“Don’t know where yet, just that he doesn’t answer calls. . . . Yeah, everyone’s a humanist. Our bad boy probably thinks he’s a humanist.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I think he likes being bad.”
Another car drove by. Gray Toyota Cressida. Another female driver, this one a teenage girl. Once again, no sideward glance.
“See what you mean,” I said. “Perfect place for a nighttime killing. Also for a travel jaunt, so maybe Mate chose it. And after all the flack about tacky settings, perhaps he decided to go for scenic—final passage in a serene spot. If so, he made the killer’s job easier. Or the killer picked the spot and Mate approved. A killer familiar with the area—maybe even someone living within walking distance—could explain the lack of tire tracks. It would also be a kick—murder so close to home and he gets away with it. Either way, the confluence between his goals and Mate’s would’ve been fun.”
“Yeah,” Milo said, without enthusiasm. “Gonna have my D-I’s canvass the locals, see if any psychos with records turn up.” Another glance at his watch. “Alex, if the killer set up an appointment with Mate by faking terminal illness, that implies theater on another level: acting skills good enough to convince Mate he was dying.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Mate had relaxed his standards. When he started out, he insisted on terminal illness. But recently he’d been talking about a dignified death being anyone’s right.”
No formal diagnosis necessary. I kept my face blank.
Maybe not blank enough. Milo was staring at me. “Something the matter?”
“Beyond a tide of gore in the morning?”
“Oh,” he said. “Sometimes I forget you’re a civilian. Guess you don’t wanna see the crime-scene photos.”
“Do they add anything?”
“Not to me, but…”
“Sure.”
He retrieved a manila packet from the unmarked. “These are copies—the originals are in the murder book.”
Loose photos, full-color, too much color, the van’s interior shot from every angle. Eldon Mate’s body was pathetic and small in death. His round white face bore the look—dull, flat, the assault of stupid surprise. Every murdered face I’d seen wore it. The democracy of extinction.
The flashbulb had turned the blood splatter greenish around the edges. The arterial spurts were a bad abstract painting. All of Mate’s smugness was gone. The Humani-tron behind him. The photo reduced his machine to a few bowed slats of metal, sickeningly delicate, like a baby cobra. From the top frame dangled the pair of glass I.V. bottles, also blood-washed.
Just another obscenity, human flesh turned to trash. I never got used to it. Each time I encountered it, I craved faith in the immortality of the soul.
Included with the death photos were some shots of the brown Econoline, up close and from a distance. The rental sticker was conspicuous on the rear window. No attempt had been made to obscure the front plates. The van’s front end so ordinary … the front.
“Interesting.”
“What is? “said Milo.
“The van was backed in, not headed in the easy way.” I handed him a picture. He studied it, said nothing.
“Turning around took some effort,” I said. “Only reason I can think of is, it would’ve made escape easier. It probably wasn’t the killer’s decision. He knew the van wouldn’t be leaving. Although I suppose he might have considered the possibility of being interrupted and having to take off quickly. . . . No, when they arrived, Mate was in charge. Or thought he was. In the driver’s seat literally and psychologically. Maybe he sensed something was off.”
“It didn’t stop him from going through with it.”
“Could be he put his reservations aside because he also enjoyed a bit of danger. Vans, motels, sneaking around at night say to me he got off on the whole cloak-and-dagger thing.”
I handed him the rest of the photos and he slipped them in the packet.
“All that blood,” I said. “Hard to imagine not a single print was left anywhere.”
“Lots of smooth surfaces in the van. The coroner did find smears, like finger-painting whirls, says it might mean rubber gloves. We found an open box in the front. Mate was a dream victim, brought all the fixings for the final feast.” He checked his watch again.