CHAPTER 2
This was not going to be a good day, John Maschen decided as he drove up the coast to his office in the town of San Marcos. To his right, the sky was beginning to turn from dark to light blue as the sun had just begun to make its uphill climb over the horizon; but it was still hidden from Maschen’s view by the sea cliffs that reared up on the eastern side of the road. In the west, the stars had vanished into the fading blue velvet that was all that remained of the night.
No day that starts with having to go to work at five thirty in the morning can be any good, Maschen continued. Most particularly when there’s a murder connected with it.
He drove up to his office building feeling particularly scruffy. Deputy Whitmore had called and told him it was urgent, and Maschen hadn’t ev
