baby fat. But there was no fat on him. Schufeldt was like a well-trimmed roast. His eyes were small and blue, and when he leveled his gaze they were hard, like shooting marbles.
Hallock looked into those eyes and felt a wintry chill even though the thermometer was registering a comfortable seventy. He didn't like Schufeldt, and not just because he'd come in on the case, acting like he ran the place, treating Hallock like an inferior, generally hot-dogging all over; he didn't like him because the guy wasn't likable. There was something missing, Hallock thought. An important ingredient, maybe soul. Whatever it was, Hallock couldn't warm up to him and didn't want to.
'Let's take it from the top,' Schufeldt said. 'Danowski, Gloria.'
Hallock tried not to show his irritation. This was the fifth time Schufeldt wanted to review the cases. Nothing new had developed since the first time they went over them, inch by inch, word by word. The chief opened the folder on his desk, picked out the autopsy report. 'Why don't you just read it?' he asked evenly.
Schufeldt cocked his head to one side, an arrogant smile threatening to bloom. 'I wouldn't have to be here if that's all I was going to do, Waldo.'
It angered Hallock that this guy called him by his first name. He knew it was an interrogating technique designed to make the suspect feel inferior. Besides, he could be Schufeldt's father. In turn, Hallock never called him anything. 'It seems pointless for me to read it aloud to you.'
'Nothing I do is pointless, Waldo. There are things I hear when someone reads to me that I don't pick up when I read to myself. You understand, Waldo?'
There was no way he was going to answer. Hallock's eyes locked with Schufeldt's; the younger man's gaze, steady and chilly, was set for eternity. Hallock looked away. Angry with himself, he began to read aloud.
Schufeldt scratched at yellow lined paper from time to time. When Hallock finished the autopsy report, Schufeldt lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair, springs creaking. 'Husband's statement,' he ordered.
It went that way all morning until Hallock had finished what they had on Mary Beth Higbee, which wasn't much.
Schufeldt said, 'Do you have a list of sex offenders, Waldo?'
'Yeah.'
'Let's pull 'em in.'
'What for? These aren't sex crimes.'
'Some guys get their jollies funny ways, Waldo. I heard about a guy likes to be put in a coffin, just lies there while the broad stands next to the casket. He gets off that way. It takes all kinds, Waldo. There's another guy beats his meat while some girl pisses on his feet. I could tell you plenty, Waldo.'
Hallock ignored the invitation. 'I don't see what sex offenders have to do with these murderers. None of them were raped.'
'You're not listening, Waldo. Some turkeys don't have to rape to get off. Maybe slitting the Cooper broad's throat was what did it for our boy. Or strangling Danowski. Then there's pederasts can only do it with kids. But maybe this scumbag needs to kill kids to get off.'
'There's no evidence to support that theory,' Hallock said stiffly.
Schufeldt let out a cackling laugh. 'You grow up out here, Waldo? I mean, you're from the North Fork, right?'
Hallock knew Schufeldt wanted him to feel ashamed of that fact. He wasn't. 'Born and raised,' he said proudly.
'I knew it. There's more to life than what goes on in this finger of land, ya know. People out here are cut off from the real world. You're like children believing in Santa Claus and that.'
Hallock wanted to knock him on his ass. Instead he ignored Schufeldt's deprecations and went back to the original point. 'None of the sex offenders we know have any M.O. that would link them up to our killer.'
'How d’ya know? Let's say a guy usually takes a girl behind some bushes to cop a feel suddenly gets a new idea. Maybe seen a X-rated movie or read one of these porno books are all over now, you can buy 'em in your local drugstore. Maybe another guy that flashes year in year out gets bored, needs bigger thrills. Chills an' thrills, Waldo, that's what it's about for some of 'em. What I'm trying to bring out, Waldo, is there could be an escalation. Bigger and better, more and more. In other words, a guy can go from pinching asses to slitting throats overnight. There's no knowing. So we gotta investigate. See what I mean, Waldo?'
'You want to interview all sex offenders, is that it?'
A razor-slit smile cracked his face. 'That's it.'
Hallock went to a file cabinet. 'A waste of time.'
'Remains to be seen, Waldo.'
As he went through the files he told himself to cool it, but when he threw the folder onto Schufeldt's desk the contents spilled, fanning out like a deck of cards. 'Sorry,' he murmured grudgingly, but went back to his chair instead of tying to straighten out the papers.
'What're you giving me this for?' Schufeldt asked, feigning innocence.
He could feel his blood pumping hard. 'You said you wanted the sex offender file. That's it.'
'No, you don't listen, Waldo. I said we should pull in the sex offenders. I didn't say nothing about wanting to read the file. What good's that gonna do me? When the creeps come in, that's when I read their sheets and that. You know these guys, you pull 'em in. Me, I'm goin' to lunch now.' Standing, he stretched, arms spanning the length of the desk, then adjusted himself in his polyester brown pants. A tan sport shirt hung loosely outside them concealing his.38. 'Where's a good place to eat, Waldo? That Paradise joint you sent me yesterday sucked. Had a burger tasted like shit.'
'Try Whitey's down on the dock,' he told him perversely. Everybody knew Whitey's was a sucker joint for tourists and the food all tasted like it came out of a microwave, which it did.
'Thanks, I will. Be back around two, take a stab at these sex offenders. See ya, Waldo.'
When Schufeldt came back from Whitey's, Hallock knew there'd be hell to pay but he didn't give a damn. The satisfaction he felt thinking about the man eating one of Whitey's expensive cardboard meals was worth it.
Hallock straightened out the papers and brought the file back to his own desk. Then he picked up the receiver on his Portacom and told Al Wiggins, who was out on patrol, to come on in. There were thirteen known sex offenders on the North Fork, and two of them were over seventy and hadn't done a thing in two decades. He'd be damned if he'd bring in either of them. Talk about getting off! He'd stake his career that Schufeldt wanted the sex offenders brought in because that was how he got off. Damned hotshot going at this thing ass backwards. Bullshit, the whole goddamned thing was bullshit. Well, he wasn't going to sit still and twiddle his thumbs while the boy wonder was interrogating a bunch of sex nuts. He was going to take some action on his own. And what Special Agent William Schufeldt didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
Hallock met Fran in the bookstore. They had a date for lunch. Fran knew last-minute things came up for Waldo, so she always met him where she didn't mind waiting.
Martha Terry, who owned the shop, greeted Hallock when he came in. ''Lo there, Chief. Any news?'
He knew she meant the murders. Feeling sheepish, he shook his head. As always he was taken aback by Martha's face. Years before she'd had an attack of Bell's palsy that left her with a droopy eye and mouth on her right side. She looked like two different people if you saw her first in one profile, then the other. 'Fran here?'
'In Used.' She pointed to the rear of the store, where there were shelves and shelves of secondhand books.
He thanked Martha, and made his way to the used book section. Fran had her back to him, head bent over a book. Hallock quietly stood behind her, whispered, 'How about a quickie, lady?'
She jumped. 'Sex in the stacks?'
'Why not? Give old Martha a show.'
Fran laughed, her blue eyes luminous. 'You're wicked, Waldo.'
'That's me, Wicked Waldo!' He grinned at her, pushed his hat back. 'What've you got there?'
She glanced down at the book. 'Oh, this is an old one by Shirley Ann Grau. The Keepers of the House.'
'How-to book?'
'Oh, honestly, hon'. It's a novel. Sometimes I think I'm married to an illiterate.'
'Well, not all of us went to college.'
'Junior college,' she said disparagingly.
'So? Still more education than I got.'
