Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
Lying on the table Hess imagined a target of black
concentric circles on his chest, with his beating red heart as the bull's eye.
The evening news
carried a brief story about a suspect in the so-called Purse Snatcher
abductions. Wallace Houston, the sheriff's Press Information officer, showed
the sketch and explained that this man was seen at an Orange County shopping
mall "concurrent with the abduction of Janet Kane," and was wanted
for questioning. Hess thought the sketch looked good on TV—it came across
clearly, and was specific rather than general, as many artists' sketches seemed
to be. Wallace held back the silver panel van with the mismatched tires, per
Merci's request. In keeping with Kamala Petersen's observation, Wallace noted
that this suspect might be wearing a vest and long coat, and was likely to be
found at shopping malls.
It was only upon
direct questioning from Lauren Diamond that Wallace admitted they were now
looking at five, possibly six victims.
Hess ate a TV dinner.
An hour later he was
floating face up out in the black Pacific, watching clouds made red by sunset.
It seemed imperative to get the death off him, the sight of Ronnie Stevens's
purse overflowing onto the hood of her car, the formaldehyde and injection
tubes and the pulsing machines and the temporal veins swelling with false life.
When he came out he wrapped a big towel around himself and followed his own
dark footprints across the sand to his apartment.
The phone was
ringing. It was Kamala Petersen. She told Hess she'd called him because if she
called Merci Raybom, Merci would kill her.
"She about
killed me when I told her I'd been drinking that night, and wasn't sure about
the pictures she showed me."
"I'm glad she didn't. How can I help
your
"Well. . . this
is the deal. I hope you don't want to kill me, too. But I was watching CNB and
they got that guy on a twenty-four-hour watch now, the sex offender? Like every
time he sticks his head out the door or goes to the window, they go live and
show him? Anyway, I think it could have been him at the mall that night. You
know, with a blond wig and a fake mustache to make him look like a rock star
from the seventies. Or that guy Paul Newman played in
Buffalo Bill and the
Indians."
Hess wondered how
Kamala Petersen could so blithely make a face ten days after the fact, a face
on TV no less, through a wig and a fake mustache.
"You think the guy on TV
could
be him."
"Right. I
wouldn't swear it was him, like Merci wanted me to with those pictures. But I
will swear it
could
be him. See, both times I saw him on TV I was like
totally awake. So my unconscience wasn't working? But then after the second
time I dreamed I was back in the mall and it looked like the guy on TV. The
same eyes. You know, kind of sad and thinking something's funny. Both at
once."
"So, are you making
the man at the mall from the TV image, or from your dream?"
"From the dream." "Oh."
Hess got the remote and
found CNB. There was something on about a fire in Trabuco Canyon, no castrated
sex offender peeking out from behind his blinds. He turned off the sound.
"Kamala? The problem
here is that the sex offender in Irvine—his name is Colesceau, I believe—has
short dark hair. The man you saw at the mall had long blond hair and a mustache.
We've got no reason to believe he was wearing a wig. I mean, the hair samples
we've got here are human, not synthetic."
"There are
plenty of human hair wigs out there."
"There are
some."
Kamala sighed. "I
know. I know you and Merci think I'm a complete ditz, but I'm not. It just
takes a while for things to settle in my head sometimes."
He wondered if three
margaritas could be argued as an asset, too, something to loosen up Kamala
Petersen's "unconscience," but he didn't wonder very long.
Intoxicated, hooked on
fashion mags, old movies and TV. Thinks everybody looks like somebody famous
she's seen a picture of.
Our witness, rendered
uncallable in court by hypnosis.
"Kamala, when you saw
this guy up at the Brea Mall, then down in Laguna Hills, did you ever think,
hey—that's a wig?"
"No."
"But that's your
business, isn't it—appearance, beauty, fashion?"
"Maybe that's how
good it was. My specialty is cosmetics, really. But I can tell you from my
work that a good wig is hard to see. If you do the feathering right, and have a
good cut to start with, it's almost impossible, especially from a distance, or
if you're not really looking for it."
True, thought Hess. And
also true that her description had led to a sketch good enough to be recognized
by the OCTA bus driver, the clerk at Arnie's and Lee LaLonde. In fact, Hess
himself had thought at first that there was something of Kamala's man in
Colesceau's eyes.
But if it was Colesceau,
why hadn't the mug from his jacket clicked for her? Or the newspaper shots?
Hess wondered about a
lineup. It seemed reasonable that a convicted violent sex offender disguised
and seen in the vicinity of a sexual abduction might be considered suspect. It
was a good way to turn up the heat on a guy. He imagined getting this
Colesceau fellow outfitted with blond hair and a mustache.
The bad news was that an
ID of a suspect in
a disguise
would probably be laughed at by any DA's
office in the country.
The good news was
Colesceau had no search and seizure rights as a sex crime parolee: he and Merci
could question him and check out his house any time they wanted until
Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, when he completed his parole and his
chemical castration program ended. If he was stashing a wig of golden human
hair, a Deer Sleigh'R and a Porti-Boy, they could pretty much just walk in and
look for them.Hess watched a silent Mercedes commercial, a radiant blonde in a
red convertible. Women in cars, he thought: secure, confident, protected. No
word from LaLonde on the Purse Snatcher's dysfunctional alarm override.
"Kamala, one more
thing—did Merci give you the number here?"
"In case she wasn't
available. Oh well, let her kill me. I want to do the right thing."
"You have."
"They say on the TV
that the guy's been castrated. Then these doctors come on and say rape is a
crime of anger."
"That's the
current thinking."
And if you'd ever seen
what a bottle or a club or a gun barrel did to a woman who'd been raped with
one, you'd probably agree. But he didn't say that.
"They didn't show
very much of him," Kamala said. "Mostly, the good video is from when
they first surprised him a couple of days ago. The last time they showed him
live, he was looking out from behind the door. It's his eyes that give him
away, Mr. Hess. Wet. Sad. Like Omar Sharif in Dr. Z
hivago
or Lon
Chaney's in
Wolfman.
Before he turns into the wolf. On TV he looks
scared, like an animal."
"He's behaved
like an animal."
"To those
women."
"And those are
the ones we know about."
"It makes me
want to never trust a man again."
"Be careful who
you trust."
"I will. Well,
thanks."
He hung up and called
Merci.
The next morning Colesceau watched the cops come to
his door on TV because it was easier than getting up to look through the
blinds.
The Purse Snatcher duo, he
thought, recognizing them from the papers. Not that you'd have any trouble
telling what these kind of people were. Hess, the fascist general, and Raybom,
his Doberman bitch helper. He imagined their offspring with black feathers,
four legs and grotesque genitalia.
Colesceau's heartbeat
upped its rate. He felt a cold prickling sensation on the skin of his face.
Then he saw himself sitting there, waiting for whatever they had in mind. What
could they possibly want with him?
He was physically and
emotionally exhausted by the crowd and by what Grant Major had pulled on him.
It made him want to give up and blow his brains out.
Just remember who you are,
he reminded himself: Colesceau the innocent, Colesceau the wronged, Colesceau
the castrated and contrite.
MAKE our NElGHborhood.
SAFE for the CHlLdren!
He thought about murdering
some local kids just to add some relevance to this irritating chant. Stake
their heads on the push-arms of some
FOR
SALE
signs. The trouble was he kind of liked most of the kids he noticed
these days—so happy and spoiled and obsessed with their own selfish little
schemes. It would probably just be a waste of time.
Then he saw the old
cop ring his doorbell on TV and heard his actual doorbell ring at exactly the
same time. There were so many reasons to be awed by America.
He decided not to
answer for a minute so he could watch them react. Surely Trudy Powers would
vouch for his whereabouts. The whole mob would. That, in fact, was the very
proof of his innocence—these fine neighbors always knowing where he was. His
witnesses. He'd never expected such convenience to develop from such
humiliation.
The
Doberman bitch turned to look at the crowd. She wore sunglasses like a fighter
pilot and her hair was wavy and dark. A big one, he saw: a strong-legged,
proud-assed, heavy-breasted dog. He pictured her in something revealing,
sitting beside him in Pratt's yellow Cobra doing ninety. Maybe. He preferred a
more delicate, feminine woman,
though he
could see her features were strong and far from unattractive. She probably had
yellow teeth. He could easily imagine doing her out of pure meanness, as a way
of repaying her for what she was.
She reached out and the doorbell rang
again.
"I am coming!" he shouted.
Funny, how on the TV
screen he could see them fix their attention on the door like it had just
spoken to them. Really quite amusing.
He went to the front
door, opened it two inches and peered out. "Yes?"
Out came two
badges—Sheriff's Department somethings. Behind the badges were two sets of
sunglasses and two frowns.
"Mr. Colesceau, I'm
Sergeant Rayborn and this is Lieutenant Hess of the Orange County
Sheriff-Coroner Department. We'd like to come in and have a word with
you."
He opened the door.
The chant got louder.
"Welcome to my
home."
The bitch pushed in first,
then the fascist. Colesceau looked out at Trudy. She was at the forefront per
usual, her picket sign in hand, her face lovely. She looked directly back at
him. He saw that the higher calling was still in her, that she was still tasked
by her God to deal with the human excrement Colesceau. He saw mercy and
understanding and dignity on that face.
He shut the door and
locked it. They stood there looking at him, hands on their hips. Both sets of
sunglasses were gone.
"You can come in
and have a seat if you want."
"Thanks,"
said the male.
The bitch stood her ground
and watched him pass by her, as he followed the old one into his living room.
"Would you like
something to drink?"
"No," said
the bitch.
"No, thank
you," said the other.
Neither of them sat.
"I have no rights
that I am aware of," he said. "I will answer any questions you ask.
You may search this apartment all you like. I ask that you don't break anything
more than necessary. I'll be happy to show you where things are located, if
this will make your job easier."
"You give me a pay
raise, too?"
The bitch, of course.
"I would give myself
a job first," Colesceau answered. "My old boss, Mr. Pratt, has given
me two weeks of pay, but the work is gone. There was a mob outside there,
too."
"My eyes are
misting over," she said.
"I worked there for
two years, at five-fifty an hour. No benefits. No vacation. I only missed one
day. That was when an accidental overdose of female hormone made me vomit for
six hours without relief."
"What are these things?" she asked,
ignoring his woes. She was standing in front of one of his display cabinets,
facing his mother's artistry. "Eggs."
"You paint them
up like this? Put on the lace and glitter?"
"My mother does this.
Egg painting is a respected Romanian folk art. She is considered
accomplished."
"Isn't that where the
vampires and werewolves live, Romania?"
"They only live
in the imagination, I believe."
"What kind of name is
Matamoros? I mean, it's a city in Mexico but you're Romanian."
Colesceau was slightly
surprised to hear her say this. She was correct, but it was rare when an
American knew anything about Mexico, their closest neighbors to the south, let
alone the city of Matamoros. In fact, there were
two
cities of Matamoros in Mexico. Colesceau decided long
ago that he was named after the larger and more important of them.