Holding his breath, he gave the chloroform cloth a heavy fresh dose from the 50mm bottle he'd stolen from the body and paint shop where he'd briefly worked, Saturdays only, over two years ago. He had been a prep man and gofer, tasked sometimes with the unpleasant job of mixing chloroform and alcohol for use as a solvent. The liquid was heavy and smelled kind of pleasant, he thought. When he'd tried it out on a near helpless drunk one night up on Harbor, he had been surprised how quickly it worked.
Bill sealed up the bag very thoroughly and waved his hand in front of his face before breathing in. It was wonderful stuff—fast acting, quickly metabolized out of the system and only occasionally responsible for heart failure and strokes in people and animals who had breathed a little too much of it.
He slipped the plastic bag inside another one, sealed it, and set the thin package into the shopping bag. The shopping bag was black, large and strong, featuring thick twine handles and the name of a department store in gold script. His book and bedsheet were already in it. New latex gloves, too. He added the Slim Jim. It extended a few inches from one end so Bill used the sheet to cover the top of it, disguising it as a mysterious purchase, or perhaps something to return. The sweet, ethereal smell of the gas lingered as he went back to the driver's seat.
His last piece of working gear was the micro .32 derringer that he now took from the glove box and slipped into his coat pocket.
Bill always brought reading material for his short bus rides. In this case, Fodor's Los Angeles, to suggest he was just visiting. He sat near the front of the bus, on the right side, glancing out the window only occasionally and otherwise engrossed in the book. In fact he was picturing Ronnie: her shapely legs, dark curly hair and high, intelligent forehead. Tall and young. Wouldn't it be something if she'd worn her hair up today?
He disembarked at the north side of the Main Place, then walked around the parking lot to where Ronnie's car was still waiting on the south side.
The light wasn't particularly good where Ronnie had parked: perfect. He walked past her car and noted it was a Chevrolet. He looked around, saw no one nearby, then went back to the car, set the bag down and acted like he was getting out his keys. Instead he bent down and got the Slim Jim, leaned up close to the old sedan and slid the tool down between the window glass and the door. He kept his head up, his eyes alert. It was a matter of feel at this point, and Bill had plenty of that. He'd practiced on hundreds and hundreds of cars so that this part of his job would go smoothly. And it did. On his third pass with the Jim he caught the lock arm and he pulled it up. He heard the tinny report of the lock opening and saw the little black plastic rod stand up inside the glass like a soldier at attention. Then he opened the door, set his bag on the passenger's seat, sat down and slammed the door shut.
A moment later he was in the backseat on the driver's side, slumped down and head back like a dozing airline passenger, keeping his eyes on the mall exit.
The black shopping bag with the Fodor's and Slim Jim were tucked behind the passenger's seat. The gas bag was on his lap. It was important to have that in a convenient place when you needed it, because if you opened it too soon they might smell something funny and whirl around and ruin the whole capture.
That hadn't happened, yet. The closest was Irene Hulet—his third—who had sneezed one second before he was going to clamp his hand over her mouth and apply the chloroform cloth. That had left him with the cloth already out, spreading its deadly fumes into the closed car.
Luckily, the sneeze had left her without breath for a few nice seconds, as sneezes often do. So by the time she was ready to breathe again, Bill had his left hand tight against her mouth and his right cupping the cloth over her nose. About seven seconds. The reason it worked so well was that people inhaled abruptly and deeply when they were surprised and frightened, then needed to do it again quickly when they got mostly gas. That, plenty of CHCL and a little muscle. It helped if the headrests were solid rather than adjustable, so you could clamp your forearms around each side for purchase as you pulled back.
Bill slid down a little further for comfort, but kept his eyes open. His heart was beating hard and fast. He wanted to hurt someone badly while he felt good. Real good. He was angry, and getting angrier the longer he waited. He could almost smell the anger inside him, like a bad wire smoldering deep within its bundle. He worked his hands into the gloves.
Then he saw Ronnie come through the door.
He melted down into the floor space behind the driver's seat, unlocking the outside gas bag and positioning his thumbs and index fingers on the lips of the inside one. The closing of the car door would be his cue to open it.
He heard her keys in the lock, then the door opening. Her purse clunked to the passenger's seat. When he felt her weight settle and heard the door slam he rose behind the seat and clenched his open left hand over her mouth. A split second later his right snugged the damp rag over her nose and Bill pulled back, hard, like a rower going for speed.
"Evenin', honey."
Ronnie was a strong one. One. Two. She felt like a big wild animal. Three. Four. But Bill was stronger. This part of it was like a cowboy trying to stay on a bucking bronco. Five, while her feet kicked the pedals and her knees banged the underside of the dash. Six. She dropped the keys. Seven.
Then it was over. He felt her head go loose on her neck and he wrenched her down and to the right, out of sight. He slid up onto the seat, resealing the cloth and tossing it into his shopping bag. Bracing his feet on the front seat he pulled Ronnie toward him like a spider gathering in a huge moth. Head and shoulders. Butt. Legs and feet. One shoe had fallen off somewhere.
She whimpered. The sweet smell of the chloroform lingered in the car.
He was breathing hard as he got her laid out across the back and squeezed himself into the front of the car. He pulled the sheet out and covered her, tucking it just under her chin like she was asleep. The keys had landed right in the middle of the floor mat, as if she'd placed them there just for him.
Three minutes later he was slipping the big Chevy in between the towering earth movers, up next to his van. The fury was at bay now and he could feel the deeply meaningful sensation of affection stirring again down there. He looked out at the moon, then back at the unconscious woman.
He imagined cruising into his garage and having the door shut automatically behind him, then getting things set up. Preparation was sacred. He imagined the candlelit garage with Ronnie on the table and the Porti-Boy pulsing rhythmically as the fluid ran in. He could feel his hands massaging the fluid deep into her thirsty tissues, bringing her body to life again, to a rosy glow that began its bloom at the jugular in her clavicle and spread down, throughout her system and finally back to her angelic face. She would bloom beneath his touch like a flower. He could see her eyelids flutter as they awoke to the fluid of eternity. And he could see himself restored, too, gradually, as he worked the spirit back into Ronnie's tired body. Yes, slowly it would come to him—the feeling worth any price, the feeling that was the spark of his dreams and the flame of his humanity. He would caress her with the expensive scented oils, perfume and dress her in the silk and satin lingerie, dry and style her hair while he grew powerful in his desires. He imagined carrying her upstairs to bed, whispering in her ear. And then he'd really find out how much she wanted him. It was the best thing this short, sad life had to offer, for both of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hess stood beside Merci near the CAT D6 and looked at the tire tracks left by the vehicle that had carried Veronica "Ronnie" Stevens's body into the night.
Kneeling and pointing with his pen, he commented on the tracks of the mismatched tires. They were some of the best tire prints he'd seen at a crime scene because of the soil here in the construction yard—oily, damp and loosely packed.
Hess had been awakened by Merci's call at 6 A.M. He was a little groggy then, but unfettered by chemotherapy, radia' tion and the stout scotches he'd drunk before bed. Now his mind felt shar
p and clear, though his fingers were oddly heavy, like saps at the ends of his hands.
"I hate this man," said Merci, quietly, slowly. "1 want to commit mayhem on him."
This was one of the most dismal scenes Hess had ever run across: the big slick of blood that had spread over soil that was already oil stained and packed by heavy machinery; the splash of it against the CAT track; the forlorn Chevrolet with the keys still in the ignition and the purse sitting upright and open on the hood, overflowing with multicolored vitals that spilled out and sent up heat waves from the paint.
Hess had never seen such a gruesome thing. He had stood there for a moment in the early sunlight in disbelief.
Merci had stared in silence with him.
He'd be more likely to send you something UPS.
After that, as always, work to do.
"He must not know," he said. Hess had been wondering if the Purse Snatcher knew about his tires and now had to guess he didn't. Either doesn't know or doesn't care, he thought: and so far he's been very careful. He slipped the pen back in his pocket, his fingers thick and imprecise. He glanced at Merci but she was still looking at the bloody ground.
"Not know how much I hate him?"
"That he's riding on two different tires."
"He'd change them."
"He hasn't."
"He thinks we're as stupid as 1 feel. I wish I had one of those drinks from dinner right now."
She'd insisted on joining him in Scotch at dinner on Friday. This had not surprised Hess. They had gone to Cancun, a deputy's hangout in Santa Ana. The food was good and cheap and they made the drinks strong if you appreciated them that way. He could feel the disdain when they walked into the place and he knew it was for Merci and not for himself. Kemp was there, unfortunately, with a table of his friends, and the drunken tension in him had leaked into the atmosphere like a gas. It had been too late to back out and go someplace else, so Merci had downed the drinks.
"It wouldn't do you any good, Merci."
"This girl was nineteen years old, Tim. That's just unforgivable. There ought to be special circumstances for victims under twenty-one. You do somebody under twenty-one, any reason, you get the fucking guillotine."
The patrolmen had taped off the scene and kept the construction workers out of the yard as best they could. A foreman had found the car and purse, seen the blood and guts and called it in. He'd heard about the Purse Snatcher, seen Merci on TV, knew what he was looking at. He got her to autograph a piece of paper for his kid.
Hess watched the CSIs working the purse and the door handles of the car. The hood was smeared and murky where the innards and purse had been. Goddamned flies. He wondered if the Purse Snatcher had picked a woman in an older, alarmless car because Lee LaLonde's electronic override box had lost a fuse in Janet Kane's BMW and failed. Maybe he just liked her. Maybe she had her hair up. Two hunts in two weeks.
Building. Growing. Speeding up.
Would he get his alarm override back to LaLonde for repair?
Hess recalled the statement. LaLonde was selling his inventions at the Marina Park swap meet in Elsinore on a Sunday in late August of last year. A medium-height, medium-build male Caucasian, blond/ brown, had approached his table. Around thirty years old. "Bill" wore his hair long. Bill asked how LaLonde knew electronics; LaLonde told him of father, schooling, aptitude. Suspect asked if LaLonde knew how to build a small device that would override the alarm system on cars. LaLonde said there were too many combinations on door locks and keyless entry chips to make a universal unlock device feasible—it would be too slow and possibly too large. Suspect then said he didn't care about the locks, he cared about the alarms. LaLonde said that both the lock and the disarm combinations were frequencies digitally registered by a microchip in the keyless entry module— and constantly emitted by the alarm system of a vehicle. He told Bill he could configure a universal override if he had the manufacturer's specs on the frequencies. The suspect had shown him several sheets of paper that "looked like computer printouts" by nine of the major carmakers, containing the information. The suspect said he had a friend in the business. Three weeks later, LaLonde had sold Bill a working override device housed in a cell phone body, for $3,000, and given Bill back the printouts.
With the fear that Merci had put into LaLonde, Hess bet the young man would call them if his customer contacted him for a repair. Then again, he might not, because the override box could convict them both. Merci had made this clear, that LaLonde was staring at a murder conspiracy rap if he didn't cooperate. It was hard to know which way a person would lean.
LaLonde had sketched his device for them, and Hess now turned to the drawing and noted where the fuse would go.
But you lost it in Janet Kane's car, thought Hess. You opened the cell phone body and the fuse fell out and you didn't notice in the dark. And the override hasn't worked since. Why open it? Was it failing? Unreliable? Did it open accidentally?
Thus a 1978 Chevrolet Malibu belonging to Veronica Stevens of Orange, California.
Hess could see the wavy-haired, mustached suspect wheeling a vehicle with mismatched tires into this yard in the dark last night, pulling up between the CATs. He knows this place because he scouted it early. Ditto the last two places he's used to hide the van and later transfer the woman.He could see Ronnie Stevens inverted from a rope tied to the top of the CAT's hydraulic blade—about seven feet off the ground. Like the oak branches, strong, but easier to get to.
But, question: How does he get from where he parks to where he hunts?
Hess cursed himself for not thinking of this before. Then he searched his memory for the pertinent distances: between the Jillson abduction site and where her car was found—5.3 miles. Between the Kane abduction site and where her car was found—3.3 miles. Between the Stevens abduction site— if it was indeed the nearby mall—and where her car was found, well, how far was the mall from here, maybe a mile?
You don't walk five miles unless you have to. Or three. Or even one.
Then how does he get from where he leaves the van or truck or station wagon to where he hunts the women?
A bike? Too clumsy and hard to handle. Hard to stash in the victim's car.
A friend? Hess had hoped that they weren't up against a pair. You didn't see it much in sex crimes, but two were twice as hard to catch, not twice as easy. None of their evidence, until now, had suggested that possibility. For the time being, he let it go.
Hitchhike? Too conspicuous.
Taxi? The same.
The OCTA bus? Well, he thought, check the routes. Should have done that two days ago. Goddamnit, anyway.
Merci was talking to the foreman again. He pointed to the car, then, presumably, to the route he'd driven in.
Hess walked the mismatched tread tracks until they came to an end near Main Street. The ground trembled from the vibrations of the freeway the same way the beach trembled from the waves at the Wedge.
The van had gone right, which was the shortest way back to 1-5. This part of Main was light commercial and residential, or had been at one time. Now the buildings were either razed or awaiting demolition to make room for a new bend in the interstate and a fat new on-and-off ramp. Hess trudged back to his car and got out some plastic bags, into which he spooned soil samples from every twenty yards or so of the dirt drive. He spread the samples against the insides of the bags. He knew that all the various oils and fuels and sand and gravel dropped to the dirt and ground in by construction machinery might help an analyst match up samples taken from the tires of any given van. He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. Give me the truck or van, he thought. Give me the truck or van with the odd tire.
Back at the Chevy he watched the CSIs dusting the window exteriors. The purse was already gone, bagged up and secure inside the CSI van. Hess stepped over the crime scene tape and looked through the dust on the driver's side window.
"Are you done with the door handle?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, Lieutenant."
/> "I'm going to open it."
"It's all yours, sir."
Hess swung open the door, bent over and put his hands on his knees, looking in. The interior was alive compared to the Jillson and Kane cars, he thought: recent players; recent events. It was just a feeling. He thought he smelled something sweet and not unpleasant—Ronnie's perfume, perhaps. Or maybe a man's cologne. He remembered what Robbie Jillson had told him about smelling his wife's tormentor when he got into herInfiniti a full day after she went missing. How did he describe it? Faint. Cologne or aftershave maybe. Real faint. But 1 smelled him.
He leaned further in, hoping for a more definitive whiff but getting none. A woman's scent lay underneath it all, he thought, but something else?
A woman's shoe lay on the floor, down by the pedals. It was a black sandal with a thick sole like the young people were wearing these days. Hess leaned in and confirmed that the shoe came up fairly high—above the ankle—and that it fastened with a buckle at the top. The buckle was burst open and the perforated length of leather, bent from hours of use, had sprung free of the broken buckle. He could see her fighting. He looked back up toward the headrest of her seat. One long dark hair caught in the stitching of the pad. Because you were being pulled back? Because he's behind you with, what? A cord? A club? Just his strong hands? No chance, really, with him coming from behind in the dark. You could have a .45 in your purse but it wouldn't help. It wouldn't help you, anyway. No warning. No purchase. Nothing but your fists and your nails. He could see her unlocking the door, swinging her purse in, dropping herself to the seat and closing the door at the same time. She's just about to put the keys in the ignition when he moves. After the door closes; before the engine starts. Keys still in her hand.
Keys. We always say to use the keys as a weapon.
Hess saw that they were still in the ignition, a fat bunch and a small flashlight on a ring. The flashlight had a good surface for prints. The Snatcher had touched at least one of those keys, for certain. Hess used his pen and a pocketknife to guide the ignition key almost free but keep it from falling out. In the smoggy morning light he did not see what he hoped he'd see: darkened blood in the slot and on the teeth of the key. He saw nothing but the clean old metal of well-used metal.
THE BLUE HOUR Page 16