The Chief turned, remembering his men.
"So what are you two gawking at? Haven't you ever seen a real live psychic before?"
As he snapped orders and sent them out, she dipped further into the news story. She didn't really want to read it, but she was both repelled and fascinated by the details.
She hadn't known what she would be in for when she accepted the invitation to fly out this morning. She had worked with police departments all over the country in these last eight years, including the Chief's. Though more often than not it was work that involved missing persons or the like, she had had her fair share of homicides, including the bodies of those laborers up in Sonoma County and that little girl they had found stuffed into the storm drain in Los Angeles.
But this case was beginning to get to her. And that was surprising. Because ever since that first story about her in the National Enquirer had started the flood of requests back in '71, after she had phoned in her premonition about the killer of the student nurses in Ohio, she had seen it all, every kind of crime, and all of it was distasteful.
Yet. she wondered if she had been wise in picking this one, after all. There would be others in Santa Mara, other ways to help an old friend. A hit-and-run manslaughter, say. Or a gas station holdup, a liquor store shootout, a beating in the park. That sort of opportunity came up all the time.
But this.
There was, she couldn't help thinking, something truly nightmarish about it.
"So what were you getting at, Polly," said the Chief, taking a seat across from her at the interrogation table, "when you said there was another one?''
"Oh, there is," she said.
"Same M.O.? I mean —»
"I know what you mean," she said calmly. "Another body, female, buried in the same area. But he didn't use a gun this time. In fact, I'm not too clear on just how he did it. But she's in the same general location. You'll find her, I see it."
"Well, if there was one more unidentified on the list, we'll know about it soon enough. Meanwhile, I'd better get another team over to the Point. Is it our friend in the red shirt again?"
"Yes."
The Chief sighed and leaned back, like a man who has done an honest morning's work, and lit up one of the Viceroys. "Polly, I just don't know. I don't know how you do it."
"Neither do I, Jack," she said, reaching for the pack.
"Maybe I should say I don't know why you do it. I mean, what's in it for you? You know I can't pay more than your plane ticket — the Commission won't go for it. Of course I could pay you out of my own pocket —»
"Nonsense," she said. "I wouldn't hear of it." She frowned. "How can you smoke these, Jack?" She broke off the filter. "It does have its rewards, though."
"What? Donations, that sort of thing?"
"Oh, some of the families try to pay me, but I send it back. And some money does come in the mail. And if it doesn't have a return address, I guess I have to do something with it, don't I?'' She smiled and picked tobacco from her lip with a long red nail. "But it's not that much, really. Not as much as the magazines seem to think."
The Chief shook his head. "So. How about some lunch for now, Polly?" he said.
"Why certainly, Jack." She gave him a long stare. "As long as I'm here, I'm at your service."
"Right," said the Chief. He stood. "There's a coffee shop on the mall, or —»
"What's your office like?"
"I could have it sent over, sure. But —»
"I'd prefer it," she said. "That way we'll know as soon as anything breaks."
Hl.studied her. "You're a pro, aren't you, Polly? A real pro."
' 'Why, thank you, kind sir. I guess I just like to be where the action is."
"You'll get your action, all right," he said. "There'll be fireworks all over the place when we get him. //"we get him." "Oh, we'll get him," she said. "I can promise you that."
The afternoon crept by.
Then, a few minutes after four o'clock, the Chief shouldered his way into his office and locked the door. He turned to find her still sitting there, dragging on an unfiltered cigarette.
"This one is going to be a tough nut to crack, Polly," he said. His voice was hoarse.
She waited.
He leaned over the chair, his heavy arms supporting his tired body. "How do you figure it?" "Figure what?"
"We go through his apartment top-to-bottom — but there isn't a God damned thing, right? No bloody clothing, no muddy shoes, no diary, nothing. A big fat goose egg. So we're interviewing the people in the building, running the names in his little black book. But he's a smoothie, you know what I mean? One of those professor characters. Ronald Wilson Claiborn, Ph.D. Moustache, sideburns, you've seen the type. Lots of connections in the right places. Won't say word one till the ACLU gets here. The ACLU! Hell, he's gonna be talking false arrest, a press conference when he gets out, the whole bit." The Chief groaned. "Christ!"
"You're not going to cut him loose, are you, Jack." She said it as a statement.
There was an awkward pause.
"I can't hold him more than seventy-two hours, doll, you know that. Not unless we get another break."
"I'm sure this time, Jack," she said. "Don't look at me like that. What about the red shirt?"
"I'm not looking at you any way," he said wearily. "Yeah, we found the shirt. So what? The lab won't get anything. It's been to the cleaners at least once — still in the plastic bag. Do you know how many red Pendletons there are in Santa Mara?" He shook his head. "So what else do I have? The way things stand now, I can't make a case. It's circumstantial. Or not circumstantial enough. Besides, no court in this country is going to swear in your testimony. I need this conviction, Polly."
Yes, she thought. So do I. How lucky for you, then, and for me, of course, that I'm able to give you just the kind of man you've secretly despised for so long: a college professor, an intellectual. The kind of suspect you've always wanted so badly to nail.
"I told you where to find the other body," she said with irritation.
His head continued to shake as he rested his huge buttocks on the edge of the desk. "Billy's team turned it up, all right." "But what?"
"But we can't make the ID. It's too decomposed. Hell, we can't even make the dental charts." "And why not?"
"Because we can't find the head." "Okay, okay," she said sharply.
Circumstantial, she thought. I should have known. You want circumstantial? I'll give you circumstantial.
"Set up your tape recorder again, Jack. I'm going to give you what you need."
A body. The body of a woman. The nude body of a young woman. The body quivering under the eucalyptus trees as the head is taken from it.
"That's right," said the Chief, after she had told them. "Then what? What does he do with the knife, Polly? Hide it? Does he forget to wipe it off? Or drop something? Yeah, that would do fine. A button, keys — anything. And what about the gun from the first time? Try, baby. For god's sake, try!"
She let his voice slip away in the mist and peered deeper into the vision. A figure running at the edge of the scene, scudding frantically down an embankment slick with putrefying leaves. But that would do her no good now; she let go of the image.
"The apartment," she whispered, trying hard to get there. The pink apartment. Number six. She searched, allowing her mind to drift above the floor, above the rug like a disembodied eye. "Yes, I see…" The Chief breathed heavily.
"I see…" She forced herself to explore the dark corners and hidden places, directed by memory, though it had been such a long time. Then she said, "Yes. There, in the closet."