Chapter 4

   Gerben drove Yaritza in his squad car to the impound lot four blocks away. They had considered walking, but they were on their way to the crime scene anyway. They got out of the squad car and walked toward the two cars in the lot. Vince pointed out the blue Beretta. Yaritza glanced at it for a minute, then back at him. “You have the print kit?”

   Vince took it out. “You looking to see if anyone else got in the car?”

  “Yeah, I doubt if they did, though. I’ll have to wait for the official report, of course, but it looks like the guy was out of his car when he was shot. If he was in the car…” she paused as she looked inside, “then his brain would have decorated the upholstery. And the inside’s clean. Let’s do it.”

   The two cops took a few minutes to dust the entire car for prints, both inside and out. Although there were a few odd sets here and there, most of the prints belonged to one person. Yaritza took a few pictures for comparison when they returned to the station. After they were finished, she opened up the glove compartment and found the registration. “This car belongs to a Mark Robertson. He lives in Vegas.”

   Gerben was looking at something on the car and didn’t respond right away. Esteban peeked out from the passenger seat. “You stoned?”

  “No. Come check out this dent.”

   Yaritza got out of the car again to see what he was referring to. Indeed, there was a large dent above the left rear tire. “Think it was from an auto accident?”

  “One way to find out.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “See if there’s any scalp tissue on the car. If he hit it that hard, there’d be some, likely.” He grinned sheepishly at Yaritza. “I watch ‘CSI’.”

  “Me too. Good idea, except we didn’t bring the tools to get that kind of evidence, and I doubt you have a crack CSI team here….probably at a fire, huh?” She winked at him before returning to the car. “Get a picture of the dent, will you?”

   As Vince clicked away, Yaritza looked some more through the glove compartment, looking for something, anything, that would provide a lead. Apart from an auto emergency kit, the owner’s manual, and the registration, there was nothing…not even proof of insurance. “He was a bad boy, Vince, no insurance proof. Good thing he was never pulled over. Then again, if he had, he might still be alive.” She got out of the car. “Anything else to note?”

   Vince shrugged. “The left front tire is low.”

   She looked at it. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the clue that’ll crack the case, but you have a good eye. Let’s head out to the crime scene.”

   An hour later, they pulled up to the section of the highway where Robertson had turned off. Yaritza was impressed, Vince had marked it off with traffic cones. They got out of the squad car and looked at the dried blood on the ground. Yaritza took a plastic sealable bag from her pocket, as well as a cotton swab. She dipped the swab in a new water bottle, then rubbed it in the blood. A little bit got onto the swab. She put the swab into the bag. It wasn’t the best method, but it was all she could do at the moment.

   In fact, there was little to do at all at the scene. Assuming that the blood belonged to Mark Robertson, it would only prove that he was shot and castrated in that area. Vince Gerben walked around a bit, trying to find a clue, anything that would break the silence. There seemed to be nothing. However, as he turned around to walk back toward Yaritza, he stopped and looked down. Near his shoes was another blood stain, this one a bit more concentrated. “Detective, over here!”

   Yaritza walked over to the spot and looked where Gerben was pointing. “Any guess?”

  “Not enough for blood splatter from the brain.”

  “But…”

   Vince’s face turned pale at the thought. “This is where he was….”

  “Neutered, how’s that?”

  “Better than I was thinking.”

   Yaritza repeated the cotton swab routine for the new stain. “He was shot in one location, then dragged over here. What gets me is, there’s a small lake here, either side of the road, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I wonder why the killer didn’t do it there, it would have been cleaner, and almost no evidence could have been gathered.”

  “Maybe the killer didn’t care about how clean it was.”

   Yaritza nodded slowly. “Maybe.” She looked out at the lake, then crossed the road to look at it from another angle. Off in the distance, around a bend, she saw a small boat, and what looked to be two old men fishing. “Or maybe the killer would have been seen.”