the water. McNeil, released from the car without explanation by Tee, followed them sullenly. Some signs of the struggle in the water remained in the prints and gouges on the bank, but it was the dog that led them to the island. And the grave.
When they uncovered Kiwasee's face, Tee gasped in recognition.
'You know him?' Becker asked.
'I think so. It's kind of hard to tell with the shape he's in. Looks like someone worked him over with an ax handle. That's Kiwasee, isn't it, McNeil?'
'Why you asking me?'
'For a fucking second opinion. Isn't that Tyrone Kiwasee? You brought him from Bridgeport.'
'You're the one sat with him face-to-face for an hour. I _just had him in the back of the cruiser. I wasn't studying him. It could be Kiwasee. Or not.'
'What would Kiwasee be doing here? Is he stupid enough to come back to Clamden and burgle some more?' Becker asked.
'Old Skids is pretty stupid. If that's him,' McNeil said.
'Pretty unlucky, too,' Becker said.
'How so? Other than being dead.'
'He ran into somebody in these woods in the middle of the night who decided to kill him. That's pretty unlucky.'
'How do you figure?' McNeil asked. 'He was probably killed in Bridgeport and driven here by one of his buddies.'
'If he was killed in Bridgeport, why did he start bleeding fifty yards away from here? Not only did he run into this guy, but one of them had a shovel with him.'
'Why a shovel, why not a tree limb, an ax handle? A tire iron? You could beat a man like this with just about anything.'
'Because it's hard to dig a hole this big with a tree limb or a tire iron. '
Becker and the others gently extricated Kiwasee's body from the grave and Becker felt through the dead man's pockets with one finger. When he found the car keys, he fished them out with his own keys. Behind the stolen car, Becker turned his pocket inside out and used the cloth to grasp the key as he tried it in the trunk. When the trunk opened, the dog went crazy. Metzger had to pull it away forcibly from the plastic trash bag that lay next to a flashlight and a muddy shovel flecked with blood.
Metzger locked the dog in his car while they opened the trash bag, and they could hear it going wild, trying to claw through the window.
15
Becker resorted to chicken breasts for dinner, a quick and handy solution when pressed for time. He pounded them thin, coated them in flour, dipped them in egg white-he had dispensed with whole eggs several years ago-and then in bread crumbs. With the addition of lemon juice or olives or tomatoes or capers he could create a number of different dishes, all of them acceptable to Jack, the true test of Becker's culinary efforts.
He had worked later than usual, helping with the minute examination of the car and woods where the bodies were found, and Karen had taken Jack shopping for new sneakers as soon as she arrived from New York. They came in as Becker was wilting greens on which to place the saut6ed chicken breasts. With the addition of rice, which Jack could eat by the bowlful, it made a decent meal, quick, attractive, and most important, devoured.
'We avoided the ones with flashing lights,' Karen said, brandishing a sneaker box. 'But just barely. We got the ones you can inject with helium, instead.'
'so now you're able to leap tall buildings, Jack?'
'I don't know until she lets me try them on,' Jack said, making an unsuccessful grab for the box. Karen lifted it out of his reach.
'ItIsjust that they're so expensive,' Karen said. 'I don't think they're actually intended to be worn.'
'Drinks,' Becker said, and pointed Jack to his chore of filling his own glass with milk, putting wineglasses at the places of the adults. 'When I was a boy, we couldn't afford fancy sneakers. We just tied old rocks to our feet. And happy to have them too.'
'He was a boy before my time,' Karen said. 'When I was a boy we had advanced to wooden shoes. We saved the rocks for socks.'
'These are the kind Hakeem wears,' said Jack. 'They're really cool.'
'I demand a fashion show-after dinner,' said Becker. As they ate, Karen said, 'Anything interesting at work'?'
'I'll tell you about it,' Becker said. By tacit agreement they never discussed work in front of Jack except in the most general terms, but Karen could tell by his tone that he had a great deal to tell her.
After the meal, with Jack in his room, he told her of the discovery of the two bodies. 'What's your take on it?' she asked, when he had given her the straightforward report.
'Tee thinks McNeil did it. It's close to McNeil's house. The little mutt is obstructive, there's no question about that. He acts stupid or sullen or misleading by turns, but everything he does seems calculated to keep us from getting to an answer. I don't think he is stupid at all. I just don't see him doing it that close to his own backyard.'
'How close is it?'
'I haven't walked it, but Tee says it's only a quarter of a mile through the woods. I'm going to humor Tee; we're going to check on McNeil's alibi for last night. But I don't think we'll come up with anything there. McNeil thinks Kiwasee was Johnny Appleseed. He was in Clamden a lot at night, we know that much. We found the body in his car. McNeil's theor,y is that Kiwasee came to bury his latest, ran into someone who killed him and dumped him in the grave that Kiwasee had dug for the girl. Just who that someone was and why he killed Kiwasee he doesn't say.'
'Obviously someone else was in the woods.'
'I think it was Johnny himself. My guess is that Kiwasee was where he was because he was on his way to McNeil's. If it was Kiwasee on the phone giving tips to Tee about McNeil's garage, then we can assume he was after McNeil for some reason. Maybe he and McNeil were in on the burglary business together. A local cop knows who's out of town, who is regularly away on certain days, just the kind of information Kiwasee would need. Maybe they were working it together and McNeil turned on him. I don't know. Anyway, my guess is that Kiwasee was sneaking up on McNeil's house, or just leaving it, and he blundered onto Johnny, who was trying to get rid of the girl's body.'
'Just bad luck?'
'it makes more sense than either of the other two seenarios.'
'Or than a fourth,' Karen said. 'That Kiwasee went there deliberately to meet his killer.'
'Meaning that Kiwasee and Johnny were in on the killings of the girls together in some way?'
'It has happened. There have been serial killers who worked in teams.'
'Twice, that we know of,' said Becker. 'The cousins in L.A. and Lutz and Ash.'
Karen was silent for a moment. Lutz and Ash had come perilously close to their own lives. Karen had killed them both. Becker put his arm around her for a moment, then stepped away again.
'So, a falling out among thieves, you think,' he said.
'Not really. It doesn't make much sense. Kiwasee has jumped bail for crimes committed in Clamden. He and his partner drive to the spot in the woods, in two separate cars, presumably-'
'We have found signs that another car was parked in the woods within walking distance.'
'So they do this just to bury a five-day-old corpse. Together? Then they quarrel, the other one kills Kiwaseemaybe, but it's not very convincing, is it?'
'Not very. I can see coming back to Clamden for some reason of the blood, love, hate, revenge-even money. But for a burial? Why here? The only reason to do it here is because it's convenient, because you know the
