cameras up and document whatever heinous act he could possibly think of, and no one would ever know it.
“There was a spent cartridge, and the cardboard box for a new cartridge, like he had used one up and had to load another.”
“Was the box new? Like, it rained last week, so … was it rainedon? Was it moist at all?”
“No,” he said, “the box is in as good a condition as it could get.”
“But the little black screen that shoots out of a Polaroid when you put the thing in the cartridge … that wasn’t around?”
He didn’t answer me. I looked over at him, and his hands weren’t shaking anymore. He was out cold. I put my hand on his and squeezed. He was a fucking saint.
“Arright, Detective. Enjoy the hospitality,” I whispered. “I’ll call the wife.”
His cigarette still burned in the ashtray. I put it out and drew shut the curtains. After that, I worked my nerves up a bit and called Martha from the kitchen.
“Pearce residence,” she said in her squeaky, little voice.
The man had married a mouse.
“Hey, Martha, it’s me,” I said softly.
She didn’t say anything right away. She didn’t have my voice memorized unless I said something vulgar. “It’s Marlowe,” I said. “He’s not here,” she said briskly.
“That’s why I’m calling. Just to let you know that your man’s passed out on my recliner over here on King Street.”
“Why?” she asked accusingly, as if to say, “What did you do to my man?”
“He’s in a bad way here because of the case, and he told me to tell you that he doesn’t want you seeing him this way.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No, but he looks like shit, Martha. I kid you not.”
“Oh, my baby …” she said, referring to her husband. I couldn’t help but smile.
“But how’s the tyke?” I asked. “Coming along well?”
“Quite,” she said.
“You guys pick a name yet?”
“No.”
“You’re running out of time, Martha. How about ‘Marley’?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “We’re expecting a lady….”
“Arright. At least I tried. I’ll have him call when he wakes up, okay? Take care.”
“Yes, you too,” she said, not meaning it.
“Good night,” I sang.
She hung up, obviously disgusted.
It comforted me to know that I could still have that effect on women.
I checked to make sure Pearce was still in sleepy land. He was. I could have wrapped him in Christmas lights if I wanted to. I went through his pockets till I found his car keys. Then I went over to the window and peeled back the dusty curtain. His car was halfway up my driveway, blocking in my truck.
I went out. The night was dark and cool. The wind carried in its waves the smell of cooked food from somewhere close by. I peeked in through the windows of Pearce’s car and saw nothing. I opened the trunk.
There, between the extra tire and the first-aid kit, was a cardboard accordion folder stuffed to the gills with papers. It was held shut with one of those giant rubber bands that only mailmen seem to have access to. I lifted the folder out and was surprised at the weight of it.
The night was still and quiet. I heard the beating of wings, and a lone cricket singing, but the sounds of men were nowhere to be found. Then, off in the near distance, somewhere behind me, I heard a noise like a twig snapping. I was immediately brought to attention—a leftover symptom of being in war—and couldn’t help but think that I was being watched, that someone had misplaced a step. That a gun was pointed at me.
I slammed the trunk, crouched, and hustled backward into the house, scanning the horizon the whole way. I saw nothing, but I locked all four locks on the front door.
I went through the documents in the bedroom with the door locked. I wasn’t one for technical information. I mean, I wasn’t a goddamn sleuth, but I was able to piece together enough from the pictures. They say a thousand words, don’t they?
The first murders were in California.
Those early murders were the ones he learned from, the ones that gave him the lesson that he could do whatever he wanted to and get away with it, that given enough time he could do whatever his sick mind came up with.
The first two victims looked different from the others. The girls were escorts, which, considering this was California we were talking about, probably meant they were struggling actresses. They were strangled, beaten, bludgeoned. Roses were incorporated, but in that first kill, which occurred in a motel room, a rose from a nearby dozen was singled out and placed atop her corpse, almost as if it were a decoration. The star at the top of the Christmas tree. Or a sick gift.
For that second girl, the stem of the rose was pushed up inside her.
The first two were the only two that weren’t marked with semen. With the third, traces of semen were found just feet away from the dead girl’s body. He couldn’t take it anymore.
After that, the sky was the limit, and like Pearce said, things had just gotten worse. That’s the weird thing about serial killers: the more they do it, the more sophisticated they get, yet at the same time, they become more animalistic, more savage, as time goes on.
The rest of the crime-scene photos, when viewed chronologically, seemed like a virtual flip-book showing how the female body could be mutilated to greater and greater degrees. The roses became his calling card, placed in the sockets where a pair of eyes should have been. The question was, did he do it because he thought it was important, or did he do it just to let people know that he was the guilty party?
They didn’t seem to have any hair or blood from the killer, but if they had semen, that meant he left a scent, and if he left a scent, I had the utmost confidence that the wolf—all teeth and nails and bad intentions—would hunt the man down without even breaking a sweat.
I put everything back in the folder and went back out to the living room. Pearce was still sleeping in the chair. I peeked out through the curtain, and even though I spent an extra minute looking around out there, I saw nothing. I had to presume that the sound of the snapping twig was caused by a cat, or a dog. I unlocked the door, ran to the car, put the folder back, and zipped back into the house.
I put the keys back in Pearce’s pocket, along with a handwritten note I hoped his wife would find. She didn’t like me for any particular reason. I figured I ought as well give her one. The note read:
I threw a moth-bitten blanket over him that probably smelled like phantom cats, turned out the lights in the living room, and locked myself in the bedroom. It was two-thirty in the morning. I had to be at the restaurant at seven. I would have liked to have slept a few hours, but Pearce snored.
NINE
More people than I had ever known showed up to pay their last respects to Judith Myers. Pearce was there, at least in spirit, because his mind was fried. I think the only respite he’d had since Gloria Shaw’s body was found was when he dozed off at my place. Since then, all he did was work. I was there in a cheap brown
