“That, or a variant-not necessarily a sexual angle. A chronology of unnatural death-a literal blood walk. For the underground market. That would explain why the script’s never been registered and why Wark used a fake name to rent his equipment and cut out on the bill. It could also explain the diversity of victims and methods.
And the ritualism. We could be dealing with someone who sees himself as a splatter auteur. Playing God by setting up characters-real people- then bumping them off.
Psychopaths depersonalize their victims. Wark could be accomplishing the ultimate degradation: reducing his ‘cast’ to prototypes: The Twins, The Actor, that kind of thing. It’s cruel, primitive thinking-exactly the way kids play out their anger.
Some angry kids never grow up. As far as Peake is concerned, he could be involved because Wark wants him involved. Because Wark’s someone out of Peake’s past. Wark’s mightily affected by Peake’s crimes. Now he’s creating his own production, wants to integrate Peake into the process. And I’ve got a possible candidate for Wark: a fellow named Derrick Crimmins.”
I told him everything I’d learned about Treadway. The longtime conflict between the
Ardullos and the Crimminses, Scott’s affair with Sybil, the Crimmins boys’ antisocial behavior, Derrick’s involvement with Sybil’s abortive theater group.
“He had no special love for his stepmother, Milo, but he stayed involved with her.
Because the whole notion of theater-of production-grabbed him personally. He also matches the physical description Vito Bonner gave us of Wark-tall, thin-and his age fits. Derrick would be in his mid-thirties now.”
Milo took a long time to think about that. We were walking dark residential streets, shoes slapping the pavement. “So all the Crimminses except this Derrick are dead?”
“Father, stepmother, brother, all by accidental death. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Now he’s a family murderer, too?”
“Rigging accidents can also be seen as a form of production-setting up scenes.
Derrick was far from a model citizen. Wanda Hatzler described him and his brother as spoiled bullies and possible rapists.”
I stopped.
“What?” he said.
“Something else just occurred to me. Sheriff Haas told me that after the murder
Peake was found with lots of different drugs in his shack, including some illegal prescription pills, phenobarbital. None was missing from the pharmacy in Treadway and no one in the Ardullo household had obtained a prescription for it. So Haas was certain it had to have been obtained out of town. But no one ever saw Peake leave
Treadway. So maybe he had a dope source in town. Wanda saw Derrick and his friends hanging around with Peake, mostly to harass him. Peake offered no resistance, was extremely passive. What if the Crimmins boys were the ones who supplied him with drugs-having fun with the village idiot? The night of the massacre, Peake got massively stoned, his psyche broke down, and he slaughtered the Ardullos. And
Derrick and his brother realized they’d played an indirect role in it. Someone else might be horrified by that, but the Crimmins boys had plenty of reason to hate Scott
Ardullo. His refusal to sell his land had obstructed their father’s big development deal for years. And Scott was sleeping with their stepmother. What if they were pleased with what Peake had done? Took some vicarious credit for it? And, in a sick sense, it was a successful production: the land deal went through, the family became rich again. That kind of high could’ve been powerful stuff for a kid who’d already shown some serious antisocial tendencies. A few years later, Derrick tries his hand at something more direct: blowing up Daddy and Stepmom’s boat. And, once again, he gets away with it.” “Or,” he said, “the boat thing really was an accident, someone else gave Peake his dope, Wark’s not Derrick, and Derrick’s just some playboy drinking pifla coladas in Palm Beach while working on his melanoma.”
“All that, too,” I said. “But as long as we’re being contentious, I’ll go you one further: Derrick and Cliff’s involvement was more than vicarious. They fed Peake dope and played on his delusions intentionally. Prodded him to kill the Ardullos.
They were dominant, aggressive; Peake was passive, impressionable. Maybe they learned that Peake harbored some resentment of his own toward the Ardullos, and they used that. Perhaps they never really expected it to happen-idle teenage dope