“Throat slashed with a knife. And there were stripes, like lash marks, across his buttocks. Sound familiar?”
Bob nodded again. He was listening intently, so I continued. I told him that we’d canvassed the city and Half Moon Bay for weeks.
“No one knew the victim, Bob. His prints weren’t on file, and the room he died in was so dirty, it was a classic case of instant cross-contamination. We were utterly clueless.
“No one ever came forward to claim the body. It’s not so uncommon; we already had twenty-three unclaimed John Does that year. But I still remember the innocence of his young face. He had blue eyes,” I said. “Light red hair. And now, all these years later, more murders with the same signature.”
“You know what feels really weird, Lindsay? To think that this killer could be someone who lives in this town —”
The phone rang, cutting Bob off midsentence.
“Robert Hinton,” he said.
In the next instant, the color drained from his face. There was silence, punctuated by Bob saying, “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Then he said, “Thanks for letting me know,” and hung up.
“A friend of mine who works at the Gazette,” he explained. “Ben O’Malley’s body was found by some kids hiking in the woods.”
Chapter 56
JAKE DALTRY’S PARENTS LIVED in a housing development in Palo Alto, a thirty-minute drive southeast of Half Moon Bay. I parked the Explorer on the street in front of their cream-colored raised ranch, one of a dozen like it on Brighton Street.
A portly, unkempt man with gray flyaway hair, wearing a flannel shirt and blue drawstring pants, answered the door.
“Mr. Richard Daltry?”
“We don’t want any,” he said, and slammed the door. I’ve come back from bigger slams than that, buster. I took out my badge and rang the bell again. This time a small woman with hennaed hair and gray roots, wearing a bunny-print housedress, opened the door.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD,” I said, showing her my badge. “I’m investigating a homicide case that’s been in our cold-case files.”
“And what’s that got to do with us?”
“I think there may be similarities between my old case and the deaths of Jake and Alice Daltry.”
“I’m Agnes, Jake’s mother,” she said, opening the door. “Please forgive my husband. We’ve been under a terrible strain. The press is just awful.”
I followed the elderly woman into a house that smelled of Lemon Pledge and a kitchen that didn’t seem to have changed since Hinckley shot Reagan. We sat at a red Formica table, and I could see the backyard through the window. Two little boys played with trucks in a sandbox.
“My poor grandsons,” said Mrs. Daltry. “Why did this happen?”
Agnes Daltry’s heartbreak was written on her deeply lined face, her stooped shoulders. I could see how much she needed someone to talk to who hadn’t heard it all before.
“Tell me what happened,” I urged her. “Tell me everything you know.”
“Jake was a wild child,” she said. “Not bad, you understand, but headstrong. When he met Alice, he grew up overnight. They were so much in love and wanted children so badly. When the boys were born, Jake vowed to be a man they could respect. He loved those boys and, Lieutenant, he lived up to that promise. He was such a good man, and he and Alice had such a good marriage—oh.”
She put her hand over her heart and shook her head miserably. She couldn’t go on and she hadn’t talked about the murders at all.
Agnes looked down at the table as her husband came through the kitchen. He glared at me, took a beer out of the refrigerator, slammed the door shut, and left the room.
“Richard is still angry at me,” she said.
“Why is that, Agnes?”
“I did a bad thing.”
I was almost desperate to know. I put my hand on her bare arm, and at my touch, tears rose in her eyes.