Black Water Read Free Page B

gave them over. The writing on the cartridge bottoms confirmed her guess: S&W 9mm.
    "I marked the floor tile with circled black numbers, and arrows to show the direction of the openings. Had to get them out of there before they got kicked around and lost. Both were to her right. One in the corner and one next to her knee. I've got a sketch with the relate positions and time. I made sure the video guys got close-ups."
    Rayborn glanced at the glass shower door to see if the casings, ejected by an automatic pistol, could have bounced off and left a pit or nick. But the lights glared off the glass and she could see no marks at all. Just the faint outline of herself: square shoulders, strong body, an almost pretty face.
    The CSI had placed a small wad of toilet paper in the mouth of each bag to keep it open, keep the moisture from building up and maybe wrecking a print.
    "What's your name?"
    "Don Leitzel."
    "I'm Merci Rayborn. Thank you and good work."
    She looked at the dresser in the Wildcraft bedroom, noting the sapphire earrings in a still-open box.
    They stood in the rock room. Scores of stones, most of them dark in color, all of them elegant in some way that Merci Rayborn couldn't describe. Some small as golf balls, others a couple of feet long. Many of them rested in form-fitting stands. Some of the stands were wood. Others were plaster or clay, some even brushed steel.
    "What are these things for?" she asked.
    "I don't know," said Zamorra.
    "They look Japanese," said Merci. "Maybe Bob would know."
    "I'll get him."
    She waited in the quiet room. Her gaze went from a rock that looked like a mountain with rivers running down it, to a rock that looked like an island with coves, to a rock that looked like nothing at all. Collections bothered Rayborn because she'd once interviewed a man who kept a collection of hollow, decorated birds' eggs. In a nearby apartment, he kept a collection of hollow, decorated human beings. But as she considered the rock that looked like nothing she thought it was the most graceful nothing she'd ever seen.
    Bob Fukiyama and Zamorra stood on either side of her.
    "Suiseki," said the assistant pathologist. "Viewing stones."
    "What do you do with them?" asked Merci.
    "You view them. Appreciate. Meditate."
    "Then what?"
    "Sergeant?"
    "Then what do you do?"
    "I think that's all."
    Rayborn looked incredulously at the assistant pathologist. She had never meditated. Thought about things, sure, like a tough case she was working, but everyone did that. Appreciated, yes, occasionally. She appreciated her son and looked at him a lot, but Tim Jr. wasn't a rock.
    "Collecting and displaying suiseki is an ancient Japanese pastime, Fukiyama said. "My grandfather collected stones. There are societies, shows and displays. Some suiseki can be very valuable. Some look like islands. Some look like mountains with snow and streams. Some are more abstract. People in crowded cities keep the stones in their homes, ponder the shapes and what they suggest. The stones take them away from the city and into nature."
    "Do they have any left?" she asked absently. She was staring at one that looked like a water buffalo, curled up with its head on its flank, resting.
    "Left, Sergeant?" asked Fukiyama.
    "In Japan, Bob. If it's an ancient hobby and a small island, have they found all the good ones?"
    "I don't think so, Sergeant. And they're collected all over the world."
    "I like the buffalo."
    Fukiyama stepped forward and looked at it. "You know, that's really good stone," he said. "If I remember right, water buffaloes are an entire category in themselves. Hard to find. Grandfather's was good one, but not as good or as big as that. Or as jadelike."
    "See?" Zamorra asked her. "You understand suiseki , you just don know you do."
    "I know a good rock when I see one," she said, still looking at the buffalo stone.
    The men laughed quietly but Rayborn didn't. She could still smell Gwen Wildcraft's blood every time she took a breath. Across the