"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 territory, because you feel reasonably safe, maybe you know where the police go at night and where they don't…
"Another plus for Tee's theory that McNeil did it."
"I know. But you don't drive to Clamden from Bridgeport in a stolen car with a corpse in the trunk just to bury it. And why risk two of you for a burial? In separate cars. I don't see it."
"Maybe the burial was part of the excitement."
Becker shook his head. "The excitement is the killing," he said categorically. "The killing and the anticipation. Maybe in Johnny's case there's some pleasure in the dissection as well. But disposing of the body is just an inconvenience.
"You're sure?"
Becker sighed wearily. It was the certainty of his knowledge that drained him. Born not of research or years of pursuing serial killers, but of bone-deep understanding. "I'm sure," he said flatly.
Karen did not argue. There were areas of Becker's expertise where he was not to be questioned. She understood and avoided them when she could, aware of an incipient empathy within herself that she feared to encourage by associating too closely with Becker's own.
Jack bounded into, the room with his own fanfare. "Ta da!" He leapt high, landed with his arms spread wide, one foot perched on its heel.
The new sneakers gleamed.
"What do you think?":'Fantastic," said Becker.
'You ought to feel them. It's like you can fly."
"I remember the feeling well. I used to get that feeling with a new pair of Keds."
"Keds, " Jack said, horrified.
"That's all we had then, we were deprived." 'I thought you wore rocks."
"That was for dress-up," said Becker. To Karen, he said, "He looks the very epitome of inner-city youth, doesn't he?"
"Makes a mother proud. I tried to interest him in a pair of oxblood wing tips, but he was having none of itJack! "
Jack was rubbing the sole of one sneaker vigorously atop the instep of the other. "I can't go to school with them all shiny," he said, continuing to grind off the sheen.
"Do you know how much those cost?"
"You told me often enough."
"Now your mother will have to arrest someone extra just to pay for those shoes."
"It's not funny, John. How is he going to learn respect for his belongings."
"It's called 'distressing,' " said Becker. "If he did it to furniture, you'd think it was very fashionable."
"He does do it to the furniture. Look at the sofa."
"Here's where you tactfully withdraw," Becker said to Jack. The boy slipped quickly out of the living room.
"A boy has to be free to loll around," Becker continued.
"He can loll on the floor."
"On the floor it's just rolling, not lolling."
"I don't care what it is, he's got to learn more responsibility toward property. I know how that sounds, by the way, so don't remind me that I'm turning into my mother… What is it?"
Becker had disengaged from the conversation abruptly, staring into space.
"Distressing," he said. "Those marks on the bones of the girls that Johnny killed. The ones we thought might be a signature or a talisman of some kind?"
"You couldn't figure out how they got on the bone during the dissection."
"What if Johnny put them there deliberately like distress marks on furniture?"
"To make the bones look older?"
"No. Not older. To make his work look clumsier."
"I don't follow you."
"It worked-halfway anyway. Kom thought the job was sloppy. But that's when we just showed him the one bone. Grone thought it was very skillfully done, seeing those marks so uniformly applied."
"Take me through it," Karen said.
"He cuts the girl into pieces; then, probably as an afterthought, he decides to confuse the issue just in case the bones are ever found-an event he didn't really anticipate-so he takes a couple of swipes at the exposed joint to make it look like sloppy work. We know he had to do it after the job was done, there was no other way to get the marks where they were during the boning process. It's not anything he takes too seriously, he doesn't think it will ever matter, but he's a careful man, a methodical man, so he does it on a couple of more bones. Same way, slash, slash. It looks good enough, he keeps doing it, it becomes part of his pattern and after a while he doesn't even think about it, he just does it with each bone when he's cut it free."
"Like somebody on an assembly line. A pieceworker if that isn't too horrible to say."