“He had stolen tags on his car when he stopped you to ask directions,” Marino pointed out. “No couple disappeared that weekend that we’ve heard about.”
“That’s true,” I mused. “And he wasn’t wearing a warm-up suit, either.”
“He may save putting that on for last. May even keep it in a gym bag in his trunk. My guess is he has a kit.”
“Did you find a gym bag?” Abby asked bluntly.
“No,” Marino said. “No murder kit.”
“Well, if you ever find a gym bag, or murder kit,” Abby added, “then maybe you’ll find his knife, gun, goggles, and all the rest of it.”
“We’ll be looking until the cows come home.”
“Where is he now?”
I asked.
“Was sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee when I left,” Marino replied. “Friggin’ unbelievable.
Here we are tearing up his house and he’s not even sweating. When he was asked about the warm-up suits, the gloves, decks of cards, and so on, he said he wasn’t talking to us without his attorney present. Then he took a sip of his coffee and lit a cigarette like we wasn’t there. Oh, yeah, I left that out. The squirrel smokes.”
“What brand?”
I asked.
“Dunhills. Probably buys them in that fancy tobacco shop next to his bookstore. And he uses a fancy lighter, too. An expensive one.”
“That would certainly explain his peeling the paper off the butts before depositing them at the scenes, if that’s what he did,” I said.
“Dunhills are distinctive.”
“I know,” Marino said. “They’ve got a gold band around the filter.”
“You got a suspect’s kit?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He smiled. “That’s our little trump card that will beat his jack of hearts hands down. If we can’t make these other cases, at least we got the murders of Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mott to hang him with. DNA ought to nail his ass. Wish the damn tests didn’t take so long.”
After Marino left, Abby stared coolly at me..
“What do you think?” I asked.
“It’s all circumstantial.”
“Right now it is.”
“Spurrier’s got money,” she said. “He’s going to get the best trial lawyer money can buy. I can tell you exactly how it’s going to go. The lawyer’s going to suggest that his client was railroaded by the cops and the feds because of the pressure to solve these homicides. It’s going to come out that a lot of people are looking for a scapegoat, especially in light of the accusations Pat Harvey has made.”
“Abby…”
“Maybe the killer is someone from Camp Peary.”
“You don’t really believe that,” I protested.
She glanced at her watch. “Maybe the feds already know who it is and have already taken care of the problem. Privately, which would explain why no other couples since Fred and Deborah have disappeared. Someone’s got to pay in order to remove the cloud of suspicion, end the matter to the public’s satisfaction ….”
Leaning back in my chair, I turned my face up to the ceiling and shut my eyes while she went on and on.
“No question Spurrier’s into something or he wouldn’t be stealing license plates. But he could be selling drugs. Maybe he’s a cat burglar or gets his jollies from driving around with borrowed tags for a day? He’s weird enough to fit the profile, but the world is full of weirdos who don’t ever kill anyone. Who’s to say the stuff in his house wasn’t planted?”
“Please stop,” I said quietly.
But she wouldn’t. “It’s just so goddam neat. The warm-up suits, gloves, decks of cards, pornography, and newspaper clips. And it doesn’t make sense that no weapons or ammunition were found. Spurrier was caught by surprise, didn’t have any idea he was under surveillance. In fact, it not only doesn’t make sense, it’s very convenient. One thing the feds couldn’t plant was the pistol that fired the bullet you recovered from Deborah Harvey.”
“You’re right. They couldn’t plant that.”
I got up from the table and began wiping the counters because I couldn’t sit still.
“Interesting that the one item of evidence they couldn’t plant didn’t show up.”
There had been stories before about the police, federal agents, planting evidence in order to frame someone.