“No curtains, either. Not even in the shower,” Marino said. “It’s enclosed in glass doors. Of course, there are towels, sheets, his clothes.”
“Which he probably washes constantly.”
“The upholstery in his Lincoln is leather,” Marino said. “And the carpet’s covered with plastic mats.”
“He doesn’t have any pets?”
“No.”
“The way he has furnished his house may have to do with more than his personality.”
Marino met my eyes. “Yeah, I’m thinking that.”
“Fibers, pet hairs,” I said. “He doesn’t have to worry about transferring them.”
“You ever thought it interesting that all of the abandoned vehicles in these cases was so clean?”
I had.
“Maybe he vacuums them after the crimes,” he said.
“At a car wash?”
“A filling station, apartment complex, any place that has a coin-operated car vacuum. The murders were committed late at night. By the time he stopped somewhere to vacuum the car afterward, there wouldn’t be many people out to see what he was doing.”
“Maybe. Who knows what he did?”
I said. “But the picture we’re getting is of someone who is obsessively treat and careful. Someone very paranoid and familiar with the types of evidence that are important in forensic examinations.”
Leaning back in the chair, Marino said, “The Seven-Eleven where Deborah and Fred stopped the night they disappeared, I dropped by there over the weekend and talked to the clerk.”
“Ellen Jordan?”
He nodded. “I showed her a photo lineup, asked her if anybody in it looked like the man who was buying coffee in the Seven-Eleven the night Fred and Deborah was in there. She picked out Spurrier.”
“She was certain?”
“Yes. Said he was wearing a jacket of some sort, dark. All she really recalled was that the guy was in dark clothes, and I’m thinking Spurrier already had on a Warm-up suit when he went inside the Seven-Eleven. I’ve been running a lot of things through my mind.
We’ll start with two things we do know for a fact. The interiors of the abandoned cars were very clean, and in the four cases before Deborah and Fred, white cotton fibers were recovered from the driver’s seat, right?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Okay. I think this squirrel was out cruising for victims and spotted Fred and Deborah on the road, maybe saw them sitting real close to each other, her head on Fred’s shoulder, that sort of thing. It sets him off. He tails them, pulls into the Seven-Eleven right after they do. Maybe he slips into the warm-up suit at this time, changes in his car. Maybe he already has it on. But he goes inside, hangs around looking through magazines, buying coffee and listening to what they’re saying to the clerk. He overhears the clerk giving Fred and Deborah directions to the nearest rest stop where there’s a bathroom. Then he leaves, speeds east on Sixty-four, turns into the rest stop and parks. He gets his bag that’s got his weapons, ligatures, gloves, and so on, and makes himself scarce until Deborah and Fred pull in. He probably waits until she’s gone to use the ladies’ room, then he approaches Fred, feeds him some story about his car breaking down or whatever. Maybe Spurrier says he was working out at the gym, on his way home, thus explaining why he’s dressed the way he is.”
“Fred wouldn’t recognize him from the Seven-Eleven?”
“I doubt it,” Marino said. “But it don’t matter. Spurrier might have been bold enough to mention that, say he was just buying coffee at the Seven-Eleven, and his car conked out right after he left. He says he’s just called a wrecker and wonders if Fred could give him a lift back to his car so he can wait for the wrecker, promises that his car isn’t very far down the road, et cetera. Fred agrees, then Deborah reappears. Once Spurrier’s inside the Cherokee, Fred and Deborah are his.”
I remembered Fred described as helpful, generous. He probably would have helped a stranger in distress, especially one as smooth and clean-cut as Steven Spurrier.
“When the Cherokee’s back on the Interstate, Spurrier leans over and unzips his bag, puts on gloves, booties, and slips out his gun, points it at the back of Deborah’s head ….”