"His name's Cooper Fenn, and he lived in a trailer park. The body was found a day before the Flock's murder. He was a well-known drunk in three counties, causing brawls and had warrants out for his arrest for everything from traffic violations to bounced checks to petty theft. Nobody was surprised when he was found dead," Dahl said. Then, he looked at Trey, and grinned. "You doing okay?"
"What? Sure." But even as he said this, Trey realized that he was sweating up a storm. His throat had gone dry.
"You look a little clammy," Dahl said.
Jane touched Trey's shoulder. "Maybe this was a mistake."
"No," Trey said. "It's okay."
"Sometimes the smells are a bit much. You open a body, and there's a lot of nastiness in it," Dahl said.
Get hold of yourself, Trey thought. It's okay.
But it was like the nightmares he'd had. The bright light. The pale skin of the dead. The dead man, himself, looking nothing like anyone Trey had ever seen. Yet, he had nightmares where he was in this morgue. In this room. It was the downside of his new position: he had to get used to death. He had to see things as these investigators did. But something within him resisted, and he longed for his home and his kids and his wife and all the things that reminded him of a happier world.
"It's okay," Trey repeated. "So what ties this guy in with the Chilmarks and the Flocks?"
Dahl glanced first at Jane, then at Trey. Then, down to the corpse. "Here's the thing with Mr. Fenn here. He died apparently of natural causes, at least for him. Blood alcohol level was through the roof – point five oh, basically. So, sure, that's death. Only problem was, he's two-hundred-seventy-seven pounds at five foot four, and he'd survived alcohol poisoning in the past. Not to say he couldn't have died from it, anyway. That's certainly what everybody thought. But here, the coroner's assistant found this," Dahl reached to the dead man's lips with his latex-gloved hands. Using two fingers, he drew the man's mouth open. "You'll have to move a little closer to see this," Dahl said.
Trey leaned further down. He breathed through his mouth, and felt queasiness in his stomach. Inches from the corpse's face, Trey saw the inside of the mouth.
The gums were swollen toward the back of the mouth.
"He's got eight teeth missing – someone pulled them. Now, sure, maybe he was drunk and went crazy and pulled them himself," Dahl said, drawing his fingers out. "But we found the teeth. We didn't really know whose they were at the time."
"At the Flock's house," Jane said.
"Perfect matches," Dahl continued. "So then, we come back to Fenn here, and we feel like we didn't study him enough."
"Let's not show it," Jane said. "I think Trey's just hanging in here."
"I'm fine. Let's do this. What else?"
Dahl stepped over to Cooper Fenn's thighs, and drew his legs apart. "Twelve eight inch needles here. Maybe more. Once we get the X-rays done, we'll know. Thrust up beneath his scrotum."
4
Afterward, sitting in Jane's car, Trey leaned back in the seat and took a sip of Starbucks coffee Jane had nabbed for him.
"Near as we can tell," she said. "They got him so drunk that he died of alcohol poisoning. But someone – one of the Chilmarks – spent a lot of time carefully pushing these needles up inside him. It was after that that some of our guys searched the Fenn's trailer. Because he had died out on the street, and everybody assumed it was whiskey or meth, nobody bothered to do a thorough search of his place. They did, just about an hour ago. And they found that Doc Chilmark had lived with Fenn for four years. Everybody in the trailer court thought they were father and son. Nobody who has been interviewed so far knew what happened to Doc after the age of 12, but someone did say they thought his mother came and got him then. And that's when we got it together to know how Mary knew the Flocks."
"Was it about Chilmark?" he asked.
"No. But in his past life, before the drinking got too heavy, Fenn had been an unlicensed acupuncturist. He ran a somewhat legit massage parlor down on Harland Avenue for years. It's gone now, but the people in the trailer talked about how good he was at massage therapy. Acupressure, Swedish, deep tissue massage. He apparently did pretty good."
"Legit massage?"
"No idea. But Fenn brought out the acupuncture needles now and then when he thought somebody needed them. The business was a little off-the-books. I think she was working for him in that massage parlor. I think she went to Diane Flock's house because she got called in to do a massage. Diane let her in. Maybe she expected the son, too. Or maybe Mary worked on her own, and let her son in once she had Diane Flock subdued. We're doing some checks at area medical offices to see if she left her business card around."
"Nobody on that street saw those two?"
"Sometimes," Jane said, "in the light of day, people just aren't looking for murderers. How's Doc doing?"
"He's practically in heaven at Darden," Trey said. "He feels a connection to the place. I've never seen a patient adapt so well that quickly."
"Fenn's trailer park is in Caldwell, just over the ridge from Darden State. Mary Chilmark and her son might just have been living within a ten minute drive of the hospital."
5
The call came in later, and Jane heard it replayed for her over the phone by Tryon, from a "Mrs. Kilpatrick," who lived in "Caldwell. I'm a property owner and taxpayer and I think the woman they're calling Mary on the TV news is one of my renters. The picture on TV ain't exactly what she looks like, but that boyfriend of hers – no mistaking his mug."
Jane found the rental house where Bloody Mary Chilmark and her son, Doc, had lived for at least five years, on Third, right off Main Street with its strip of shop fronts that made up the nearly-non-existent town of Caldwell, California.
Less than a mile from Darden State.
Chapter Nineteen
1
It was a scraggly little house, white shingles, an arched roof that nearly went flat over the box of house; it was set one dusty block behind Main Street and its bike shop, bank, markets, the animal shelter, three bars, one with boarded-up windows, a Pep Boys, and the railroad tracks that crossed the road right in the heart of town. There were six houses down the side street, on each side of the road, and then it dead-ended in a cul-de-sac. The driveway was mainly dirt with a thin veneer of crumbly pavement. Jane Laymon, who drove out alone to the place, parked in the street.
A thick-set woman of seventy with owl glasses and a white frizz of hair stood in the driveway looking as if she expected unwelcome relatives to show up. She wore a chambray work shirt and blue jeans. When Jane got out of her car, the woman took the magazine in her hand and held it over her eyes to block out the sun that had turned to red and black on the distant burning mountain side. "You the cops?"
"Detective Jane Laymon," Jane said, walking casually over to the woman. She drew her badge out for identification, and then put her hand out. "You're Mrs. Kilpatrick."
"Mary-Louise," the woman said with the desert rat accent that was nearly Southern redneck, prevalent out along the dusty ridges of inland southern California. Her face was that strange orange-brown of too much sun and too much age, and lines that crossed and looped her skin like crop circles, making her look much older than the age she stated on the phone when Jane had been put in touch with her. "You should get yourself one of them glass eyes. Those eye patches draw attention."
Jane nodded. "I prefer a patch."
"I'm just sayin'. You're a pretty girl and all. What are you six foot? They grow 'em tall where you come from, I guess."
"Yes, they do."
"All I'm sayin's I know a guy with a glass eye where you can't even tell he's got it until he pop it out and shows ya. His names Ricky and he's sixty three years old and he pops it out and laughs at ya and it looks just like a real eye. I mean, a real eyes with color and everything. Nobody'd know the difference, you ask me."
"Is this the house?" Jane asked.
"Yeah. I can't say nothin' too bad about her except she's a little long in the tooth to keep l
ookin' like she's twenty or something. She likes her men, I guess. Bad men, but she picked 'em, all's I'm sayin'. Best renter I got in other ways. Did all her own maint'nance. When the driveway had cracks and holes all over it, she hired the guys to do it. Never once called me. She never complained. When the roof got a leak, she got up there and fixed it herself. She was that way."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"She's been gone about a week. I come over every day," Mary-Louise Kilpatrick said. "I take in the mail. The papers. Check the lights. Make sure nothing's up. It ain't a bad neighborhood, but all's I'm sayin' is there's bad and there's good, and sometimes we got worse on this block. It all comes outta L.A. They chase the gangs out this way – what, ten, fifteen years back. And now we got problems. She idn't like that. No riff-raff except that boyfriend. But when I went in today, somebody had got all the mail I had stacked up by the door. Maybe day before yesterday was when I saw it last. I take care of what I got. I own three of these houses." She pointed across the street and then to the house next door. "I don't never rent to no people without runnin' a credit check. I do a TRW and sometimes that other kind. If they get late on their rent, they gotta go to Western Union down next to the Wienershnitzel and get a money order. I don't play no games. They owe, they owe. All's I'm sayin', I didn't have no trouble here. I had one of them Mexican families tossed out, well, they just never were up to no good." Even as she said this, she glanced at Jane's face as if studying it. "You one of them?"
"One of what?"
"Mexicans? You look Mexican. Not that there ain't good ones. They just don't live up here. We got Mexican cops now?"
Jane tried to forget the stink of beer in the air, a halo around Mary-Louise Kilpatrick.
"She's not here anymore," Jane said, confirming what Mary-Louise had said in her phone call to the police.
"Sometimes I seen her boyfriend around. That's why I made the call. But you people got him so I knew it was safe to go over."
"You went inside?"
"Well, I don't normally do it, but I just let myself in the back. And the place is a wreck. I cleaned up a little, knowin' you was comin'. I don't keep no pig style."
"Her name is Patty?"
"Patty's the renter, but it's her sister been livin' here for awhile. Patty took off, but ya know, I don't care if it's one or th'other, I just care that they keep the place up and pay up. Payin' up is hard as hell for some of these folks. I had queer folks down the block, but they're pretty good with money just bad with sin, if you know what I mean. I mean, I'm a good Christian woman. We got the meth people near the end, by that house that got burnt out. We got some bad people. Patty, the sister, now she was good folk. And Patty went to church over in Moreno Valley, but I told her that the Church of the Desert was a better place. But that sister of hers, she never went to any church I ever heard of."
"Mind if we go inside?" Jane asked.
"Don't see why not. Nobody home and she's three weeks behind on rent," Mary-Louise said. "I been worried sick about her since I saw the news."
2
Three eviction notices were taped to the front door. Mary-Louise snorted, as she turned the knob and opened the door, a step ahead of Jane. "She ignores them. Always late. I guess if Patty were here it would be easier, but that sister of hers. All's I'm sayin' is she don't like payin' rent. But she usually ends up comin' in just before I file with the court and I get a sob story about money bein' tight and then she pays me cash and we're good for another go 'round."
"What's her sister's name?"
Mary-Louise did a half-turn, and took off the glasses as if doing so would help her think better. "It's on the tip of my tongue. Can't quite get a hold around it."
"Did she ever right you a check?"
"I'd say yes, but I'd be lyin'. She was cash-only."
"But she's the woman in the picture."
"Yeah, the one on the news. I knew that boyfriend of hers was up to no good."
"Boyfriend?"
Mary-Louise nodded her head, crossing one arm under the other, with her free hand touching the edge of her chin as if it helped her think. "He was a no goodnik. He was way too young for her, but women who stay single too long like she did, they invite that kinda trouble sometimes. Ya gotta marry young and stay married and then it all goes fine. But wait and wait and wait, and you end up with a guy half your age who'd as soon slit your throat as look at ya."
3
Inside the house, Jane first noticed the massage table, open, in the middle of the small living room. The shades were drawn. The room was furnished with things from the Salvation Army, or perhaps garage sales. Nothing matched, everything had a dinginess to it, and the lampshades – as Mary-Louise went around turning them on – had blotchy stains on them. "I didn't know nothin' about her clients coming in here at all hours of the day and night. She said she was a nurse and a licensed masseur," pronouncing the word "masser," "and peoples' business ain't none of my own, but she was okay most times I saw her. But that man of hers. She was robbin' the cradle, and then some, and he was into drugs or somethin' because he always looked shifty. Shifty eyes." She pointed to each of her eyes as she said it. "Shifty. Shady. He was never around and then he was suddenly there. If you ask me, she's the innocent one. Maybe she's a sinner, but he's the shifty one."
Jane went room to room, and it was in the tiny bedroom that was not much bigger than a closet that she saw the dog crate. It was the size one might get for a German Shepherd or a Great Dane. "She had a dog?" she asked the landlady, who stayed back in the hallway.
"No, no critters. She was at least good about that. She couldn't stand animals. I swear I once saw her try to run down a cat that was just racing across the street."
Jane went over to the crate, crouching down beside it. The metal grid of the door was open.
A smell came from it, and she immediately thought of an animal.
But inside, there was a pillow, and a man's soiled underwear, size twenty-eight, and pushed to the very back, a pair of handcuffs.
4
After she'd radioed for two of her guys to show up and start a real inspection of the place, Jane went with the landlady out to the backyard. The back was concrete from the kitchen door out to the end of the property at a chain-link fence; beyond it, another house, nearly identical to this one. There was a plastic table out under the roof overhang, and a couple of lawn chairs. On the table, an ashtray and a small bucket with a citronella candle in it. Jane walked out to the chain-link, and then looked between the houses in back – an alleyway ran between them, and there were two little girls playing with naked Barbie dolls, with the clothes for the doll lying in a small pile.
Somewhere distant, a dog barked.
Jane glanced into the backyard of the house next-door: a swing set, a children's playpen of some design that included a bright orange slide and a netted area for climbing. A barbeque grill, its top up.
She went back to the white plastic table by the kitchen door, where Mary-Louise sat. She's already lit the citronella candle.
"When was the last time you saw her?" Jane asked.
"Well, she comes and goes. But I sit up waiting for her," Mary-Louise said. Then, she pointed to Jane as if she were the tenant, "I say, 'You better pay me what you owe, Missy, or I'm gonna call the Sheriff and get you into court, you hear me?' And she's pretty good when that happens, and I get rent. But she's never this late, and when I saw her picture on TV, and that boyfriend's picture, I got a little afraid for her."
"Afraid her boyfriend had killed her?"
Mary-Louise nodded. "Mind if I light up?" She drew a pack of Salem's from her jeans.
"Sure, go ahead."
"That boyfriend. I mean, he had that face. He had that look. It was like a pit bull, that guy was. I mean, not strong or anything. But he looked like he could go off on you any second. Luckily, I never saw him around here much. He killed those nice people over in San Pascal, didn't he?"
"He's been arrested."
&nb
sp; "He's a kookooberry."
Jane raised her eyebrows.
"You know, koo-koo. Like you can feel it when he's around."
"Does she have friends in the neighborhood?"
Mary-Louise seemed a little taken aback that Jane didn't ask more about Doc Chilmark. She took a long drag off her cigarette, and blew a perfect smoke ring from between her lips. "Not friends as in friends. People seen her now and then. I guess you gotta ask around. I been on this block too long. I don't get to know nobody unless they get me my rent money. But I doubt nobody knew her. She was all quiet and I think a little ashamed of her business, having men in to give, well, what women like that give to men."
"You think she was a prostitute?"
"I never woulda had her here if I thought that!" Mary-Louise said, raising her cigarette up to eye level. "She wasn't bad like that. But she had bad men." She made this last point with mid-air jab of the cigarette. "That kookooberry boyfriend and some others. Any girl who rubs men down for a living ain't gonna get the guys you take home to mother, if you hear me. She was surrounded by badness. But she was a nice girl. I know she was. Patty woulda never let her stay there that long if she wadn't."
"Where's Patty? Now?"
"Eh, no idea," Mary-Louise sucked at the cigarette, and set it down in the ashtray. "Her mother got sick in Barstow and she took off to help with that stuff. Why that sister of hers wasn't back there helping, I don't got a clue. They was both nurses so you'd a figured they'd trade off on that stuff. But Patty took off, and the sister – what's her name? –"
"Mary."
"No, that's not it, no, I'd never forget Mary, believe me. I know they called her that on the TV, and I guess that's what confused me. I kept seeing her picture and thinking, 'That's no Mary.' But it's one of those names that you don't forget but look at me," Mary-Louise chuckled, "I'm too old to remember, too young to forget." She started snapping her fingers as if it would jog her memory. "It's like a movie star name. Not movie stars now, but back when I was a girl. Jean. That's it — Jean something. Different last name than Patty, 'cause her husband left her. I got that much outta her before she started hidin' from me. Jean Kearney. Reminded me of Gene Tierney. Both the name and the way she looked. Like in that movie, Laura. Ever see that one? It was good. That's who she looked like, a little. She had the teeth and the hair and that kind of glamorous look without even putting too much make-up. Hard to believe that she and Patty were sisters, 'cause Patty was so plain, but you know, my older sister was the plain one and got the bad teeth and an inch too much nose that twisted a little to the left. So it happens. Patty was plain and bottle blonde and musta had a hare-lip when she was little 'cause there was always this scar and the way she talked. Thometimeth thee talk like thith," Mary-Louise said, chuckling to herself as if she had done a perfect imitation of Patty. Jane was fairly sure now that Patty was probably buried somewhere, not far from here, while Mary Chilmark was still on the loose.
Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series) Page 49