Wilde Lake(14)
You break into a place you believe is empty. Lu thinks back to Mary McNally’s apartment. No lights were on. That hadn’t registered or seemed important because it was daytime. And, of course, the perp might have turned the lights out so no one would notice the ajar door, assuming he had left the door open on purpose. The thermostat, the door—Lu has to assume the killer wanted to play with the environment, complicate the process of determining the approximate time of death. Did the killer know Mary was on vacation, not expected back at work until January sixth?
One thing’s for certain: Mary didn’t meet Rudy Drysdale while standing in line for The Theory of Everything. Or at a coffee shop, or a wine bar. This was not a man that a woman invited into her home. Unless Mary McNally was the kind of softhearted person who saw a man with a WILL WORK FOR FOOD sign and took him at his word, asked him to do a few small chores for her.
The detectives find Drysdale at the second motel they check. He is docile—so docile, based on what Lu hears, that he might not be competent to stand trial. They attempt to interview him, but he says nothing, asks for nothing, only stares at the ceiling. He’s probably happy to spend a night in jail. After a few mild days, Maryland is in the grip of a terrible cold snap, with a low of ten degrees forecast for tonight.
Mike Hunt goes out with Drysdale’s mug shot, shows it around the Silver Diner, the apartment complex. Lu’s money would have been on the Silver Diner. It seems plausible that Drysdale treated himself to a cup of coffee there, sitting at the counter and nursing it as long as he could on a cold day. Silver Dollar advertises a bottomless cup of coffee. Get an English muffin, eat and drink slowly. As long as he didn’t smell and didn’t do anything too off-putting to the other customers, he could have spent hours there.
But the Silver Diner comes up empty. It’s the neighbor, the one with the long legs, who recognizes Rudy, says she saw him lurking in the parking lot the week before Christmas. Probably saying that just to get closer to Mike Hunt, Lu thinks. But it’s enough for a lineup, which Lu attends, and Jonnie Forke is grim, businesslike. Also very definite. “That’s the man I saw,” she says. “I saw him twice.” He was always moving, but there was something about him that didn’t seem right, which is why she noticed him.
B-I-N-G-O. With an ID this strong and the prints, Lu will have no problem charging the guy with first-degree murder. She calls home, asks her father if he’s comfortable supervising homework and bedtime. When he hears that she wants to stay to observe an interrogation, he says he’ll ask Teensy to work late. After all these years, Lu remains too cowed by Teensy to ask her to do anything extra. She still gets nervous helping herself to an ice cream sandwich when Teensy isn’t around to give permission.
Lu has takeout at her desk, reads the newspaper online—always strange to see Davey Robinson writing op-ed pieces, stranger still to realize he’s an out-and-out conservative—scrolls through the day’s e-mail, looks at her telephone messages. Her office still uses the pink “While You Were Out” slips. The last one, logged at 4:45 P.M., is from a Mrs. Eloise Schumann. Says you will know what this is in reference to, Della has written on the slip. (Is it wrong that Lu secretly loves having a secretary named Della, as Perry Mason did?) Of course Lu has no idea what it is in reference to. Isn’t that always the way? Everyone thinks his or her own drama is so central. She searches her e-mail for “Schumann,” searches her mind. Nope, blank, nada.
Mike Hunt calls. “He decided to open his mouth long enough to lawyer up already.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, so we’re going to let him spend the night in jail, push the interrogation to tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Think about it, Lu. This guy can’t bear to go up to Baltimore, spend a night in a mission. He sleeps outside or breaks into places. Anything to avoid human contact. A night in jail is going to rattle him.”
“Is he crazy, Mike? I mean, the kind of crazy that’s going to raise competency issues.”
“He’s got issues, but he’s pretty lucid. Lucid enough to lawyer up after being tight as an oyster all day. We played the game with him, told him it would be better not to rush into an official conversation, but he was having none of it. He wants a lawyer. So he’ll have one in the morning, the best that the Howard County public defender’s office has to offer.”
Lu feels let down, almost as if she has been stood up for a date she was anticipating. Twitchy with adrenaline, she considers stopping for a drink on the way home. Or even going to a movie. Who would ever know? Free evenings are rare. She thinks about asking Mike if he wants to have a beer. He’s good company and their mutual lack of interest in each other makes it fun to talk to him. But it also makes him dangerous because Lu could imagine confiding in him, if she got enough liquor in her. Better to go home, tuck her kids in as she tries to do every night, have that drink alone. Besides, she’ll want to be fresh tomorrow, even if she’s only an observer.
“Okay, we can push it until tomorrow. Get your beauty sleep.”
“As if I need it,” Mike says. How she envies him his confidence. Lu has learned to put on a confident attitude, to wear it like her clothes—and she wears her clothes well, but only after they are tailored. She’s built like a short-legged Betty Boop and feels she has to downplay the parts that other women might consider assets. Everything off the rack is too long, baggy below the waist, strained across her chest. Mike is a natural-born winner, and no one understands that better than someone like Lu, who has always had to study, try, fail, try again. It was galling, but as the younger sister of another natural-born winner, she’s gotten used to it. What other option did she have?