The Last Detective by Robert Crais Page A

behind me. Now I do this.”
    “I'm happy for you, Starkey, but the bomb squad stuff was only a couple of months ago. Do you know anything about finding a missing boy?”
    Starkey blew a geyser of smoke, angry.
    “What are you asking, if I'm up to the job?”
    I was angry, too. I had been angry since last night and I was getting more angry by the second.
    “Yeah, that's exactly what I'm asking.”
    “I reconstructed bombs and bomb scenes, and traced explosives through the most perverted landscape you can imagine. I made cases against the assholes who built bombs and the dickwads who trade the components those assholes use. And I nailed Mr. Red. So you don't have to worry about it, Cole. I know how to detect, and you can bet your private-eye ass that I'm going to find this boy.”
    The sun was high now. The slope was bright. Starkey snapped her cigarette over the rail. I looked to see where it hit.
    “Hey, we have a fire hazard up here.”
    Starkey faced me like the mountain was already an inferno and couldn't get any worse.
    “We got plenty of light. Show me where you found the toy.”
    time missing: 15 hours, 32 minutes
    S tarkey changed shoes outside at her car, then met me on the side of my house wearing a pair of beat-up Asics cross-trainers with her pants rolled to her knees. Her calves were white. She stared warily down at the slope.
    “It's steep.”
    “Are you scared of heights?”
    “Jesus, Cole, I was just saying. The soil here is loose, I see a lot of irregular ground cover, and you've already been tramping around down there. That's going to make it harder. I want you to be careful not to contaminate the scene any more than you already have, which means all you're gonna do is show me where you found the Game Freak, then get the hell out of my way. We clear?”
    “Look, maybe I was out of line. I'm good at this, too, Starkey. I can help.”
    “That remains to be seen. Show me.”
    When I stepped over the edge, she followed, but she looked awkward and uncomfortable.
    Ben played on the hill so much that he had worn narrow paths that flowed with the rise and fall of the earth like trickling water. I led Starkey down the slope by following alongside the paths so that we wouldn't disturb his footprints. The ground was rugged and unbroken where I walked, and I noticed that Starkey was using the path.
    “You're walking on his footprints. Walk where I walk.”
    She stared down at her feet.
    “All I see is dirt.”
    “Just walk where I walk. Come over by me.”
    Ben's trail was easy to follow until we reached the base of the trees, then the soil grew rocky. It didn't matter; I knew the way from yesterday. We cut across the slope. Starkey slipped twice and cursed both times.
    “Put your feet where you see me putting mine. We're almost there.”
    “I hate the outdoors.”
    “I can tell.”
    I pointed out the patch of rosemary where I had found the Game Freak and several of Ben's footprints. Starkey squatted in place as if she was trying to memorize every rock and spike of rosemary. After all the slipping and cursing, she was careful at the scene.
    She glanced at my feet.
    “You wearing those shoes yesterday?”
    “Yeah. New Balance. You can see the prints I left yesterday.”
    I pointed my prints out to her, then lifted a foot so that she could see the sole of my shoe. The soles were cut with a pattern of raised triangles and a large N in each heel. The triangles and N were obvious in some of my prints. Starkey studied the pattern, then a couple of my footprints, then frowned at me.
    “Okay, Cole, I know what I said when we were up at your house, but I'm more your city-type person, you know? My idea of the outdoors is a parking lot. You seem to know what you're doing down here, so I'm going to let you help. Just don't fuck up anything, okay?”
    “I'll try not to.”
    “We just wanna figure out what happened. After that, we'll bring in SID.”
    Criminalists from LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division