Chapter 99
IT WAS THREE FIFTY on that same Sunday afternoon.
Justine and Nora Cronin had been parked outside Rudolph Crocker’s white stucco three-story apartment building on Via Marina since eight in the morning. The two of them weren’t exactly friends yet, but no blows had been struck either.
Justine had clipped a “little ears” parabolic dish to the window of the car. She and Nora had listened to Crocker’s morning bathroom noises and later Meet the Press, accompanied by Crocker’s running, ranting commentary.
At a few minutes before two, Crocker had left the building in shorts and a T-shirt, and Nora and Justine got their first live view of the twenty-three-year-old who might have murdered more than a dozen girls.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Nora grumbled.
“He isn’t. He’s just scum, Nora.”
Crocker went for a run up Admiralty Way, with Justine and Nora following behind him at a safe distance in one of Private’s standard-issue gray Crown Victorias.
After returning home, Crocker took a shower, singing “Unbreak My Heart” off-key but with meaning. He watched CNN’s Your Money, and then everything inside his front-facing apartment went quiet. Justine guessed that Crocker might have been working on his computer. Or maybe he’d gone back to sleep.
“Is he in for the frickin’ night?” Nora fretted. “I thought this guy needed excitement.”
“Lean back. Close your eyes,” Justine said. “If he is, then so are we.”
“I can’t catnap in a car. You?”
“How do you like your coffee? There’s a deli at the corner. I’m buying.”
At just after five, Crocker emerged from his apartment building again, this time in a smart blue blazer over a pink shirt, gray slacks, and loafers that looked like they cost a lot.
He walked to a late-model blue Sienna minivan parked at the end of Bora Bora and got inside. He backed out smoothly, then turned up Via Marina.
Justine was a professional stalker and she was good at it. She followed Crocker’s van, staying two to three car lengths behind him.
She almost lost him when a light changed, but Justine gunned the engine and blew through the light.
“Son of a bitch,” Cronin murmured. “Did he make us?”
“Don’t know,” said Justine. “We’ll find out soon.”
They entered Westwood on Westwood Boulevard and cruised onto Hilgard. They saw Crocker pull into a driveway, leave his keys and van with a valet, then take the stairs into the lobby of the W Hotel.
The bar, located at the corner of the building, was visible through the plate glass windows on two sides.
“He’s going to the Whiskey Blue,” Justine said. “It’s a pickup joint for richy singles. Perfect for our purposes, really.”
Their agreed-upon mission was narrow and very precise. They weren’t going to confront Rudolph Crocker. They weren’t going to arrest him. They didn’t even want to meet his eyes, though Justine wouldn’t have minded scratching them out.
They just needed a smear of saliva, a microscopic sample of skin cells, a hair, or a flake of dandruff. That was all it would take.
Easier said than done, though.
“How do I look?” Nora asked Justine.
“Adorable. Use this.”
Justine took a lipstick out of her bag and handed it to Nora while watching the door Rudolph Crocker had just entered. He was still in there.
“Let your hair down,” Nora said. “Shake it out. Open a few buttons.”
Justine did it and said, “Let’s go. Let’s meet the devil.”
Nora slammed the door, showed her badge to the valet, and said, “Our car stays right here at the curb. Police business.”
Justine gave the kid a ten, then followed Nora up the stairs.
“I get it,” said the kid. “Good cop, bad cop.”
Nora turned to him and laughed out loud. “No, this is fat cop, skinny cop!”