The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove(27)

And amid all the other activity, he felt a nagging compulsion to go back to the Fly Rod Trailer Court and talk to Molly Michon. Crazy thoughts.

Finally he decided to drop by Joseph Leander’s house, hoping he might catch the salesman off guard. As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed that weeds had grown up around the garden gnomes and there was a patina of dust on the Dutch hex sign over the front door. The garage door was open and Joseph’s minivan was parked inside.

Theo paused at the front door before knocking and made sure that his ponytail was tucked into his collar and his collar was straight. For some reason, he felt as if he should be wearing a gun. He had one, a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver, but it was on the top shelf of his closet, next to his bong collection.

He rang the bell, then waited. A minute passed before Joseph Leander opened the door. He was wearing paint-spattered corduroys and an old cardigan sweater that looked like it had been pulled out of the trash a dozen times. Obviously not the sort of attire that Bess Leander would have allowed in her home.

“Constable Crowe.” Leander was not smiling. “What can I do for you?”

“If you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you. May I come in?”

“I suppose,” Leander said. He stepped away from the door and Theo ducked in. “I just made some coffee. Would you like some?”

“No thanks. I’m on duty.” Cops are supposed to say that, Theo thought.

“It’s coffee.”

“Oh, right, sure. Milk and sugar please.”

The living room had bare pine plank floors and rag rugs. An antique pew bench took the place of a sofa, two Shaker chairs and a galvanized milk can with a padded cushion on the top provided the other seating. Three antique butter churns stood in the corners of the room. But for a new thirty-six-inch Sony by the fireplace, it could have been the living room of a seventeenth-century family (a family with very high cholesterol from all that butter).

Joseph Leander returned to the living room and handed Theo a hand-thrown stoneware mug. The coffee was the color of butterscotch and tasted of cinnamon. “Thanks,” Theo said. “New TV?” He nodded to the Sony.

Leander sat across from Theo on the milk can. “Yes, I got it for the girls. PBS and so forth. Bess never approved of television.”

“And so you killed her!”

Leander sprayed a mouthful of coffee on the rug. “What?”

Theo took a sip of his coffee while Leander stared at him, wide-eyed. Maybe he’d been a bit too abrupt. Fall back, regroup. “So did you get cable? Reception is horrible in Pine Cove without cable. It’s the hills, I think.”

Leander blinked furiously and did a triple-take on Theo. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw the coroner’s report on your wife, Joseph. She didn’t die from hanging.”

“You’re insane. You were there.” Leander stood and took the mug out of Theo’s hands. “I won’t listen to this. You can go now, Constable.” Leander stepped back and waited.

Theo stood. He wasn’t very good at confrontation, he was a peace officer. This was too hard. He pushed himself. “Was it the affair with Betsy? Did Bess catch you?”

Veins were beginning to show on Leander’s bald pate. “I just started seeing Betsy. I loved my wife and I resent you doing this to her memory. You’re not supposed to do this. You’re not even a real cop. Now get out of my house.”

“Your wife was a good woman. A little weird, but good.”

Leander set the coffee mugs down on a butter churn, went to the front door, and pulled it open. “Go.” He waved Theo toward the door.

“I’m going, Joseph. But I’ll be back.” Theo stepped outside.

Leander’s face had gone completely red. “No, you won’t.”

“Oh, I think I will,” Theo said, feeling very much like a second grader in a playground argument.

“Don’t fuck with me, Crowe,” Leander spat. “You have no idea what you’re doing.” He slammed the door in Theo’s face.

“Do too,” Theo said.





Seventeen





Molly




Molly had always wondered about American women’s fascination with bad boys. There seemed to be some sort of logic-defying attraction to the guy who rode a motorcycle and had a tattoo, a gun in the glove compart-ment, or a snifter of cocaine on the coffee table. In her acting days, she’d even been involved with a couple of them herself, but this was the first one who actually, well, ate people. Women always felt that they could reform a guy. How else could you explain the numerous proposals of marriage received by captured serial killers? That one was a bit too much even for Molly, and she took comfort in the fact that no matter how crazy she had gotten, she’d never been tempted to marry a guy who made a habit of strangling his dates.

American mothers programmed their daughters to believe that they could make everything better. Why else was she leading a hundred-foot monster down a creek bed in broad daylight?

Fortunately, the creek bed was lined in most places by a heavy growth of willow trees, and as Steve moved over the rocks, his great body changed color and texture to match his surroundings until he looked like nothing more than a trick of the light, like heat rising off blacktop.

Molly made him stay under cover as they approached the Cypress Street bridge, then waited until there was no traffic and signaled him to go. Steve slithered under the bridge like a snake down its hole, his back knocking off great hunks of concrete, and he passed through.

In less than an hour they were out of town, into the ranchland that ran along the coast to the north, and Molly led Steve up through the trees to the edge of a pasture. “There you go, big guy,” Molly said, pointing to a herd of Holsteins that were grazing a hundred yards away. “Breakfast.”

Steve crouched at the edge of the forest like a cat ready to pounce. His tail twitched, splintering a cypress sapling in the process. Molly sat down beside him and cleaned mud from her sneakers with a stick as the cows slowly made their way toward them.

“This is it?” she asked. “You just sit here and they come over to be eaten? A girl could lose respect for you as a hunter watching this, you know that?”





Theo




Theo found himself trying to figure out why, exactly, he was driving to Molly Michon’s place, when his cell phone rang. Before he answered, he reminded himself not to sound stoned, when it occurred to him that he actually wasn’t stoned, and that was even more frightening.

“Crowe here,” he said.

“Crowe, this is Nailsworth, down at County. Are you nuts?”

Theo stalled while he tried to remember who Nailsworth was. “Is this a survey?”

“What did you do with that data I gave you?” Nailsworth said. Theo suddenly remembered that Nailsworth was the Spider’s real name. A second call was beeping on Theo’s line.

“Nothing. I mean, I conducted an interview. Can you hold? I’ve got another call.”

“No, I can’t hold. I know you’ve got another call. You didn’t hear anything from me, do you hear? I gave you nothing, understand?”

“‘Kay,” Theo said.

The Spider hung up and Theo connected to the other call.

“Crowe, are you fucking nuts!”

“Is this a survey?” Theo said, pretty sure that it wasn’t a survey, but also pretty sure that Sheriff Burton wouldn’t be happy with a truthful answer to the question, which was: “Yes, I probably am nuts.”

“I thought I told you to stay away from Leander. That case is closed and filed.”

Theo thought for a second. It hadn’t been five minutes since he’d left Joseph Leander’s house. How could Burton know already? No one got through to the sheriff that quickly.

“Some suspicious evidence popped up,” Theo said, trying to figure out how he was going to cover for the Spider if Burton pressed. “I just stopped by to see if there was anything to it.”

“You fucking pothead. If I tell you to let something lie, you let it lie, do you understand me? I’m not talking about your job now, Crowe, I’m talking about life as you know it. I hear another word out of North County and you are going to be getting your dance card punched by every AIDs-ridden convict in Soledad. Leave Leander alone.”

“But…”

“Say ‘Yes, sir,’ you bag of shit.”

“Yes, sir, you bag of shit,” Theo said.

“You are finished, Crowe, you—”

“Sorry, Sheriff. Battery’s going.” Theo disconnected and headed back to his cabin, shaking as he drove.





Molly




In Flesh Eaters of the Outland, Kendra was forced to watch while a new breed of mutants sprayed hapless villagers with a flesh-dissolving enzyme, then lapped up puddles of human protein with disgusting dubbed sucking sounds that the foley artists had obtained at Sea World, recording baby walruses being fed handfuls of shellfish. The special effects guys simulated the carnage with large quantities of rubber cement, paraffin body parts that conveniently melted under the Mexican desert sun, and transmission fluid instead of the usual Karo syrup fake blood. (The sugary stage blood tended to attract blowflies and the director didn’t want to get notice from the ASPCA for abuse.) Overall, the effect was so real that Molly insisted that all of Kendra’s reaction shots be done after the cleanup to avoid her gagging and going green on camera. Between the carrion scene and some salmonella tacos served up by the Nogales-based caterer, as well as repeated propositions by an Arab coproducer with halitosis that made her eyes water, Molly was sick for three days. But none of it, even the fetid falafel breath, produced the nausea she was experiencing upon watching Steve yack up four fully masticated, partially digested Holsteins.