“Fetishes.”
“What’s that, Charlie?”
“Fetishes is where it starts for the pervs. In childhood. They get attached to whatever they’re lookin’ at when their penises feel funny. Then later in life, they’re still attached. That’s why men dig women’s shoes and underwear — see a lot of their mother’s shoes and underwear. Because they’re small and down low when they’re babies, so those things are right in their sight line. Scientific fact, that is. Great piece in Esquire a couple of years back.”
“I’ll take it.”
It was an original, tattered and limp with the years of storage in Shopping Carter’s portable knowledge bin. I got out my wallet for another five, but Charlie waived the deposit.
“You’re good for it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
I read the callout, blocked out in red in the middle of the page:
I felt my breath catch and my eyes get sharp. I thought: a little girl enrobed in white netting. A serpent’s scale inserted into the web of the net. The girl. The snake. The web. The net. What is the story here? What is the narrative behind these objects?
I shook Charlie’s hand again and started up the stairs with my new knowledge.
At my work station I checked messages on the phone and computer and called Joe Reilly to see how the clearance was going. He said he had three more sets of prints to compare with the print on the snake scale, and still had to print the woman who had originally found Courtney wandering in the wilderness of Caspers Wilderness Park.
I got out Frances’s list of home sellers and looked it over. For starters, I’d need ages on all twelve of the male sellers. That meant twelve real estate agents to call and convince to release such information to me. Going in person would up my chances of success, but it would take days instead of hours. I called the agents for the first two listings that Frances had starred — Alberhill and Chavez — but the first agent was out of the office, and the second said she couldn’t give out that kind of thing on the phone. Who really would? I thought. Two of the listing agents were from offices close to our building. They were both in, and I made appointments to see them, right away.
But before I left the building I wanted to know what was inside the pink envelope that Frances had set in her box just before she barged by me and stashed it in the trunk of her car. I wanted to know what had made her look at me that way through the window of the Sharpe house, what had forced her to leave her job for the rest of the day.
I went down to the evidence room and asked the deputy for the case no. 98-1145 boxes, just logged in. I signed for it, then looked through Frances’s heavy box of smut, but the pink envelope wasn’t there. It wasn’t in any of the other boxes we took, either.
I went back upstairs to see if Frances might still be around. She was. I saw her sitting in Sheriff Jim Wade’s office, intently leaning toward him as she talked. There was no sense in interrupting. Whatever was eating at Frances wasn’t mine to know. There would be some rational explanation for the missing envelope. Besides, I had two listing agents waiting for me, and ten more to go after that.
Shopping Carter was gone when I came down the steps a few minutes later.
Nine
Hypok pulled his van into the last parking area in Caspers Wilderness Park, circled the lot once, then backed the vehicle into a space. He always drove his van rather than his car when he had interesting things to accomplish. There were no other vehicles this deep into the fragrant scrub woods, and there was a nice circle of shade from a big oak tree behind the lot. He turned off the engine and wiped his face with his hand. He pulled the half gallon of generic tequila from under the seat and took a long drink. Then another. The big bottles lasted him two days usually, but the stuff evaporated faster if he was under particular stress. Lots of that lately, he thought. Frankly, this was the last place he imagined he’d be this afternoon, after last week’s failed mission. But now he felt great.
He looked in the back of the van at all his jars and pillowcases and burlap bags, filled with snakes again. They were active because it was warm back there, and he could see the bags and pillowcases moving. He wondered again at how easy this was to do now, compared to how hard it was to do last week. Now it felt right again, overwhelmingly right, now was a time for change, for the shedding of skin, for renewal. After all, it was springtime, wasn’t it? Look at his own new, clean-shaven face. His freshly cut, bleached and swept-back hair. The new white paint job for his van — an impulse, really, not quite a precaution, just an urge to change its color. Now, letting some of his snakes go. It felt right. He felt giddy about it all, but still right.
He reached back and lifted one of the glass jars. Holding it between his legs he opened the lid and pulled out the nice mountain king snake he’d caught up in the San Bernardinos years ago. It was a beautiful thing, he thought: red and white and black, with a curious little face and the sweetest disposition. He let it explore his arm. He thought about what he was doing. There was some sadness in this, for sure. Still, he was committed now, he was consolidating himself, trimming his past, becoming whole. He felt capable. Capable of this act. Capable of rational things like letting his beloved creatures go free, like changing the way he looked again, things like convincing Collette to take her house — his house — off the market, when he had convinced her to sell it in the first place. What a sane, bold stroke the unlisting had been. An example of capability and consolidation, of course correction. He smiled to himself, picturing that listing agent traipsing through his place with her provocative perfume, instructing him on all the things he’d have to do to sell it, I mean what your sister will have to do in order to sell it. He’d been quite drunk at the time. He hadn’t quite foreseen that people would be allowed to just show up and go through his home. And what about the guest house in back? How could he possibly find a better setup than that? He’d called Collette two days later and all but ordered her to take it off the market. Collette could care less, of course, so long as she either made money on a sale or continued to save taxes and build equity in something she didn’t have to pay for.
Solid.
Capable.
Firm.
He had already put the bags and jars in cardboard boxes, and knew it was going to take four trips if he carried one box at a time. They weren’t heavy, really, but they were fairly large and wouldn’t stack well. Besides, who knew how far he’d have to hike in order to find the perfect spot?
He got out and locked the front doors, then slid open the side and brought out one of the boxes. The pillowcases on top were all moving as he set it on the ground, and the rattlesnakes buzzed in their jars, coiled and looking up at him. He shut and locked the side door, then picked up the box and headed down the trail with it.
Past a stand of live oaks, through the toyon, down a gully rimmed by prickly pear and wild cucumber, then into the meadow. The area looked different than when he was last here, dropping off Item #2, but that was three weeks ago and the season hadn’t really turned yet. It was also in another part of the park altogether: no reason to visit it again, really, because the cops, if they’re smart, might expect that. Now the purple lupine and yellow mustard smeared their colors on the hills and even the dour oaks were vibrantly green. Bees. Bees everywhere, buzzing, dizzying, hypnotizing bees.
It was surprisingly hot. He could feel the sweat rolling down his sides and the dampness of the box up against his chest. He climbed a hillside and found a very nice outcropping of rocks just over the crest, the kind of place snakes love. He set down the box and looked around. There was a creek about a hundred yards away. It would be dry by summer, but the soil around it was dark now and that meant moisture. To his left the rocks clung to the hillside in a long band. There were rock roses with nice yellow blossoms growing in the cracks. Past the creek the hillside rose steeply, clotted with cactus and more rocks. Perfect, Hypok thought: the whole place is snake heaven.