Chapter Five

To Hunter and Garcia the thought was simple and logical – Shaun Daniels couldn't have driven his car up to the Sierra Pelona Mountains and parked it down a dirt road because he was already dead by then, so someone else had to have. That someone else could very easily have left some sort of forensics evidence behind – on the seat, on the steering wheel, on the carpets, on the door handles, on the gearshift… somewhere. They just needed to find it.

From outside the LA County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, Hunter placed a call to Detective Sharp of the LAPD Valley Traffic Division, who told him that Shaun Daniels's car had been towed to the San Fernando Valley Police parking garage for storage. The problem was – since Detective Sharp hadn't suspected any foul play when he studied the ‘accident' scene, four days ago – Shaun Daniels's vehicle wasn't treated as evidence, or a potential hub for it. The tow-truck driver and the car handlers at the police parking garage had probably completely contaminated the vehicle, and there was simply nothing that Hunter and Garcia could do about that now, except hope for the best… but the best wasn't exactly what they got.

It took Garcia just a little under an hour to drive to the other side of Hollywood Hills and on to San Fernando Valley. At the LAPD storage garage, they talked to one of the officers at the front gate. The officer handed Hunter the car keys, which had been found inside Shaun Daniels's trouser pocket at the ‘accident' site, and directed them to the lot where the vehicle was parked.

‘There it is,' Hunter said, indicating a white Volvo VX70 parked next to a VW Golf on the east wing of the large parking lot.

‘That's the one,' Garcia agreed, checking the license-plate number.

He and Hunter gloved up, approached the vehicle, and had a quick peek through the driver's window.

‘You have got to be shitting me!' Garcia said, his face almost melting into a question mark. ‘How old was this guy? Six?'

‘Damn!'

It looked like a bomb had gone off inside that car, but instead of explosives, the bomb was filled with trash. There was stuff everywhere – on the passenger seat, on the floor, on the dashboard, by the gearshift, stuffed into the door pockets… everywhere – wrappers, empty cans of soft and energy drinks, plastic bottles, paper cups, boxes, empty cigarette packs… it was just a mess.

‘I don't think this car has ever been cleaned,' Garcia said, rounding the vehicle to look through the back window.

‘You might be right,' Hunter agreed.

The back seat had been folded down to create more carrying space, which was packed with a ladder, PVC and copper pipes, rolls of white sealing tape, connectors, wires, a toolbox, buckets, and more.

‘Was he a plumber?' Garcia asked. ‘There's a lot of plumbing material in the back here… tools and all.'

‘Maybe,' Hunter replied with a nod.

‘Why would someone want to torture a plumber in the way that he was tortured? Bad pipework?'

‘That's the million-dollar question.'

‘Like I said,' Garcia breathed out. ‘This case keeps on getting weirder by the minute.' He paused and straightened his body. ‘Shall we call forensics and tell them not to bother? There's no way they'll be able to process all this crap. It will take them weeks and it will no doubt turn out to be a waste of time. There's probably a wrapper from every junk-food joint in the city in there.'

From Garcia's car, on their way there, Hunter had called Dr. Susan Slater, one of the best lead forensics agents California had to offer. She and her team had worked together with the UVC Unit on innumerable cases before. In the call, Hunter quickly explained what they had so far before asking Dr. Slater if she could dispatch a couple of agents to the police garage in San Fernando Valley to process Shaun Daniels's car. She'd replied that she wouldn't have anyone available until the morning, but that she would have it done by lunchtime tomorrow.

‘You're right,' Hunter said. ‘The trash in there will give us nothing, but we do need them here.' He moved over to the passenger side. ‘They can concentrate their efforts on the door handles – inside and outside – steering wheel, gearshift, trunk handle and the center-console controls – radio, aircon and whatever else. Who knows? We might get lucky with something.' Hunter pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the doors.

Garcia took a step back. ‘You're a brave man. The floor in there must be like the ground in the Amazon rainforest, you know what I'm saying? A breeding ground for insect species not yet known to man – like mosquitos with teeth, or something.'

‘I'm not really getting inside.'

Hunter pulled the passenger door open and some of the trash that was wedged between the seat and door dropped to the ground.

Garcia joined Hunter and immediately cupped his hand over his nose. ‘Jesus! I think the heat has cooked some of the leftover food in there from at least five years ago. It smells of puke and cigarettes.'

Hunter too cupped his left hand over his nose and used his right one to open the glove compartment – more trash, a set of screwdrivers and the vehicle's user manual. He moved some of the trash out of the way, pausing at times to study some of the wrappers a little more closely.

‘Looking for anything in particular?' Garcia queried.

‘Any kind of drug paraphernalia,' Hunter replied. ‘Burned tinfoil, needles, glass pipes, cut water bottles, that sort of thing.' He moved some of the trash from the passenger seat, before doing the same to the junk on the floor.

Back at the morgue, Dr. Hove had told them that she had found no track marks on Shaun Daniels's arms, but most addicts were experts in hiding their track marks by using different veins around their bodies to shoot up – veins that could've been easily hidden by the large number of bruises to his body.

Hunter found nothing to indicate that Shaun Daniels was a user. Not even an old prescription bottle. He tried the center-console compartment – a pack of cigarettes, two unopened packs of gum and a set of keys.

Hunter reached for the keys.

Garcia looked over his partner's shoulder.

‘House keys?'

‘I'm guessing so, yes.'

‘His home address is in the file,' Garcia said, his head angling left. ‘In the car.'

Hunter nodded and checked his watch – 5:38 p.m. ‘Let's hope that his house isn't the same kind of train crash his car is.'