Nick clomped across the old wood, went down the wobbly steps. Hustled down the tracks toward the Tustin car. Could smell the guy from ten feet away. The officers pulled him to a stop when Nick got close.
“Found Wolfman here snoring out in the grove,” said Officer Huber. “Won’t give us his name. Why don’t you show him your arm, Wolfie?”
The man growled.
“Show him your arm,” said Huber. Huber tried to turn him around but the man twisted a laceless boot into the ground and resisted.
“Didn’t do it,” he mumbled.
Nick shot a look at Huber and the big man shrugged.
“You didn’t do what?” asked Nick.
“The girl in there.” Wolfman fixed Nick with his very pale tan eyes. He really did look like a wolf. The eyes held no emotion that Nick could identify.
“Did you see what happened?” Nick asked.
“I didn’t touch her.”
“Of course you didn’t. Let’s go sit in the back of that car over there. Get comfortable. Have a talk.”
“Look at this,” Huber said, twisting the man around by one arm.
Huber clamped his hand on the man’s wrist, just above the cuff. Yanked up the sleeve of the filthy fleece-lined jacket, all the way up past the elbow.
Get ready for needle tracks by the hundred, thought Nick. The hypodermic highway.
Instead, he saw a black patch of hair, thick as a dog’s, running from the man’s knuckles almost to his elbow. The whole top half of his forearm. Like a patch of Labrador retriever grafted onto a man.
Wolfman growled and snapped at Nick and Nick flinched.
Huber and Graff laughed. Nick laughed, too. That or piss his pants.
He helped the officers get Wolfman into the back of the PD cruiser. The book told him to leave the cuffs on but it didn’t seem right so he took them off. Then he shut the door and got into the front seat, passenger side. Left the door open because of the smell.
“Smoke?” asked Nick, offering a cigarette through the mesh divider.
“Okay.”
“Stick the end back through.”
Nick flipped open his Zippo with one hand, torched the Tareyton. “What’s your name?”
Wolfman sat back and took a deep lungful of smoke.
“Terry Neemal.”
“Spell that?”
Neemal did and Nick wrote it down.
“I’m Nick Becker. You going to tell me the truth, Terry? Or give me a bunch of crazy Wolfman shit?”
“Those guys started the Wolfman shit. I can’t help the arm.”
“I’ll treat you like a man if you’ll treat me like one.”
“I didn’t touch that girl.”
“See her go in?”
“No. But I saw a guy go in. It was dark so I didn’t see too good. Saw him go up the steps. After that, all I could do was hear. But not so good, because of the wind.”
“Where were you?”
“Out in the trees. I can’t sleep where it stinks.”
“When did you go in?”
“This morning. To see if anyone left anything good. I used the door because I heard them slide it open last night. Sometimes it’s got a lock on it. Then someone smashes it off. Then they put on another one. So I use a window. But one time I cut my leg climbing in and it got infected bad. I went in and looked around and there she was.”
“How come you didn’t call us?”
“None of my business. Didn’t have a dime, either.”
“Are you kidding me, Terry? A girl gets her head cut off and it’s not your business?”
Terry shrugged and looked down. Nick looked at the deep lines in the weathered face. The miles-away indifference in the pale brown eyes. Drugs, maybe. Insanity. Both. Guessed him early thirties. Close to his own age.
“But you didn’t split, either,” said Nick. “How come?”
“I thought when the cops came I’d sneak off into the trees.”
“But you were snoring, so they found you.”
Neemal nodded.
Nick thought about taking the guy downtown right now. He’d take him there later, anyhow. For sure. But he thought he could engage the man more easily now, and he seemed ready to talk. The nutcases he’d seen, they’d talk a blue streak for half an hour when they felt like it, then not say a word for six months. Or go completely batty. Or kill themselves.
“Got another smoke?”
Nick pushed another one through the mesh. “Terry, I’m going to tape-record this, if you don’t mind. It’s better for both of us.”
Neemal shrugged again and Nick wondered how much time he had.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Nick said.
“Funny.”
“Get your ID out if you got one.”
“They took it away at Atascadero. That was a long time ago.”
Nick hustled into the packinghouse, got his new case, and trotted through the wind back to Terry Neemal.
AT ONE that morning Nick was still at his desk. The wind was still howling through the county, rattling the black windowpanes of the Sheriff’s Department building. Tape recorder and a legal pad in front of him. A bag of Carl’s Jr. fast food, too, stains working into the paper. Food cold by now and barely touched.
Terry Neemal was in custody.
A padlock had been found in the grove not far from the SunBlesst packinghouse. It was a good Schlage.
Janelle Vonn’s purse had been found not far from the lock. It was a loose leather bag with fringe on the bottom and a drawstring on the top. Sold by Neck Deep Leather, Laguna Beach. What a lousy name for a store, thought Nick. Wallet with a California driver’s license and eighty-five in cash. House and car keys. A Mercury Savings & Loan checking account with a balance of just over two grand. An address and phone book. A date book. Personal items, including a diaphragm and spermicidal gel, hairbrush, lipstick, nail files, ballpoint pens, scraps of paper with phone numbers and notes scribbled on them.
In the date book box for Tuesday, the day she died, Nick had read: Red & Ho 7.
They’d found a black miniskirt and a pair of boots thrown into a far dark corner of the packinghouse.
They’d not found the saw blade.
Now Nick’s own voice came from the tape recorder and he checked his handwritten transcription. The inside of his first knuckle, middle finger, right hand, had a shiny divot in it that had started to bleed.
Chase bad guys all day, Nick thought. See a young woman with her head sawed off, interview a psycho, and you get bloody making notes.
Q: Describe him again.
A: Regular-sized guy. Hard shoes the way they sounded on the wood. A jacket maybe. Something bulky around him. It was dark and cool by then. I told you all this. I couldn’t see that good.
Q: What time did you say?
A: Midnight. I don’t got a watch but I know what time it is usually. Remember I told you that?
Q: Bulky, like a coat or a sweater?
A: Maybe bigger. Longer.
Q: Like what, a blanket or an overcoat?
A: Maybe like that. (Yawn) I’m getting tired, Nick.
Q: Just a few more questions.
A: When I was little I always thought there was ghosts in wind like that out there. You know, like the wind was so strong it would gather the ghosts up, pull them right off of things. Scared me. I’d hide under the bed. And these balls of cat hair would come rolling along the floor in the draft. Right at me. Thought they were the ghosts coming to get me.
Q: Interesting. Did you kill her, Terry?
A: Not me. I’m still telling the truth.
Q: Tell me what you did after you found her.
A: Seems like about the twentieth time you asked me that.
Q: It’s the seventh.
A: I’m really getting sleepy now.
Q: Come on, Terry. Just once more, from the time you found her. Look, if you killed her, that’s okay. I understand and you can just say so, then we can get this over with and move along to the next thing.