Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) (8 page)

“This is the thing. The guy in line after the kid, he took a look in the coffee can while we were having our little discussion. I remember what he said because most of our customers aren’t knowledgeable about reptiles, and even the serious ones aren’t generally familiar with the Latin. He looked in the can and said, ‘Not
horridus.
It’s
viridis.’
”

“Describe him.”

His eyes were alive now, sharply focused and intently registering my face. “It was a busy day at the counter and that’s not the kind of work I enjoy about this business. I’m not a people person—I’m a reptile person. But I remember him as average height, on the thin side, short brown hair, kind of wavy maybe, coat and tie. He had a beard and mustaches, neat and trimmed. The beard was darker than his hair. Early thirties. Glasses. The overall impression I had was of gentleness. Hesitance. Shyness. Kind of like an academic type. He struck me—but remember this was just a quick impression—as being … meek.”

My heart was thumping. I felt that wonderful hyperalertness that adrenaline brings. This could be it.

“How well do you remember his face?”

“Not real well. The facial hair hid his features. Plus … well, he was just kind of forgettable looking.”

“What else?”

“That’s all I remember about him.”

“What did he buy?”

“Oh, right. He bought rats, mice and rabbits. He wanted them all alive. I don’t know how many, but quite a few—over twenty in all. I remember thinking he was feeding a fairly good-sized collection.”

“You can buy them dead or alive?”

“We’ll fresh-kill them for the customers, if they want. Or we have them frozen.”

“What else did he buy?”

“That was all.”

“Had you seen him before? Or since?”

Steve shook his head.

“When you remember him, is it a clear picture, one you could describe to a police artist?”

“It’s fairly clear. I’m a good observer. But like I said, he was kind of … nondescript.”

I told him about one of our artists, an extremely talented woman named Amanda Aguilar. Steve said he’d be willing to work with her, but really, he couldn’t remember much detail. I told him she could be at Prehistoric Pets at five-thirty, when he got off work. If possible, I like to have witnesses describe suspects to artists in the same setting where they saw them. It helps.

“How did he pay?”

“I don’t remember. I can check, but it would take some time.”

I leaned forward now, too. “Steve, I don’t have any time. He’s taken two girls and he’ll take more. I need you to find that record for me and I need you to find it now. Can you help?”

“You’re damned right I can.”

I went outside and used my cell phone to call Amanda Aguilar. She’s a freelance artist now, not on staff. After Orange County’s notorious bankruptcy of ‘94, we cut positions to save money, and our full-time artists were lost. Amanda said she would be happy for work. I thought of the fat CAY budget I’d submitted to Jim Wade just weeks ago, and felt a pang of guilt when I realized that hiring back Amanda wasn’t a part of it. She agreed to be there at the end of Steve’s workday. I told her that Steve’s man would have a beard, and that I wanted one sketch with the beard and one without; and one with glasses and another without, also.

“Then we’re fishing,” she said.

“We are.”

When I got back to the Prehistoric Pets office, he had the sales slip. Four rabbits, ten rats, ten mice. Paid in full with cash on the sixteenth of March. Steve was smiling, for the first time since I’d introduced myself.

I pondered the odd purchase, then asked to see where the transaction took place. We went back out to the island counter and Steve took me inside. There were bins that slid under the space below the top. There were long shallow ones for newborn mice, taller ones for mature rats and deeper ones still for the rabbits. There were cardboard boxes for crickets and mealworms. At the counter, a young man ordered three large rats, fresh killed. The clerk pulled out the rat bin, lifted a big white animal and, holding fast to the tail with his left hand, used his right thumb and forefinger to form a collar behind the rat’s head, then yanked away from his body, hard. The rodent shrieked—a genuinely disturbing sound—and was dropped into a paper shopping bag. Splat. Then, two more. Steve looked on without apparent emotion.

“Why do some want live ones, and some dead?” I asked.

“It’s safer for the reptile if the prey is dead.”

“Can’t they kill them on their own?”

“Sure. But rats and mice have killed plenty of snakes, too. It’s just a precaution.”

The next customer wanted fifty small crickets. I watched the clerk fill the bag with crickets, then air from a pump, then tie off the top.

I asked Steve what he could tell me about our mutual friend’s collection, based on the food he’d purchased.

He nodded and led me out of the island and along the back wall of cages. “The rabbits are for big snakes, probably constrictors,” he said. “I’d guess seven feet and longer. If you keep a retic or a burmese python long enough, they’ll get fifteen, twenty feet long. A snake like that would need a lot of food—say, two rabbits a week, maybe three or four. The rats don’t really reveal that much, reptilewise. Most mid-sized snakes will take them. The mice are for smaller reptiles—most of the California native snakes live on mice. The fact that he was feeding his collection back in March means they weren’t in brumation—”

“—Brumation?”

“Hibernation. Or ‘overwintering.’ Basically, just cooling them off. Collectors will do that if they’re breeding reptiles. Sometimes they’ll do it just to replicate nature’s seasons. When the snakes are brumating, they don’t eat. So, this guy’s animals were eating. They were active.”

“What would adult timber rattlers eat?”

“Mice and rats. A big adult might take small rabbits but the rats are more economical.”

We arrived at the pond with the catfish and the turtles in it. Steve took a handful of food pellets from the dispenser and gave them to me. I tossed a few in, and watched the fish bend to take mem. I tossed a few more toward a turtle that was away from the group, over in the corner alone.

I was thinking. “You’ve only seen this guy once. He’s got a good-sized collection that’s active. He’s got to feed them every week or so. That means he’s getting food somewhere else, right?”

“Well, it’s possible he’s only got a few snakes and he’s freezing the food when he gets home. For later use. But mostly, a big collection, you either buy fresh once a week or you order frozen by mail—saves money if you buy in bulk. There’s other stores that sell food, too. No telling where he’s getting it.”

“I didn’t know a snake would eat frozen things.”

“You thaw them out first.”

We went back to the counter. I picked up three different reptile magazines and a reptile-show newsletter, but Steve wouldn’t let me pay for them. I handed him my card, with my home phone on the back. “If you see him again, call me. If you talk to anybody who mentions him, call me. If you remember anything about him, no matter how small it is or how certain you are, call me. Amanda will be here a little after five.”

He gave me one of his cards. It was made of thick yellow card stock and had an embossed green snake across it We shook hands. His grip was strong and his skin was rough. “How come a collector buys live animals for food, if they can kill his snakes?” I asked.

Steve shrugged. “He probably likes to watch his snakes kill them. Some people enjoy that.”

From my car I called the name Steven Wicks into Frances, who’d run the CID through Sacramento. Ten minutes later she was back on the line: Wicks was thirty-eight years old, residing in Anaheim, California, with a prior 384a.

I asked her what in hell a 384a was.

“Cutting or destroying shrubs. He took some cactus out of Borrego State Park. He was nineteen at the time. Did ten days and paid a $500 fine. Other than that, he’s clean.”

I checked three other reptile stores, but no one remembered any customer who had asked about
horridus.
They sold too many rabbits, rats and mice to remember the people who bought them. My physical description wasn’t specific enough to be useful yet, but that would change—I hoped—when Steve Wicks met with Amanda Aguilar.

I sat a few minutes with Linda Sharpe late that afternoon in the Juvenile Hall visiting area. It’s a hushed and miserable room, where the detainees and visitors—usually parents—have to conduct the sometimes heartbreaking business of familihood with little privacy. There are always deputies present, but the kids and adults aren’t separated by glass, as in a prison. Instead, there’s a long table and folding chairs, where you can sit face to face and try to keep your conversation away from the people next to you. We got seats at a far end.

She’d been given a pair of loose-fitting jeans, a pair of athletic shoes and a T-shirt. Her pigtails were gone, twisted back into a single ponytail. No makeup, no little girl’s dress, no whore’s costume. Linda Sharpe, age ten, now actually looked like a ten-year-old.

“Hi,” I said.

Her expression was dreamy, surrendered. It’s an expression very common to the sexually exploited young. She didn’t answer.

“Sorry about what happened yesterday,” I said.

“I knew you were a cop.”

I shrugged. “I mean I’m sorry about what Danny did. There was no reason you had to see that.”

“It didn’t really bother me. I didn’t like him.”

“Well, at least you say what’s on your mind.”

“Are we done?”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

She shook her head and looked around the room with wide, gathering eyes.

“Out of here would be nice.”

I studied her. I’d read through her folder and knew she was at a crossroads now—either an institution or a relocation to be with her nearest relatives, who were way up by Spokane. We had, by Welfare and Institution Code, twenty-one days to keep her until she was placed. A lot of what happened depended on whether we charged her or not. If she went to a Youth Authority facility, her life would be one thing. If she went to live with her mother’s sister and husband in Washington, that was another. There’s no way to tell which one is going to work out better, or work out at all. The system can’t see the future, but it never stops trying.

“I hear you have an aunt up in Washington.”

She slouched down low in the chair and glared.

“I hate Washington.”

“Been there?”

She looked at me with the mock exasperation young people think is convincing.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Who cares?”

“I do.”

“That’s the first thing everybody tries to make you believe. How much they care. There’s a word for that, and the word is bullshit.”

“I meant it.”

“Look, Mr. Cop—”

“—Terry.”

“—Cop Terry, I don’t have to go to Washington and I don’t have to go to jail. I’m a minor. I’m ten and I got all sorts of rights. I got a lawyer and he’s twice as smart as you’ll ever be. I’m not going to say anything about my mom or my dad. They love me. I do what I want to do and that’s the way it is. So, you want to know what you can get me? Get me out of here, get me my house key back and my clothes and the money that was in my purse at home. I want my CDs and my makeup and my friends and my swimming pool. The rest, you can take and shove up your butt.”