Crosscut (10 page)

“Speaking of which, don’t let him oversleep.”

“Phil?”

“I know he’s in the Bay Area.”

“So you think he’s here with me?” She let out an exasperated noise. “That would violate our treaty.”

No overnights on American soil, apart from family weddings or the Oklahoma-Nebraska football game. I poured a cup of coffee.

“What did he tell you about South Star?” she said.

“Very little. I presume he’s told you much more. That’s why I’m calling.”

“And if he had, you think I would disclose it? You’re out of luck.”

Angie and Phil Delaney: married twenty-two years, divorced thirteen, bound as tightly as barbs in fence wire. They lived three thousand miles apart, spoke each other’s names with a dead chill, and every year took an exotic vacation together. Most recently they’d gone to South Africa. She could act ruthless toward my father, but God help anybody else who spoke ill of him.

“Phil would never break security to discuss a classified project. Not even with a priest in confession, much less with me.”

“So how did you get wind of South Star?” I said.

“I might ask you the same.”

“Why are you being evasive?”

Even as I said it, I had an inkling: fear. I was feeling it myself. Silence stretched across the phone line.

“Honey, I can’t talk about this now. I have a breakfast meeting and I need to hit the road.”

“Then call me when you get home tonight.”

“Sure. Just lie low. Promise.”

I promised.

And I knew she’d been talking to Dad.
Lie low
. Sure, Ma. It’s as easy as sin.

 
Coyote folded the newspaper. The story had gone big: front section of the
Los Angeles Times
. But that was inevitable. Small town rocked by murders; it was tailor-made for news whores.

He sipped the Starbucks coffee. The sun was pleasant. Traffic on Sunset was heavy, and the minimall was crowded. People were running into the dry cleaners or grabbing breakfast at Burger King. The Starbucks was busy with real estate agents talking deals and screenwriters worrying how to pitch their latest script. In a few minutes the kids from Hollywood High would come streaming in on their way to school. Caffeine rush. Go juice. Everybody trying to wake up, rev up, feeling the sharp end of the day stabbing them in the head. Everybody weak with the need to stay conscious.

The newspaper article contained bare facts mixed with rank speculation. A madman on the loose. Peasants in the town grabbing pitchforks and wanting to burn the creature. Indistinguishable from planned disinformation, really. But the story had drawn reporters like flies to a carcass, so it had been time to withdraw from China Lake.

Picking at a poppy-seed muffin, Coyote booted up the laptop. Camouflage was the craft of making people see what they expected to see. And today they were seeing a guy at the corner table wearing glasses and a baggy button-down shirt open over a tee and khakis. An overgrown preppy with a baseball cap on his head and constipated anxiety on his face. Just another nebbish: a writer fretting over character arcs. Who noticed writers on Sunset Boulevard?

The Starbucks had wireless, and Coyote logged on to the banking site. The account was flush. It was time to get a hotel room and regroup for the next stage. Someplace tall, a room on the top floor overlooking the city. Not that sleep would come, but heights assisted thought.

The Bassett High artifacts were locked in the toolbox in the back of the truck. The yearbook, the
Dog Days Update
, the biopsy samples; he had recovered a good haul. Collecting the samples had been delicate work, at odds with the antemortem aspects of the project. Remembering, Coyote drew his lips back. The sodium hydrochloride in the Drano had burned deeper into Kelly Colfax’s thighs than expected. And he hadn’t yet clarified his understanding of the results on her viscera. He had much to do. Scanning the Lezak X-ray into digital form and uploading it would take time as well, and required privacy. He glanced out: The truck was secure. He could see the amulet hanging from the rearview mirror. It gleamed in the sunshine, all its energy, his invincibility, stored within. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, pulling it up to cover the tip of the scar, the dregs of the claw mark.

He logged out of the bank site and logged on to Expedia, searching for hotels. Tall ones, with a view of the Hollywood hills. The busboy approached the table, asking if he could clear it. Coyote stared at the computer screen.

People grated on the nerves. On the skin. Civilians grated particularly. The unwashed. The untrained and unaware. The unworthy. Wanting their soft lives, their Prozac and bike paths and liposuction, never acknowledging the sacrifice and skill of the warriors who made their decadence possible.

Never recognizing the solitary hunter in their midst.

The busboy asked again. Without looking up, Coyote nudged the coffee mug across the table at him. It was merely a prop. Coyotes didn’t need caffeine. The busboy took it and went away.

Expedia came back with a list of nearby hotels. Tall places. Good.

Coyote felt the juices start to flow. Things were clicking into place. Everything was tying together like a skein, one to the next. The two women in China Lake had been more than an opportunity. They had been proof. They validated the mission. They testified, and pointed the way.

Next.

I drove home at eight. Jesse followed in his truck, the slick black Toyota pickup he bought after I sweet-talked him into selling me the Mustang. He watched until I opened the garden gate, leaning an elbow on the window frame.

“Come down to the office and work later. I’ll clear you a spot on my desk.”

I waved good-bye.

Inside, I checked my e-mail and glanced at the phone, willing Dad to call. Men’s voices came up the walk. It was my bathroom crew, Martinez and Sons. Mr. Martinez entered, his watermelon belly preceding the rest of him. Behind him Carlos and Miguel maneuvered through the door, carting the big box that contained my new sink.

Miguel backed past me, smiling brilliantly. “Ready to rock? You’re going to love it when we get this thing in.”

Carlos edged around the dining table. “Careful, bro.” He nodded to me. “Morning.”

“Guys.” I followed them to the bathroom, making sure they had a clear path.

Okay, no. Admiring. They were twins, hometown heroes, former baseball stars at Santa Barbara High. Fine, they were gods. Twenty-three, bronzed and honed, identical, beautiful, and as distinct as mercury and marble.

They set down the box and ripped open the packaging. I saw spotless porcelain. And Miguel’s high-spirited smile. He called to his dad to turn on the boom box. Carlos ran his hand over the contours of the sink, checking the workmanship. He would have looked good carved in stone himself.

A knock on the front door spoiled my reverie. I poked my head around the doorjamb.

On the porch stood Tommy Chang. He was jingling coins in his pockets and working hard on a piece of gum. Next to him a sturdy man in a charcoal suit was examining the garden with an appraising eye.

I opened the door. “Jeez, you must have been on the road since before sunup.”

“If you like me even a little bit, there’ll be coffee,” Tommy said.

I waved them in. “Black?”

“Milk, sugar, any stimulants you got.” He gestured to his companion. “Special Agent Dan Heaney from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.”

Heaney had a calm face pitted with acne scars. He set a briefcase on the dining table while Tommy strolled around the living room, stretching after the drive. He nodded at one of my prints, El Capitan in winter.

“Love this one. There’s some crazy dudes that climb that wall.”

I poured them coffee. Tommy took his gratefully.

“Awesome.”

Heaney took the mug, thanking me. “To explain why I’m tagging along today, Detective Chang and his colleagues are running this investigation. The Bureau provides investigative and operational support. What my unit does is analyze crimes from a behavioral perspective and give him all the help we can.”

I glanced at the briefcase. “Have you profiled the China Lake killer?”

“I have.”

Abruptly I felt seasick. In the back of the house the Martinez boys turned up the boom box and speed metal crashed out. The air felt close.

“Let’s talk outside,” I said.

We went out to the wooden patio table under the live oaks. Tommy pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

“Evan, here’s the thing. The tip you gave us, the way it came in seems sketchy.”

“A source contacting a journalist? That’s hardly strange,” I said.

“Most folks who know about a murder call the police direct.”

Heaney laced his fingers together. “Unless the tipster has an ulterior motive.”

“Like having something to hide,” Tommy said.

I didn’t comment on Jakarta Ulterior-Motive Rivera. “I’ve told you everything I can.”

“No, you told us everything you want to.”

“Start with his name,” Heaney said.

“Anonymous means anonymous. It’s privileged information,” I said.

His tie was stained with egg. I stared. I didn’t think FBI agents made sartorial gaffes.

Tommy tapped a cigarette out of the pack. “Reporters’ privilege doesn’t apply here. Journalists’ shield law, either.”

Good one, Chang. The shield law protected journalists, though not necessarily freelancers like me, from disclosing the name of a source. But not unless they were threatened with contempt of court.

Heaney noticed me staring at the egg. Embarrassed, he tried to wipe it off.

“I believe you want to be helpful,” he said. “But you should be aware that serial killers often insinuate themselves into the investigation of their crimes.”

Tommy held the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “They hang with cops at bars, pumping them for information. Get themselves interviewed on the local news. And they dig on the media attention their crimes get.”

Heaney said, “A lot of them are police wannabes. Security guards, night watchmen, academy washouts. They’re ineffectual losers who fantasize about domination and control.”

My limbs felt heavy. My head was beginning to throb.

“My source isn’t the killer,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”
A
killer, but not
the
killer.

Tommy ran the cigarette under his nose, sniffing it, and then distractedly shoved it behind his ear. On the inside of his wrist I saw a nicotine patch.

“How about some pretzel sticks?” I said.

Jagged smile. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

I brought him the bag. He rustled a handful out and stuck one between his teeth. I think if he could have, he would have sucked the salt into his lungs.

He looked at Heaney. “Want to run her through the profile?”

Heaney nodded. “We’re looking for a white man in his thirties, possibly early forties. He’s socially sophisticated. Confident, persuasive, and convincing.”

“This is an ineffectual loser?”

“Some killers are socially adept. Guys with minimal social skills, your neighborhood weirdo, they can’t charm their way into a victim’s trust even for a second, so they blitz. Attack from the rear without warning. But this killer—Coyote, you called him—he talked his way in to see Ceci Lezak. He gets his victims where he wants using words, not brute force.”

I nodded.

“He has above-average intelligence and he’s orderly and clean, almost regimented. He has a military background. And he keeps lists, writes journals, compulsively documents everything,” he said. “Killing gives him such an ego boost that he may keep a diary or scrapbook of the media coverage.”

The scent of star jasmine hung on the air, sickeningly sweet. Heaney leaned over the table with his fingers laced together, like a mild-mannered pastor discussing plans for the church picnic.

“And Coyote is viscerally angry at women. He’s sadistic and he’s killing for one reason. To inflict pain.”

The breeze, flicking my hair across my face, felt like steel wool. Heaney’s church-picnic placidity disturbed me.

“His intent is to murder and to inflict as much pain and terror beforehand as possible. The sexual component to the attack on Mrs. Colfax indicates—”

“Dan.” Tommy eyed him.

My palms tingled. “Sexual component?”

Tommy was sending Heaney a
zip-it
vibe.

My throat was tightening. “He tortured her sexually?”

Tommy put a hand on my forearm. Heaney leaned back. I wanted to hear, but I didn’t want to hear. I rubbed my eyes.

“Why did he choose two women from our class?” I said.

“Serial killers feed on the thrill of the hunt. And if they can’t find a victim who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, they’ll go back to a location where they’ve been successful. It helps them relive the thrill.”

Tommy ran a palm over his head. “He may have been lurking nearby when Ceci found Kelly’s body. He could have drawn a bead on her because of that.”

My throat was still dry. “I thought these killers picked victims at random.”

Heaney said, “There’s always a victimology. Something draws the killer to the victim. Something he’s seeking—brunettes, teenagers. Hitchhikers. Prostitutes.”

“Have you uncovered other victims?”

Tommy said, “Looks like one up near Seattle last year. Whidbey Island, a woman named Carla Dearing. There were similarities.”

“A signature,” Heaney said. “Cuttings. Almost like claw marks.”

“God.”

My eyes felt gritty. I knew that Heaney was basing his assessment on facts he hadn’t revealed to me. Crime scene analysis, autopsy results, beastly acts inflicted on Kelly, degradation and mutilation and pain.

Sexual component. Holy God.