“Crimmins didn’t worry about Peake blabbing back then,” said Milo, “but now it’s different. Someone’s listening.”
“Maybe Claire was involved in the drug scam,” I said, “but unless we find evidence of that, my bet is she died because she’d learned from Peake that he hadn’t acted alone. And she believed him. Believed in him. Because what she was really after was rinding out something redeeming about her brother. Symbolically.”
“Symbolically,” said De la Torre. “If she suspected Crim-mins, what was she doing getting in that Corvette?”
“Maybe she got involved with Crimmins before Peake started talking. Crimmins held himself out as a cinematic hotshot, a struggling independent filmmaker trying to plumb the depths of madness or some nonsense like that. He calls his outfit Thin
Line-as hi walking the border between sanity and insanity. Maybe he asked her to be a technical adviser. The guy was a con; I can see her falling for it.”
“Something else,” said Milo. “If Peake’s blabbing to Claire, he’s telling her about
Derrick Crimmins. The guy she knows is George Orson.”
That made my heart stop. “You’re right. Claire could’ve told Crimmins everything.
Fed him the very information that signed her death warrant.”
“Eye wounds,” said Milo. “Like the Ardullo kids. Only he sees. No one else.” He rubbed his face. “Or he just likes carving people’s eyes.”
“Evil, evil, evil,” said Banks, in a soft tight voice. “And no idea where to find him.”
The helicopters’ sky-dance had shifted westward, white beams sweeping the foothills and whatever lay behind them.
“Waste of fuel,” said De la Torre. “He’s got to be on the road.”
35.
MILO AND THE sheriffs did more cell-phone work. Better suits and they might have looked like brokers on the make. The end result was more nothing: no sightings of
Peake.
Milo looked at his watch. “Ten-fifty. If any reporters are playing with the scanner, this could make the news in ten minutes.”
“That could be helpful,” said Banks. “Maybe someone’ll spot him.”
“I doubt Crimmins has him out hi the open,” I said.
“If he’s with Crimmins.”
Milo said, “CHP says the vie from the freeway was transported. I thought I’d hit the morgue.”
“Fine,” said Banks. “Let’s exchange numbers, we’ll keep in touch.”
“Yeah,” said Milo. “Regards to Petra.”
“Sure,” said Banks, coloring. “When I see her.”
In the past, Milo had sped through the eucalyptus grove. Now he kept the unmarked at twenty miles per, used his high beams, glancing from side to side.
“Stupid,” he said. “No way they’re anywhere near here, but I can’t stop looking.
What do you call that, obsessive-compulsive ritualism?”
“Habit strength.”
He laughed. “You could euphemize anything.”
“Okay,” I said. “It’s canine transformation. The job’s turned you into a bloodhound.”
“Naw, dogs have better noses. Okay, I’ll drop you off.”
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m coming with.”
“Why?”
“Habit strength.”
The body lay covered on a gurney in the center of the room. The night attendant was a man named Lichter, paunchy and gray-haired, with an incongruously rich tan. A
Highway Patrol detective named Whitworth had filled out the papers.
“Just missed him,” said Lichter. The bronze skin gave him the look of an actor playing a morgue man. Or was I just seeing Hollywood everywhere?
“Where’d he go?” said Milo.
“Back to the scene.” Lichter placed his hand on a corner of the gurney, gave the sheet a tender look. “I was just about to find a drawer for her.”
Milo read the crime-scene report. “Gunshot wound to the back of the head?”
“If that’s what it says.”
Folding the sheet back, Milo exposed the face. What was left of it. Deep slashes crisscrossed the flesh, shearing skin, exposing bone and muscle and gristle. What had been the eyes were two oversized raspberries. The hair, thick and light brown where the blood hadn’t crusted, fanned out on the steel table. Slender neck.
Blood-splashed but undamaged; only the face had been brutalized. The eyes… the slash wounds created a crimson grid, like a barbecue grilling taken to the extreme.
I saw freckles amid the gore, and my stomach lurched.
“Oh, boy,” said Lichter, looking sad. “Hadn’t looked at it yet.”