She went and got a videotape, which was just narrow enough to fit behind the dresser. She caught the thing with the corner, scooting it toward her.
“Bingo,” Buddy said as a lipstick tube rolled across the floor.
20
They served the search warrant for Chuck Lehman’s house at six o’clock the next morning, pulling Lehman out of bed. He slept in something that looked like a karate
Anger boiled out of him, his eyes burning pure hatred, like twin gas flames.
Nudging the red line.
A lot had happened since Buddy Holland found the lipstick. Most notably, a partial print on the lipstick matched Jessica Parris’s index finger from the print cards taken by the Sierra Vista Medical Examiner—an eight-point match. Laura, Buddy and Victor had spent most of the night hashing out what they wanted on the search warrant, which Laura and Buddy would get from a judge in Bisbee. It was important they didn’t leave anything out—any area not spelled out by a warrant would be inaccessible to them. And so it became a name game: books, diaries, computer disks, the computer itself. Anything in the sewing line. Makeup, hairpieces, spirit gum and false mustaches. Kites. Indoor and outdoor trash. All cleaning products. Personal grooming products and grooming products for the dog: shampoos, soap, nail scissors, pet-grooming equipment. Financial records, receipts, check books, credit card information. Tools. His car, his yard, his garden shed.
Victor remained in Tucson, catching up on the paperwork they’d accumulated so far.
Buddy took the bedroom. Laura started in the living room and moved on to the kitchen.
The stainless steel appliances would show fingerprints, smudges, if they had not been wiped clean with glass cleaner. She didn’t know if he had cleaned everything recently to cover up Jessica’s presence in his house, or if this was just the way he was. The place had been neat when they’d come here yesterday. Maybe he was just a neat kind of guy.
She got on her hands and knees, looking for hairs or other evidence. Found several graying hairs and some dog hairs but nothing long or blond. She took them as evidence.
Now for the refrigerator.
Lehman favored health foods, green leafy vegetables, white wine. A healthy guy. A neat guy and a healthy guy.
Expecting to move on pretty quickly, she slid out the crisper.
A chill crept up her back. The only occupant of the crisper was a screenplay. CANDY RIDE.
She hunkered down on her heels and aimed the MagLite at the script. After fixing its position in the crisper, she reached a gloved hand in and lifted it out.
She felt breathing on her neck. Buddy.
“Why would he keep a screenplay in the crisper?” Laura muttered.
Buddy shrugged. “To hide it, I guess. I wonder what’s so bad about it he has to hide it.”
Carefully, Laura pushed back the cardboard cover and read the first page.
Buddy, leaning over her, whistled, low.
The scene started with the abduction of a teenaged girl.
Buddy said, “Sick fuck.”
“You could look at it another way.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“He hid it in the crisper.”
Laura stared at the first page, thinking that it could go either way. People wrote what came from their imaginations; it didn’t mean that they did what they wrote about. “Maybe he’s serious. Maybe he’s trying to sell a screenplay.”
Buddy just stared at her.
“Are you done with the bedroom?” she asked.
“I wanted to tell you. Couldn’t find anything in the bedclothes. He changed the sheets.”
“You sure?”
“They were black yesterday and they’re blue plaid now.”
She absorbed this. “He was afraid we’d come back.”
Buddy looked grim, which prompted her to ask, “What else?”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“There’s something else. What is it?”
“I think he vacuumed the bedroom. Place is so clean it’s sterile.”
Laura thought about the appliance surfaces. “He could just be a neat kind of guy.”
