Alex Shimoff delivered his rendering to Milo’s office the following afternoon.
“Don’t tell anyone who did this,” he said. “This is garbage.”
The last time he’d sat down to draw for Milo, Shimoff had produced a stunningly accurate re-creation of a girl whose face had been blown off. What he presented this time was an ambiguous pale disk filled with bland, male features.
Color it yellow you’d have Mr. Happy Face’s noncommittal brother.
And yet, it twanged a memory synapse deep in my brain.
Had I seen him before? Mental scouring produced nothing.
Milo told Shimoff, “Thanks, kid.”
“Don’t thank me for doing crap, El Tee. That Wheeling lady couldn’t come up with anything useful. I hate the computer Identi-Kit but after she gave me nothing I tried it. She said it confused her more, too many choices. She couldn’t even respond to my questions. Wider, longer, rounder, nothing. She claimed she barely saw the guy.”
“Did she seem scared?” I said.
“Maybe,” said Shimoff. “Or she’s just stupid and can’t process visually.”
Milo studied the likeness. “It’s better than what we had before.”
Shimoff looked ready to vomit. “It’s any pie-faced white guy.”
“Hey, kiddo, maybe this is what he actually looks like. Like that cartoon, the kid brings in a stick figure drawing of his family, on parent-teacher day stick figures show up?”
Shimoff wasn’t amused.
I tried again to figure out why the crude drawing gnawed at me.
Blank mental screen.
Shimoff said, “At art school I could get away sometimes with jokes. Real life? It sucks to turn out garbage. Top of that, I still have to take my wife shopping tonight.”
Clenching his fists, he left.
Milo murmured, “Creative types,” and took the photo to the big detective room where he told Moe Reed to scan and email it to Maria Thomas.
That evening at six the rendering was featured on the news, along with a sketchy tale of a Westside home invader who broke his victims’ necks and left behind a? calling card. Ambiguity made the story more frightening and the phones began ringing seconds after the ensuing commercial.
By six fifteen, Milo had commandeered Moe Reed and Sean Binchy to help work the lines. He moved out of his office and took a desk in the big D-room left unoccupied by a daywatch detective on sick leave. Manipulating three separate lines himself, pushing buttons like a concertina player, he kept the conversations brief, took a few notes, the most frequent notation being “B.S.” followed by “schizo,”
“ESP,” and “prank.” Reed’s dominant notation was “neg.,” Binchy’s, “t.n.g.” When Sean saw me trying to figure that out, he cupped his hand over the receiver, smiled, and said, “Totally no good.”
I heard Reed say, “Yes, I understand, ma’am, but you live in Bakersfield, there’s no reason to be worried.”
Binchy: “Absolutely, sir. There’s no indication he has anything against Samoans.”
Milo: “I know about the Chance cards in Monopoly. No, there wasn’t one.”
Slipping out of the room, I drove home thinking about victims.
Robin said, “No blanket? Doesn’t take much to set this maniac off.”
We sat near the pond, tossing pellets at the fish, Blanche wedged between us, snoring lightly. I’d finished a couple ounces of Chivas, was nursing the ice. Robin hadn’t made much headway with a glass of Riesling. The night smelled of ozone and jasmine. The sky was charcoal felt stretched tight. A few stars peeked through like ice-pick wounds.
She said, “She kicks him out of the clinic and he comes back to get her months later?”
I said, “Maybe he took his time because planning was part of the fun. For all I know, he set up the confrontation.”
“To give himself an excuse?”
“Even psychopaths need to self-justify and I don’t think his real motive is avenging insult. It’s got to be rooted in fantasies he’s had since childhood but he frames his victims as bad people so he can feel righteous. Glenda Usfel maintained control by being the alpha female only this time it backfired. The same probably went for Berlin. Spreading bad cheer was her hobby but she tried it with the wrong guy. What doesn’t fit is brutalizing Marlon Quigg, who’s described by everyone as the mildest man on the planet.”
“Maybe he wasn’t always that way.”
“Reformed crank?”
“People can change.” She smiled. “Someone once told me that. What did Quigg do for a living?”
“Accountant.”
“Not an IRS auditor by any chance?”
“Not even close, just a cog in a big firm, sat at his desk and number-crunched for a big grocery chain.”
“Someone didn’t like the tomatoes, they wouldn’t take it out on him. Did he have any outside interests?”
“No one’s mentioned any. Family man, walked his dog, led a quiet life. Before that he taught disabled kids. We’re talking a softie, Rob. Totally different from the other two victims.”
“Interesting switch,” she said.
“What is?”
“Trading a job where you’re constantly dealing with people for one where you stare at ledgers all day.”
“His wife said the money wasn’t there so he took the CPA exam.”
“I’m sure that’s it.”
“You have your doubts?”
“It just seems like a radical shift, Alex, but money is important.”
I thought about that. “Something happened when Quigg was teaching that pushed him in a totally different direction?”
“You just said the killer’s motive goes back to childhood. ‘Disabled kids’ covers a lot of territory.”
“A student with serious psychiatric issues,” I said. “Revenge on the teacher? Oh, man.”
She said, “What if Quigg left teaching because he encountered a student who scared him out of the profession? I know it’s far-fetched but you just said this guy loves the thrill of the hunt. What if now that he’s an adult, he’s decided to revisit old enemies?”
The sky seemed to darken and drop, stars receding. Robin tried to flex her fingers and I realized I was squeezing her hand and let go.
“I’m just tossing stuff out,” she said, raising the wineglass to her lips. Good vintage but tonight it evoked a frown and she put it aside. “Let’s change the subject.”
I said, “Mind if I make a call?”
Belle Quigg said, “ Who is this?”
I repeated my name. “I was at your home the other day, and also with Lieutenant Sturgis.”
“Oh. You’re the other one. Has something happened about Marlon?”
“I have a few more questions, Mrs. Quigg. How long ago did Marlon teach school?”
“A long time. Why?”
“We’re being thorough.”
“I don’t understand.”
I said, “The more we know about Marlon, the better our chances of catching whoever did that to him.”
“Did that,” she said. “You can say killed. I say it. I think it. I think it all the time.”
I didn’t answer.
She said, “I don’t see what his teaching has to do with it. That was years ago. This is a madman who killed Marlon and Louie, and it had nothing to do with anything Marlon did or said.”
“I’m sure you’re right, ma’am, but if you could-”
“Marlon didn’t teach at a school, he taught at a hospital. Ventura State.”
Once the largest psychiatric facility in the state, long-shuttered. “How long ago?”
“This was before we got married, I’d just met him and he told me he used to be a teacher, so… at least twenty-four years ago.”
