Prime Witness Read Free Page A

that my time there, with him, was limited.
    We talked for a brief moment about the murders, the ongoing investigation. His breathing turned hard, Mario was shaking his head, as much as conditions would allow. “Sick,” he said. He was reaching for the nurse’s call button. “Sick.”
    I thought for a moment he was talking about himself, then I realized he was not. Mario Feretti was describing the thing I am now appointed to pursue—what the newspapers around this state are now calling “The Putah Creek Killer.”
    “The shrinks will have fun with the profile on that.” The voice jerks me from my reverie. It comes from behind me, here, near the creek.
    I turn. It is Denny Henderson, Dusalt’s number two. He is looking at the bodies stretched out on the ground. Henderson is sandy-haired, hapless and overweight. He wears a white polo shirt stretched like a drum over his paunch on which I can see the shadowed stains of some ancient meal, what the whip-end of a strand of spaghetti leaves when inhaled. His face is pock-marked, a victim of early acne.
    “Denny. How are you?” I ask.
    He shakes my hand. We are on a first-name basis now that I am on the side of the angels. It’s not always been like this. In Davenport, where I have, over the years, occasionally crossed the river to defend a client, Denny Henderson has always kept his distance.
    “Any leads?” I ask.
    He shakes his head. “Just like the others.” He fixes his gaze on the two bodies. “Man doesn’t make many mistakes,” he says.
    The police photographer is now shooting the metal stake holding down the male victim’s clenched right fist. He takes two of these, one up close with a small ruler in the shot for detail and another further back for perspective. He follows this routine on each of the stakes.
    “Sooner or later the guy’s gotta fuck up,” says Henderson. There is frustration in his tone, and his words have the ring of wishful thinking.
    Dusalt sees us together and motions Henderson over, some details he wants taken care of. I think perhaps he doesn’t want Denny talking to me too long. In his own way Henderson is Claude’s “gofer,” though he doesn’t seem to mind this role.
    Dispatching Henderson in the other direction, Claude is now making his way toward me.
    “Mr. Madriani,” he says. “I thought you should be here. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.”
    “No,” I say. “I’m glad you called.” We put a face on it, the usual pleasantries, like what could be better than hovering over death on the ground on a bright Sunday.
    He shakes my hand. In this he is formal and stiff. He is one of those skinny men of wiry sinew. Claude has the kind of thin, worried expression that makes you believe his chief maladies might be ulcers or hemorrhoids.
    “Because you are new, I thought it best that you be kept informed.”
    “I appreciate it,” I tell him.
    He has been called here from a picnic with his family. He is not happy with this, but he says his family understands. If this is true they are more accepting than my own.
    “Do we know who they are yet?” I ask. I am motioning toward the two bodies.
    “No identities yet,” he says. “We’ll check their clothing for ID’s after we have all the photos.” The cops are not disturbing anything, not until they have precise drawings and photographs chronicling the location of every item around the bodies.
    “Kids walking along the creek found them this morning,” he tells me.
    He points toward two teenagers, one of them being questioned and the other twenty feet away, leaning against the trunk of a patrol car. The one being questioned is flushed with excitement, the other is a little green around the jowls. Investigators will keep these two apart until they are finished with their interrogation, this to ensure independent statements, stories that can later be checked against each other.
    “They were quail hunting,” says Claude, “trespassing on private property.