“I wasn’t.”
“It’s a good picture,” I said honestly. “But if I’d have seen you, I would have broken your camera for taking it.”
“I know.”
I unlocked the door to the restaurant, and Anthony followed me in. Once I took all the chairs down and got the gear in the kitchen going, I made a pot of coffee. Outside, I saw Abe’s Buick pull into a spot, but he didn’t get out, the prick.
“Who develops these?” I asked. “I wouldn’t think the local pharmacy would do a nice job like this.”
“I do it myself.”
“What, like in a darkroom?”
“I do it in the hotel room. Turn out all the lights and so on. All the equipment fits in the car. I wouldn’t trust some small-town rummy with my negatives.”
“Not bad.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m a fucking great artist.”
He showed me another shot of a woman and her baby, sitting near the big fountain in Applegate Park.
“Nice,” I said.
He showed me another.
This one was of a tree.
“Is this in the park?”
“No,” said Anthony.
The tree was massive, but lightning had cleaved it clean in half some time between now and who knows when. As it stood, it was a ten-foot-tall pillar of wood, probably about five feet across.
He asked, “Do you know this tree?”
I looked at him like he had farted in an elevator.
“How the fuck am I supposed to know every goddamn tree in the world?”
He didn’t respond. He handed me another shot. This one was a close-up of the same tree. A crest was apparent in the wood. It was an elaborately carved heart with two crossed arrows darting through it at angles. In the center were the names Johnny and June, and even the names were carved elaborately.
“Damn,” I said.
“You like that? Those carvings go into the wood about a quarter of an inch. Whoever did that spent a lot of time working on it.”
“Never seen it.”
“It’s south. In the woods. That’s my cover shot for the book.” Anthony glowed as he inspected his own work.
“You can keep those,” he said.
“Fabulous.”
I folded the pictures and stuffed them in my back pocket, which made him flinch visibly. I smiled.
“Any word on the guy that was eaten in the woods?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s too bad. You think there’s any way I could get a shot of the guy’s car?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Either his wife got it back, or it’s been impounded. I have no idea, and I don’t think anyone would go to the trouble of finding out for you.”
“What about with this dead woman? Any news on her? Or I guess it’s not just the one, the way the papers are talking….”
“I know what you know.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hey, man, no offense. I only mean to say it’s like you seem to have your finger on the pulse, you know what I mean? You know what goes on around here.”
“What do you care? It’s not like you live here….”
“I don’t want to sound shallow, but this is great material. I mean, here I am driving through the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden the bodies start piling up. I couldn’t write this stuff if I wanted to, but I could still make a book about it, since that’s what I’m doing anyway. If they think this Rose Killer guy has moved on, then there’s no point in me sticking around any longer than I have to.”
“You don’t strike me as an intrepid reporter,” I said.
“Never planned to be,” he replied.
“Well, like I said, Jersey boy, I know what you know. However, I will say this: It’s only a matter of time before this sick fuck goes down hard. I guarantee it.”
“How do you know? Do they have a lead?”
“Fuck leads, Liberace. We got monsters in the woods, remember?”
What bothered me more than anything was watching Pearce run himself into the ground, just like he did every time something went down in this town. It didn’t matter that the federales were in town, or that they went so far as to manipulate the newspapers and the words that were coming out of the mouths of the talking heads on the local news shows. It didn’t matter that they had all the technology and headshrinkers in the world, not to Pearce. Day in and day out, he pored over his evidence, his thoughts, the section of land he was charged to protect. When the time came, he wanted it to be none other than him slapping the meat hooks on this guy. So he went to the Crowley property every damn day and just walked around. Walked around and thought. Maybe, he thought, he would get lucky and find a business card.
I spoke to him on the phone that evening.
“What are you up to?” I asked.
“Going back up to the property,” he said. “Just stopped at home to get some grub. Martha made some meat loaf. Enough for a battalion, actually. I’m loading up my Tupperware with it. If this fucking town was willing to pay more overtime, I wouldn’t have to do this surveillance crap myself….”
“You’d do it anyway.”
“But I’d be getting paid.”
“You’re hiding out in the bushes on your own time?”
“Of course,” he said, as if I had just asked the stupidest question of all time. “The feds are going to be trying some proactive stuff soon. They’re going to be pulling together some kind of press conference on the TV, but it’s going to be more like some kind of subversive attack on this guy, to try to draw him out of hiding. But these bastards come back to the scene of the crime, Marley. The feds have honest-to-God proof of that, so, hey. You never know. I could get lucky.”
“You got lucky with the Polaroid stuff,” I said. “Before that, those goons didn’t even know he took pictures.”
“It’s not enough,” he said. “It won’t be till I have him in my holding cell. The feds ain’t Danny Pearce.”
“Good one.”
“Thanks,” he said, “but not as good as leaving a note in my jacket, right?”
“Oh, you found the note, eh?”
“No, asshole, the wife did.”
On the inside, I laughed. On the outside, I said, “Well, isn’t that a shame. I hope she took it well, you cheatin’ on her with such a chesty girl and all.”
He said, “Marley, I’ve never met anyone in my life who pushes their luck like you do. Balls like a gorilla.”
“You’d know,” I said.
“I know more than you think. Like how you went through my files the other night.”
“Shit, man, how the hell did you know that?”
“I’m a detective. It goes with the job. And I know you more than you think.”
I had nothing to say.
“Nothing to say for once? It’s about fucking time,” he said, and he laughed. “Now I can die happy.” I laughed too, nervously, because I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, or if he was just fucking with me.
“Keep smoking, and it’ll happen sooner than you think.”
“I only fell off the wagon the one day, Marley. Martha saw to
that.”
“Good. That’s why she’s your better half.”
“Don’t I know it.” He paused. Then: “I got a good feeling about this case. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Take it easy, Danny. Get some sleep.”
“A few days, I’ll sleep. Now, not so much.”
He hung up.
That ended up being the last time I ever spoke to the man.
It was just before midnight. Night had settled upon the sky like a calm black sea. Up high, forcing itself through the darkness, was the full moon. I could feel that moonlight tug at my skin like a baby’s fingers, but I held it at bay on the other side of the curtains that hung from every window and were each drawn tight.