Peake.”
“Except maybe Chet.”
” ‘Cherchez la femme,’ ” I said. “Maybe Chet noticed something-something off about
Heidi. Maybe the way she related to Peake. Or he saw her steal dope from the nursing station. Or get a little handoff from Dollard. But once again, who’d pay attention to his ramblings? Heidi was free to continue as Crimmins’s inside woman. She was there in the first place because Crimmins wanted her-she joined the staff right after he left. He gave her multiple assignments: work with Dollard to keep the drugs flowing, make sure Dollard didn’t rip them off, and attach herself to Claire so she could report back what Claire was saying about Peake. Because he had to have discussed Peake with Claire. That was the basis of their relationship.”
” ‘Cherchez la femme,’ “he said.”The guy collects them” He looked around at the piles of contraband. “Heidi traveling with him and Peake tonight probably means she was in on the escape. Her being the inside woman would smooth the escape, wouldn’t it? Yesterday, the last time we ran into her, she was walking Peake right near that service elevator. Dry run for tonight.”
“Has to be. She and Crimmins needed to rehearse, because whatever the state of
Peake’s psyche, he’d been cooped up for sixteen years, was unpredictable. It’s also possible the timetable for the escape was sped up because you were getting too close. That same day, you asked Heidi if Peake had mentioned Wark’s name, and she hesitated for a second. Probably shocked that you’d gotten on to the alias, but she stayed cool. Said it was a funny name, didn’t really sound like a name. Edging us away from Wark and diverting our attention to Dollard by letting us know he’d been fired for malfeasance. Because Dollard had become a liability. He’d always been the expendable member of the dope scam. Crimmins and Heidi came up with a kill-two-birds plan: get rid of Dollard and break Peake loose. Something else: right after Heidi told us about Dollard, she returned the conversation to Wark, started asking questions. Who was he, was he actually Peake’s friend? Why would she care? She was trying to find out exactly what we knew, and we didn’t notice because we saw her as an ally.”
“Actress,” he said.
“Calm under pressure-a very cold young woman. The moment we were gone, she was probably on the phone to Crimmins. Informing him you were on to his alter ego. He decided to act.”
“Cool head,” he said. “Lot of good it did her head.”
“Cool but also reckless,” I said. “A coke conviction didn’t stop her from stealing dope at Starkweather. Flirting with danger was also behind her attraction to
Crimmins. She told us she was a thrill seeker. Rock climbing, skydiving off power stations-making sure to let you know that was illegal. Think of it: telling a cop she’d committed a crime. Smiling about it. Another little game. Getting off on clanger is probably also the way she hooked up with Crimmins in the first place.
Castro told us Derrick and brother Cliff were thrill chasers, liked speed. Derrick and Heidi probably met at some kind of daredevil club.”
“Going for the adrenaline rush,” he said. “Then it gets old, so they move on to a different kind of high.”
“Crimmins’s crimes have a profit motive, but I’ve been saying all along that thrill’s the main ingredient. Crimmins’s thing is creating a twisted world and controlling it. He scripts the action, casts the players, moves them around like pawns. Gets rid of them once they’ve finished their scenes. For a psychopath, it would be pretty damn close to heaven. Heidi had similar motivations, but she wasn’t in Crimmins’s league. It was a fun ride for her, but her mistake was thinking of herself as a partner when she was just another extra. She must have been confused when Crimmins pulled off the I-Five and told her to get out.”
I didn’t feel like laughing, but there I was, doing it.
“What?” he said.
“Just thought of something. If Crimmins had been lucky enough to really break into
Hollywood, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”