T. Parker - California Girl

“Lobdell connects. Hey, Nicky boy, I just homered. Check this.”

He was way off on his own, almost in the northeast corner. Over a hundred feet from Janelle Vonn, easy.

When Nick came up Lobdell stopped chewing his gum and aimed his flashlight beam onto a handsaw covered in blood. Right there on one of the old crate labels. A pruning saw, the kind with the blade that folds back into a wooden handle. For trees and shrubs. No blade, just the bloody handle with the wood ripped where the bolt and blade had broken away. And under it the SunBlesst girl still trying to give away that orange.

“Let’s get some pictures of this thing,” said Lobdell. “What do you think, Nicky? Look around, maybe you can find the blade.”

NICK KNELT and held his flashlight while Dale Rainor, the assistant coroner, ran a magnifying glass over Janelle Vonn. Marks on her throat, he could see them through the blood. Some hairs and fibers. Nick thought the stiff, shiny slicks on her underpants might be semen. Good, he thought: blood types. Good old ABO. Best thing they could get besides an eyewitness. When they were done with Janelle’s back side Nick put on rubber gloves and helped Rainor arrange the body bag. Helped turn her over into it. Her neck was a black stump and her arms and legs were stiff with rigor and Nick was suddenly sickened and furious.

“I’ll get him,” he said.

“What they all say,” said Lobdell, blowing smoke.

“This is personal.”

“Everything in this job’s personal for about six months.”

“INVESTIGATOR BECKER, SIR? You may want to see this.”

Nick joined the deputy in the great doorway of the packinghouse. In the blustery twilight two Tustin PD uniforms marched a man down the tracks toward their unit. The man was a tangle of hair and beard. Weird eyes. Red-faced, filthy jeans and a black T-shirt. A denim jacket lined with dirty fleece. Boots with no laces. Cuffed and struggling but no match for the big men holding each arm. His mouth a black hole in the beard. He was snarling at the officers but the wind snatched the sounds and scattered them into the air.

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.