Peake.
Milo looked at his watch. "Ten-fifty. If any reporters are playing with the scanner, this could make the news in ten minutes."
"That could be helpful," said Banks. "Maybe someone'll spot him."
"I doubt Crimmins has him out hi the open," I said.
"If he's with Crimmins."
Milo said, "CHP says the vie from the freeway was transported. I thought I'd hit the morgue."
"Fine," said Banks. "Let's exchange numbers, we'll keep in touch."
"Yeah," said Milo. "Regards to Petra."
"Sure," said Banks, coloring. "When I see her."
In the past, Milo had sped through the eucalyptus grove. Now he kept the unmarked at twenty miles per, used his high beams, glancing from side to side.
"Stupid," he said. "No way they're anywhere near here, but I can't stop looking.
What do you call that, obsessive-compulsive ritualism?"
"Habit strength."
He laughed. "You could euphemize anything."
"Okay," I said. "It's canine transformation. The job's turned you into a bloodhound."
"Naw, dogs have better noses. Okay, I'll drop you off."
"Forget it," I said. "I'm coming with."
"Why?"
"Habit strength."
The body lay covered on a gurney in the center of the room. The night attendant was a man named Lichter, paunchy and gray-haired, with an incongruously rich tan. A
Highway Patrol detective named Whitworth had filled out the papers.
"Just missed him," said Lichter. The bronze skin gave him the look of an actor playing a morgue man. Or was I just seeing Hollywood everywhere?
"Where'd he go?" said Milo.
"Back to the scene." Lichter placed his hand on a corner of the gurney, gave the sheet a tender look. "I was just about to find a drawer for her."
Milo read the crime-scene report. "Gunshot wound to the back of the head?"
"If that's what it says."
Folding the sheet back, Milo exposed the face. What was left of it. Deep slashes crisscrossed the flesh, shearing skin, exposing bone and muscle and gristle. What had been the eyes were two oversized raspberries. The hair, thick and light brown where the blood hadn't crusted, fanned out on the steel table. Slender neck.
Blood-splashed but undamaged; only the face had been brutalized. The eyes... the slash wounds created a crimson grid, like a barbecue grilling taken to the extreme.
I saw freckles amid the gore, and my stomach lurched.
"Oh, boy," said Lichter, looking sad. "Hadn't looked at it yet."
"Look like a gunshot to you?"
Lichter hurried to a desk in the comer, shuffled through piles of paper, picked up some stapled sheets, and flipped through. "Same thing here... single wound to the occipital cranium, no bullet recovered yet."
Gloving up, he returned to the gurney, rolled the head carefully, bent, and squinted. "Ah-see."
A distinct ruby hole dotted the back of the skull. Black crust fuzzed the edges and black dots peppered the slender neck.
"Stippling," said Lichter. "I'm just a body mover, but that means an up-close wound, right?" He released the head carefully. Another sad look. "Maybe she got shot first and then they used a knife on her. More like a hatchet or a machete-a thick blade, right? But I better not say more. Only the coroners have opinions."
"Who's the coroner tonight?"
"Dr. Patel. He had to run out, should be back soon with some genuine wisdom."
He began to cover the face, but Milo took hold of the sheet. "Shooting, then slashing. Right on the side of the freeway."
"Don't quote me on anything," said Lichter. "I'm not allowed to speculate."
"Sounds like a good guess. Now all we have to do is find out who she is."
"Oh, we know that," said Lichter. "They pulled prints on her right away. Easy, the fingers were fine. Detective Whit-worth said she came right up on PRTNTRAK-hold on."
He ran back to the desk, retrieved more papers. "She had a record... drugs, I think.... Yup, here we go. Hedy Lynn Haupt, female Caucasian, twenty-six... arrested two years ago for P.C. 11351.5-that's possession of cocaine for use or sale, right? I know it by heart, because we get lots of that in here. Got an address on her, too."
Milo covered the distance between them in three strides and took the papers from him.
"Hedy Haupt," I said, leaning down for a look at the face.
Putting my face inches from the ruined flesh. Smelling the copper-sugar of the blood, the sulfur of released gases... something light, floral-perfume.
The skin that unique green-gray where it wasn't blood-rusty.
Most of the head had been turned into something unthinkable, the mouth kissed by a smear of blood, the upper lip split diagonally. Yet the overall structure remained somewhat recognizable. Familiar... freckles across the nose and forehead. The ear that hadn't been hacked to confetti, an ashen seashell.
I peeled back the sheet. Plaid blouse. Blue jeans. Even in death the body retained a
trim, tight shape. Something protruded from the breast pocket of the blouse. Half a loop of white elastic. Ponytail band.
"I think I know who this is," I said.
Milo wheeled on me.
I said, "Hedy Haupt, Heidi Ott. The age fits, the hair's the right color, the body's the right length-look at the right jaw, that same strong line. I'm sure of it. This is her."
Milo's face was next to mine, exuding sweat and cigar residue.
"Oh, man," he said. "Another cast member?"
"Remember what big Chet kept shouting at us?" I said. "Both in group, and as we walked across the yard? 'Cherchez la femme.' Search for the woman. Maybe he was trying to tell us something. Maybe maniacs are worth listening to."
36
MILO WANTED TO examine the body closely and to go over the paperwork in detail.
Figuring I could do without either, I left, bought scalding, poisonous coffee from a machine, and drank it out in the waiting area facing the autopsy room. The coffee didn't do much for my stomach, but the chill that had taken hold of my legs started to dissipate.
I sat there, thinking about Heidi, executed and mutilated on the 1-5.
Everyone associated with Peake and Crimmins was being discarded like garbage. It stank of a special malevolence.
Monsters.
No; Peake's moniker notwithstanding, these were people, it always came down to people.
I pictured the two of them, bound together by something I was really no closer to understanding, stalking, severing, hacking, shooting.
Crimmins's production, the worst kind of documentary. For the sake of what? How many other victims lay buried around the city?
Crisp, rapid footsteps made me look up. A perfectly groomed Indian in his forties passed me wordlessly and entered the autopsy room. Dr. Patel, I assumed. I found a pay phone, called Robin, got the answering machine. She was asleep. Good. I told the machine I'd be back in a few hours, not to worry. I finished the coffee. Cooler, but it still tasted like toasted cardboard sauteed in chicory gravy.
Heidi. A narcotics record. That started me off in a whole new direction.
Viewing life through a new set of glasses... The door swung open and Milo shot out, wiping his forehead and waving a sheet of paper full of his cramped, urgent
handwriting. Body-outline logo at the top. Coroner's gift-shop stationery.
"Heidi's home address," he said. "Let's go."
We headed for the elevator.
"Where'd she live?"I said.
"West Hollywood, thirteen hundred block of Orange Grove."
"Not far from Plummer Park, where we met with her."
"Not far from my own damn house." He stabbed the elevator button. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon."
"Who's in charge?" I said. "Sheriff or Highway Patrol?"
"Highway Patrol on the killing itself," he said. "I reached Whitworth at the scene.
He said feel free to check out her house. He's staying there, wants to make sure they scrape whatever physical evidence they can off the road before traffic thickens up."
"They shot her and butchered her right there on the freeway?"
"Turnoff. Wide turnoff. Far enough and dark enough for cover."
"Crimmins would know the road well," I said. "Growing up in Treadway. But still, it was risky, right there in the open."
"So they're loosening up-maybe losing it, like you said. Peake's massacre wasn't exactly well thought out. He left goddamn bloody footprints. Maybe Crimmins is starting to freak, too."
"I don't know. Crimmins is a planner. The escape says he's still pretty organized."
He shrugged. "What can I tell you?" The elevator arrived and he threw himself in.
"Did the coroner have anything to add?" I said.
"The bullet's still in there, he'll go digging. Ready for me to drop you off now?"
"Not a chance," I said.
"You look wiped out."
"You 're not exactly perky-fresh."
His laugh was short, dry, reluctant. "Want some chewing gum?"
"Since when do you cany?" I said.
"I don't. The attendant-Lichter-gave me a pack. Says he started doing it for any cops who come in. Says he's gonna retire next year, feels like spreading good cheer and fresh breath."
Outside the morgue, the air was warm, thick, gasoline-tinged. Even at this hour, the freeway noise hadn't abated. Ambulances shrieked in and out of County General.
Derelicts and dead-eyes walked the street, along with a few white-coated citizens who didn't look much better off. Above us, on the overpass, cars blipped and dopplered. A few miles north, the interstate was quiet enough to serve as a killing ground.
I imagined the car pulling abruptly to the side-not the yellow Corvette; something large enough to seat three.
Crimmins and Peake. And Heidi. Riding along.
A captive? Or a passenger.
The dope conviction.
I thought of the meeting at Plummer Park.
My roommate's sleeping, or I would've had you come to myplace.
Would a live roommate be waiting for us at the Orange Grove address? Or...
My mind flashed back to the freeway kill. Heidi out of the car, surprised, asking
Crimmins what was up. Or immobilized-bound, gagged-and terrified.
Crimmins and Peake haul her out. She's a strong girl, but they control her easily.
They walk her as far as they can from the freeway. To the edge of the turnoff, everyone swallowed by darkness now.
Last words or not?
Either way: pop. A searing burst of light and pain.
What was the last thing she'd heard? A truck whizzing by? The wind? The racing of her pulse?
They let her fall. Then Crimmins gives a signal and Peake steps forward.
Blade in hand.
Summoned.
Camera. Action.
Cut.
My guts pogoed as I got in the unmarked, wanting to sort it all out, to make sense of it before I said anything to Milo. He started up the engine, sped through the morgue lot, and turned left on Mission. We roared off.
Orange Grove showed no signs of ever having hosted citrus trees. Just another L.A. street full of small, undistinguished houses.
The house we came to see was hidden behind an untrimmed ficus hedge, but the green wall didn't extend to the asphalt driveway and we had a clear view all the way to the garage. No vehicles in sight. Milo drove a hundred feet down and we returned on foot. I waited by the curb as he made his way up the asphalt, gun in hand, back to the garage, around the rear of the wood-sided bungalow. Even in the darkness I could see scars on the paint. The color was hard to make out, probably some version of beige. Between the house and the ficus barrier was a stingy square of dead lawn.
Sagging front porch, no shrubbery other than the hedge.
Milo came back, gun still out, breathing hard. "Looks empty. The back door's Mickey
Mouse, I'm going in. Stay there till I tell you."
Another five minutes, ten, twelve, as I watched his pen-light bounce around behind shaded windows. A single firefly. Finally, the front door opened and he waved me inside.