"Crimmins didn't worry about Peake blabbing back then," said Milo, "but now it's different. Someone's listening."
"Maybe Claire was involved in the drug scam," I said, "but unless we find evidence of that, my bet is she died because she'd learned from Peake that he hadn't acted alone. And she believed him. Believed in him. Because what she was really after was rinding out something redeeming about her brother. Symbolically."
"Symbolically," said De la Torre. "If she suspected Crimmins, what was she doing getting in that Corvette?"
"Maybe she got involved with Crimmins before Peake started talking. Crimmins held himself out as a cinematic hotshot, a struggling independent filmmaker trying to plumb the depths of madness or some nonsense like that. He calls his outfit Thin Line-as hi walking the border between sanity and insanity. Maybe he asked her to be a technical adviser. The guy was a con; I can see her falling for it."
"Something else," said Milo. "If Peake's blabbing to Claire, he's telling her about Derrick Crimmins. The guy she knows is George Orson."
That made my heart stop. "You're right. Claire could've told Crimmins everything. Fed him the very information that signed her death warrant."
"Eye wounds," said Milo. "Like the Ardullo kids. Only he sees. No one else." He rubbed his face. "Or he just likes carving people's eyes."
"Evil, evil, evil," said Banks, in a soft tight voice. "And no idea where to find him."
The helicopters' sky-dance had shifted westward, white beams sweeping the foothills and whatever lay behind them.
"Waste of fuel," said De la Torre. "He's got to be on the road."
Chapter 35
Milo and the sheriffs did more cell-phone work. Better suits and they might have looked like brokers on the make. The end result was more nothing: no sightings of 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."