Chapter 113
NORA EASED INTO Crocker’s apartment with her gun in hand, turned on the lights, slapped the warrant down on the hall table, then checked off what she saw in the one-bedroom apartment.
No visible computer in the main room.
Windows closed.
Air conditioning on.
Apparently no one home.
“Don’t be sorry, Justine,” Nora said over her shoulder, answering Justine’s apology, delivered on the way up in the elevator. “I’m not the one going down. I can’t speak for you, but seems like little Nora is the low man on the totem pole. I’m just your whatchacallit. Pawn. Clear,” she said.
Justine entered the apartment and followed Nora into the kitchenette, the bedroom, the bath.
Nora cleared all the rooms and closets, then put her gun away.
“Nobody here but us chickens. You take the bedroom and the bathroom,” Nora said. “Shout if you find anything.”
Justine stood in the bedroom doorway, studying the place. The room definitely showed an active brain. It was painted dark blue and had woodwork in different neon colors—pink, green, yellow—and orange baseboards and moldings. There was a California King platform bed for the young killer.
His books covered the full range of human knowledge, from arts and sciences to politics and ecology. His nightstand held a flashlight, an unopened box of rubbers, ChapStick, TV remote control, batteries.
There was a desk, and Justine went to it. No computer on the surface. The drawer was locked.
She took a pair of scissors out of the pencil cup and pried the lock as quickly as a B and E artist could. That was probably illegal, but what the crap? She’d bashed in his car window. That had to be worse.
Crocker’s desk drawer was a disappointment, though. Six Krugerrands in an empty paper clip box. A baggie with some loose dope and rolling papers. The rest was office supplies. Not even any photographs.
Justine closed the drawer, went to the dresser, and opened every drawer.
She was looking for evidence of heinous crimes or the slightest memorabilia of those crimes: newspaper clippings or a notebook with handwritten notes or souvenirs. Anything.
Crocker took souvenirs from his victims, but unlike many trophy hunters, he had hidden them, then sent snarky, nose-thumbing e-mails to the mayor that led to the whistle-clean artifacts that proved nothing.
Surely, with all his pride in his success, Crocker would have kept something. Or was he just too damned smart?
Nora came into the room, and she and Justine flipped the mattress, revealing a clean box spring, no pockets cut into the fabric.
Nora said, “I never met any guys this clean.”
Justine went to the closet, reached up, and tugged on the light pull, a doodad attached to a chain.
Crocker had six dark suits, six sport jackets, and several blue shirts, all hanging from hangers. Shoes were lined up neatly under the clothes. She checked pockets and felt inside shoes. And the longer she searched, the greater was the cold feeling of defeat.
Had Christine been wrong about Crocker? Was that possible?
Had Justine forced the girl to create false memories? Justine reached up to turn off the closet light, and that’s when it clicked.
Crocker, that fool. He’d never expected anyone to look for it. Why would they? It had happened five years ago.
Justine shouted for Nora, and she appeared almost instantly.
Justine’s heart was doing a happy dance, and her blood was pounding so hard in her ears she could barely hear her own voice when she said, “Nora. Tell me I’m not seeing things. Tell me I’m not making this up.”