Monster

'Mommy,' I said, 'I wanna be a policeman when I grow up.'

His grin was savage. 'Now for the happy news: Wendell Pelley is no longer a suspect. At least not for the Beatty brothers. Wendell Pelley is deceased. For well over a week- before choo choo bang bang. His body showed up in a county garbage dump in Lennox six days ago. Sheriff's deputy happened to read the wire I put out and called. The dump's organized, so they were able to pinpoint what load Pelley came in on. Commercial container behind an industrial laundry. It was collected three days before he was found, but the maggot feast indicates Pelley could have been in there a while before that. No sign of violence to the corpse. Looks like he fell asleep in the Dumpster and got shipped out with the trash.'

'Crushed to death?'

'No, they spotted him before compaction-what was left of him. Cause of death was extreme dehydration and malnutrition. The sonofabitch starved himself. I called the Korean who runs the halfway house. He said yeah, Pelley hadn't been eating much before he split. Probably weighed a hundred and twenty back then. No, he didn't see that as reason for alarm, Pelley wasn't causing problems.'

'Talk about self-punishment,' I said. 'Pelley made it all the way from Ramparts to Lennox on foot?'

'He probably walked through alleys in some not-nice neighborhoods, found his final resting place, curled up, and died.'

'Not a trace of foul play?'

'Nothing, Alex. They filed it as a definite suicide. I read the report and it's pretty clear. Desiccation, cachexia, low hemoglobin count, something about his liver chemistry that said he hadn't received adequate nutrition for a long time. No wounds, no broken bones; his neck bones were intact, and so was his skull. The only damage was what the maggots had done.'

Staring at what was left of the sandwich, he hesitated, gulped it down, wiped his face, got himself a beer.

'Think about that, Alex. Feeling so low that you throw yourself out in the garbage.'

'He could still be good for Claire,' I said.

'If I could show that he and Claire ever met, maybe. But now that he's dead? Also, given the fact that he's not good for Dada or the Beattys, my enthusiasm for him has faded considerably. I got carried away. Like Mr. Dylan said, too much of nothing.'

He returned to the fridge, got an apple, bit down noisily.

'Maybe I can throw you a little cheer,' I said. 'For what it's worth, I know why Claire sought out Peake.'

I told him about Denton Argent's rampage. His chewing slowed. When I finished, he put the apple down. 'Her brother. Never heard of the case.'

'Me, neither. It happened twenty-seven years ago.'

'I was in Vietnam… So what was she hoping to learn by glomming on to Peake?'

'Her conscious motive was probably wanting to understand psychotic violence. Being a psychologist-and a researcher- legitimized it. But I think she was really trying to understand why her family-her childhood-had been shattered.'

'And Peake could've told her that?'

'No,' I said. 'But she would Ve denied her motives.'

'So she attaches herself to Peake, tries to get him to open up about what he did.'

'Maybe she did more than try,' I said. 'If anyone could pry him open, it would've been Claire. Because she was the only person to spend any significant time with him during his commitment. She cared. What if she succeeded, and Peake told her something that put her in danger?'

'Such as?'

'He hadn't acted alone. He'd been prodded by the Crimmins brothers. Or believed he had. Alternatively, Peake's still hi contact with Crimmins and told him Claire was getting too nosy. Crimmins decided to fix the problem. That's how Peake knew about Claire's murder the day before it happened.'

'he knew,' he said. ' 'Bad eyes in a box' ain't exactly evidence. As I was reminded three times today.' He picked up the apple, twirled it by the stem. 'Very creative, Alex, but I don't know. It all hinges on Peake having conversations. Faking out being a veg.'

'What if his mental dullness isn't all due to psychosis?' I said. 'What if the bulk is caused by his medication? The severity of his tardive symptoms and the fact that he's never had his dosage altered from five hundred milligrams show he reacts strongly to moderate amounts of Thorazine. Let's say Claire decided to experiment, withdrawing pills in order to restore some clarity. And it worked.'

'She tampered on the sly?'

'We're talking intense motivation. A woman who gave up her job just to get next to Peake. If she thought easing up on his Thorazine would open him up, why not? She could've rationalized that it was for his own good-the meds were increasing his neurological problems, he could get by on less. The obvious risk would have been an increase in his violent impulses, but she might've felt confident she could deal with that.'

'Heidi was working with him, too,' he said. 'She wouldn't suspect?'

'Heidi's medically and psychologically unsophisticated. Claire told her what she wanted her to know. Any changes may have been subtle-a few sentences here and there. And they may have occurred only in response to Claire's prodding. Claire was spending intense one-on-one time with Peake, probing very deliberately. She knew what she wanted: a window into Peake's violence. And, by extension, Denton's. Even if Peake did say something to Heidi, there'd be no reason for her to comprehend. Or care. She'd dismiss it as gibberish, just as she did with the 'bad eyes' recitation until Claire turned up dead.'

'And with Claire gone, Peake gets his full dosage again.'

'And lapses into incoherence.'

'Okay,' he said. 'Let me take this all in… Peake blabs, Claire finds out someone else was involved… and Wark enters the picture because he and Peake are somehow in contact-'

'Because Wark works at Starkweather-'

'Yeah, yeah, let me put this in order… Peake wakes up- maybe he does get more violent. Or at least belligerent with Wark. He makes threats-'I've got this doctor who's really interested in me. I told her you turned me into a monster, she believes me, she's gonna get me out of here.' Even if Claire never said that, Peake could believe it- delusional. He's still crazy, right?'

I nodded.

'Still,' he said, 'that's an awful lot of gabbing for old Monster.'

'Unless he's been faking.'

'I brought that up at the beginning. You said it was unlikely.'

'The context has changed.'

He shot out of his chair, paced the room, buttoned and unbuttoned his coat. 'If Wark was threatened, why not kill Peake?'

'Why bother?' I said. 'Back on a full dose-or a higher one, if someone's tinkering in the opposite direction- Peake's no threat. He'll live out his life in his S &R room, the tardive symptoms will intensify until he's neurologically cooked, one day someone will walk in and find him dead. Just like Denton.'

'Claire could just do that?' he said. 'Pull pills with nobody noticing?'

'Starkweather gives its staff plenty of latitude. Dr. Aldrich was Claire's nominal supervisor, and he didn't seem to know much about her cases. Neither did Swig. In that respect, working at Starkweather was similar to her job with Theobold-plenty of solitude. The style to which she'd become accustomed since childhood.'

'So,' he said, 'I waltz in there again and ask to look at the personnel files. Swig's gonna roll out the carpet.'

'You can use the publicity threat-filing for warrants, the media getting hold of it. No reason for him to know the judges haven't cooperated. Ask to meet with the men in Claire's group. That's certainly reasonable. While you're there, try to work in the personnel records.'

He circled some more. 'One more thing. The Beatty brothers. Why would Crimmins/Wark tell Peake about killing them? On the contrary, if Peake's hassling him, the last thing he'd want would be for Peake to know anything.'

'Good point,' I said. 'So maybe it's Column A: Peake and Crimmins still are colluding. Carrying on the alliance that led to Peake's original blood walk. Having fun with it- recording it on film.' My gut tightened. 'I just thought of something. The eye wounds. What's a camera lens?'