“He’s probably some sad guy who struck out with too many women and wants to punish them for it,” he says plainly.
She pauses.
“Maybe a loner,” Henry continues. “Maybe never married.” Henry scratches at the stubble on his neck again. “I bet he uses hookers.”
Her eyes flick up to his.
“How come?”
“He’ll be finding ways to feel in control.” His hand rests at his neck and she wonders if it’s intentional. “That’ll give him a kick, making a woman do anything he wants her to do. I’d bet on it.”
She considers it. That would make sense—killing is so often about control—but how might they find the sorts of men who pay for sex? She makes a mental note to discuss this with Elsie and Margot. She just won’t tell them how she got the idea.
“What of the fact that there are different weapons involved,” she asks, “different ways of killing? Does that suggest it’s different people? Killers normally—” She pauses, feeling suddenly absurd talking to him like this. “Don’t they usually stick with the same weapon?”
Henry snorts drily. It raises the hair on the back of her neck.
“Bev, there are men in here who’ve killed people with sharpened pencils, done things I could never harm your ears with. They don’t care if they’re using the same thing. They just care about the killing.”
She thinks of the men in her scrapbook, what the newspapers had said—how they favored strangling or shooting. There definitely seemed to be some consistency to their actions.
“What about you?” she asks him. “Did it matter to you?” Her mouth feels dry. “How you did it.”
A grin splits his face.
“Bev, I’m a lazy guy.” His laugh is chilling. “I just used what was easiest—what I could find, whatever fit my mood.”
She is sure she has misheard him. “Your mood?”
“Sure,” he says flippantly. “If I felt angry that day, something like a bit of pipe or a wrench or a fire poker—something like that would do it. If I wanted something quicker, if I didn’t want too much mess, just a rope or hands. It’s more—” He pauses, and she wonders if he is finally realizing the horror of what he’s saying. “It’s more poetic like that,” he says eventually, glancing at the ceiling as if summoning some grand idea. “Like art, or music, or whatever.”
Despite herself, she has begun to shake. She tries her hardest to hide it, burying her hands under her legs, nails gripping the Formica chair.
“Wrap it up, lovebirds.” The guard stands, glances at his watch.
The sobbing woman, the only other visitor, screeches her chair back so violently that it topples. Then she tears across the room and waits with clenched fists for the guard to let her out.
“But how are you really, Beverley?” Henry doesn’t seem to want their meeting to end. “I worry about you, y’know?” He clearly knows he has her rattled.
Another guard has arrived at Henry’s side and is replacing the handcuffs. Henry watches Beverley as he stands, keeps his eyes fixed on hers as he is led out of the room.
She does not stop shaking until he has left and she has followed the guard down the corridor, has stepped out of those barbaric-lookinggates. Pressure is building at the backs of her eyes. She is so frustrated at herself, frustrated at the sheer impotence of her anger. It changes nothing. Rage becomes ridiculous when it has nowhere to go. It will not change what Henry has done, what she needs to do now. It cannot continue like this—men taking whatever they want and no one holding them accountable for the harm they cause. Henry might have thought he was manipulating her from the other side of that glass—he might have thought he had control, as he had five years ago—but really he has gifted her ammunition. If Henry’s right, she has a workable lead. She just needs to figure out how to find the men who use prostitutes in the areas around the killings and determine how the victims they’re investigating could possibly be linked to that.
As she crosses the parking lot, she winces. Raising her hand to her aching jaw, she realizes she has been clenching her teeth this whole time. She forces her face to slacken, shakes out her hands, tries to remind herself of her own strength. She has looked into the eyes of a killer; she has seen what’s inside his head. She is in control. Still, when she’s reached the car, slammed the door and locked it from the inside, she begins, loudly, wildly, to scream.
Fifteen
Diane Howard Murray,the missing model whose name Margot had scrawled on her arm at the party, is found dead in an alleyway in Calabasas on a sweltering day in late July. Little is said about her, or about any of the details of her murder, in the newspapers. All she is afforded is a small paragraph, a cursory acknowledgment of a death, tucked away among advertisements for golf course developments and meatball subs. There are no mentions of any links to the previous killings, no tributes, no pleas for information from the public.
Margot knows why this is. She knows why there were no half-page photos of Diane, as there had been of the cheerleader Emily Roswell. Newspaper reporters don’t write about trailer parks, and Golden Point is no exception to the rule. Named ambitiously after the color the sun turns the dirt as it sets, Golden Point is not somewhere you’ll find on postcards or in holiday brochures—a mixed neighborhood, home to low-income families and those forced to watch as town planners build on land their families owned. It is not “well-kept,” like the neighboring suburb of Hyder Hills, whose residents spend their lives alongsidethe second houses of Hollywood execs, mansions looming high on the shrub-pocked hillsides. But Margot knows that “aspirational” suburb is separated from Golden Point by only a couple of meaningless miles. She also knows that “aspirational” is just another way of saying “rich and white.”
In some ways, though, Margot feels more at home in Golden Point than she ever has on the manicured streets of LA. It’s not her first visit here, after all.
She drives easily through the park’s gates, left wide-open and rusting, no security guard checking ID, no bolts, no padlocks. The message is clear:If you’re willing to come here, have at it.There’s a sign, its neon bulbs cracked and furred with dirt, welcoming visitors with fading cheer. Duke, from his spot on the passenger seat, thrusts his head out of the open window and barks. Margot shushes the dog and locates the lot she’s looking for.
In the rearview mirror, she can see a couple of old folks in deck chairs, half eyeing her from outside their trailers.
She makes for the front door of the Airstream, its metal contracting noisily in the heat. She knocks and waits. She knows the code. Three loud knocks, followed by a pause, then four more.
