The Girls He Adored (22 page)

As the van bumped down the long steep driveway, Irene crawled into the back and went through the contents of the cardboard box. Food: peanut butter, jelly, bologna, white bread, apple juice. Clothes: cranberry-colored polyester slacks; polyester blouse, mauve, with plastic toggle buttons. Mrs. Bill must have been quite a pistol in her day.

Irene sat on the ribbed steel floor of the van and pulled the blouse and slacks on over her tank top and shorts, then removed the wig from the box. It was Bozo red. She clenched her jaws, fought against an urge to vomit, tasted bile as she slipped the wig on and tucked her hair under it all around.

“Irene?”

“Yes, Max?”

“There's a carton of Camels in that box somewhere. Bring me a pack, would you?”

His tone was casual, conversational. Irene mirrored it. “Lucky for you he smokes your brand. I hope you left him a pack.”

Silence. A long silence. Irene realized she might have overstepped her bounds, been too flip. Squatting in the back of the van, she felt a sudden wave of dizziness, and realized she was holding her breath.

“No, no, I didn't,” Max said eventually; to Irene's relief, he sounded more amused than upset. “It wasn't necessary—I happen to know that the old man just quit smoking.”

P
ENDER LEFT THE BEDROOM
shortly after Harriet Weldon, the FBI criminalist, pulled down the sheet that covered the women to their waists, to reveal one last ghastly surprise Casey had left behind for the investigators. Below the waist both women had been hacked so savagely as to be all but unrecognizable—too many stab wounds to count had reduced their private parts to a pulp of blood and splintered bone.

Shortly after sunset, when the bodies, along with most of the FBI agents (including an extremely agitated Thomas Pastor, who had refused to speak with, or even look at, Pender), had departed, leaving the crime scene to the MoCo Sheriff's Department, Weldon found Pender in the backyard.

“I have something I want to show you,” she said, leading him into the darkened bedroom, closing the door behind them, and plugging in the portable black light laser. “Quite a love machine, your Casey.”

“God-
damn,”
said Pender. Ghostly white stains glowed like distant stars on the bed, on the carpet, on the cushion of the vanity chair, on several of the items of lingerie strewn about the floor, and even on one of the walls. “Hard to believe all that came from one man.”

For each of the stars almost certainly represented an ejaculation—seminal fluid glows white under ultraviolet light. Later an acid phosphatase test would verify the presence of semen, but under the circumstances, the investigators could already be reasonably certain of the origin of the stains.

“We won't know for sure whether it's all from Casey until the
DNA comes back,” said Weldon, a short, pleasantly homely woman whose dark-framed spectacles, lumpy nose, and bushy eyebrows made her look as if she were wearing a Groucho mask. “But everything else points to one perp, so unless one of the victims had a boyfriend who'd visited her after the sheets were washed, I'd wager my per diem on it. Tell you what, though—I've never seen anything like it.”

Pender agreed. “Generally speaking, most serial killers commit rape not because they love sex, but because they hate women. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, if they can get it up at all.”

“I wouldn't say this one was all that fond of women, either.” Weldon switched on the room lights, knelt to unplug the black light.

Pender took one last glance around the room as they left. Chalk marks, measurements, crime scene tape, fingerprint powder—he found himself almost nostalgic for those first heady moments when he'd been alone in the house. “I don't suppose you've come up with anything that'll tell us where he came from or where he's taking Dr. Cogan?”

“Dream on.”

“How about the Chevy he was captured in?” They walked back down the hall to the kitchen, where Casey had apparently fixed himself several meals, which he'd eaten in the living room, probably while watching television. He'd also slept on the couch.

“The Celebrity? Zip so far. Same with his suitcase, same with the bankroll. I'll go over everything in the lab for trace evidence, but until then, he's a blank.”

“Figures.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of the theories we came up with early on is that Casey is a chameleon. Which squares with Dr. Cogan's DID diagnosis. When he goes out hunting for one of his strawberry blonds, he more or less effaces his identity—becomes whatever they want him to be in order to get them to fall in love with him—not just in love, but willing to run away with him, leave home, hubby, momma, whatever.”

“The consummate seducer. But how does that”—they were in the backyard; Weldon glanced toward the window of the bedroom they'd just left—“that
mess
fit in?”

“Revenge. Deputy Jervis was the arresting officer. I think up until she pulled him over, he thought of himself as not just superior
to everybody else, but practically immortal. He had to punish her for bringing fear into his life, for bringing him down to our level.”

“But the other woman? And all that sex?”

“I think that was just opportunistic.”

“He sure made the most of it—his opportunity, I mean.”

“I'm guessing he always does.” Pender handed her his card. “I need a favor—call me if any trace evidence turns up. Call me first— even if somebody tells you not to.”

“I heard you were in the shit,” said Weldon. “I didn't know how deep.”

“In the shit, but still on the case.”

“Wellll . . .” She took the card. “I guess I owe you one. That was the freshest crime scene I was ever called in on.” Then, glancing down at the card: “The mobile number?”

“The sky pager—it vibrates.” As Pender patted the pager in his inside pocket, it went off, startling him. “Speak of the devil.” He made a wiggling motion with his thick fingers—a W. C. Fields/Oliver Hardy disconcerted flutter—then used his cell phone to return the call from the backyard.

“Pender. . . . Thanks—I'm on my way.” He pressed the kill switch and folded up the phone.

“Can somebody tell me how to get to Pacific Grove?” he called to the sheriff's deputies standing by the back door.

“Yeah,” said one of them, a black man. “First of all, be rich and white.”

“That's Carmel,” said another.

“Naah,” replied the first deputy. “Carmel, you gotta be born there.”

F
ROM THE
P
OINT
S
UR
L
IGHTHOUSE
to Highway 156 at Castroville, the self-proclaimed Artichoke Capital of the World, from 156 to 101 at Prunedale, then north on 101 past Gilroy, the self-proclaimed Garlic Capital, Irene managed to maintain a facade of relative calm. She rode shotgun, chain-smoking Camels, feeding peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the driver, and lighting his cigarettes for him. But the closer they drew to San Jose, the more agitated she grew, until she found herself trembling involuntarily like a victim of hypothermia.

Max couldn't help but notice. His custom, when an abductee needed to be calmed, was to dispatch Ish to handle the situation. He waited until he had a relatively clear road ahead of him and to both sides to make the switch. Momentarily driverless, the van veered to the left before Ish grabbed the wheel and corrected the line.

“What's the problem, Irene?” he asked quietly.

Irene, her trembling head buried in her hands, missed the switch entirely; nor was she in any condition to pick up on the subtle differences in voice and manner between the two alters. On the mistaken assumption that she was still dealing with Max, she decided to volunteer some personal information in the hope that it might help him see her as a person, not an object or a victim.

“We're getting near my hometown,” she said, gaining control over her voice with some difficulty.

“San Jose?”

“Born and raised.”

“Any family still live here?”

“My older brother. My younger brother lives up in Campbell. They're both firemen, like our dad.”

“Parents still living?”

“My mom died five years ago. My dad remarried. He lives up in Sebastopol with his second wife—she's a year younger than I am.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“I was very happy for him—I just wish he lived closer.”

“You miss your mother?”

“Very much.”

“Close family?”

“I suppose. We fought a lot, my brothers and I, but I always knew they'd be there for me. They're big bruisers, both of them— nobody messed with me in high school, I can tell you that.”

“Sounds idyllic,” said Ish wistfully.

For the first time, it occurred to Irene that she could be in the presence of one of the multiple's other alters. Less guarded than Max, perhaps this personality would be more forthcoming as well. “Tell me about
your
family. Any siblings?”

The response, worthy of a trained psychologist—“We're not here to talk about
my
family, Irene”—was Irene's first indication that she might be dealing with an internal self helper. She decided to take a chance—ISHs were rarely if ever violent—and see if she couldn't establish some sort of rapport with him. It seemed to her, as her head began to clear, that regaining the therapist's role might provide her with her best chance of surviving. In any event, it seemed preferable to being a victim in waiting.

Irene glanced out the window. They were driving through the heart of Silicon Valley—she could remember when this area was all prune orchards. Now it was all money.

“Am I still talking with Max?” she asked, in as conversational a tone as she could muster.

“No,” said Ish, responding almost automatically, as a professional courtesy.

Encouraged, Irene tried one more question. “So what's
your
name?”

It was very nearly the last question she ever asked.

N
O ONE ESCAPED THE
clutches of Klopfman hospitality. After a real cluster-fuck of an interagency meeting at the Pacific Grove police headquarters with representatives from the PG cops, the state police and CHP, the California DOJ, the Monterey County sheriff's department, the U.S. Marshals, and of course Agent Pastor of the FBI (he did his best to ignore Pender's presence), at which jurisdictional matters were discussed, voices were raised, and fingers were pointed, Pender showed up at Sam and Barbara's doorstep around eleven o'clock to try to wangle an interview.

Barbara had already taken two Valium and gone to bed, but upon learning that Pender had spent the last two nights in the hospital, Sam Klopfman had insisted that he stay in their guest bedroom.

Rather than driving all the way back to the Travel Inn in Salinas, then returning the next morning, Pender, exhausted and in pain, accepted. Under the assumption that he wouldn't be operating any heavy equipment for the next six hours, he took two more Vicodin tablets—not excessive for a man his size, he felt, despite the dosage recommendation on the label—and was asleep within minutes. Some time later he awoke in the dark, his mind frighteningly and deliciously blank. Someone was tapping at the door—but what door, what room?