He got out of the truck and looked around the garage. It was small, with two cabinets against the wall, which contained nothing of interest to him. No Deer Sleigh’R, no gambrels or ropes, no big game cleaning implements, no Porti-Boy embalming machines or fluids. No blond wigs made of genuine human hair. No canning jars with missing lids. No chloroform. Clean, Hess thought. If he does it, he doesn’t do it here.
Merci joined Hess in the small downstairs bathroom. She leaned against the sink, and could see Colesceau still sitting in his living room. She couldn’t tell by Hess’s look whether he’d scored big, small or not at all. His eyes sparkled in the bright bathroom lights and she wondered what he was thinking.
“No silver van with mismatched tires, I take it.”
“Not one.”
“Well?”
“He’d take them somewhere else.”
“He says the crowd outside saw him here at least twice on Saturday night, when Ronnie got it. Says he was at the movies on the Kane date, and may have a ticket stub to corroborate. The Jillson night, he was having dinner here, with his — get this — his mom.”
“He’s got a Tuesday night ticket stub upstairs. One of several.”
“It doesn’t mean much.”
“I know that.”
“Did he say anything about the second bedroom?”
“It’s for his beloved mother, of course. She comes to dinner often and stays over.”
Hess nodded and the vertical lines between his eyes deepened.
“I vote no, Hess. Much as I’d like to pinch his vicious little head right this instant. He’s supposed to be chemically castrated — until Wednesday, anyway. He’s weird. He raped helpless old women, not strong young ones. He’s got a spare bedroom for his mommy. Everything physical about him is wrong except for those eyes that Kamala dingbat Petersen fell in love with. She saw his face on TV, for Chrissakes. Or was it a dream? Nobody’s said anything about our golden-haired boy talking with an accent — not LaLonde, not the Arnie’s guy, nobody. This place is clean. He sure as hell didn’t walk in and out of here Saturday night without the lynch mob seeing him — that’s for sure. I’d love to pop him for something — anything — but I think we ought to keep turning over rocks for our main man. Let’s put a loose surveillance on this nutcase and forget about him. Give him line. If he swims anywhere pertinent we’ll yank him aboard and see what he’s been nibbling.”
“All right.”
She looked into Hess’s eyes in the hard light. The fact that she couldn’t determine his thoughts irritated her because he was the only person whose thoughts she wanted to determine.
“Do you agree?” she asked.
“You’re the boss.”
“Goddamnit, that’s not what I asked.”
“I agree. But I get a bad feeling here.”
Merci tried to think it through. What she kept seeing was an elaborate waste of precious time. One thing about Hess was sometimes he acted like they had all the time in the world. When, theoretically, he had less than most people.
She said, “My fear is, he speeds up, now that he’s got the hang of it. And while we’re firing down on this nutless, teary-eyed little creep, the real guy’s out there looking for number four. I think we’d be better off with ten lady cops, dressed to kill, hair up, planted at ten malls.”
“That’s a real possibility, Merci.”
She looked out at the back of Colesceau’s head. He sat motionless where she had left him. She could see the shine of his scalp below the thinning black hair.
“Hess, I mean, look at that guy. Look at the back of his head. He’s crawling with progesterone and he’s got the muscle tone of a bean bag. He’s beyond pathetic and disgusting. He’s like a bug that’s already been stepped on.”
“There is that about him.”
“I think we’re after someone with a higher octane rating.”
“There’s something about him I don’t get.”
“Maybe you should be thankful for that. Look, if he so much as shows his face, those people start blowing gaskets. It’s about time we got some help from the spoiled middle-class fatheads we serve and protect.”
“Well said.”
Outside, several of the protesting neighbors said they saw Colesceau not once but twice on Saturday night, Ronnie Stevens’s last. They concurred that Colesceau had come out once around six and once later — around nine or nine-thirty. The rest of the time he watched TV. They described what he said to them and what he was wearing, and Hess took notes. He discovered that before Colesceau’s cover was blown, none of these neighbors paid him much attention at all. They’d see the little faded truck come and go, and that was about it.
One of the organizers was a woman named Trudy Powers, whom Hess remembered from a newspaper article. She said that she received from the “damaged man” a hollow decorated egg — a promise of his good behavior until finding a more suitable place to live. She said she believed he was looking for a new apartment because he had promised her he would. Trudy Powers implied an understanding and relationship with Colesceau that she seemed proud — or somehow obligated — to not explain. Hess wondered about her. She had enough qualities in common with Lael Jillson and Janet Kane to make him genuinely uneasy. But how could he tell her that? What he did do was look her straight in the eye and tell her to be careful. She seemed to pity him, but Hess couldn’t tell if it was because of what he said or how he looked.
A young man with a camera case hanging from his shoulder said he saw Colesceau not twice but several times Saturday night because he crept up close and looked through a crack in the blinds. He did this around seven-fifteen, eight-thirty, and again around ten-thirty, before he left for home. Colesceau was watching TV. The neighbor said it was the news, then a police drama, then a movie.
Hess asked if Colesceau saw him peering in.
“No. The TV in there feces the street, so all I saw was the back of his head.”
“How come you kept checking in on him?”
The young man shrugged and looked away. “I took some pictures. But the film’s still in the camera.”
“I want that film,” Hess said.
“I thought you might. Three left.” He unslung the case, took out the camera and shot one picture of Hess and one of Merci and one of them together. He rewound the film and smiled with an odd expression of pride as he handed it over to Hess.
“I’m glad to help. Can I have them back when you’re done?”
Hess got his name, address and phone number.
Rick Hjorth of Fullerton, ten miles north.
The County News Bureau reporter assigned to “Rape Watch, Irvine,” was a tense blonde who fell into step with them and introduced herself as Lauren Diamond. Her video shooter trailed behind with a heavy-looking rig over his shoulder. She proffered a microphone to Hess, who kept walking. Hess remembered Merci’s early orders to leave all public relations to her. Merci didn’t break stride either.
“Why were you inside with convicted rapist Matamoros Colesceau?” Lauren asked Hess.
“No comment,” said Merci.
Still to Hess: “You’re heading up the Purse Snatcher investigation. Any connection to the Purse Snatcher?”