“So what?” Garvey said.

“Tanya already had plenty of cleansers, sponges, and trash bags,” Eve said. “Why would she go to Walmart to buy more, and in regular sizes, when she already had so much?”

Duncan nodded, seeing her point. “You think the killer brought the regular-size bottles of Clorox and Lysol with him but then saw that she had plenty of her own and used those.”

“No,” she said. “I think he got them afterwards.”

“You’re saying this guy ran out of cleaning supplies,” Duncan said, “so he took a break from dismembering three people and a dog to go shopping at Walmart?”

“He probably disposed of the bodies and cleaned himself up first,” she said. “But yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

Garvey shook his head, not buying it. “Killers don’t come and go from bloody crime scenes. It’s too risky.”

“This one does,” she said. “I think he was the guy who jumped me on the hill that overlooks the house.”

It made a lot more sense to her than Duncan’s theory that she’d disturbed some crazed homeless person, not that she had any evidence to back it up.

Duncan said, “Why would he come back to the house the day after the killings?”

“For his sleeping bag. He didn’t want to leave behind any evidence that he’d been watching the house before the murders.”

“That’s a leap,” Duncan said. “We don’t know that it wasn’t a homeless person’s campsite.”

“We don’t know that it was. There’s no evidence either way, but given where the campsite was, and the view it has of the house, my theory gives us a motive why someone was up there and willing to clobber a cop to get away with his stuff.”

“If you’re right,” Biddle said, “and he did all of that coming and going to the crime scene, then this guy must have Godzilla’s balls.”

“Or he’s insane,” Garvey said.

“But it confirms Duncan’s Doctrine,” Biddle said, eliciting a smile from Duncan.

“What is that?” Eve asked.

“Most crimes have a Walmart connection,” Duncan said.

“It’s like six degrees of separation,” Garvey said. “Only with Walmart.”

“Almost never fails,” Duncan said and went to his cubicle. “That’s why I have Walmart’s regional supervisor on my speed dial.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Duncan asked Walmart’s regional manager to check their local stores for any purchases made on Tuesday and Wednesday that matched the bar codes of the items in the shopping bag at the crime scene. The regional manager came back with a hit at the Walmart at the Fallbrook Center in Canoga Park.

It was a fifteen-minute drive from the Lost Hills station. Eve and Duncan met Bert, a pudgy guy in a blue Walmart vest, in front of the in-store McDonald’s. Bert was the store manager.

“We had a customer at 10:47 p.m. on Wednesday night who bought the items on your list,” Bert said. “But they were only part of his purchases.”

“What else did he buy?” Eve asked.

“A bag of Doritos, a box of Ding Dongs, a six-pack of Coke, and a DVD.”