cars around the car, the ground around the car.

“Tony. Good,” Dixon said. “We’re going to haul the cars in and process them in our garage.”

“Right. Where’s Lisa Warwick’s car?”

“Two rows back.” He pointed in the direction of several deputies, who stood guard around that car. “The chopper pilot said this car definitely came onto the property from a back gate off a dirt road. He could still see the tracks in the grass.”

“In the last couple of days,” Mendez said.

“And now we’ve got the press all over us,” Dixon said. “Someone heard about the eyes and mouths being glued shut on Warwick and Julie Paulson.”

“Shit. We have a leak in our department?”

“I don’t know where it came from.”

“It could have come from the killer,” Mendez said. “Vince thinks the guy wants publicity.”

“Where is he?”

“At his hotel. He’s working on the profile.”

And a date with Anne Navarre, he thought, still out of sorts about it, even though it was none of his business, and it wasn’t exactly a date. Leone wanted an angle on the kids. Crane’s father was the last person to have seen Karly Vickers. Wendy Morgan’s father had a connection to Lisa Warwick. And the Farman kid was a budding serial killer who had the victim’s severed finger as a souvenir. Any insights she could give them would be welcome.

“Do you think he might have helped out with the publicity?” Dixon asked.

“Vince? Tip the press? No,” Mendez said automatically.

“Don’t be so sure, Tony. The guy has a reputation.”

“As one of the top profilers in the world.”

“And one of the most well-known. He didn’t get that way being shy and retiring. He might tell us he’s gone low profile, but that’s not his MO.”