She just started in the fall.”
Jen asked a few more questions, but we both knew we’d gotten all we would from them for a while. We thanked them for their time and once again offered our condolences. The deputy chief escorted them out of the room.
“Any insights?” Ruiz asked.
I shook my head and looked out the window. The sky was the crisp and clear Southern California blue we usually only see the day after a winter storm. But it hadn’t rained in weeks.
Five
“G OT SOMETHING FOR you,” Marty said as we came back into the squad.
“Something good?” I asked.
“Nothing earth-shattering, but it might be useful.” He flipped open his notebook and went on. “On the canvass, we came up with two people who spotted a white van in the neighborhood. This morning, we got a confirmation from Criminalistics. There was some dirty water in the gutter outside the Bentons’ driveway. Left a tread pattern when they drove through it. Matches the OEM tires on a GMC commercial van from ’02 through ’05. No plates or anything else, but it’s something.”
Jen asked, “They get enough of a print to match the tire?”
“Maybe,” Marty said.
“Got to be stolen or rented,” I said.
“Dave’s downstairs now checking with Auto Theft.”
“Good,” Jen said. “Maybe we’ll catch a break.”
We parked an unmarked department cruiser in the beach lot on the peninsula across from Naples Island and ate chicken tacos from Cocoreno’s. The February crowd was sparse, and the day was beautiful. For a moment, I thought of how nice it would be to take the afternoon off and just watch the sunlight play on thewaves. Then I felt a twinge of pain in my forearm and got back to business.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Jen noticed me noticing my pain. Her expression changed, and I thought I saw a flicker of concern in her eyes. There must have been something I wasn’t aware of in my voice or body language that she was picking up on.
“Find out anything about Catherine Catanio?” I asked.
“Teaches art history at Cal State. According to the university website, she’s published a bunch of stuff about Picasso. She’s up on her cubism.”
“That’s pointy people with two eyes on one side of their head, right?”
“Could be. There weren’t any pictures.”
“Just so you know, I was going to make a crack about her being abstract, but it was too lame, even for me.”
“There are cracks that are too lame for you?”
I let her have the point. I didn’t have a comeback.
With more than thirty-five thousand students, California State University, Long Beach, is one of the largest institutions of higher learning in the state. It’s also my alma mater. I graduated with a double major in criminal justice and English. My father was an LA deputy sheriff who died in the line of duty when I was still young enough to believe in giant-killers. From the time I was six years old, I knew that I would be a cop when I grew up. My mother hated the idea. She told me my father’s only wish for his sons was that they never went into law enforcement. So when it came time to decide about college, I picked one subject for myself and one for her. She’s still hoping I’ll someday wind up teaching poetry to teenagers.
Aside from the ginormous blue pyramid visible from the 405 freeway a mile to the north that housed most of the school’sathletic events, and the two new science buildings perched on the hillside of the upper campus, things looked pretty much the same as they had when I graduated way back in the last millennium.
The students, at least, had fewer mullets.
As a courtesy, we checked in with the university police. They gave us a parking pass and a token that would let us through the security gate into one of the staff lots. There weren’t any open spots in the lot they’d told us to park in, so we did laps up and down the lanes waiting for someone to leave. It took about twenty minutes for a tweedy-looking fellow to
Jen asked a few more questions, but we both knew we’d gotten all we would from them for a while. We thanked them for their time and once again offered our condolences. The deputy chief escorted them out of the room.
“Any insights?” Ruiz asked.
I shook my head and looked out the window. The sky was the crisp and clear Southern California blue we usually only see the day after a winter storm. But it hadn’t rained in weeks.
Five
“G OT SOMETHING FOR you,” Marty said as we came back into the squad.
“Something good?” I asked.
“Nothing earth-shattering, but it might be useful.” He flipped open his notebook and went on. “On the canvass, we came up with two people who spotted a white van in the neighborhood. This morning, we got a confirmation from Criminalistics. There was some dirty water in the gutter outside the Bentons’ driveway. Left a tread pattern when they drove through it. Matches the OEM tires on a GMC commercial van from ’02 through ’05. No plates or anything else, but it’s something.”
Jen asked, “They get enough of a print to match the tire?”
“Maybe,” Marty said.
“Got to be stolen or rented,” I said.
“Dave’s downstairs now checking with Auto Theft.”
“Good,” Jen said. “Maybe we’ll catch a break.”
We parked an unmarked department cruiser in the beach lot on the peninsula across from Naples Island and ate chicken tacos from Cocoreno’s. The February crowd was sparse, and the day was beautiful. For a moment, I thought of how nice it would be to take the afternoon off and just watch the sunlight play on thewaves. Then I felt a twinge of pain in my forearm and got back to business.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Jen noticed me noticing my pain. Her expression changed, and I thought I saw a flicker of concern in her eyes. There must have been something I wasn’t aware of in my voice or body language that she was picking up on.
“Find out anything about Catherine Catanio?” I asked.
“Teaches art history at Cal State. According to the university website, she’s published a bunch of stuff about Picasso. She’s up on her cubism.”
“That’s pointy people with two eyes on one side of their head, right?”
“Could be. There weren’t any pictures.”
“Just so you know, I was going to make a crack about her being abstract, but it was too lame, even for me.”
“There are cracks that are too lame for you?”
I let her have the point. I didn’t have a comeback.
With more than thirty-five thousand students, California State University, Long Beach, is one of the largest institutions of higher learning in the state. It’s also my alma mater. I graduated with a double major in criminal justice and English. My father was an LA deputy sheriff who died in the line of duty when I was still young enough to believe in giant-killers. From the time I was six years old, I knew that I would be a cop when I grew up. My mother hated the idea. She told me my father’s only wish for his sons was that they never went into law enforcement. So when it came time to decide about college, I picked one subject for myself and one for her. She’s still hoping I’ll someday wind up teaching poetry to teenagers.
Aside from the ginormous blue pyramid visible from the 405 freeway a mile to the north that housed most of the school’sathletic events, and the two new science buildings perched on the hillside of the upper campus, things looked pretty much the same as they had when I graduated way back in the last millennium.
The students, at least, had fewer mullets.
As a courtesy, we checked in with the university police. They gave us a parking pass and a token that would let us through the security gate into one of the staff lots. There weren’t any open spots in the lot they’d told us to park in, so we did laps up and down the lanes waiting for someone to leave. It took about twenty minutes for a tweedy-looking fellow to
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