Marvelle Haas was rumored to be seeing a therapist in Bakersfield. Neither she nor her husband had returned anyone’s calls. The task force was still looking for bodies, contacting departments in other cities, other states, trying to figure out how many people Derrick Crimmins had murdered. Cases in Arizona, Oklahoma, and
Nevada seemed promising. Evidence on Derrick’s brother’s motorcycle accident was sketchy, but Cliff Crimmins’s name had been added to the victim list.
Milo snarfed more pretzels. Someone shouted for a Bud. The bartender, a black-haired
Croatian with four rings in his left ear, palmed the tap. We were drinking single-malt scotch. Eighteen-year-old Macallan. When Milo asked for the bottle, the
Croatian’s eyebrows lifted. He smiled as he poured.
“What the hell was it all for?” said Milo.
“That’s a real question?”
“Yeah, I’ve used up my ration of rhetorical.”
I was sorry he asked. I’d thought about little else, had answers good enough for talk shows but nothing real.
Milo put his glass down, stared at me.
“Maybe it was all for fun,” I said. “Or preparation for the movie Crimmins convinced himself he’d write one day. Or he was actually going to sell the tapes.”
“We still haven’t found any underground market for that kind of crap.”
“Okay.” I sipped. “So eliminate that.”
“I know,” he said. “There’s an appetite for every damn bit of garbage out there. I’m just saying nothing’s turned up linking Crimmins to any snuff-film business deals, and we’ve looked big-time. No cash hoard, not a single bank account, no meetings with any shifty types in long coats, no ads in weirdo magazines. And the computer
Crimmins had in the house wasn’t hooked up to the Internet. Nothing but basic software, no files. Our guy says he probably never used it.”
“Technologically impaired,” I said. “No sweat. Video’s as good as film.”
“All I’m saying is it doesn’t look like he was after the money. Stole all that gear but never tried to sell it. We figure he was probably living off dope sales.”
“And Heidi’s salary,” I said. “Till she became superfluous. No bank accounts means the two of them spent everything as it came in. They weren’t living like royalty and they avoided paying rent, so a good deal of it probably went up her nose.”
“His, too. Coroner found some coke in his system. A little meth, too. And something called loratadine.”
“Antihistamine,” I said. “Doesn’t make you drowsy. Maybe Crimmins was allergic to the desert, needed to keep his energy level up for the big shoot.”
Milo refilled his glass. “Blood Walk.”
“Whatever his specific motivation,” I said, “and he may have had several, in his head it was a major production. It was the process he loved. He got hooked on playing God sixteen years ago.”
He downed the scotch. “You really think Crimmins did the Ardullos by himself.”
“By himself or with his brother. But not with Peake. Peake was set up. I’ll probably never be able to prove it, but the facts support it. Think about Peake’s blood test: just a residue of Thorazine. Heidi’d been weaning him off his meds for a while. Just as Claire probably had. But Claire’s motive was to get Peake to talk about his crimes. And, unconsciously, she wanted to find some virtue in his soul because that might say something about her brother. Heidi wanted Peake sufficiently coherent so he could cooperate in the escape and-more important-perform on film. Killing
Marvelle and Suzy on camera-the Monster finally reveals itself. But it didn’t work.
He didn’t perform. You saw his condition. With or without Thorazine, he’s extremely low-functioning, has been for years. At his prime, he had no more than a borderline
IQ. Adolescent paint- and glue-sniffing and alcohol knocked off a few more points.
Thorazine and tardive dyskinesia numbed him further. He was never in any shape to plan and conduct a crime spree, even the disorganized massacre Jacob Haas found at the Ardullo house. He had nothing to do with Heidi’s death or Frank Dollard’s. No
motive, no means. Same for the Ardullos.”
“The Ardullos were your basic senseless crime,” he said. “Maniac on the loose, no need for a motive.” “That’s what Derrick wanted everyone to think,” I said.