None of it seemed certain to lead me to his collaborator, at least not quickly enough to resolve the current crisis favorably. I switched the computer off.
If I'd had some Purell, the sanitizing gel that the nurse used at the hospital, I might have poured half a bottle on my hands.
During my first visit to this casita, I had conducted a quick search, which concluded when I'd made enough disturbing discoveries to take my case against Robertson to the chief. Although a countdown clock ticked in my head, this time I went through the house more thoroughly, grateful that it was small.
In the bedroom, in one drawer of a highboy, I found several knives of different sizes and curious design. Latin phrases were engraved in the blades of the first few weapons that I examined.
Although I don't read Latin, I sensed that the character of the words would prove, on translation, to be as wicked as the sharpness of each razor-edged blade.
Another knife featured hieroglyphics from the hilt to the point. These pictographs meant no more to me than did the Latin, although I recognized a few of the highly stylized images: flames, falcons, wolves, snakes, scorpions__
Searching a second drawer, I discovered a heavy silver chalice. Engraved with obscenities. Polished. Cool in my hands.
This unholy chalice was a hateful mockery of the communion cup that held consecrated wine in a Catholic Mass. The ornate handles were inverted crucifixes: Christ turned on His head. Latin encircled the rim, and around the bowl of the cup were engraved images of naked men and women engaged in various acts of sodomy.
In the same drawer, I found a black-lacquered pyx likewise decorated with pornographic images. On the sides and the lid of this small box, colorful hand-painted scenes of lurid degradation depicted men and women copulating not with one another but with jackals, hyenas, goats, and serpents.
In an ordinary church, the pyx contains the Eucharist, communion wafers of unleavened bread. This box brimmed with coal-black crackers flecked with red.
Unleavened bread exudes a subtle, appealing aroma. The contents of this pyx had an equally faint but repellent odor. First whiff-herbal. Second whiff-burnt matches. Third whiff-vomit.
The highboy contained other satanic paraphernalia; but I'd seen enough.
I couldn't fathom how adults could take seriously the Hollywood trappings and hokey rituals of glamorized satanism. Certain fourteen-year-old boys, yes, because some of them were washed half loose from reason by shifting tides of hormones. But not adults. Even sociopaths like Bob Robertson and his unknown pal, as enthralled by violence and as crackbrained as they were, must have
After replacing the items in the highboy, I closed the drawers.
A knocking startled me. The soft rap of knuckles.
I looked at the bedroom window, expecting to see a face at the glass, perhaps a neighbor tapping the pane. Only the hard desert light, tree shadows, and the brown backyard.
The knocking came again, as quiet as before. Not just three or four brisk raps. A stutter of small blows lasting fifteen or twenty seconds.
In the living room, I went to the window beside the front door and carefully parted the greasy drapes. No one waited on the stoop outside.
Mrs. Sanchez's Chevy was the only vehicle at the curb. The weary dog that had slouched along the street the day before now traveled it again, head held low, tail lower than its head.
Recalling the racket of the quarrelsome crows on the roof during my previous visit, I turned from the window and studied the ceiling, listening.
After a minute, when the knocking didn't come again, I stepped into the kitchen. In places, the ancient linoleum crackled underfoot.
Needing a name to put to Robertson's collaborator, I could think of no place in a kitchen likely to contain such information. I looked through all the drawers and cupboards, anyway. Most were empty: only a few dishes, half a dozen glasses, a small clatter of flatware.
I went to the refrigerator because eventually Stormy would ask if this time I had checked for severed heads. When I opened the door, I found beer, soft drinks, part of a canned ham on a platter, half a strawberry pie, as well as the usual staples and condiments.
Next to the strawberry pie, a clear plastic package held four black candles, eight- inch tapers. Maybe he kept them in the fridge because they would soften and distort if left in this summer heat, in a house without air conditioning.
Beside the candles stood a jar without a label, filled with what appeared to be loose teeth. A closer look confirmed the contents: dozens of molars, bicuspids, incisors, canines. Human teeth. Enough to fill at least five or six mouths.
I stared at the jar for a long moment, trying to imagine how he had obtained this strange collection. When I decided that I'd rather not think about it, I closed the door.
Had I found nothing unusual in the refrigerator, I would not have opened the freezer compartment. Now I felt obligated to explore further.
The freezer was a deep roll-out compartment under the fridge. The hot kitchen sucked a quick plume of cold fog from the drawer when I pulled it open.
Two bright pink-and-yellow containers were familiar: the Burke amp; Bailey's ice cream that Robertson had purchased the previous afternoon. Maple walnut and mandarin-orange chocolate.
In addition, the compartment held about ten opaque Rubbermaid containers with red lids, the shape and the size in which to store leftover deep-dish lasagna. I would not have opened these if the topmost containers hadn't featured freezer-proof hand-printed labels: heather
JOHNSON, JAMES DEERFIELD.
After all, I was looking specifically for names.
When I lifted aside the top containers, I saw more names on the lids under them: lisa belmont, alyssa
I started with Heather Johnson. When I pried off the red lid, I found a woman's breasts.
FORTY-NINE
SOUVENIRS. TROPHIES. OBJECTS TO SPUR THE IMAGINATION and thrill the heart on lonely nights.
As though it had burned my hands, I dropped the container back in the freezer. I shot to my feet and kicked the drawer shut.
I must have turned away from the refrigerator, must have crossed the kitchen, but I was not aware of going to the sink until I found myself there. Leaning against the counter, bent forward, I struggled to repress the urge to surrender Mrs. Sanchez's cookies.
Throughout my life, I have seen terrible things. Some have been worse than the contents of the Rubbermaid container. Experience has not immunized me to horror, however, and human cruelty still has the power to devastate me, to loosen the locking pins in my knees.
Although I wanted to wash my hands and then splash cold water in my face, I preferred not to touch Robertson's faucets. I shrank from the thought of using his soap.
Nine more containers waited in the freezer. Someone else would have to open them. I had no curiosity about the rest of the grotesque collection.
In the file folder that bore his name, Robertson had included nothing but the calendar page for August 15, suggesting that his own career as a murderer would begin on this date. Yet evidence
