“ Coming back for… for more lessons in taxidermy?”
“ Mostly understands the process. He wanted to know about my most potent chemicals. Wanted to know if I gut a gator before I preserve it, and if there was a way to do it and leave the internal organs intact.” He looked up at them, around the room. “By God, it’s what he said. I told him it’d be foolish to leave the innards; they’d spoil, and the stench would be overwhelming after a time.”
“ What did he say to that?” she asked.
“ I offered to do him some lessons in trophy setting, since he was being so generous with his money.”
“ To show him how to do what he wanted?”
“ He said he’d pay double my usual salary for the job. Couldn’t turn it down, but now… hell, I don’t never want to be alone with that motherfucker ever again, ever. That’s why I come to you boys; figure you can do one of them whataya-callits?”
“ A stakeout,” supplied Chief Ford. “You bet we will.”
“ What else do you know about this Patric Allain?” asked Jessica of Gordon Buckner as she began to pace the room, taking Eriq’s eyes with her. Was he upset that she’d stepped into his interrogation? Perhaps, but she had questions for Buckner that couldn’t wait. “Had you ever seen him before?”
“ No, never. Friends of mine in Key West told him about me, or so he said. Showed me a note scrawled in Scrap- heap’s handwriting.”
“ A note?”
“ Yes, ma’am.”
“ Do you have it with you?”
“ Naw, pitched it back at the shop. Prob’ly out at the dump by now. Why? Is that important?”
Santiva shook his head. “Could be… might’ve been. If he wrote anything on it, anything at all, we could match it to handwriting samples we already have on this guy.”
“ Matching his handwriting ain’t gonna fetch him, though, is it?”
“ It could help convict him, should he fail to confess, Mr. Buckner,” Jessica explained. “It would also tie him to the crimes if we can place him in shops like yours. You see, he’s been using chemicals such as those you use for preserving for… in an attempt to preserve human flesh.”
Buckner cringed. “He musta been the one who broke into my shop last night, made off with some chemical compounds… Disgusting, despicable SOB.”
“ Did the note he carried have a date affixed to it, sir?” she asked.
“ Yeah, he’d just come from Key West. It had a date on it for Saturday last.”
“ Thank you, that’s very important, Mr. Buckner.”
“ Buck, honey… you can call me Buck.”
Buck continued where he’d left off before Jessica had interrupted him. “I did some calling, checked up right after this fella left, and sure ‘nough he was down Key West way, making a nuisance of himself just ‘bout ever’day, according to my former partner at Works of Art. So, they put him on for a time. That’d been last fall, almost a year now.”
“ They hired him on?”
“ Right, ‘cept it was more like they apprenticed him.”
“ In other words, he paid your friend?”
“ They don’t have many jobs to come open, so he worked for nothing. Said he wanted to learn the business, so-” Bruckner gasped to a stop, looked around to Eriq and asked, “You Feds aren’t going to get after ol’ Scrap- heap Jones in Key West, now are you?”
Jessica assured him they weren’t IRS agents.
“ What time did you tell Allain to return to your shop?”
“ Two this afternoon.”
Jessica and Eriq exchanged a look of satisfaction. Finally, they knew they were on the right track, although each wondered if putting the arrest moves on the Night Crawler could be this simple. After all, if there had been a break- in and the killer was behind it, he might well not return. It would take some arrogance to do so. Then again, they knew this character had plenty of that commodity to spare.
“ Can you get us a surveillance van, something with a logo on it, something inconspicuous?” asked Eriq of Ford.
“ We can get an FPL van from Florida Power and Light.”
“ Perfect.”
“ Let’s move on it,” agreed Jessica. “Mr. Buckner… Buck, I’m your granddaughter for the time being. Is that acceptable to you?”
“ You a gotxl shot?”
“ She’s the best,” assured Santiva.
“ Welcome to the family.” Buckner’s face broke into a wide grin and his leathery hand took hers and held it until the sweat made her uncomfortable.
“ You go back to your shop for now, Gordon,” Chief Ford told the man. “Try to carry on as if it were a normal day.”
Eriq interjected, saying, “And don’t let on that you suspect this guy in the least. If he comes in, treat him courteously, like you would any customer.”
“ The hell I will-”
“ Mr. Buckner!” shouted Ford. “I have to yell and shout at the bastard if he’s to be treated like any of the fools I’ve taught my trade to over the years. ‘Sides, if I don’t treat ‘im just as goddamned rude as I done before, then he will suspect something’s up.”
Jessica joined Ford when he broke into a smile and laughed. “That’s just fine,” agreed Ford. “You do that. That’ll be just the way to play it then, old-timer.”
“ ‘ Old-timer,’ is it?”
They wrangled with one another through the doorway and down the corridor. Alone with Eriq now, Jessica turned to him. “He’s here-the Night Crawler’s here-and we’re going to snare him this time.”
Eriq had found one of the chairs and collapsed into it. “Careful, our batting average in Naples-hell, in the whole state-hasn’t exactly been sterling. For all we know this old coot could’ve entertained a perfectly harmless guy who wants to take up a weird hobby and doesn’t in the least resemble our killer.”
“ But the British accent, and the fact that he wants to know more about trophy setting, preservatives… Eriq, it’s got to be Allain. The old man said he used the name Patric Allain.”
“ So did America’s Most Wanted. Do you think the killer would continue to use the name, knowing we’re hot on it?”
She frowned and tried to look everywhere but into Eriq’s eyes. He seemed intense, almost distraught, “I know you’re still upset with me about releasing as much as I did on the Night Crawler, and you have every right to be, Eriq, but-’’
He shot to his feet, waved her down with his hands and, hissing, said, “That’s water under the bridge. We’re partners here, and we’re going to end this thing together.”
“ Today, today at two p.m.,” she insisted, wanting very much to believe it possible.
“ So, yeah… let’s keep that happy positive thought lodged firmly in our minds, okay? You’re probably right. Ol’ Buck seems to be very knowledgeable about our man, and he’s most likely telling the truth.”
“ So far as he knows it, you mean? You sound skeptical, Eriq.”
“ So far as he knows it… so, right… right… and I’m pretty sure… there’s one thing seems certain enough.”
“ What’s that?”
“ This creep wants to take the next highest step in his evolving fantasy, like you said, Jess. His is not a fixed fantasy like most killers, but one that is growing larger and more deadly each day.”
Jessica hesitated a moment before answering, choosing her words with great care. ‘ The Night Crawler most likely had to have used his Patric Allain alias with Buckner, don’t you see? It would’ve been on the recommendation from Buckner’s partner in Key West. His partner may well have Allain’s handwriting on some agreement they made. I’ll contact him, see if anything shakes loose there.”
“ If it’s as Buckner remembers, yes… But he’s a bit strange,” Eriq again cautioned, “and so he may have just picked up the name from another source, like his TV set. He may be a Most Wanted junkie who’s decided to seize upon an opportunity to get his face on the boob tube.”
Again the Most Wanted episode, with details about Allain, had come back to haunt them; and yet without it, Buckner might not have come forward.
“ So, how did everything go in Key Largo and Matecumbe? Gain any new insights? Any new evidence?” he wanted to know as he worked up a smile for her. She read into his unspoken words: Was the trip worth the taxpayers’ money?